Devin Nunes threatens to "impeach" the head of the FBI and Rod Rosenstein, while Donald Trump just wants to fire everybody.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that he will seek to "impeach" FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if they decline to hand over the document used to launch the FBI's probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election. 

"I can tell you that we're not going to just hold in contempt, we will have a plan to hold in contempt and impeach," Nunes said on Fox News's "The Ingraham Angle." 

Asked host Laura Ingraham if he was serious about impeaching Wray, Nunes replied: "Absolutely."

Of course as we know Nunes is essentially Trump's lap dog, and he is desperate to earn his Scoobie snack from his master.

However Trump may not even bother to go through that process as he is still talking about firing Rosenstein on his own: 

President Donald Trump is considering firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, multiple people familiar with the discussions tell CNN, a move that has gained urgency following the raid of the office of the President's personal lawyer. 

Such an action could potentially further Trump's goal of trying to put greater limits on special counsel Robert Mueller. 

This is one of several options -- including going so far as to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- Trump is weighing in the aftermath of the FBI's decision Monday to raid the office of Michael Cohen, the President's personal lawyer and longtime confidant. Officials say if Trump acts, Rosenstein is his most likely target, but it's unclear whether even such a dramatic firing like this would be enough to satisfy the President.

In other news Mitch McConnell refused to allow a vote to protect Robert Mueller and his investigation:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he doesn't think the Senate needs to pass legislation protecting special counsel Robert Mueller, arguing President Trump won't fire him. 

"I haven't seen a clear indication yet that we needed to pass something to keep him from being removed because I don't think that's going to happen, and that remains my view," McConnell told reporters. The GOP leader, asked what the Senate would do if Trump fired the special counsel, declined to speculate. 

"It's still my view that Mueller should be allowed to finish his job. I think that's the view of most people in Congress," he said. 

There is NO way that McConnell actually believes that Trump is not capable of trying to fire Mueller, or of firing Rosenstein and forcing his successor to fire Mueller.

Especially since he actually had to be talked down from doing so by his lawyers back in December.

Jesus what a shit show!

Per Trump's request Jeff Sessions speeds up investigation into Hilary Clinton's e-mails. Can you say "distraction?"

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has answered President Donald Trump’s demands for America’s top law enforcement agency to speed up the delivery to Congress of more than a million documents about an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server. 

The Department of Justice and the FBI asked Chicago prosecutor John Lausch to oversee the redaction and production of documents over the weekend. Many of these concern the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.

This March, the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for 1.2 million documents connected to the investigation and other matters—including potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during the investigation of the Trump campaign and the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The committee’s chairman, Republican Representative Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, said last month that just a few thousand documents have been delivered following his original requests last year. The subpoena is part of a joint investigation with the House Oversight Committee.

Trump took to Twitter (of course) to bitch about how long this process was taking.

What does the Department of Justice and FBI have to hide? Why aren’t they giving the strongly requested documents (unredacted) to the HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE? Stalling, but for what reason? Not looking good!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2018

Hey as far as I am concerned fucking go for it!

How many times have they investigated Hillary now?

And there is NEVER anything revealed which would constitute criminal or unethical behaviors.

My assumption is that either Donald Trump is too deep inside the Right Wing bubble to see how transparent all of this looks to most Americans, or he is so desperate for something he can use to distract attention that he just doesn't care anymore.

NONE of this is going to slow Robert Mueller down by the way, NOR convince the media not to report on the things he uncovers during that investigation.

Trump is pissing into the wind here, and it is splashing back all over him.

Trump hires lawyer who embraces conspiracy theory that FBI and Justice Department worked together to frame him.

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

President Trump hired the longtime Washington lawyer Joseph E. diGenova on Monday, adding an aggressive voice to his legal team who has pushed the theory on television that the F.B.I. and Justice Department framed Mr. Trump.

“Former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Joe DiGenova will be joining our legal team later this week,” said Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s personal lawyers. “I have worked with Joe for many years and have full confidence that he will be a great asset in our representation of the President.” 

Mr. diGenova has endorsed the notion that a secretive group of F.B.I. agents concocted the Russia investigation as a way to keep Mr. Trump from becoming president. “There was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime,” he said on Fox News in January. He added, “Make no mistake about it: A group of F.B.I. and D.O.J. people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely created crime.” 

Little evidence has emerged to support that theory.

Of course as we know Trump loves him some conspiracy theories, after all it was the Obama birth certificate conspiracy that brought him such national attention in the first place. And a conspiracy theory that suggests that he did nothing wrong and is being framed he would love that most of all.

Bringing this bomb thrower into the mix indicates to me that Trump has NO intention of agreeing to that interview with Robert Mueller.

A total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2018

I think all signs point to Trump tripling down and stonewalling the Mueller investigators while tweeting out that he is being framed by his own Justice Department, and is the victim of a massive liberal conspiracy to remove him from office without cause.

Just when you thought this whole thing could not possible get any crazier.

P.S. Just a reminder that there is a tweet for EVERYTHING.

The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 11, 2018

Stupid New York Times being a week too early.

The Jeff Sessions Justice Department looking for way to take authority away from Federal Courts.

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

Last April, when a federal judge in Hawaii blocked the Trump administration’s effort to ban entry to people from six Muslim-majority nations, Attorney General Jeff Sessions took to conservative talk radio to vent his frustration. “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” he told host Mark Levin. 

Residents of Hawaii pointed out that it was every bit as much a state as the other 49, but Sessions was making a broader legal point, one that the Supreme Court will now consider. The Justice Department wants to permanently remove the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions—orders that stop a policy from taking effect until the court has officially ruled on its legality. Instead, a Hawaiian judge overseeing a travel ban case brought by the state of Hawaii would be able to block the ban only in that state. The implications, if the Supreme Court agrees with the Justice Department, will be enormous for the future of judicial review and the federal government’s balance of power. 

Federal courts have repeatedly blocked the administration’s efforts to implement a hardline immigration agenda. More than a year into Donald Trump’s presidency, attempts to crack down on sanctuary cities, end Obama-era deportation protections for Dreamers, and block nationals from Muslim-majority countries have been stopped by federal judges enacting nationwide injunctions.

Okay this might actually be the MOST troubling thing we have learned about this administration.

The Founders wanted there to be three co-equal branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial.

And the Judicial is the one that is tasked with protecting the constitutional rights of American citizens.

If the Trump Administration were actually successful in pulling this off, that would mean that each state's court system would determine what was a constitutionally protected right in their jurisdiction ONLY.

That means that some states could block gay marriage, women's rights, civil rights, equal pay, essentially EVERYTHING.

That would overwhelm the Supreme Court almost overnight, and if Trump gets one more judge on the panel they would be loathe to do anything to challenge a state's right to remain in the dark ages.

There is another Devin Nunes' memo coming, and this one attacks the State Department.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

As Democrats and Republicans continue brawling over the Russia probe, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is gearing up to release a second memo as part of his investigation into perceived bias within the FBI and Department of Justice. 

Nunes's much-hyped first memo, which was declassified last week, purports to show the FBI and DOJ abusing their surveillance authority by omitting "material and relevant" facts when submitting an application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page, a former adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign. 

Much of the Republican document also questioned the FBI's decision to use the Steele dossier — an explosive collection of memos by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele alleging collusion between Trump and Russia — as a "roadmap" in the Russia investigation. 

Nunes's next memo, meanwhile, will focus on alleged abuses at the Department of State and a second Trump-Russia dossier compiled by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist with close ties to the Clinton family, according to a Republican familiar with the details. 

Apparently Trump, and his attack poodle Nunes, will not be happy until they have undermined every government law enforcement or intelligence agency in the country.

The first memo by Nunes landed with a thud, and it is likely that this one will be just as pathetic.

Of course that doesn't mean Sean Hannity will not treat it like a smoking gun, and that Right Wing media will not go apoplectic over it. Because they will.

Already one of Nunes' newest allegations has failed the smell test.

Here is a Nunes' quote courtesy of WaPo: 

“The truth is that they [Democrats] are covering up that Hillary Clinton colluded with the Russians to get dirt on Trump to feed it to the FBI to open up an investigation into the other campaign.” —Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Feb. 7, 2018

The Post's fact checkers went to town on that statement, and this is what they ultimately came away with:   

Was the dossier used to gin up media attention to Russia-Trump ties and bolster an existing FBI investigation? Perhaps. That’s certainly a question worth exploring. 

But the media needed little prodding to investigate when candidate Trump appeared unexpectedly solicitous of Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russian-linked entities leaked emails stolen by Russian hackers in the middle of a campaign. Meanwhile, the initial FBI counterintelligence probe was prompted not by Steele’s reporting but by the loose lips of a Trump campaign staffer. 

Finally, there is no evidence that Clinton was involved in Steele’s reports or worked with Russian entities to feed information to Steele. That’s where Nunes’s claim goes off the rails — and why he earns Four Pinocchios.

But those are facts, and facts have no impact on the Republican bubble, so this next memo is almost certainly going to cause yet another Right Wing freakout that will dominate conservative news outlets for several days. 

And all of this is clearly designed to undermine and ultimately foil the Robert Mueller investigation.

Donald Trump blocks the release of the Democrats memo, which rebuts much of what is in the Nunes' memo, over "security concerns."

This memo shall not pass.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

President Trump on Friday blocked the release of a classified Democratic memo rebutting Republican claims that top federal law enforcement officials had abused their powers in spying on a former Trump campaign aide, a move that Democrats denounced as politically motivated hypocrisy. 

Last week, the president moved quickly, over the objections of the Justice Department and the F.B.I., to declassify the contents of a rival Republican memo drafted by House Intelligence Committee staff members. He claimed, incorrectly, that the Republican memo had vindicated him in the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference. 

But Donald F. McGahn II, the president’s lawyer, said in a letter to the committee on Friday night that the Democratic memo could not be released because it “contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages.” He said the president would again consider making the memo public if the committee, which had approved its release on Monday, revised it to “mitigate the risks.”

Apparently McGahn used a memo supposedly written by FBI Director Christopher Wray and Rod Rosenstein, which suggested that portions of the memo included some sensitive data, to justify Trump's decision to block it.

It should be noted that both Wray and Rosenstein aggressively attempted to stop the release of the Nunes' memo and that did not even slow Trump down.

Obviously the real reason that Trump is keeping this under wraps is because it would further undermine the validity of the first memo, which Trump has convinced himself vindicates him.

This has nothing to do with national security, and everything to do with Trump's desperate need to convince himself that he is not in any legal jeopardy.

Rachel Brand, the number three official at the Justice Department and the woman who would replace Rod Rosenstein if Trump fires him, has resigned.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Rachel L. Brand, the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, plans to step down after nine months on the job as the country’s top law enforcement agency has been under attack by President Trump, according to two people briefed on her decision. 

Ms. Brand’s profile had risen in part because she is next in the line of succession behind the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who is overseeing the special counsel’s inquiry into Russian influence in the 2016 election. Mr. Trump, who has called the investigation a witch hunt, has considered firing Mr. Rosenstein. 

Such a move could have put her in charge of the special counsel and, by extension, left her in the cross hairs of the president. 

Ms. Brand, who became the associate attorney general in May 2017, is leaving for a job as general counsel in the private sector. She has held politically appointed positions at the Justice Department over the past three presidential administrations. 

In her current job, she reports directly to Mr. Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, who has recused himself from the Russia investigation.

One has to wonder if Brand saw some writing on the wall, or if she simply finds working in the Justice Department under Donald Trump too toxic.

Brand is considered a consummate professional, and somebody who people felt could not be bullied by Trump to fire Robert Mueller, or be convinced to impede his investigation. 

With her gone, and soon to be replaced with somebody of Trump's choosing, Rod Rosenstein could almost certainly find his job on the chopping block, as Trump moves to further obstruct the Russian investigation.

I think it is too early to assert that this will definitely be what happens, but I would not be at all surprised if we suddenly saw Trump attacking Rosenstein more vociferously on Twitter.

House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously to release Democratic rebuttal memo.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously on Monday to make public a classified Democratic memorandum rebutting Republican claims that the F.B.I. and the Justice Department had abused their powers to wiretap a former Trump campaign official, setting up a possible clash with President Trump. 

The vote gives Mr. Trump five days to review the Democratic memo and determine whether he will try to block its release. A decision to stop it could lead to an ugly standoff between the president, his top law enforcement and intelligence advisers and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

I like this line:  "The vote gives Mr. Trump five days to review the Democratic memo and determine whether he will try to block its release."

Please, we KNOW he is going to try to block it because it will undercut his mythology about the Nunes memo vindicating him. 

However I am not really convinced that this memo needs to be released.

After all the Nunes memo was essentially its own rebuttal, as it did not deliver ANY of the things that Trump and his acolytes claimed that it would deliver. 

Either the Democratic memo will serve to drive a final stake through the heart of the Republican attempts to vilify the FBI and Justice Department, or it will serve as a distraction while the Republicans regroup and launch their attack from another direction.

Remember the goal here is to keep Donald Trump in office for as long as possible, and the Republicans have already demonstrated that there are no ethical or moral barriers that will keep them from that objective.

Weren't impressed by that last memo? Well Devin Nunes has at least five more he is going to release so there!

No I was just kidding. This next memo, THAT'S going to be the juicy one.

Courtesy of Axios:

"The memo" — which pitted the Justice Department against the White House and brought ugly partisan sniping into stark relief — is only the beginning. Republican sources close to Devin Nunes tell me he's assured them there's much more to come. 

The House Intelligence chair and his team have told members and associates they've found other examples of politically motivated "wrongdoing" across various agencies, including the FBI, the broader Justice Department, and the State Department. 

What we're hearing: Republicans close to Nunes say there could be as many as five additional memos or reports of "wrongdoing." But a source on the House Intelligence Committee tells me there's no current plan to use the same extraordinary and highly controversial process they just went through, with a vote and ultimately a presidential approval to declassify sensitive information. 

A Republican member briefed on Nunes' investigations told me: "There are several areas of concern where federal agencies used government resources to try to create a narrative and influence the election. Some have suggested coordination with Hillary Clinton operatives, [Sidney] Blumenthal and [Cody] Shearer, to back up the false narrative."

Yes let's all assume that this first memo was just an opening salvo that all the REALLY troubling stuff will be in the fourth or fifth memo that he sends out to the news agencies.

You know, because that makes all kinds of sense.

I think that Devin Nunes is currently the most pathetic and desperate character in Washington DC, well aside from Donald Trump himself that is.

I cannot imagine that anybody, except perhaps Sean Hannity and the folks at Fox and Friends, would even bother to report on any additional memos of disappointment from this idiot.

What a shit show.

Donald Trump decided to spend the morning going after Adam Schiff and everybody formerly connected to intelligence gathering or the Justice Department.

Little Adam Schiff, who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington, right up there with Comey, Warner, Brennan and Clapper! Adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2018

"Little Adam Schiff?" What a fucking toddler.

And he is also smearing James Comey, former DNI James Clapper, Senator Mark Warner, and former CIA Director John Brennan, who came out yesterday to chastise Devin Nunes for abusing his office.

And get a load of Trump's revisionist history:

Representative Devin Nunes, a man of tremendous courage and grit, may someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2018

"A lie told often enough becomes truth."

Adam Schiff had a great response to this.

Mr. President, I see you’ve had a busy morning of “Executive Time.” Instead of tweeting false smears, the American people would appreciate it if you turned off the TV and helped solve the funding crisis, protected Dreamers or...really anything else. https://t.co/lVqQRu2Gjl

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 5, 2018

And that is the state of politics in the year 2018 folks.

Tea Party group puts out ad encouraging Donald Trump to fire Rod Rosenstein.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Tea Party Patriots Action has released an ad that seems aimed at encouraging President Donald Trump to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. 

While Rosenstein might be a Republican appointed by former GOP President George W. Bush and kept on by Trump, that isn’t enough for the fundamentalist wing of the GOP. The fact that former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aren’t in handcuffs seems to be the nail in the coffin for his career. 

The ad alleges that instead of following the rule of law, Rosenstein is working for the so-called “deep state.”

Yep, getting rid of Rod Rosenstein will likely open a pathway to firing Robert Mueller, or at the very least taking away a significant amount of his investigative power. That could work.

However if this group was hoping that the Devin Nunes "secret memo" was going to provide ammunition for this, they were sorely mistaken.

You know the truly bizarre thing about all of this, aside from the fact that it is happening of course, is that everybody can see it happening right out in the open.

It is almost as if they think they are being clever in hiding their real motives or something.

It kind of reminds of when little kids play hide-and-go-seek, and only cover their eyes in the belief that if they can't see then nobody can see.

Devin Nunes will not say if he worked with the White House on his "secret memo." I think we know what that means.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee refused to answer when a colleague asked him if he had coordinated his incendiary surveillance memo with the White House, The Daily Beast has learned. 

During Monday’s contentious closed-door committee meeting, Rep. Mike Quigley, a Democrat, asked Nunes point-blank if his staffers had been talking with the White House as they compiled a four-page memo alleging FBI and Justice Department abuses over surveillance of President Trump’s allies in the Russia probe. 

According to sources familiar with the exchange, Nunes made a few comments that didn’t answer the question before finally responding, “I’m not answering.”

Well actually that sort of IS an answer, isn't it?

In the meantime even Trump's own FBI Director has come out against releasing this memo.

Courtesy of Bloomberg: 

FBI Director Christopher Wray told the White House he opposes the release of a controversial, classified GOP memo alleging bias at the FBI and Justice Department because it contains inaccurate information and paints a false narrative, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Wray was actually one of the few people  allowed to read the memo, so he knows what he is talking about. 

However that is not going to stop Trump:  

President Donald Trump was overheard Tuesday night telling a Republican lawmaker that he was “100 percent” planning to release the memo, which was written by staffers on the House Intelligence Committee and is aimed at raising questions about the validity of the investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia, now led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

It should also be noted that reports are that Nunes himself has actually not read the classified documents that were used to write the memo, so he really does not know what the negative effect might be.

Of course he might not even really care.

Which leads us to this exchange: 

On Tuesday’s edition of Morning Joe, political analyst John Heilemann asked a question of Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) that he readily admitted “under almost any other circumstances would be ridiculous and absurd, but under these circumstances I think is actually warranted.” 

“Is it possible that the Republican chairman of the House Intel Committee has been compromised by the Russians?” Heilemann inquired. “Is it possible that we actually have a Russian agent running the House Intel Committee on the Republican side?”

Murphy replied by saying: “I hope that’s not the case and I certainly have no information to suggest that it is.” 

Notably, he did not call the notion “ridiculous” or “absurd.” Instead, Murphy suggested that Nunes was “instinctually” acting to protect President Trump. 

“Doesn’t his behavior speak of that though?” Heilemann pressed on. “I’m not the first person who’s raised this. He’s behaving like someone who’s compromised and there are people in the intelligence community and others with great expertise in this area who look at him and say, ‘That guy’s been compromised.’”

I am trying not to go all "Alex Jones" here but I am beginning to wonder if there are not a number of Republicans who have been compromised by the Russians.

 I'm just saying.

House Republicans have voted to release the "secret memo" that was written by Devin Nunes to undermine the Robert Mueller investigation.

Courtesy of Vox: 

House Republicans have voted to release a controversial secret memo that has become a rallying point for allegations of bias in the Trump-Russia investigation. 

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times reported that a House panel voted Monday along party lines to take the unprecedented move to release the memo, over the objections of the Justice Department and House Democratic colleagues. 

The Justice Department said making the document public would be “extraordinarily reckless” and represent a potential risk to national security and ongoing investigations. House Democrats have portrayed the memo’s release as a political ploy, designed to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign. 

President Donald Trump has five days to review the document and decide on its release, though he has previously indicated he wanted the memo made public.

It is already clear that Trump definitely wants this made public, as reported by Bloomberg:  

President Donald Trump’s frustrations with the Russia investigation boiled over on Air Force One last week when he learned that a top Justice Department official had warned against releasing a memo that could undercut the probe, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. 

Trump erupted in anger while traveling to Davos after learning that Associate Attorney General Stephen Boyd warned that it would be “extraordinarily reckless” to release a classified memo written by House Republican staffers. The memo outlines alleged misdeeds at the FBI and Justice Department related to the Russia investigation. 

For Trump, the letter was yet another example of the Justice Department undermining him and stymieing Republican efforts to expose what the president sees as the politically motivated agenda behind Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

Of course the problem with the memo is that it will state conclusions based on classified information that it will not reveal, meaning that the Republicans can make various charges against the FBI and DOJ, without giving the press the opportunity to fact check them.

In other words it provides them the opportunity to create a reality that may in fact not, in any way, be related to actual reality.

The house Democrats want to poke a hole in that false reality by releasing a rebuttal memo, but it is unlikely to see the light of day:  

In an interview with me, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut — the No. 2 Democrat on the House Intel Committee — noted, ominously, that there is a reasonable chance that Schiff’s rebuttal memo will never be released. Himes pointed out that Republicans on the committee could vote against its release, or, worse, if Republicans did vote to release it, that Trump could block it. 

“I’m under no illusion that there’s much probability at all that the Democratic memo ever sees the light of day,” Himes told me. “It is an extraordinarily detailed, point-by-point rebuttal of unbelievably shoddy allegations on the Republican side. If it were to get voted out of committee for public release, I would be very surprised if Trump didn’t block its release.”

Oh, I can hardly wait for the 2018 midterms.

Republicans on House Intelligence Committee are planning to defy DOJ and release a classified memo to Donald Trump.

Courtesy of Politico:

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are on the verge of defying the Department of Justice and voting to release a classified memo they say will reveal misconduct by senior FBI officials involved in investigating President Donald Trump's campaign. 

POLITICO contacted or reviewed statements by the committee’s 13 Republicans, and found near-unanimous support for making public the memo, which Democrats call a misleading effort to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump’s ties to Russia. 

A vote by the committee — expected as soon as Wednesday — to release the controversial document would put its fate into the hands of President Donald Trump, who has not taken a clear position on its public disclosure. 

The committee sentiment suggests that House Republicans are unfazed by a top Justice Department official’s warning that doing so without first consulting the department would be “extraordinarily reckless,” and underscores the GOP’s determination to shift attention from Russian election influence onto alleged anti-Trump bias among federal Russia investigators.

Keep in mind that this is the same Devin Nunes created document that the House Republicans refuse to allow the FBI to fact check, or let the Senate Intelligence Committee take a peek at, and the one about which a Democratic member of the committee had this to say:

A member of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Hines (D-CT) has read chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) hyped and secretive “Justice Department abuses” memo — and says its contents are far from the bombshell his GOP colleagues claim they are. 

“Having read it,” Himes told MSNBC host Chris Matthews during a Thursday evening interview, “you’d hope that whoever wrote that was a couple of whiskies into the bag.”

So this memo is too secret for even the FBI or the Senate to see, but it is perfectly okay for Donald "Here let me call my friend Vlad" Trump to read on the toilet.

We already know that Trump is going to overreact once he has somebody explain the big words to him, because that is what he does.

If they do give it to Trump, and he starts ranting about it on Twitter, then the Democrats are simply going to have to leak it to the press so that all the rest of us can see it for ourselves.

Because I think we can rest assured that this is most likely another nothing sandwich like that Putin calendar kerfuffle.

Representatives Dianne Feinstein and Adam Schiff send letter to Mark Zuckerburg urging him to investigate Russian bots pushing the #releasethememo campaign.

Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schiff have sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg and @jack urging them to investigate involvement of Russian bots pushing #releasethememo campaign. Here’s my story about it that they cited: https://t.co/YNufBFfOCR pic.twitter.com/5WaTjKh7PM

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) January 23, 2018

Good for them.

Since our own Justice Department and the Republicans are currently busy helping the Russians to undermine the FBI and the Mueller investigation, I guess we have to turn to the powers that be behind social media to help protect the American people.

Keep in mind that there is STILL no actual coherent plan from this administration to prevent or deal with the next foreign interference in our election process.

FBI Director threatened to quit if Jeff Sessions did not stop trying to get him to fire his number two guy.

FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Courtesy of Axios:  

Attorney General Jeff Sessions — at the public urging of President Donald Trump — has been pressuring FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but Wray threatened to resign if McCabe was removed, according to three sources with direct knowledge. 

Wray's resignation under those circumstances would have created a media firestorm. The White House — understandably gun-shy after the Comey debacle — didn’t want that scene, so McCabe remains. 

Sessions told White House Counsel Don McGahn about how upset Wray was about the pressure on him to fire McCabe, and McGahn told Sessions this issue wasn’t worth losing the FBI Director over, according to a source familiar with the situation. 

Why it matters: Trump started his presidency by pressuring one FBI Director (before canning him), and then began pressuring another (this time wanting his deputy canned). This much meddling with the FBI for this long is not normal.

"Not normal" is a real understatement here.

If Wray had actually resigned that would mean that Trump would have lost two FBI directors in his first year.

And what is more troubling is that both of them would have been related to an ongoing investigation of the president himself, and his campaign.

We are functioning more like a banana republic every day it seems.

FBI rattled, worried about ability to do their job, after Justice Department gives documents to Congressional Republicans.

Courtesy of Bloomberg:  

The Justice Department’s decision to give congressional Republicans access to documents about FBI investigations risks exposing sensitive sources or material and poses a critical early test for bureau Director Christopher Wray, current and former U.S. law enforcement officials say. 

Some officials view the department as capitulating to a small group of Republicans who are intent on helping President Donald Trump undermine the integrity of the FBI and, by extension, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump or any of his associates helped Russia interfere in the 2016 election. 

It’s the latest setback for a law enforcement agency that has long held itself out as doggedly independent and above partisan politics, only to be besieged over the last two years by questions about its handling of politically sensitive investigations into Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Trump. 

One agent said he’s now concerned that forms identifying FBI informants would be handed over to Congress. If that happened, he said, it would cause him to think carefully about whether to withhold sensitive information from future reports. 

Another agent said recent statements about the bureau by Trump and congressional Republicans have made it more difficult for him to get informants to open up. 

Trump has tweeted that the Federal Bureau of Investigations is “in Tatters -- worst in history” and has said a senior official committed “treason.”

The FBI knows full that is it only a matter of time after the Republicans get their hands on the documents, that the leaks and spreading of false information will begin.

Their agenda right now is to protect Donald Trump from the Mueller investigation, and they will burn down the entire American justice system to achieve that goal.

Bet on it.

I bet his lawyers will be arguing against it.

"Come on, you've read his tweets, do you really think my client is a fully functioning adult?"

The DOJ is going to reopen the investigation into Hillary's emails. They should call it "Operation Smokescreen."

And here we go again.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Justice Department officials are taking a fresh look at Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as secretary of State, The Daily Beast has learned. 

An ally of Attorney General Jeff Sessions who is familiar with the thinking at the Justice Department’s Washington headquarters described it as an effort to gather new details on how Clinton and her aides handled classified material. Officials’ questions include how much classified information was sent over Clinton’s server; who put that information into an unclassified environment, and how; and which investigators knew about these matters and when. The Sessions ally also said officials have questions about immunity agreements that Clinton aides may have made. 

A former senior DOJ official familiar with department leadership’s thinking said officials there are acutely aware of demands from President Donald Trump that they look into Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State—and that they lock up her top aide, Huma Abedin.

Just like clockwork.

Trump and his White House are under all kinds of increased scrutiny, so they throw out their favorite distraction. 

Millions of taxpayer dollars, and thousands of man hours have already been wasted on this bullshit, and the Republicans came up empty.

To do this again, while there are serious investigations concerning their man in the White House, is a nakedly transparent attempt at distraction.

Top ethics watchdog files suit against DOJ concerning those FBI texts that were made public.

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

A top ethics watchdog said Wednesday it is suing the Justice Department for all communications concerning the DOJ's decision to share with the press text messages exchanged between two FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, during the 2016 election. 

Many of the texts were overtly critical of President Donald Trump, and Strzok and Page mocked him at various points throughout the campaign, calling him an "idiot." 

Strzok and Page also disparaged other political leaders, like the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and former Attorney General Eric Holder. The texts concerning Trump, however, were quickly weaponized by the most vehement critics of special counsel Robert Mueller following the DOJ's decision to release them to Congress and the press. That release came just one day before Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified before the House Judiciary Committee on December 13. 

The department has failed to answer a significant lingering question stemming from that release: how it chose which texts, of the more than 10,000 the department obtained over the summer, to unveil publicly. Nor has it released additional messages that could provide context to the ones that were shared with lawmakers and reporters. DOJ has also not disclosed who authorized the release. 

The lawsuit, filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the " DOJ’s senior leadership offices for all communications concerning the decision" to give the texts to a small group of reporters the day before Rosenstein's testimony. CREW filed the expedited request Wednesday after the DOJ failed to respond to their initial inquiry within 20 working days. 

Yeah I would like to see these questions answered as well.

Since when do private communications between lovers become the business of the DOJ unless one or more of the participants are under criminal investigation?