Category: FederalBureauofInvestigation

Senate Democrats say FBI ignored tips in Brett Kavanaugh investigation

Posted on by Marissa Higgins

Here at Daily Kos, we all suffered through Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, recalling his indignant behavior while questioned, especially as juxtaposed with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s grace and clarity. We, too, likely recall that Donald Trump was relentless in pushing Kavanaugh's confirmation through. Recently, as Daily Kos covered, Michael Wolff revealed a conversation he supposedly had with Trump in his new book, Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, in which Trump took credit for essentially “saving” Kavanaugh's life and expressed feeling disappointed in him in the end, saying he hasn’t had the “courage” to be a great justice.

This background lends an interesting light to a new report from The New York Times, in which fresh details on the FBI’s inquiry into Kavanaugh are causing serious—and legitimate—upset among some Senate Democrats. As covered by the Times, Jill Tyson, an assistant director at the FBI, wrote a letter to Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Coons explaining that the most “relevant” of more than 4,000 tips the agency received while investigating Kavanaugh were actually passed on to White House lawyers in the Trump administration. It’s unclear how those tips were handled, and Senate Democrats want answers.

For background, the letter from Tyson was actually written in response to a letter sent by Whitehouse and Coons back in 2019, in which they wanted more clarity on how the supplemental background check into Kavanaugh actually went down. Tyson’s letter stressed that the agency did not conduct a criminal investigation, only a background check. To Democrats, the agency failed in its duty to fully investigate the allegations of sexual misconduct—from Ford as well as subsequent allegations from two women who accused him of sexual misconduct—during Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. Kavanaugh has denied all allegations.

On Wednesday, seven Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the letter asking for more information about how Trump’s White House handled the investigation and those thousand of tips. Democrats who signed on to the letter included Sens. Cory Booker, Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Patrick Leahy, Mazie Hirono, and, of course, Whitehouse and Coons. 

Whitehouse spoke to the Times in an interview about the letter. Whitehouse told the Times Tyson’s response suggested the agency ran a “fake tip line” with responses never being “properly reviewed,” adding he assumed it was not even done in “good faith.” 

In a letter the Democratic lawmakers sent on Wednesday, and which was released to the public on Thursday, they argued: “If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.”

As we know, neither Ford nor Kavanaugh were interviewed as part of the investigation. According to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI ultimately interviewed just 10 people before closing its investigation. Democrats have long suggested the investigation into Kavanaugh was incomplete and politically contained. 

New footage raises questions about Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick’s death on January 6

Posted on (Updated by Aysha Qamar

As investigations into the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection continue, federal authorities have not only arrested multiple individuals in connection to the violence but narrowed down a few suspects connected to the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick. Sicknick was one of five individuals who died during the riot; currently investigations into who is responsible for his death continue. The 13-year police veteran died a day after the riots after collapsing in his office after he was "injured while physically engaging with protestors," Capitol Police said in a statement last month. While initial reports indicated 42-year-old Sicknick was killed after being struck with a fire extinguisher, those reports were proven untrue.

According to CNN, new video evidence has aided investigators in their search and raised hopes that charges may be brought in the case soon. Sicknick’s death has been a complicated case where investigators have struggled to determine what moment he suffered his fatal injuries; while initial reports indicated he was struck by a fire extinguisher, no evidence of blunt force trauma was found. The new video footage suggests that a suspect may have sprayed an irritant, such as bear spray, that caused Sicknick to suffer a fatal reaction, an official said Wednesday.  

Audio clips played during Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial depicted officers screaming during the Jan. 6 attacks that some mob members were spraying them with bear spray. Supporting these claims, Sen. Mitt Romney told reporters Wednesday that Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman had also shared that "he had to breathe a lot of bear spray and tear gas and that he was nauseated.” Other footage of officers being beaten by rioters were also shared to determine Trump’s role in the violence. According to court documents, more than 100 officers were injured during the riots and at least 15 officers required hospitalization.

The evening of the insurrection, Sicknick told his elder brother that while he had been pepper-sprayed at least twice, he felt fine, ProPublica reported. His family was then alerted the next day that he had suffered a stroke in his office.

To honor his bravery and commitment to protecting members of the Capitol Sicknick received one of the highest tributes that Congress can offer a civilian—he was laid in honor in the Capitol building. “That Brian and his family were made to pay such a high price for his devoted service in the Capitol was a senseless tragedy, one that we are still grappling with,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the congressional tribute for Sicknick.

Sicknick’s death is heartbreaking. The actions that occurred the night of the insurrection were a sad reminder as to how backward the United States had become under the Trump administration. Fueled by hate and violence for years, Trump supporters have continued to hurt others without any regret. To date, more than 50 cases of violence have directly cited Trump as the influence and reason for the crime. Trump supporters have not only directed violence toward those who disagree with them but threatened a large number of public servants amid the pandemic. Additionally, hate crimes have seen a significant increase since Trump’s presidential term.

Trump and his minions must pay for their actions and justice must be served. As investigations continue, we can only hope that not only Sicknick’s murderer but all others involved in the Capitol riots are brought to justice. This new evidence raises questions on what actually happened on Jan. 6 and sheds light on what other crimes may have been committed.

At this time the new video the FBI is reviewing and an autopsy report have not been made public and Sicknick’s death has not yet been declared a homicide. In addition to federal authorities, his death is being investigated by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department's homicide branch, and Capitol Police.

Republican threat over calling witnesses reveals fundamental misunderstanding of Trump’s impeachment

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Lindsey Graham, who is, just as evidence that we have not yet exited the worst timeline, still the chair of Senate judiciary committee, went on Fox News Monday evening to deliver a threat. Should House impeachment managers attempt to call a single witness during Trump’s trial before the Senate, Republican senators are going to want witnesses of their own. Which could make this trial last just ages.

But this time around Graham isn’t threatening to call witnesses about such non sequiturs as what Hunter Biden did in Ukraine. Instead the threat is much stranger. If Democrats call even a single witness, it will “open up Pandora’s Box,” according to Graham. Because Republicans will “want the FBI to come in and tell us about how people actually pre-planned this attack.” It’s a threat that’s not only not a threat, it’s one that shows that Graham hasn’t actually read the impeachment documents.

The reason that Graham, and other Republicans, are putting forward “calling in the FBI” as a threat is because of a very simple theme they’ve been repeating since before Trump was actually impeached, again, in the House. If the impeachment is all about Trump inciting the mob that marched on the Capitol, murdered a police officer, and ultimately caused more American deaths than Benghazi while erecting a gallows on the lawn; then the fact that many of those insurgents came prepared for sedition means it’s not Trump’s fault.

Not only is that argument completely foolish on its face, it ignores what’s actually in the impeachment. The supporting materials submitted to the Senate make it explicitly clear that there is more to Trump’s impeachment than a single morning or a single speech. 

In the months leading up to January 6, 2021 President Trump engaged in a course of conduct designed to encourage and provoke his supporters to gather in Washington, D.C. and obstruct the process of the electoral votes that would confirm his defeat. That conduct spanned months and included frivolous and harassing lawsuits, direct threats to state and local officials, and false public statements to his supporters, all in an effort to incite his supporters into believing it was their patriotic duty to attack Congress and prevent the peaceful transition of power. 

The incitement over which Trump was impeached took place not just on the morning of Jan. 6, but in the preceding months. During those months, Trump repeatedly lied about the outcome of the election, fed a rising tide of rage among his supporters with claims he knew were false, told white supremacist militias to “stand by,” and called on his forces to gather on the day when electoral votes were counted for a “wild” event.

As the impeachment makes clear, Trump acted to “undermine confidence in the results of the election, spread dangerous disinformation, and stoke false and wild conspiracy theories.” The whole body of that action is the reason for Trump’s impeachment and the subject of his trial before the Senate. Trump specifically and repeatedly pointed out Mike Pence and members of Congress as targets for the hatred of the supporters he had inflamed with a stream of continuous lies.

So why does Graham think calling the FBI to speak to how the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and others came prepared to storm the Capitol and seek congressional hostages is somehow a threat to the Democratic case? That’s because from the very beginning Republicans—and especially Republicans appearing on Fox and other right-wing media—have been repeating a claim that the impeachment is all about Trump inciting the march on the Capitol in his speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally that morning. According to the framing they’ve been selling Fox viewers, if Trump didn’t expressly tell people to invade the Capitol that morning, he wasn’t really responsible. And if any of the treasonous mob came prepared to violence, it’s proof that the insurgency was not Trump’s fault.

Unfortunately for Graham and others, this reading of the impeachment is as fantastical as the lies Trump told leading up to Jan. 6. The impeachment makes it clear that Trump worked for months to build anger and hatred among his supporters though repeated lies about the election. Trump supporters began planning violence against election supervisors in both Nevada and in Pennsylvania within hours of Trump standing up in the early hours of Nov. 4 to falsely claim victory. Trump encouraged that violence in every statement, every rally, every tweet between the election and Jan. 6. Trump didn’t even disown the invaders while they were inside the Capitol, stepping out to say “we love you” and calling them “very special.”

If Lindsey Graham thinks that calling the FBI is some kind of threat … call them. Call in the agents that have been imbedded with the Proud Boys and Ohio Militia. Call in the agents that have been warning of the increased threat of white supremacist violence, only to have their warnings swatted down. Call them all. If what it takes to purge Trump from the system is pouring out all the poison in public, let’s do that.

It shouldn’t be required. As Graham says in his interview on Fox, he “knows what happened that day.” It should be more than enough to convict Trump and remove the possibility that he will ever again hold public office. But if it’s not … witnesses, sir. Let us have the witnesses.

Some Democrats want to move past Trump. But ignoring his seditious acts threatens American democracy

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries delivered a message Monday about the posture of House Democrats' leadership team regarding Donald Trump's relentless attempts to engineer a fascist takeover of the American republic. 

“We’re not looking backward," Jeffries told reporters during a press conference. "We’re looking forward to the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20th.” 

That forward-looking vision came less than 24 hours after the Washington Post posted smoking-gun audio of an hour-long phone call in which Trump (aka Mafia Don) attempted to threaten and cajole Georgia's top election officials to "find" enough votes to overturn the state's election results. 

Nonetheless, Kate Bedingfield, an adviser to President-elect Joe Biden offered a similar take to Jeffries, saying, "The country is ready to move forward."

But the problem with simply rushing past Mafia Don's political grave is that ignoring his seditious acts is as much a threat to the future of American democracy as Trump's failed efforts were in the first place. In short—seditious, traitorous acts left unchecked beget seditious, traitorous acts. In fact, Senate Republicans with the twinkle of 2024 presidential bids in their eyes are already lining up in support of Trump's effort to tear down democracy in order to maintain his grip on power. Trump's final gambit is all but certain to fail on Wednesday during a joint session of Congress to certify the election results, but the major takeaway is that plenty of future GOP Trumps are waiting in the wings to trash representative democracy on the way to meeting their own political ends unless a price is exacted for doing so. And the lesson those Republicans have learned so far—just as Trump learned from his acquittal—is that there's no serious price to pay, political or otherwise, for betraying the country.

Both the incoming Biden administration and Congress have a role to play in safeguarding our democracy for generations to come. One is criminal and the other is a matter of governance. Biden must appoint smart, resolute leaders to the Justice Department and then simply get out of the way and let them do their jobs. Hamstringing justice in any way with regard to Trump's endless assault on the law and the Constitution would be disastrous for the country's future. But Biden can easily make those appointments to the Department of Justice and then rightfully send the message that his administration is focused on the task of righting the ship in regard to the pandemic and the faltering economy. 

House Democrats, however, cannot afford to simply move along, as if the threat to our democracy ends once Trump is summarily booted from the White House residence. That is a patently false contention given the upheaval we are already witnessing in the Republican party. Trump must be held to account. That can be done in several ways, a couple of which are already in process.

One way is by making a criminal referral to the FBI over Trump's attempted election crimes, an investigation that Reps. Ted Lieu of California and Kathleen Rice of New York are already urging FBI Director Chris Wray to undertake.

Another possibility is censuring Trump over his call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson introduced a censure motion on Monday with the support of 90 of his colleagues. That number will likely grow in the coming days and weeks as Congress gets back to work—or at least, it should grow, since there are presently 222 Democratic members of the House.

Impeachment is another potential option, but to what end at this point? Trump is just over two weeks away from removal and, as we have already seen, the effort would surely be blocked by the GOP-controlled Senate. Heck, more than a quarter of the Senate Republican caucus has jumped aboard Team coup at this point. 

What does seem a worthy effort, however, is continued investigations of Trump and his minions. Not only do the facts need to come out, but if Democrats are to draft legislation to safeguard our democracy against future Trumps, they will need to know exactly what actions he and his enablers took in their extensive efforts to kneecap America's institutions and systems of governance. 

But none of those three options—a criminal referral, censure, and ongoing investigations—amount to simply "looking forward." What is past will haunt the nation and Democrats, in particular, if it is buried before an autopsy can be conducted and people held to account for their roles in assaulting and undermining America’s democracy. 

Senator’s cellphone seized amid federal investigation of stock trades made ahead of COVID-19 spread

Posted on by Jessica Sutherland

Months after it was revealed that he had made dozens of questionable stock trades ahead of a global pandemic—and advised wealthy constituents to do the same—Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina had his cellphone seized by federal agents Wednesday night. The agents were at the senator’s Washington, D.C., residence.

Burr, who is a member of the “Gang of Eight” and the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sparked scrutiny in mid-March after making 33 transactions in February, that rid him of a significant chunk of his stock portfolio and netted him anywhere between $628,000 and $1.72 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. The transactions came after briefings on the potential impact of the novel coronavirus from the U.S. Department of Health.

While NPR broke the story about the private warnings to rich Tar Heels, ProPublica was the first to report on the selloff. 

ProPublica’s analysis indicated that the Feb. 13 selling spree was Burr’s “largest selling day of at least the past 14 months.”

As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.

A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline.

[...]

Burr is not a particularly wealthy member of the Senate: Roll Call estimated his net worth at $1.7 million in 2018, indicating that the February sales significantly shaped his financial fortunes and spared him from some of the pain that many Americans are now facing.

The newest and wealthiest member of the Senate, Georgia’s Kelly Loeffler, also got in on the secret selloff, making 29 transactions that add up to millions.  It’s worth noting that Burr is just one of three senators (and the only one still in office) who voted against the 2012 STOCK Act, which, as McClatchy puts it, “explicitly prevents members of Congress and their staffs from using nonpublic information for insider trading.”  Both the FBI and the DOJ have refused comment, as has Burr’s team; however, as the LA Times notes, the search warrant indicates “a significant escalation” in the investigation into Burr’s possible violation of the STOCK Act.