@MikeLevinCA Trump has Bought ever (R) Who has 💰needs! Know any of those? Know Any Who Don't Need 💰❓ The Others, He's just Got Dirt On Them! (a.k.a. short-hairs)
From rolling back environmental protections to pushing out more than 700 public servants, Scott Pruitt is transforming the mission of the EPA from one of environmental protection to one of environmental exploitation.
The most important thing Trump said last night? His response to Rep. Jeff Duncan who urged him to release the memo: "Oh yeah, don't worry, 100%." If he does that over DOJ objections, he's putting what he thinks is his personal interest over national security and the rule of law.
FBI chief told White House not to release Nunes memo: report
FBI Director Christopher Wray has reportedly warned the White House against releasing the classified GOP House Intelligence Committee memo, saying that some of the information in the document is inaccurate.
A source familiar with the situation informed Bloomberg that Wray told the White House that the memo "paints a false narrative." Republican lawmakers say the memo provides proof that the Department of Justice abused a surveillance program to unfairly target a member of the Trump campaign.
Wray met with House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), whose staff authored the memo, on Sunday to review the document. Nunes reportedly told Wray to flag information in the document that was inaccurate or could endanger national security.
The Intelligence panel voted this week to make the memo public, giving President Trump five days to review the document and make a final decision about its release. The FBI is not involved in the White House review of the document, according to Bloomberg.
Trump was heard telling a Republican lawmaker after Tuesday's State of the Union address that he is "100 percent" for releasing the document.
The Intelligence Committee voted along party lines against releasing a countermemo compiled by Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel. Schiff says his memo refutes the Republican one point-by-point.
House GOP lawmakers have pushed for the release of the four-page GOP document, saying that it provides evidence of political bias against Trump in the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Congress voted 517-5 to impose sanctions on Russia. The President decides to ignore that law. Folks that is a constitutional crisis. There should be outrage in every corner of this country.
When a first-rate mind confronts a third-rate argument, the result is a massacre: @OrinKerr takes on the apparent legal theory behind the Nunes memo. lawfareblog.com/dubious-legal-…
This raises a great many questions. What is the company North Star Campaigns? How are they associated with Devin Nunes? How are they associated with EZPolitix? Who is behind all this?
Two different computers, two different hosting providers. Both associated with North Star Campaigns. Both also associated with some VERY nasty spyware.
Meanwhile, another computer that has recently hosted northstarcampaigns.com is receiving communications from computers infected with an information-stealing Trojan Horse.
This is looking sinister indeed. To summarize, one of the computers that has recently hosted northstarcampaigns.com is serving malicious code disguised to look like a jpg image file.
What is this Trojan file, and what is it capable of doing? It is a "trojan threat designed to steal data from victim's system". pic.twitter.com/U1fasmprSo
Northstarcampaigns.com was hosted there previously, as were a number of political-looking domains. What else was hosted there? Well according to VirusTotal, a VERY nasty virus file "calls home" to this server.
Looking at the IP addresses that had hosted this domain, one stood out - the server associated with the address 98.142.91.163. This IP address is associated with the hosting service Cosentry - an entirely different hosting provider from the Microsoft Azure 40.114.3.8 IP address.
That means all these separate IP addresses and the servers associated with them are almost certainly controlled by the same IT team. pic.twitter.com/zGYAy5BuNm
We next had a closer look at the domain northstarcampaigns[.]com. To our surprise it has been hosted at five different IP addresses in the past two years.
When we browse to drinkstocks[.]com, we are redirected to another URL. An apparent login form for a site called ezpolitix[.]com. pic.twitter.com/T0BkN7P8HZ
This IP address - 40.114.3.8 - belongs to a server provided by Microsoft's Azure hosting service. According to VirusTotal, there is yet another domain associated with this IP address - Drinkstocks.com.
But like devinnunes[.]net, that website has disappeared. More specifically, we get a "404" error when we try to navigate to it with a web browser. This means that the files that display the website have been removed from the server.
When we checked the IP address of the devinnunes[.]net server, we found that it apparently hosts at least one other website. That website is northstarcampaigns[.]com.
It became clear that all the websites on this computer were associated with the Nebraska company Northstar Campaign Solutions. It also became clear that the malicious code we found was not an accident.
Exclusive: memo written by former journalist Cody Shearer independently sets out some of the allegations made by ex-spy Christopher Steele
Trump and his supporters have been seeking to cast doubt on the credibility of Mueller's investigation. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
The FBI inquiry into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election has been given a second memo that independently set out some of the same allegations made in a dossier by Christopher Steele, the British former spy.
The second memo was written by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist and former journalist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s.
Unlike Steele, Shearer does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election.
However, the Guardian has been told the FBI investigation is still assessing details in the 'Shearer memo' and is pursuing intriguing leads.
One source with knowledge of the inquiry said the fact the FBI was still working on it suggested investigators had taken an aspect of it seriously.
It raises the possibility that parts of the Steele dossier, which has been derided by Trump's supporters, may have been corroborated by Shearer's research, or could still be.
The revelation comes at a moment when Donald Trump and some Republican lawmakers have been seeking to cast doubt on the credibility of the Mueller inquiry and the motivation of the FBI in examining Russian collusion, including unproven allegations that investigators had a bias in favour of Hillary Clinton when the investigation was initially launched before November.
Republicans on the House intelligence committee voted on Monday night to release a highly contentious memo, commissioned by the Republican chairman of the committee, Devin Nunes. The memo reportedly claims the FBI had an anti-Trump bias when it sought a warrant from the US foreign intelligence surveillance court to collect intelligence on Carter Page, an adviser to the Trump campaign. The Fisa court is a secret court that examines law enforcement requests to surveil Americans suspected of acting as foreign agents.
The Republican memo reportedly alleges that the FBI relied on the Steele dossier, which was partly paid for using Democratic funds, in seeking the Carter Page warrant, according to the New York Times.
Democrats have said that the Republican allegations are misleading and based on selective use of classified materials. Justice department officials have said the release of the document, because of the classified elements, would be "extraordinarily reckless".
Trump now has five days to decide whether the Nunes document should become public.
The Shearer memo was provided to the FBI in October 2016.
It was handed to them by Steele – who had been given it by an American contact –after the FBI requested the former MI6 agent provide any documents or evidence that could be useful in its investigation, according to multiple sources.
The Guardian was told Steele warned the FBI he could not vouch for the veracity of the Shearer memo, but that he was providing a copy because it corresponded with what he had separately heard from his own independent sources.
Robert Mueller, the former FBI director leading the investigation. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters
The Shearer memo cites an unnamed source within Russia's FSB, the state security service. The Guardian cannot verify any of the claims.
Shearer is a controversial figure in Washington. Conservative outlets have accused him of being part of a "hatchet man" and member of a "secret spy ring" and within Clinton's orbit. There is no evidence that the Clinton campaign was aware of the Shearer memo.
But other people who know Shearer say he is not just a Democratic party hack and there is no evidence that his memo was ever sought by Clinton campaign officials.
Sources say that while he lacks the precision and polish of a seasoned former spy like Steele, Shearer has also been described as having a large network of sources around the world and the independent financial means to pursue leads.
The White House has vigorously denied allegations that the US president was ever compromised and has rejected claims that campaign officials ever conspired with the Kremlin before the 2016 election.
Steele's dossier, his motives for writing it and his decision to share it remain controversial among Republicans.
He says he approached the FBI about concerns he had about links between Russia and the Trump campaign after he was commissioned to investigate the matter by a private investigative firm called Fusion GPS on behalf of the firm's clients.
Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, told congressional investigators that Steele approached the FBI out of a sense of duty and concern for US national security.
Republican supporters of Trump have derided it as "fake news". Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa and ally of Trump, has called for an investigation into Steele amid unspecified allegations about the former spy's conduct.
Democrats have said the campaign against Steele is part of an effort to seek to discredit him in order to shift attention away from allegations about Trump and Russia.
Spokespeople for the FBI and the US special counsel leading the criminal investigation into the Trump campaign declined to comment. Shearer did not return emails and calls for comment.
A federal criminal investigation into the Trump campaign has so far resulted in four indictments. Two former Trump campaign officials, including Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, have pleaded guilty to perjury and are cooperating with Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is leading the ongoing investigation.
BREAKING NEWS: The FBI is in possession of a SECOND dossier of Trump-Russia intelligence, known colloquially as the "Shearer Dossier," and it may confirm the already-known Steele Dossier.
GOP on FBI: Our Enemy GOP on DoJ: Our Enemy GOP on CIA: Our Enemy GOP on Obama: Our Enemy GOP on Seniors: Our Enemy GOP on US Courts: Our Enemy GOP on American children: Our Enemy GOP on DREAMers: Our Enemy
The President is reportedly considering asking his AG to *prosecute* a special counsel who is investigating his administration. Would immediately plunge the country into constitutional crisis. twitter.com/mmurraypolitic…
I want Republicans to remember this day. Releasing a memo they made up to discredit Mueller's probe. Not enforcing Russian sanctions. Trashing the FBI & DoJ, etc. Because when Democrats take control we will have absolutely no mercy when it comes to prosecuting all of them-Period.
BREAKING: According to @howardfineman of @nbc: "Trump is even talking to friends about the possibility of asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to consider prosecuting Mueller and his team."
The Democratic memo, written by @RepAdamSchiff & staff (who unlike Nunes actually read the underlying evidence) is available for Members of Congress to review. I encourage colleagues on both sides of the aisle to read it. You will be shocked at how misleading the #NunesMemo is. twitter.com/thehill/status…
THIS IS NOT A DRILL: Word is Trump may try to fire Rod Rosenstein & Robert Mueller tomorrow before the State of the Union. Be prepared to march. #StayWoke
In my line of work I've come across many people with something to hide. And I have found, generally, that those who lash out the most are usually those who are most afraid about having the truth revealed.
So now Trump and the GOP are going to lose their minds over the DOJ spying on Carter Page, and then they're going to remember they all said Page was a nobody. Which is it? The walls are closing in, folks.
Folks willing to give Trump a pass because their 401ks are swelling remind me of Italians willing to give Mussolini a pass because he made the trains run on time.
