The president has attacked key FBI, Justice figures involved in investigating him
President Donald Trump’s attacks on top Justice Department and FBI officials on Friday mark his latest escalation of rhetoric on officials who one way or another have a hand in investigating ties between the president’s associates and Russia.
- Jeff Sessions, attorney general
- Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general
- Robert Mueller, special counsel
- Christopher Wray, FBI director
- Andrew McCabe, former FBI deputy director
- Peter Strzok, FBI investigator
A Reckoning for the FBI
The House memo reveals disturbing facts about the misuse of FISA.
The memo confirms that the FBI and Justice Department on Oct. 21, 2016 obtained a FISA order to surveil Carter Page, an American citizen who was a relatively minor volunteer adviser to the Trump presidential campaign.
.. The memo adds that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told the committee in December 2017 that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” without the dossier.
.. But the FBI failed to tell the court that Mr. Steele and Fusion were the main sources for that Yahoo article. In essence the FBI was citing Mr. Steele to corroborate Mr. Steele.
.. The FBI retained Mr. Steele as a source, and in October 2016 he talked to Mother Jones magazine without authorization about the FBI investigation and his dossier alleging collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The FBI then fired Mr. Steele, but it never told the FISA judges about that either. Nor did it tell the court any of this as it sought three subsequent renewals of the order on Mr. Page.
.. Mr. Steele and Fusion then leaked the fact of the investigation to friendly reporters to try to defeat Mr. Trump before the election. And afterward they continued to leak all this to the press to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory.
.. No matter its motives, the FBI became a tool of anti-Trump political actors.
.. President Trump should declassify it promptly, along with Senator Chuck Grassley’s referral for criminal investigation of Mr. Steele.
.. note that Democrats aren’t challenging the core facts that the FBI used the dossier to gain a FISA order or the bureau’s lack of disclosure to the FISA judges.
.. As to the claim that the release tarnishes the FBI and FISA court, exposing abuses is the essence of accountability in a democracy.
.. The question of FISA abuse is independent of Mr. Mueller’s work
.. Mr. Trump would do well to knock off the tweets lambasting the Mueller probe
.. Mr. Trump and the White House should consider the remedy of radical transparency.
Steinem, Sandberg and Judd on How to End Sex Harassment
“Fathers have a big chance to do this just by listening to their daughters, and showing them that they’re worth listening to. Co-workers can do this by not commenting on a woman’s appearance when they wouldn’t say the same of a man.
“This is not rocket science,” Steinem added. “It’s empathy.”
.. We need not just sensitivity training, but also accountability. That means firing not only the men who sexually harass but also the men and women who are complicit.
.. “People need to be afraid not just of doing these things, but also of not doing anything when someone around them does it,” Sandberg said.
.. One dismissal sends a stronger message throughout an organization than 10,000 hours of sensitivity training.
.. Men have sometimes been prone to disbelieve victims’ stories, and one of the most distasteful aspects of the Harvey Weinstein scandal was a rush to refocus blame by questioning why female victims didn’t speak up earlier or go to the police. That tendency to victim-shame is precisely why survivors are reluctant to speak up
.. a new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 54 percent of American women report having received unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances.. Civil rights weren’t just a “black problem,” the Holocaust wasn’t just a “Jewish problem” and sexual harassment and discrimination are more than just a “women’s problem.”.. “Put peer pressure on each other to treat women better.”
Rare look at Trump bookkeeping: ‘Extraordinary flim-flammery’
Trump was basically running two sets of books to distort the amount that he owed the city.
- The auditors were physically blocked from accessing the books.
- A staggering amount of information was lost: 7 months out of 12 months of the data
- Trump offered the auditor’s brother a job.
- A city clerk mis-labeled the report
- Years later they reached an undisclosed settlement.