90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, September 14, 2018

New Strzok Text Messages Exposes FBI Interactions With The Media

A series of text messages revealed this week have generated debate about FBI contacts with the media regarding bombshell stories about the Trump-Russia probe.

The messages, which were exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, show the embattled former FBI officials discussing the FBI’s contacts with the press regarding stories related to the bureau’s collusion investigation. President Trump and his allies say that the messages show that the FBI planted stories that were damaging to the president and members of his campaign. Trump critics, as well as Strzok’s attorney, have pushed back on that assessment.

“The President and his enablers are once again peddling unfounded conspiracy theories to mislead the American People,” Aitan Goelman, an attorney for Strzok, said in a statement on Tuesday in response to a report that Strzok sent a text message referring to a “media leak strategy.”

The latest message, reported by Fox News contributor Sara Carter, shows Strzok, the former deputy chief of counterintelligence at the FBI, discussing interactions with The New York Times regarding a bombshell report about surveillance activity against...

The White House responded Thursday to an attempt by Senate Democrats to smear Judge Brett Kavanaugh with unfounded allegations.

“Senator Schumer promised to ‘oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have,’ and it appears he is delivering with this 11th-hour attempt to delay his confirmation,” White House spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement to reporters.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein issued a statement that she sent a letter from a person involved with Kavanaugh to the FBI, suggesting that she was concerned about the contents.

The New York Times reports that officials “familiar with the matter” suggested that the letter had to do with “possible sexual misconduct” with Kavanaugh and a women when they were both in high school. Kavanaugh went to Georgetown Preparatory high school, which is an all-boys school.

The White House reminded critics the FBI had vetted Kavanaugh throughout his 25-year career, he had sat through 65 meetings with senators, 30 hours of testimony, and addressed over 2,000 questions, throwing into question the timing of the new information.

“Not until the eve of his confirmation has Sen. Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new ‘information’ about him,” Kupec said.

The New York Times reports that Feinstein received the letter earlier in the summer, but only shared the contents of it with Democrats on...

The lawmakers say they have proof of illegal activity — here are the latest details:

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.)(shown above right) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)(above left) appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program “Hannity,” on Wednesday night and claimed they’ve seen documents that detail former FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s “media leak” strategy that allowed the two of them, and still allow them, to undermine the presidency of President Donald Trump.

The two lawmakers claim they have evidence and proof of the illegal activity.

“There are dozens of documents that support the fact that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had ongoing relationships with multiple reporters, and that they were feeding them information to spin a narrative. It’s not legal, and it’s against protocol,” said Meadows to Hannity.

“They are denying it, and we have the proof that would suggest otherwise … We believe that all the documents need to be made available to the American people. Let them judge. We have nothing to hide. The president has nothing to hide. Let’s get it out there,” said Meadows, a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Rep. Jordan argued further about the need to be transparent with Americans across the country.

He also called the dossier that accused Trump of colluding with various Russian interests of being a big lie.

“What they did is, they said, ‘This is a big lie. The more people we can get to talk about the dossier, the more likely it is they will believe the lie.’ So that’s why they had this leak strategy — to support a document that was the basis for everything. That’s the big problem here,” said Jordan, a member of both the oversight panel and the House Judiciary Committee.

“They took that dossier, this untrue document — they took it to the secret court and didn’t tell the court important facts to get a warrant,” Jordan added.

The infamous “Steele dossier” of unproven allegations about Trump alleged collusion with Russian interests. Former British spy Christopher Steele compiled the dossier, which was paid for by 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). These events eventually led to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the Russian collusion allegations.

Meadows claimed that they have evidence — and that real reporters are named.

“We do need to reveal this,” said Meadows. “We know that [former FBI director] James Comey leaked. We know that Andrew McCabe leaked. We know that actually Peter Strzok and Lisa Page leaked. We also know that the reporters that they leaked to know that...