President Donald Trump to FBI Director James Comey … You’re Fired!!!

IT IS ABOUT TIME COMEY WAS FIRED …

Upon the recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey. This has been a long time in coming and it is about time. In typical hypocritically fashion, Democrats are suddenly up in arms after they had previously called for Comey’s head. It was just a couple of weeks ago that Hillary Clinton blamed Comey for her losing the 2016 presidential election.

Before you think that the Hillary email and private server scandal was the only thing that Comey botched, think again, there was more, much more. Comey should have been fired a long time ago; however, Obama did not have the CO-JONES to do so. Democrats know damn well they had lost confidence in Comey, they just have to show outrage to their constituents because they could never agree with something Trump did.

FIRED!!!

FBI Director James Comey has been fired, according to the White House.

“Today, President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office,” the White House statement reads.

“President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions,” the statement continues.

Comey’s termination was read to him over the phone while he was traveling for the bureau in Los Angeles, two FBI sources told ABC News. He was there for a field office inspection and a recruitment event this evening that’s part of the FBI’s efforts to boost diversity. A separate FBI official told ABC News that Comey first learned of his firing by seeing news reports on TV. The official said Comey was “surprised, really surprised” and was “caught flat-footed.”

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The letter from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein credits Comey with being “an articulate and persuasive public speaker about leadership” but goes on to note that he “cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.”

“Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives,” Rosenstein writes.

Rosenstein says in the letter that it was wrong of Comey to say that the investigation into Clinton’s private email server should be closed and that no charges should be issued.

The letter goes on to allege that Comey was wrong to later “hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation.”

FBI Monitored Former Trump Campaign Adviser Carter Page on Russia

FBI MONITORED FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISOR …

Via CNN.

The revelation confirms for the first time that a federal surveillance warrant, known as a FISA warrant, was issued for a member of the Trump campaign as part of a federal investigation of potential ties between the Republican’s associates and the Russian government. Hmm, so now we do know that the Obama admin did in fact call for surveillance on Trump campaign team members, contrary to the denials.

The FBI obtained a warrant to monitor President Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser, Carter Page, last summer on suspicions he knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, The Washington Post is reporting.

The FBI and Justice Department obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to monitor the communications of Page, who has called himself a junior member of Trump’s foreign policy advisory team, as part of their investigation into possible ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia, the newspaper says, citing unnamed law enforcement and other US officials.

The FBI and Justice Department obtained the warrant after convincing a FISA judge there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign government (Russia), the report says. The warrant presents the strongest information to date that the FBI had reason to believe a Trump adviser was in touch with Moscow and met with foreign operatives during Trump’s presidential campaign.

FBI Director James Comey has acknowledged that an investigation was opened last year into Russia’s efforts to influence the election and the question of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin. But Comey stopped short of naming anyone working for the campaign who may have been involved.

CNN is working to confirm The Washington Post’s story.

Page, however, called the FISA warrant “unjustified” in a statement to CNN’s Manu Raju.

So what was this really? I tend to go along with Hot Air’s premise that this was a back door method of surveiling Trump’s campaign team. If there had been anything, and I mean anything, wouldn’t we know at this point and a crime would have been charged? What we now know is that the Obana administration did surveil Trump’s campaign.

Actually, that’s not quite true. It’s evidence that the Department of Justice sought to surveil Trump campaign figures using intel resources, but not necessarily that they had real evidence and/or a legitimate “reason to believe” that Trump campaign officials were in touch with Russian agents. It’s extremely easy for the government to get approvals for FISA warrants, as we have discovered in the debates over renewals of Section 702 of the PATRIOT Act. That’s actually the crux of the issue: did certain Trump campaign officials knowingly collude with Russian intelligence — or did the Obama administration spy on political rivals in order to impact the election outcome? Both? Neither?

Hannity Discusses with Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA): Is There a Potential ‘Smoking Gun’ Showing Obama Administration Spied on Trump Team? (VIDEO)

WAS PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP CORRECT, DID THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SPY ON TEAM TRUMP?

House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes appeared with Sean Hannity last night to discuss the issue That the Trump team was under surveillance during the Obama administration. From Legal Insurrection come the following key takeaways:

• The surveillance occurred in November, December and January. Nunes thinks this is serious and warrants examination by the Trump administration.
• The intelligence was disseminated “far and wide” among various agencies. Nunes says that it appears to have been done legally but questions why it was done in the first place.
• Nunes suggests that the identities of other Americans besides General Flynn were unmasked. Also, it is still unknown who did the unmasking and how many people were involved in that action.

From FOX News:

Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.

Classified intelligence showing incidental collection of Trump team communications, purportedly seen by committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and described by him in vague terms at a bombshell Wednesday afternoon news conference, came from multiple sources, Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The intelligence corroborated information about surveillance of the Trump team that was known to Nunes, sources said, even before President Trump accused his predecessor of having wiretappedhim in a series of now-infamous tweets posted on March 4.

The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.

The key to that conclusion is the unmasking of selected U.S. persons whose names appeared in the intelligence, the sources said, adding that the paper trail leaves no other plausible purpose for the unmasking other than to damage the incoming Trump administration.

FBI Director James Comey Says: ‘There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America’

ABSOLUTE PRIVACY, I AM WORRIED ABOUT ANY PRIVACY …

Yesterday at the Boston Conference on Cyber Security, FBI Director James Comey said, “there is no such thing as absolute privacy in America.” This comes in the wake of the recent WikiLeaks data dump exposing CIA documents and the processes they use to spy on individuals using smart phones and TV’s. Comey and the intelligence community can down talk this all they want, but the fact of the matter is that most people do not expect “absolute privacy,” they expect the federal government to abide by the US Constitution. One has to wonder whether we can expect any privacy in this day and age.

Private citizens who have committed no crimes do not expect their data, conversations, emails, tweets, instant messages, whatever to be ease-dropped on by the government.

FBI Director James Comey warned Wednesday that Americans should not have expectations of “absolute privacy,” adding that he planned to finish his term leading the FBI.

“There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America; there is no place outside of judicial reach,” Comey said at a Boston College conference on cybersecurity. He made the remark as he discussed the rise of encryption since 2013 disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed sensitive US spy practices.

“Even our communications with our spouses, with our clergy members, with our attorneys are not absolutely private in America,” Comey added. “In appropriate circumstances, a judge can compel any one of us to testify in court about those very private communications.”

But, he also said Americans “have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our homes, in our cars, in our devices.
“It is a vital part of being an American. The government cannot invade our privacy without good reason, reviewable in court,” Comey continued.

DHS says FBI Investigating 300 refugees for Terror Ties Many from Countries on Trump’s Travel Ban List

MAYBE THIS IS THE REASON WHY TRUMP THINKS THERE SHOULD BE A TEMPORARY TRAVEL BAN TO RE-ACCESS THINGS …

It would appear that President Donald Trump and his temporary travel ban is looking to make America safe again. As reported at Town Hall, the FBI is currently investigating 300 refugees that have been admitted into the United States for ties to terrorism. This is after so-called vetting procedures failed and thus allowing them in America in the first place. REALLY? Also reported is that many of these refugees come from countries that are listed on President Donald Trump’s executtive order, temporarily banning travel from in order to review the vetting process.

The FBI is investigating at least 300 refugees admitted to the U.S. for ties to terrorism after vetting from the countries they came from failed. Fox News Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine Herridge has the story:

Nearly a third of the 1,000 FBI domestic terrorism cases – 300 – involve those admitted to the U.S. as refugees, a Department of Homeland Security official said Monday. Officials said some of those 300 came to “infiltrate” the U.S., while others were radicalized once they were in the country.

Monday’s development marked the first official concrete linkage between the refugee program and terrorism.

During a speech to the National Association of Attorneys General in 2015, FBI Director James Comey said agents were working on nearly 1000 ISIS linked cases throughout the United States.

FOX News:

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said the travel ban announced Monday was a key to ansuring the refugee program is conducted safely.

“We must undertake a rigorous review of our visa and refugee vetting programs to increase our confidence in the entry decisions we make for visitors and immigrants to the United States,” Kelly said. “We cannot risk the prospect of malevolent actors using our immigration system to take American lives.”

Several refugees have already participated in mass attacks in recent years motivated by apparent Islamic radicalism.

Somali refugee Abdul Razak Ali Artan rammed his car into a crowd at The Ohio State University in November after posting a message on Facebook warning America not to interfere with Muslim communities. Somali refugee Dahir Adan reportedly yelled “Allahu Akbar” and asked one victim if they were Muslim during a September rampage in which he stabbed and injured nine people at a Minnesota mall. Seddique Mateen, the father of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, is an Afghan refugee. Countless other refugees have been convicted of plotting attacks or planning to join ISIS abroad.

Though they didn’t enter the nation as refugees, several other terrorists have benefited from inadequate vetting to come to the U.S.

Tashfeen Malik, who was born in Pakistan, came to the U.S. on a K-1 “fiancée” visa prior to engaging in a deadly shooting spree with husband Syed Rizwan Farook that killed 14 and injured 22 others in December 2015. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the brothers who orchestrated the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, were born in Kyrgyzstan and entered the U.S. when their family filed for asylum.