CIA Director John Brennan Admits and Apologized For CIA Improperly Accessed/Hacked Senate Computers … Calls For Brennan to Resign

WELCOME TO CIA-GATE

According to a declassified CIA inspector general’s report as reported by ABC News, CIA officers improperly accessed Senate computers, read the emails of Senate staff, and exhibited a “lack of candor” when interviewed by agency investigators. CIA Director John Brennan apologized to Senate Intelligence Committee leaders for the CIA’s conduct, which was quite a a turnabout for the CIA directors previous comments that the CIA did anything wrong. Yup, no separation of powers scandal here.

The document, released Thursday by the CIA, is a summary of an internal CIA investigation that prompted CIA Director John Brennan to abandon his defiant posture in the matter and apologize to Senate Intelligence Committee leaders.

The inspector general concluded “that some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between” the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA in 2009 regarding access to a shared classified computer network, Boyd said. The shared network had been used by Senate aides to access classified files on CIA interrogations. The CIA penetration occurred after the aides got a hold of documents that the CIA claimed were internal, but which showed that some CIA officials shared misgivings about the treatment of al Qaida detainees.

VIDEO – CNN

WSJ:

Central Intelligence Agency officers snooped on computers used by a Senate committee investigating the CIA’s interrogation program, an internal agency report has concluded—a critical finding in a bitter standoff between two government branches.

CIA Director John Brennan apologized to key senators, who were briefed this week on the CIA inspector general’s report, the agency said on Thursday.

The finding bolsters allegations by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), the Senate intelligence committee chairwoman, who has denounced what she described as a CIA search of Senate computers that may have violated the Constitution’s separation of powers and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

Sen. Mark Udall (D., Colo.), a member of the intelligence panel, on Thursday called for Mr. Brennan’s resignation after a briefing on the report. “CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress,” he said. “These offenses, along with other errors in judgment by some at the CIA, demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership, and there must be consequences.”

The CIA declined to comment on Mr. Udall’s call for Mr. Brennan’s resignation.

Five CIA employees, two attorneys and three information-technology staff members “improperly accessed or caused access” to the special network, according to a declassified summary reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Those efforts included falsifying identities to get on the Senate network, reading emails and taking screenshots, said an official who read the inspector general’s report.

Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) accuses CIA of spying on Congress

REMEMBER WHEN BRENNAN SAID THE FOLLOWING REGARDING HACKING INTO SENATE COMPUTERS?

CIA chief denies agency spied on Senate computers … “nothing could be further than the truth, we wouldn’t do that. That’s beyond the scope of reason.”

UPDATE I: Two Democrat Senators, Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and Mark Udall call for Brennan to Resign.

Two Democratic senators demanded that Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan resign on Thursday after revelations that the CIA snooped on Senate computers.

Administration officials briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee’s membership on Thursday afternoon about an inspector general report that revealed CIA officials improperly accessed computers used by Senate staffers to research a 6,700-page report on the agency’s Bush-era interrogation and detention practices.

“At this point it would probably be better for the agency, frankly, if he did step aside. I think that the level of trust between the committee and the director has hit a new low,” Heinrich told reporters. He said he had not spoken to Brennan recently.

“I have full confidence in John Brennan,” Obama said in response to a reporter’s question at the end of an afternoon press conference.

UPDATE II: Obama remains confident in CIA head John Brennan despite Senate spying.

President Obama remains confident in CIA Director John Brennan’s leadership despite an independent investigation that concluded that the agency had overreached its authority by spying on Senate staffers.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the findings had not diminished Brennan’s standing in the administration.

When asked whether it damaged his authority or credibility in any way, Earnest said: “Absolutely not.”

Brennan first appointed an outside watchdog to conduct an investigation into the allegations, has “been candid” about the “inconsistencies” that the inspector found, apologized and took the step of appointing a panel to review the need for disciplinary action, he said.

Because the IRS is a Non-Partisan Govt Agency … Emails Reveal Former IRS Official Lois Lerner’s Disdain for Conservative Calling Them “Crazies” & “A**holes”

But of course the IRS and Lois Lerner was not operating in concert with the Obama administration in an effort to support the president and attack his political enemies. Latest Lois Lerner emails reveal that she had complete and total contempt for conservatives calling them “crazies” and a$$holes”.

Read the letter from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp to the Justice Department.

The Washington Times:

Lois G. Lerner, the former Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the tea party targeting scandal, expressed contempt for conservatives and called them “a—holes” in newly discovered emails, fueling a drive by House Republicans for a special counsel to investigate the tax agency.

The email was among a batch of evidence that House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, Michigan Republican, turned over Wednesday to the Justice Department in support of an investigation into criminal wrongdoing at the IRS.

In the Nov. 9, 2012, email exchange from Ms. Lerner’s official IRS email account, she demonstrates “deep animus towards conservatives, which she refers to as “–holes,” Mr. Camp said.

In other emails, Ms. Lerner appeared to refer to conservatives as “crazies.”

In one email highlighted by the committee, she wrote, apparently referring to conservative critics of the administration: “So we don’t need to worry about alien teRrorists (sic). It’s our own crazies that will take us down.”

In another passage, she replies to a friend bemoaning the negative critiques of President Obama and administration policy on talk radio shows. Ms. Lerner responds: “Great. Maybe we are through if there are that many a—holes.”

What a Coincidence, Another Hard Drive Crash … This Time It’s April Sands, a Former Employee at the Federal Election Commission who Resigned After Admitting to Violating the Hatch Act Promoting Obama’s Re-election in 2012 .

HMM, ANOTHER CONVENIENT HARD DRIVE CRASH,  I AM STARTING TO SENSE A PATTERN … AND LOW AND BEHOLD A LINK TO LOIS LERNER …

Democrat playbook, page 7, paragraph 2, subsections 6: When caught committing a crime and perpetrating a fraud upon the American people, destroy your hard drive.

April Sands was a Federal Election Commission lawyer before she resigned earlier this year and accepted a ban on holding government jobs until 2016. Sands resigned after admitting to violating The Hatch Act, which prohibits government workers from advocating for candidates while on the job. Just curious, is there any government agency that did not violate the Hatch Act and promote Obama’s 2012 reelection? However, Sands escaped prosecution as her computer hard drive “mysteriously” crashed  and was recycled by the FEC before any evidence could be recovered. Hmm, haven’t we heard this one before? As former NY Yankee MLB great Yogi Bearra would say, “it’s deja vu all over again”. Can you say Lois Lerner? Funny Lois Lerner’s name is mentioned as Lerner, who has a case of her own missing emails and hard drive crash was Sands’ supervisor until 2001. you just can’t make this stuff up.

Just curious, is there any governmental agency that backs up data?

It’s becoming very evident that the 2012 presidential election may have been the greatest case of voter fraud ever in American history. Sorry, just one too many coincidences.

issaFEC

The Blaze:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Monday made yet another request to the federal government for details about a crashed hard drive that may have contained information allowing criminal charges to be brought against a federal official.

Issa’s newest letter concerns the hard drive of April Sands, a former employee at the Federal Election Commission who resigned in the spring after admitting to violations of the Hatch Act. That law puts restrictions on the ability of government officials to conduct political activities while on the job, or from government offices.

Issa noted that while Sands admitted to violating the law, the FEC just recently told Congress that it could not recover her hard drive, which made it impossible to seek criminal charges against her.

“Recent information obtained by the committee suggests that the FEC OIG could not pursue criminal prosecution for the misconduct because the attorney’s hard drive had been recycled by the FEC,” Issa’s letter said.

As a result, Issa asked the FEC to provide information to his committee by July 28. That includes all documents related to the hard drive loss, and documents detailing the FEC’s practices for retaining information on computers.

The FEC is an independent agency, but Sands’ emails clearly indicated she favored Obama’s re-election in 2012. Before the election, she tweeted things like:

“Our #POTUS’s birthday is August 4. He’ll be 51. I’m donating at least $51 to give him the best birthday present ever: a second term.” In another tweet, she said anyone supporting Republicans is her “enemy.”

I guess this is just another phony scandal.

UPDATE I: More from Town Hall, It sounds like they have found there to be one too many coincidences as well ….  Lerner Associate: “I Don’t Understand How Anyone But Straight White Men Can Vote Republican”

Which brings us to the case of April Sands, an employee at the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), who struck a deal with the agency’s Inspector General to avoid criminal charges related to running afoul of the Hatch Act on numerous occasions. She has openly confessed to breaching federal law as part of her effective plea bargain, but investigators were unable to probe a potential goldmine of incriminating activity: Her email. Why? You guessed it; her hard drive crashed, supposedly wiping out her email records, and resulting in the FEC recycling (i.e., destroying) the hard drive. Sounds familiar. Did I mention that Ms. Sands worked under Lois Lerner when Lerner served as the agency’s Associate General Counsel for Enforcement? Lots of coincidences and similarities, no?

UPDATE II: Interview with Lou Dobbs discussing the amazing coincidences of corrupt government employee hard drive crashes.

Hmm … Appears that Lois Lerner May Have Printed Out Some Emails Afterall As GOP Cries Foul That She Attempted to Circumvent Internal Communications from Congress

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive. Funny thing about lies, its hard to keep them straight all of the time.

Not only have we now learned that former IRS employee Lois Lerner did print out some emails after all, she also appears to have made a concerted effort to intentionally bypass retention policies in order to keep information from Congress. Imagine that. From The Politico comes, Lois Lerner cautioned against email chatter amid lawmaker probes.

Ask yourself, why would some ask such a question as to whether OCS messages are saved?

Former IRS official Lois Lerner said she warned her colleagues to be careful about what they write in emails amid congressional inquiries, according to new emails released by House Oversight Republicans.

She also asked whether the IRS’s internal messaging system could be searched, in the same email to an IRS colleague. It was sent April 9, 2013, less than two weeks after the IRS inspector general that unearthed the tea party targeting practice shared a draft report with the agency.

“I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails — so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails,” she wrote to Maria Hooke, the director of business systems planning for the tax-exempt division. “Someone asked if OCS conversations were also searchable — I don’t know. … Do you know?”

59% Blame Barack Obama For Crisis of Flood Of Child Border Crossings & 65% Believe Lost IRS Emails Are Attempt by Obama Administration to “Hide Evidence”

Obama can’t blame GWB for this one as the public points the finger directly at The One … More damning poll numbers for Barack Obama.

It’s only taken six failed years but the American people are finally holding Barack Obama accountable for his actions and scandals. According to a recent IBD/TIPP Poll released Monday, “We the People” say that Obama is directly responsible for the crisis on the US-Mexican border as thousands of children attempt to cross the border, the lost IRS emails are part of a greater Obama administration cover up and Obama’s premature withdraw from Iraq has caused the current state of unstable affairs. By a 59% to 39% margin, Americans believe that Barack Obama’s policies lead directly to the child humanitarian crisis on our Southern border.Now that Obama has created the crisis, he now wants to appear like he is going to come to the rescue.

Also, by an overwhelming 65% to 27%, Americans believe that the lost IRS emails are part of an Obama administration cover-up. This would mean that a large majority of Americans believe criminal activity to place to cover up IRS-gate. This is consistent with two other polls, a Rasmussen poll that stated 71% believed the lost emails were part of a cover up and a Fox News poll that revealed that 76% believe the IRS intentionally lost the emails.

We don’t have two rogue agents at the IRS, we have a rogue Obama presidency.

The public largely blames President Obama for the flood of children who have poured over the border in recent weeks, creating a growing humanitarian crisis, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll released Monday.

The late June survey found that the public largely blames Obama policies for the crisis in Iraq and believes the lost IRS emails are an administration effort to cover up wrongdoing at the agency.

The poll found that 59% of those closely following the immigration crisis agree that “current administration policies and lack of focus on securing the border” are behind the human tide of illegal crossings. Six in 10 say that the children should be ordered to leave the country. (The survey found that 73% of Americans are following this story closely.)

As American Power says … The American People are not going to take it anymore!!! Amen. It is about time the American people have woke up and noticed that Obama is a community agitator, an abject failure, inept and corrupt. As Dee Snyder and Twisted Sister sang in the 1980′s … ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It.’

“We’re Not Gonna Take It”

OH WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT
OH WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

WE’VE GOT THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE AND
THERE AIN’T NO WAY WE’LL LOSE IT
THIS IS OUR LIFE, THIS IS OUR SONG
WE’LL FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE JUST
DON’T PICK OUR DESTINY ‘CAUSE
YOU DON’T KNOW US, YOU DON’T BELONG

OH WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT
NO, WE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT
OH WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

OH YOU’RE SO CONDESCENDING
YOUR GALL IS NEVER ENDING
WE DON’T WANT NOTHIN’, NOT A THING FROM YOU
YOUR LIFE IS TRITE AND JADED
BORING AND CONFISCATED
IF THAT’S YOUR BEST, YOUR BEST WON’T DO