FBI Director Christopher Wray sent a statement to the agency’s employees on Friday saying he stands with them
FBI Director Christopher Wray sent a statement to the agency’s employees on Friday saying he stands with them after a document written by congressional Republicans alleging bias against President Donald Trump at the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation was made public.
‘I stand by our shared determination to do our work independently and by the book,’ Wray said in a statement to FBI staff, excerpts of which were seen by Reuters.
‘Talk is cheap. The work you do is what will endure,’ he added.
‘We speak through our work. One case at a time. One intelligence product at a time. One decision at a time.’
Wray wrote to his charges that they must ‘stay laser-focused on doing great work, even when it’s not easy, because we believe in the FBI. We believe in what it stands for and in what this institution means to people.
‘And nothing is going to change that.
‘We’re going to keep doing that work, because we know who and what we are, and because we know that our mission comes first.
‘The American people come first.’
According to Business Insider, there was speculation that Wray would release his own rebuttal to the memo.
Nonetheless, he told his agents to ‘keep doing your great work and keep being the great people you are.’
He added: ‘Remember: keep calm and tackle hard.
The FBI has come under fire from President Donald Trump (above) and the Republican Party, which accuses it of bias. In the Oval Office Friday Trump said: ‘A lot of people should be ashamed.I think it’s a disgrace, what’s happening in our country,’
‘Thank you for standing strong together, and for keeping your faith in this institution that means so much to all of us,’ he concluded.
Wray was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate in August, three months after Trump sacked Comey amid an FBI probe into whether members of the president’s campaign had colluded with Russia help him get elected.
That investigation, which Trump has denounced as a ‘witch hunt,’ is now in the hands of special counsel Robert Mueller, himself a former FBI director.
Democratic lawmakers are claiming the memo is part of a broader campaign aimed at discrediting the Mueller probe and protecting Trump.
Wray put himself in the eye of the memo firestorm when the FBI issued an unusual public statement this week expressing concerns about the document.
‘We have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,’ the FBI said.
While the statement was unsigned, it was clear that it would not have been issued without a green light from the new FBI director.
Shamed: The memo reveals that James Comey signed an application for a warrant to surveil Carter Page, a Trump campaign aide, despite knowing that the dossier it was based on was politically funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and without telling the judge that fact
Wray was confirmed by a 92-5 vote in the Senate, winning bipartisan backing after telling lawmakers he would resign rather than bow to political interference.
‘There is only one right way to do this job, and that is with strict independence,’ the former Department of Justice official said during his confirmation hearing.
‘You can’t do a job like this without being prepared to either quit or be fired at a moment’s notice’ if ‘you’re asked to do something or confronted with something that is either illegal, unconstitutional or even morally repugnant,’ Wray said.
The controversial Republican memo charging bias in the FBI finally saw daylight Friday after President Trump overruled Wray and other top career law enforcement officials to order its release.
President Trump reviewed the controversial memo along with his advisors and sent it to the House Intelligence panel, which immediately put it out Friday afternoon.
‘Congress will do whatever they’re going to do,’ Trump said shortly before the memo came out. He added: ‘A lot of people should be ashamed.’
‘I think it’s a disgrace, what’s happening in our country,’ Trump added. ‘Whatever they do is fine. It was declassified,’ he said.
Trump also suggested that he believes heads in his own administration should roll over the what is contained in the memo.
Trump hater: Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy who wrote the ‘minimally corroborated’ dossier accusing Trump of paying for prostitutes to perform ‘golden showers’ in a Moscow hotel. But a senior DoJ official knew the British man was ‘passionate’ about Trump not being president
Listened to: Carter Page was the subject of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court warrant which the Nunes memo says was obtained without disclosing all the facts
Link: Glenn Simpson, the ‘principal’ of Fusion GPS commissioned Steele – but he also employed the wife of Bruce Ohr. Ohr was Christopher Steele’s contact at the Department of Justice
‘The memo was sent to Congress. It was declassified. Congress will do whatever they’re going to do but I think its a disgrace what’s happening in our country … a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that,’ he said.
Asked if he still had confidence in deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, Trump – who has gone after Rosenstein publicly before – responded: ‘You figure that one out.’
Rosenstein supervises special counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading the Russia probe.
The memo’s explosive findings center on how warrants from the were obtained on former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, who had been approached in the past by a Russian intelligence operative.
It reveals a key omission of fact – that the FBI and DoJ knew the that the dossier had ‘political origins’ but did not tell the court that.
The ‘political origins’ were its funding: Fusion GPS commissioned Steele, who was paid $160,000 through Fusion GPS by law firm Perkins Coie – who were acting for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
In particular, it blasts ex-British Intelligence officer Christopher Steele for having ‘anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations’ that were concealed when his work was used to bolster a warrant application for Page.
According to the memo’s authors: ‘It raises “concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)”, and represents “a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the ISA process.”‘
‘IS THAT IT?’ SNEERS COMEY AS HIS REIGN AT THE FBI IS SHAMED
Former FBI Director James Comey scorned the memo that was released by House Republicans after being declassified Friday by President Donald Trump, saying it doesn’t add up to much. ‘That’s it?’ Comey said on Twitter.
‘Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what?’ Comey wrote, adding: ‘DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.’
The tweet was the latest in a series from Comey this week as Trump clashed with the FBI over the release of the GOP-written memo.
On Thursday, Comey stood up for the bureau’s position against the document’s disclosure and took aim at unnamed people he calls ‘weasels and liars.’
‘All should appreciate the FBI speaking up. I wish more of our leaders would,’ Comey tweeted Thursday night amid news that the FBI had lobbied the White House to block the release of a partisan memo on the Russia investigation.
On Friday morning, the president continued his verbal attacks against the FBI, writing on Twitter, ‘The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans – something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!’
The memo lays out who signed off on surveillance warrants for former Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page.
It maintains that the government ‘omitted’ information that would have been ‘potentially favorable’ to Page – the target of the surveillance warrant being sought.
It says FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe – the target of online ridicule by President Trump – testified no surveillance warrant would have been sought without the ‘Steele dossier information.’
Fired FBI Director James Comey signed three. Recently resigned Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who left early in the Trump administration in protest, then-acting attorney general Dana Boente, and Rosenstein each signed one or more, according to the memo.
‘The ‘dossier’ compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia,’ according to the memo.
The memo goes on to describe those warrants as in effect tainted. ‘Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.’
Steele’s research was funded through Clinton campaign and DNC payments that went through a campaign law firm. The initial work by political intelligence firm Fusion GPS, who hired Steele, was funded by a conservative publication during the GOP primaries.
Referring to the FISA warrant application, the memo states: ‘The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of-and paid by-the DNC and Clinton campaign.’
The memo repeatedly blasts Steele, a former Moscow station chief for British intelligence, as a source of information.
‘Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September-before the Page application was submitted to the FISC in October-but about those contacts,’ according to the memo.
It states that Steele was ‘suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations-an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016, article by David Corn’ – the article that revealed the existence of the dossier.
The president said people should be ‘ashamed’ of themselves, without explanation
Asked if he still had confidence in deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, Trump responded: ‘You figure that one out’
‘That’s it?’ Comey scoffed at the newly declassified memo that was released to the public on Friday
The memo also maintains that Steele’s ‘desperate’ belief that Trump not get elected president, based on information traced to top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, was not disclosed to the FISA court judge.
‘Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president”,’ according to the memo.
‘This clear evidence of Steele’s bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files – but not reflected in any of the Page FISA applications.’
But Ohr’s wife was also working for Fusion GPS – and that fact was never disclosed to the judge either.
The memo was released Friday accompanied by a letter from White House counsel Don McGahn.
‘The President understands that the protection of our national security represents his highest obligation. Accordingly, he has directed lawyers and national security staff to assess the declassification request,’ he wrote.
He added: ”[Existing standards] permit declassification when the public interest in disclosure outweighs any need to protect the information. The White House review process also included input from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice.’
The memo’s fourth and final page brings up former Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos. It says there is ‘no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy’ between Page and Papadopoulos. It then mentions that information from Papadopoulos triggered an FBI counterintelligence investigation in July 2016 head by Peter Strzrok – who got reassigned for ‘improper text messages with his mistress.’
The memo does not mention any other material about Papadopoulos – whose contacts with a professor in London with Moscow connections prompted him to learn that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, according to charging documents relating to his guilty plea of lying to the FBI.
According to a statement from Nunes: ‘The Committee has discovered serious violations of the public trust, and the American people have a right to know when officials in crucial institutions are abusing their authority for political purposes.’
House Intelligence Committee Republicans drafted the memo and pushed through its release on a party-line vote, putting the issue in the hands of Trump to give the final go-ahead.
CNN reported that Trump read the memo along with his advisors.
According to a summary of the memo, it concludes former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe confirmed that the bureau would not have sought a surveillance warrant without information in the dossier of information compiled by ex British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the Washington Examiner reported.
High level Justice Department Bruce Ohr, who met with Steele in 2016, provided information about Steele’s alleged bias, according to the report. He said Steele was desperate to keep Trump out of office and was passionate about him not succeeding.
The summary also states that Justice Department and FBI officials knew about the political origins of the dossier, but this information was not included in FISA warrant applications.
Democrats howled about the release of the memo, arguing it cherry picked information and distorted the full picture.
Trump weighed the issue for days, as Wray and top Justice Department officials argued against the release, concerned that it could undermine intelligence and present an incomplete narrative.
But Trump made his own priorities known with a Friday tweet blasting the ‘top leadership’ – even though it was Trump who appointed Wray and elevated deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein after firing FBI Director James Comey.
‘The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans – something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago,’ Trump tweeted Friday, after his administration had already said he would allow the House panel to release the memo. ‘Rank & File are great people!’ he added.
Central to GOP complaints is the belief that Trump advisor Carter Page came under surveillance under a judge’s warrant that was influenced by the infamous Steele Dossier, a series of memos containing unverified information about Trump that concludes Russia had potentially compromising information on him.
Republicans argue that since Hillary Clinton’s campaign, through a law firm, helped fund the dossier, that the origins of the Russia probe lie in information Clinton helped obtain.
‘It’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counterintelligence investigation during an American political campaign,’ said Intelligence chair Rep. Devin Nunes of California in a statement this week as the blowup over the document escalated.
What does the Intelligence Committee memo say? What does it mean?
Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was the driving force behind the controversial memo’s declassification and release
A memo released on Feb. 2, 2018 by the House Intelligence Committee was written by Republican aides who had seen classified documents about government surveillance of a Donald Trump campaign adviser.
The four-page document itself does not appear to allege that anyone violated federal law, but it does outline a pattern of improper conduct by a list of high-ranking FBI and Justice Department officials during the Obama administration.
Republicans will use it to justify complaints that top law enforcement agencies had an anti-Trump bias during an election year.
These were the same agencies that cleared Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing in her classified email scandal, a subject that President Trump railed about consistently as he campaigned for the White House.
Democrats complain that the memo left out important facts and ‘cherry-picked’ information in order to present a one-sided view of what the FBI and DOJ did to persuade a judge to grant surveillance powers.
WHAT DID THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT DO?
A Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) judge granted the Justice Department a warrant to spy on Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy adviser, partially on the basis of an anti-Trump ‘dossier’ compiled by an opposition research group funded by Democrats.
Using a law firm as a middle-man, the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid the firm, Fusion GPS. Fusion then paid former British spy Christopher Steele more than $160,000 to dig up Russia-related dirt on Trump.
The Republican memo concludes that Steele himself was biased, since he ‘was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.’
But the FBI continued using him as a confidential source anyway, even after he violated the most basic rule of working with a government intelligence service by telling a reporter what he was up to.
The warrant application also relied on a news article by a Yahoo reporter without telling the judge that leaks from Steele himself were at its center.
When the Justice Department asked the court for permission to spy on Page, it didn’t disclose Steele’s bias.
It also never mentioned that it was asking for a warrant based on materials that were paid for by Trump’s political opponents.
WHY IS THE STEEL DOSSIER SO IMPORTANT?
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified before the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 that ‘no surveillance warrant would have been sought …. without the Steele dossier information.’
The dossier itself was full of bombshell claims about Trump, most notably that he cavorted with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room that the Kremlin had rigged with recording devices.
Critics say Steele uncritically used information from Russian sources determined to compromise Trump or gain leverage over him – the exact opposite of the Democratic ‘collusion’ narrative that suggests Trump worked hand-in-hand with Moscow.
WHO IN THE GOVERNMENT IS ACCUSED OF WRONGDOING?
FISA warrants have to be renewed every 90 days; then-FBI Director James Comey, later fired by President Donald Trump, signed three of them. FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed another one.
Others to sign off included then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, another official fired by Trump; then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente; and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Another official implicated in the memo is then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS at the same time, but the FBI never told the FISA court about it.
Ohr was reassigned and is no longer in a position to impact the other major Russia investigation – one helmed by special counsel Robert Mueller.
But the fate of Rosenstein and McCabe is up in the air. Republicans on the Intelligence Committee may have given Trump a reason to fire them both.
DOES THIS CHANGE ANYTHING FOR THE MUELLER PROBE?
In a word, no. The memo doesn’t say anything that suggests Mueller or his current team are engaged in anything illegal or unethical.
But the appearance of impropriety at the Justice Department, though unconnected, will give Trump supporters ammunition to claim Mueller’s investigation is also suspect.
The president has consistently called the multiple investigations a collective ‘witch hunt’ and insisted he never colluded with Russians to tilt the 2016 election in his favor.
HOW WILL THIS AFFECT THE ‘FISA’ COURTS?
Judges empowered by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) grant more than 99 per cent of the warrant applications presented by the federal government.
This episode suggests that the process can be compromised by officials who are willing to hide material facts or provide courts with one-sided accounts of what they know and how they came to know it.
The flip side is that if FISA courts begin to scrutinize warrant applications more carefully, they might act too slowly in cases where there are urgent terrorism-related circumstances that require quick action.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have written their own counterpoint, a memo that they say fills in important facts the Republican majority omitted.
That document is winding its way through the same process the GOP’s memo went through: committee votes to allow the full House of Representatives to see it, and then to release it to the public.
If that happens, the White House will again have five days to reject a request to declassify the Democrats’ version. The White House has signaled that it will treat the two versions of history equally.
Trump was sure to insist that the FBI’s ‘rank and file are great people,’ even as he goes after the ledaership with his acid tongue
Trump also tweeted a summary of the state of play from Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton
However, in 2015 the government already knew that Page had passed information on to a Russian intelligence operative believed to be part of a spy ring.
Page was an investment banker in Russia during the 1990s. A Russian spy tried to recruit him in 2013, the Wall Street Journal reported. Page had met with the Russian consular official, Victor Podobnyy, meeting with him over coke or coffee, according to Page’s later testimony.
In the fall of 2016, investigators obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order to monitor Page.
The Russia probe has gone on to ensnare top Trump associates, including former campaign chair Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, who have been charged with money laundering and conspiracy based on earlier work.
Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his own Russia contacts. In May 2016, Papdopoulos told Austrailia’s ambassador to Britain in a boozy encounter that the Trump campaign had dirt on Hillary Clinton, the New York Times reported.
Kellyanne Conway said in a wind-swept ‘Fox & Friends’ interview on Friday that Trump doesn’t think Wray will quit
In a March 2016 interview, Trump named Page in an interview with the Washington post as one of a handful of foreign policy advisors to his campaign. Page told the House intelligence committee he traveled to Russia twice during the campaign.
Comey blasted the release of the memo in a tweet Friday afternoon.
‘That’s it?’ he wrote. ‘Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what? DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.’
Wrote House minority leader Nancy Pelosi: ‘Trump has surrendered his constitutional responsibility as Commander-in-Chief by releasing highly classified and distorted intelligence. By not protecting intelligence sources and methods, he just sent his friend Putin a bouquet.’
‘He just sent his friend Putin a bouquet,’ said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi in a statement
‘Let’s be absolutely clear. The release of this Republican staff memo is a blatant attempt by House Republicans and the White House to disrupt the critically important investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign,’ wrote Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
A joint Democratic leadership letter to Trump that also includes the top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees called the release a ‘transparent attempt to discredit the hard-working men and women of law enforcement who are investigating Russia’s interference with our Presidential election and that nation’s ties to your campaign.’
The added: ‘We are alarmed by reports that you may intend to use this misleading document as a pretext to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in an effort to corruptly influence or impede Special Counsel Bob Mueller’s investigation.’
The lawmakers, led by Pelosi and Senate minority leader Charles Schumer, add: ‘We write to inform you that we would consider such an unwarranted action as an attempt to obstruct justice in the Russia investigation. Firing Rod Rosenstein, DOJ Leadership, or Bob Mueller could result in a constitutional crisis of the kind not seen since the Saturday Night Massacre.’