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Will Jim Comey’s Prosecution Prove Kash Patel Lied to Senate Judiciary Committee?

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As I mentioned here, ABC reported that the lie charged in the Jim Comey indictment pertains to whether he authorized Dan Richman to share information anonymously, not whether he authorized Andrew McCabe to do so.

Sources told ABC News that “PERSON 1” is Clinton and “PERSON 3” is Richman, a longtime law professor who — as ABC News previously reported — met with federal prosecutors last week after being subpoenaed in the matter.

Charlie Savage has the best piece on the likely theory of the indictment. I’d like to expand on that to explain why I think it more likely we’ll obtain proof that Kash Patel lied to Congress as a result of this prosecution than that Jim Comey did.

As you read the following remember that Kash assured the Senate Judiciary Committee — including in this exchange with Mazie Hirono — that he would not “go[] backwards” to investigate Jim Comey.

Senator Hirono (02:18:49):

Do you plan to investigate James Comey, who’s on your list?

Kash Patel (02:18:54):

I have no intentions of going backwards-

Except it appears that Kash did precisely that.

The indictment appears to accuse Comey of authorizing Dan Richman to serve as a source for this article on the Hillary and Trump investigations, especially this passage about the SVR document purporting to report that Loretta Lynch had told Amanda Renteria she would intervene to protect Hillary (the charge the grand jury rejected was also focused on these SVR documents, which I explained here).

During Russia’s hacking campaign against the United States, intelligence agencies could peer, at times, into Russian networks and see what had been taken. Early last year, F.B.I. agents received a batch of hacked documents, and one caught their attention.

The document, which has been described as both a memo and an email, was written by a Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far, according to several former officials familiar with the document.

Read one way, it was standard Washington political chatter. Read another way, it suggested that a political operative might have insight into Ms. Lynch’s thinking.

Normally, when the F.B.I. recommends closing a case, the Justice Department agrees and nobody says anything. The consensus in both places was that the typical procedure would not suffice in this instance, but who would be the spokesman?

The document complicated that calculation, according to officials. If Ms. Lynch announced that the case was closed, and Russia leaked the document, Mr. Comey believed it would raise doubts about the independence of the investigation.

[snip]

But some time after that meeting, Mr. Comey began talking to his advisers about announcing the end of the Clinton investigation himself, according to a former official.

“When you looked at the totality of the situation, we were leaning toward: This is something that makes sense to be done alone,” said Mr. Steinbach, who would not confirm the existence of the Russian document.

Former Justice Department officials are deeply skeptical of this account. If Mr. Comey believed that Ms. Lynch were compromised, they say, why did he not seek her recusal? Mr. Comey never raised this issue with Ms. Lynch or the deputy attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, former officials said.

Importantly, Richman was a named source for the story, which will make it hard to prove that Comey authorized Richman to serve as an anonymous source. (Hilariously, Pat Fitzgerald’s meticulous mapping during the Scooter Libby trial of the difference between an “anonymous” source and a “background” source might, by itself, defeat this case.)

As part of an investigation into the sources for this story (which targeted Jim Baker closely), John Durham seems to have discovered either details of how the FBI authorized people to weigh in on stories or that Dan Richman served as a cut-out for Comey, I’m not sure which.

The reopened Arctic Haze investigation was biased against Comey

That discovery led DOJ to reopen a bunch of investigations into 2017 stories pertaining to the Russian investigation, documented in these filings, which I wrote up here.

As part of that, DOJ investigated whether Richman was the source for the SVR details in the April 2017 NYT story. Before closing the investigation, DOJ asked Comey for the phone he used at the time, and found nothing relevant.

[redacted] on June 29, 2021, Comey provided consent, via his counsel, for the FBI to conduct a limited search of his Apple iPhone. The FBI conducted a forensic examination of the telephone. The examination indicated the telephone contained four voicemail messages, four instant messages, two email messages, and 51 images from December 1, 2016 to May 1, 2017. None of this material contained information relevant to this investigation.

They also interviewed Richman, who among other things, told the FBI that, “Comey never asked him to talk to the media” (though it appears earlier, as described in redacted passages, he may have said Comey did).

The substance of the November 2019 Richman interview confirmed that Comey had told Richman bits about the SVR documents, but that when Mike Schmidt came to Richman and asked him about it in January 2017, Schmidt already knew more about the documents than Richman did.

On November 22, 2019, the Arctic Haze investigative team interviewed Richman. According to Richman, Comey and Richman talked about the “hammering” Comey was taking from the media concerning his handling of the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman opined Comey took comfort in the fact Richman had talked to the press about his feelings regarding Comey’s handling and decision-making on the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman claimed Comey never asked him to talk to the media.

According to Richman, he and Comey had a private conversation in Comey’s office in January 2017. The conversation pertained to Comey’s decision to make a public statement on the Midyear Exam investigation. Comey told Richman the tarmac meeting between Lynch and Clinton was not the only reason which played into Comey’s statement on the Midyear Exam investigation. According to Richman, Comey told Richman of Lynch’s characterization of the investigation as a “matter” and not that of an investigation. Richman recalled Comey told him there was some weird classified material related to Lynch which came to the FBI’s attention. Comey did not fully explain the details of the information. Comey told Richman about the Classified Information, including the source of the information. Richman understood the information could be used to suggest Lynch might not be impartial with regards of the conclusion of the Midyear Exam investigation. Richman understood the information about Lynch was highly classified and it should be protected. Richman was an SGE at the time of the meeting.

According to Richman, he and Schmidt had a conversation shortly after the meeting with Comey in or around January 2017. Richman claimed Schmidt brought up the Classified Information and knew more about it than he did. Richman was pretty sure he did not confirm the Classified Information. However, Richman told the interviewing agents he was sure “with a discount” that he did not tell Schmidt about the Classified Information. Richman did not know who gave Schmidt the Classified Information. Richman acknowledged he had many discussions with Schmidt about the article as an SGE and even after he resigned as an SGE. Richman acknowledged he contributed more to the article than what was attributed to him by name. Richman also stated he knew Schmidt talked to numerous other government sources for information on the article. [my emphasis]

DOJ ultimately decided they couldn’t charge either Comey or Richman, because even if Richman were a source, he would be a confirmatory source, which DOJ had never charged (they claim, though I think that’s incorrect).

They did some more interviews but — and this may sink EDVA’s case even if everything else doesn’t — they only interviewed people who would have a motive to protect Comey, not those with a motive to slam him.

After discussing the status of investigative leads and resources available with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Department of Justice’s National Security Division (DOJ NSD), the FBI investigative team was directed to interview only those officials who might have had a motive to protect Comey. Therefore, the FBI only interviewed eight of these officials who consisted mainly of former FBI officials. All of these officials denied providing the Classified Information to the New York Times. [my emphasis]

At a time when they could have charged this, Bill Barr’s DOJ assumed that the original detailed sources for the SVR story must be Comey allies.

There are at least two reasons why that was a dumb theory.

First, as the DOJ IG Report on this that investigators read — but didn’t explain in the unredacted parts of the case file — Comey and people around him believed the claims in the document were “objectively false” Comey even alluded as such in his 2018 OGR testimony (also cited in this closing document) — which Kash Patel would know personally. “So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate.”

This entire passage is premised on the document being true.

More importantly, the sources for it are pissed off that Jim Comey announced the end of the Hillary investigation himself.

Plus, there’s no mention that one of these two SVR documents said that Jim Comey was going to throw the election for the Republicans. If someone were really familiar with the documents themselves, rather than just discussions of them, you’d expect they would suggest that maybe Comey was overcompensating out of worry that he would be deemed partial to Republicans.

The blind spot about that part of the SVR documents, notably, is replicated in the HPSCI document on which Kash was the original author.

HPSCI simply leaves out the Jim Comey allegation in one of the SVR reports, which if true, would explain why Putin wouldn’t have to (and didn’t) dump damning intel close to the election: Because Putin believed that “Comey is leaning more to the [R]epublicans, and most likely he will be dragging this investigation until the presidential elections,” something that turned out to be true. In other words, they cherry pick which Russian spy products they choose to parrot, one of the sins they accuse the ICA team of, but they do so with years of hindsight that made clear how foolish that was.

The entire right wing, including the current FBI Director, have vast blindspots about these documents (Kash even seems to believe they’re not fabricated!!). And those blindspots appear to have been replicated in the investigative choices for that investigation. That means the selective prosecution of this prosecution is built on top of the selective investigation of the Richman investigation.

Nevertheless, the investigation was closed without charging Richman for confirming classified details.

Kash did look backward

Where this becomes proof that Kash lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, claiming that “I have no intentions of going backwards” to investigate Comey is that there’s no reason to reexamine the issue (except that Comey answered a question focused on Andrew McCabe on which the statute of limitations has not yet expired).

The leak itself, if it could be pinned on Comey and Richman, could not be charged. Bill Barr did not reopen the investigation after seeing Comey’s September 2020 testimony, even though he remained busy trying to discredit Crossfire Hurricane.

While investigators this time around are chasing a parallel theory that the FBI covered up their focus on SVR documents that only exists in the fevered imaginations of people like Kash (that is, if Comey actually lied about any of this it would be material to their fevered conspiracy theories in the other part of the investigation), it would not have been material at the time, because Ted Cruz was seeking a gotcha about his fevered imagined conflict between McCabe and Comey’s testimony. The underlying 2017 question from Grassley incorporated Richman, but if Cruz’s did, there’s no hint of that. He explicitly focused on McCabe.

Nor would it be material to the Durham investigation. The Durham Report actually says that Comey refused to be interviewed, pointing instead to testimony just like this. So if there’s something in this exchange that would be usable, Durham didn’t do so.

Nevertheless, somehow, the FBI decided to go revisit this gotcha question from five years ago, which — even if Comey were lying — would not change the public understanding of Comey’s self-righteous justifications for his decisions in the Clinton investigation one bit. Outside the fevered imagination of people like Kash, or the decision to look backward to investigate a guy listed on your enemies list, there’s no reason you get to these files.

Now, Comey may have opportunity to ask Kash, under oath, how the FBI decided to go unpack the closing file for an investigation closed over three years earlier — which is why I say we may get proof that Kash lied to SJC.

But the only new information that I could conceive of that would lead the FBI to reconsider this is if the FBI spied on the NYT and found materials from Mike Schmidt saying that Richman was his source and Comey told him to leak it. Which, if it happened, would be a ten times bigger scandal than we’ve already got.

I would be shocked if Comey didn’t ask for some explanation — other than the revenge to which Trump confessed publicly — behind the predication of this investigation. I would be unsurprised if Judge Michael  Nachmanoff, who is presiding over the case, offered him that opportunity.

And if he does, Kash is going to be stuck trying to make up some excuse that doesn’t amount to a confession he lied, as a private citizen, to SJC as part of his effort to get the job he’s using to weaponize government against Trump’s enemies.

Kash Patel wrote a book in 2023 targeting Jim Comey.

When asked whether he intended to use the FBI Director position to investigate Jim Comey, Kash claimed, under oath, that he had no intentions of going backward to do so.

And then he proceeded to do just that.

The evidence that Comey lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee is paper thin.

The evidence that Kash lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee is abundant.

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Will Ted Cruz Go to Prison for the Lies He Told as Part of the Jim Comey Indictment?

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Let’s talk about all the lies that someone at EDVA would have to wade through to actually convict Jim Comey.

Lindsey Halligan’s disclaimer of signing the Comey indictment

First, there’s the weirdness with the indictment itself. As NBC and WaPo reported from the courtroom, Lindsey Halligan actually handed the magistrate judge, Lindsey Vaala, two charging documents. When Vaala asked what was going on, Halligan said she did not see the second one. Vaala noted that she had signed the document.

There was some confusion in the courtroom and from Judge Lindsey Vaala, who appeared puzzled by the multiple charging documents filed for one case. Vaala asked why there were two documents in the same case. Halligan told her, “I did not see,” to which Vaala replied, “It has your signature on it.”

Vaala then had Halligan make handwritten changes to one of the documents and said both documents would be uploaded to the docket for the record.

That may well lead to further scrutiny. One of the two charging documents is the indictment that includes the charge that grand jurors rejected.

But the only writing on either document that appears to have been added is where (marked with the red box) someone noted, “count 1 only” (which is, indeed, the charge that was dropped). But there’s another irregularity with the document. The rest of it (and the indictment that was filed) looks like it was scanned — with a line down the center and a shadow, as I’ve marked in red.

But the second page lacks both of those things.

And both the charge on page two and the one on page three are called, “COUNT TWO.” Which may suggest someone just put the second page of the failed indictment in between the two pages of the one approved by the grand jury.

All that’s enough that Comey might ask questions about the conduct of the grand jury — something he normally would not be able to do. Given Halligan’s claim she never saw the indictment, it also might raise questions about whether Halligan signed the indictment before or after the grand jury approved it.

And then Halligan would have to explain why she never saw the indictment that she herself signed. Because she’s the only attorney on this filing, she would have to explain the irregularities herself.

That’s not the only question Halligan will face.

It’s not entirely clear under what legal authority she is play-acting as US Attorney. But when Alina Habba was challenged for play-acting as US Attorney after her temporary period expired in New Jersey, a judge ruled that the interim appointment is per position, not per person, meaning that Erik Siebert — the guy Trump fired on Friday — would already have used up the possibility of such an interim appointment in May.

In other words, Halligan may not be US Attorney at all, and unless she fixed that problem by Tuesday, the entire thing might just disappear.

In any case, while EDVA has a rocket docket (meaning this would otherwise go to trial quickly), Halligan’s temporary status could become be a problem before this goes to trial if Comey mounts a vindictive prosecution challenge (LaMonica McIver’s vindictive prosecution challenge is only now fully briefed, three months after her indictment). Then EDVA could be left with an indictment charging Jim Comey but no one willing to stand in a courtroom to prosecute it.

The vindictive prosecution challenge

Even if Halligan survived that long, it is exceedingly likely that Comey would not just get to present a vindictive prosecution claim, which Trump has confessed to over and over, but also to ask for discovery on how that all came about. If granted, I’m sure he’d ask to:

  • Depose Kash Patel, both about his children’s book naming Jim Comey a “government gangster” but also his conduct in this and related Comey investigations.
  • Depose Siebert, who decided there wasn’t even probable cause to charge this, much less the ability to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
  • Depose Todd Blanche, who reportedly agreed with Siebert and advised Trump not to fire Siebert.
  • Depose Pam Bondi because why the fuck not??
  • Depose Halligan.

Just deposing Kash alone would be a huge problem, because he only got confirmed by lying to the Senate about prosecuting the people in his Government Gangster book.

This indictment proves Kash lied, not that Comey did.

It proves something else, too.

Halligan tried to charge Comey with two lies. I’ll come back to the one that survived — basically, the indictment accuses Comey of lying in 2017 when he said he had never authorized anyone to leak information anonymously to the press.

The Russian disinformation that Chuck Grassley falsely claimed was a Clinton plan

The one the grand jury rejected charged Comey with lying when he said he didn’t recall being told (which the indictment transcribes as “taught”) this memo.

There are multiple problems with the question — posed shortly after Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe released it in 2020.

First, we now know that the “plan” was in fact Russian disinformation sown by fabricating several emails. Investigating based off this document commits precisely the crime that John Durham investigated for years: investigating someone based on something you know to be false.

Worse still, according to every witness that Durham interviewed, no one remembered receiving this memo at all. It’s possible Kash thinks he has found a copy (that seems to be part of what he’s investigating in WDVA), but Durham never did.

Finally, and most insane of all, as I noted here, the redactions in this document and the representation Kash and Ratcliffe made about what it is appear to be badly misleading. That is, this referral appears to be a referral about the Russian plot targeting Hillary, not about Hillary. It is only right wing fever dreams and deceitful redactions that made it into something else.

If Comey had seen this document, he would not remember it in the way that he was asked about it.

So not only is it ridiculous to charge someone for not remembering something that wasn’t that big a deal, but it’s crazier still to charge someone for not remembering a document that you’ve redacted in misleading fashion and then described as the opposite of what most people understood it to be.

All that wasn’t charged, but nevertheless, according to John Durham’s logic at least, Kash committed several crimes by investigating this at all.

Jim Comey will get to expose Ted Cruz as a liar, again

Which finally brings us to what did get charged, part of the exchange above.

1. On or about September 30, 2020, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the defendant, JAMES B. COMEY JR., did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, Fictitious, and fraudulent statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch of the Government of the United Stales, by falsely stating to a U.S. Senator during a Senate Judiciaiy Committee hearing that he, JAMES B. COMEY JR., had not “authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports” regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.

2. That statement was false, because, as JAMES B. COMEY JR. then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.

Before Cruz asks the question that got charged, he asked one after another question based on false premises. Comey had to correct the following Cruz lies:

  • The FBI did not surveil the Trump campaign
  • The Carter Page IG Report did not show that FBI lied to the FISC 17 times
  • Cruz misrepresented the email that Kevin Clinesmith altered (it was not used in any submission and Cruz misstated the import of the change)
  • The FISC was alerted to the political source of the Steele dossier
  • Cruz falsely claimed that Comey stated that the FISC was informed that the DNC paid for the dossier
  • Cruz misstated what Comey said about his own knowledge about the funding

Cruz also misstated the facts about Igor Danchenko, but Comey didn’t know enough to correct those.

The actual charged lie starts after 6:30 in the video. Cruz reads Comey’s testimony from 2017, in which he responded to a question from Chuck Grassley whether he had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?”

Cruz then made another misstatement — three actually, that Andrew McCabe, “has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it.”

Comey did not correct Cruz this time, but he said he stood by the testimony he gave in 2017.

Already, what Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer said in the indictment is a stretch. Comey did not say the words quoted in the indictment. He said only he stood by his earlier testimony. (Effectively, this is an attempt to charge Comey for something he said 8 years ago.)

If she’s thinking this is about McCabe, it also builds on Ted Cruz’s lie. First of all, the IG Report on McCabe (and his public comments) was about the Clinton Foundation — not Clinton, but the Foundation, not Person-1 but the foundation ran by her spouse.

Second, it was not a leak, anymore than Kash Patel’s non-stop frequently inaccurate blabbing on Xitter amount to leaks. It was an authorized conversation with the press.

Third of all, the specific authorization in this case was from McCabe to Lisa Page to serve as a source; it didn’t involve Comey.

McCabe thereafter authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to talk to Barrett about this follow-up story.

Where McCabe’s testimony differs from Comey’s is about what McCabe said to Comey after the fact. McCabe said that he told Comey and Comey thought it was a good idea.

McCabe said that he told Comey that he had “authorized AD/OPA and Special Counsel to disclose the account of the August 12th call” and did not say anything to suggest in any way that it was unauthorized. McCabe told us that Comey “did not react negatively, just kind of accepted it.” McCabe also told us Comey thought it was a “good” idea that they presented this information to rebut the inaccurate and one-sided narrative that the FBI was not doing its job and was subject to DOJ political pressure, but the Department and PADAG were likely to be angry that “this information made its way into the paper.” McCabe told us that he did not recall telling Comey prior to publication of the October 30 article that he intended to authorize or had authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to recount his August 12 call with PADAG to the WSJ, although he said it was possible he did.

Comey said when he spoke to McCabe about the story afterwards, McCabe denied knowing the source.

Comey told us that, prior to the article’s publication, he did not have any discussions with McCabe regarding disclosure of the August 12 PADAG call. According to Comey, he discussed the issue with McCabe after the article was published, and at that time McCabe “definitely did not tell me that he authorized” the disclosure of the PADAG call. Comey said that McCabe gave him the exact opposite impression:

I don’t remember exactly how, but I remember some form or fashion and it could have been like “can you believe this crap? How does this stuff get out” kind of thing? But I took from whatever communication we had that he wasn’t involved in it. . . . I have a strong impression he conveyed to me “it wasn’t me boss.”

Importantly, Comey disavowed any conversation with McCabe about this particular story before the fact.

Comey told us that, prior to the article’s publication, he did not have any discussions with McCabe regarding disclosure of the August 12 PADAG call.

That’s consistent with what McCabe said.

that he did not recall discussing the disclosure with Comey in advance of authorizing it, although it was possible that he did;

What McCabe has said elsewhere is that Comey had generally permitted just the two of them to speak with the press. But that was not specific to this story at all.

In other words, Ted Cruz got it wrong. Comey’s testimony to the Senate — which on follow-up was specifically about the WSJ story — was utterly consistent with McCabe’s.

Cruz lied. Comey didn’t.

Now it’s possible that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is attempting a gimmick, by claiming that Comey authorized Dan Richman to share information about the Hillary investigation (we know this is about Hillary because she is Person-1 in the charge the grand jury rejected). That is, Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer may be trying to apply this Comey answer to Richman.

Except — even assuming he had spoken to Richman about Hillary (the right wing belief, until Richman’s testimony in the last few weeks, is that Comey authorized Richman to talk about the Trump investigation) — Comey could easily say his answer here was about the McCabe reference. [Update: ABC is reporting that it is Richman.]

But if this thing were ever to go to trial — if Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is really the US Attorney, if the indictment really is what the grand jury approved, if this doesn’t get booted on a vindictive prosecution claim, if Pat Fitzgerald fails to argue that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer is confused about which FBI Director is a criminal — Comey can almost certainly call Teddy Cancun as a witness, at least to testify about materiality.

It would soon become clear that Comey’s answer, even if it were a lie, could never be material, because Ted Cruz was going to believe what he already believed. Cruz was committed to his false beliefs, no matter what Comey said in response.

But under questioning by a skilled attorney — and Fitz has questioned far bigger blowhards than Ted Cruz, if you can believe it — such testimony would force Cruz to either double down on his lies, or to confess he was the one lying all those years ago.

Right now, there’s not a shred of evidence that Comey lied in his statement.

There is, however, abundant evidence that Kash lied under oath and that Cruz lied in the same way he lies all the time. And if this were ever to go to trial, Cruz would, for once, have the opportunity to face consequences for any lies he told.

Update: CBS got the transcript of the exchange between Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer and Lindsey the Magistrate Judge. It seems clear that the Insurance Lawyer juggled her papers.

[T]wo versions of the indictment were published on the case docket: one with the dropped third count, and one without. The transcript reveals why this occurred.

“So this has never happened before. I’ve been handed two documents that are in the Mr. Comey case that are inconsistent with one another,” Vaala said to Halligan. “There seems to be a discrepancy. They’re both signed by the (grand jury) foreperson.”

And she noted that one document did not clearly indicate what the grand jury had decided.

“The one that says it’s a failure to concur in an indictment, it doesn’t say with respect to one count,” Vaala said. “It looks like they failed to concur across all three counts, so I’m a little confused as to why I was handed two things with the same case number that are inconsistent.”

Halligan initially responded that she hadn’t seen that version of the indictment.

“So I only reviewed the one with the two counts that our office redrafted when we found out about the two — two counts that were true billed, and I signed that one. I did not see the other one. I don’t know where that came from,” Halligan told the judge.

Vaala responded, “You didn’t see it?” And Halligan again told her, “I did not see that one.”

Vaala seemed surprised: “So your office didn’t prepare the indictment that they —”

Halligan then replied, “No, no, no — I — no, I prepared three counts. I only signed the one — the two-count (indictment). I don’t know which one with three counts you have in your hands.”

“Okay. It has your signature on it,” Vaala told Halligan, who responded, “Okay. Well.”

Probably, nothing will come of it. Probably, the only price Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer will pay for this is 1) disclosure of the no bill record 2) exposure of the charge grand jurors refused and 3) humiliation in her first big show.

But it creates surface area and, as I suggested, the possibility that Comey will use it to pierce the secrecy of everything else that went on in the grand jury, including why it took until 6:47 to indict this.

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Chuck Grassley Complains that DOJ Investigated Why TPUSA Sent 80 Busses to a Riot

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During the Kash Patel hearing yesterday, Chuck Grassley threw a bunch of new documents out to create a distraction: New informant reports targeting Hunter Biden, several documents he already declassified, and what has been taken to be a single document about the Jack Smith investigation.

He did so, presumably, to point to this entry noting that Jack Smith collected information affecting Turning Point USA — Charlie Kirk’s organization.

I think the item, a subpoena, may not be what it appears. It appears the subpoena itself was served on Event Strategies, the entity which produced January 6, not TPUSA itself. I’m fairly certain that the investigation into the 80 busses TPUSA paid for was investigated earlier, in the first year of the investigation, along with a bunch of other entities that sent busses.

What’s more interesting is it appears that these are two separate documents (indeed, Grassley’s press release refers to “documents”). The most obvious sign of that is that the first page, described as a summary, is dated 1/23/2023. Whereas the other five pages — which appear to match the title of the document, Arctic Frost Bank Record Subpoenas — show subpoena returns with dates long after the date of the summary, going through a subpoena pertaining to Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman to Fidelity completed on July 6, 2023. [Note: The release of this document exposes the banks of dozens of Trump associates, a fairly alarming privacy violation.]

The five pages of subpoenas focus on several topics, largely the following:

  • J6 $
  • Wire fraud
  • Misappropriation
  • Payments to lawyers
  • Bogus investigations
  • Obstruction
  • Credit reports

Most of this traces several prongs of investigation that were publicly reported at the time — largely picking up efforts of the January 6 Committee — showing that Trump raised money in the guise of election integrity, but then paid it to people like Brad Parscale or Dan Scavino.

Based on dates, this appears to be a key focus of Jack Smith once he was appointed. This was one prong of the investigation I had hoped would be — but was not — in Jack Smith’s final report.

But it’s barely reflected in the summary dated January 23, 2023.* There’s one line of effort, “Financial Fraud: Allegations of false/misleading representation to raise money post-election.” There’s one possible crime, 18 USC 15343, that might be the applicable crime (or, given that it accompanies 18 USC 371, the charge ultimately focused on the fake electors). But there’s no sign of any campaign finance crimes.

And it’s not entirely clear that the summary is complete. After all, there’s one crime — 18 USC 241, Conspiracy against Rights — ultimately charged against Trump that doesn’t appear at all.

And whether there are more pages to this summary or not, it’s a dated summary. The investigation continued at least six months after that summary, and (given that details from Mike Roman’s phone only appeared in later filings), probably more.

Chuck Grassley and Kash Patel seem to have released a distraction, one targeted to exploit the Charlie Kirk murder, rather than the most informative document it could have.

* A word about timing. DOJ convened a dedicated grand jury on January 31, 2022. The summary is an FBI document, which starts from April 2022, reflecting the delay described in this famous WaPo story. I suspect that the summary reflects only things that happened after April 2022, because known investigative steps — such as those targeting Sidney Powell in September 2021 — don’t appear in it.

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Lawsuit Alleges that Laura Loomer Illegally Got Ghislaine Maxwell’s Prosecutor Fired

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Fox News has a long article today claiming — albeit with wildly conflicting evidence — that Kash Patel’s job is in jeopardy. One of Kash’s crimes, according to the article, is firing Brian Driscoll and others in such a way that exposes Trump to have to sit for a deposition.

On the same day Kirk was shot, three former high-ranking FBI officials filed a lawsuit accusing Patel, Bondi, and their agencies of unlawfully firing them as part of a political purge directed by the DOJ and the White House – something Patel promised against in Senate confirmation hearings.

The larger concern, according to those familiar with the litigation, is Patel allegedly wielded authority belonging solely to the president, citing Article II of the Constitution in dismissal letters he signed. The misstep, they say, creates a legal minefield for the FBI, DOJ, and Executive Office of the President.

“Either way, it’s bad: Kash cannot exercise the powers of the president, and the president can’t fire these officials,” a source with direct knowledge of the lawsuit said.

The filing reads, “Article II of the Constitution and the laws of the United States do not vest any such authority with the Director of the FBI. Article II provides authority for the President, and the President alone, to appoint principal officers, concomitant with the power to remove them “at will.” None of Plaintiffs are principal officers and, more importantly, the FBI Director is not the President.”

A senior law enforcement official said, “The admin could very well lose in court, and it will be because of Kash’s big mouth, making the president look like an ass.”

I made a similar point about Kash stupidly yapping his mouth, but not about the Article II invocation. If the Article II thing were a problem, I noted, it would mean Pam Bondi would be badly exposed for firing Maurene Comey, among others, on the same basis.

Well, ask and you shall receive Maurene Comey just sued Bondi and DOJ for her firing. And indeed, Ms. Comey does cite that Article II firing in the lawsuit.

52. OPM issued a Standard Form (“SF”) 50, “Notification of Personnel Action,” to Ms. Comey shortly after her receipt of the July 16, 2025 memorandum. (Attached hereto as Exhibit B, the “SF-50,” redacted.) Section 5-D of Ms. Comey’s SF-50 is titled “Legal Authority.” This section states: ART II CONSTITUTION.

53. Section 45 of Ms. Comey’s SF-50 is titled “Remarks.” This section states: REASON(S) FOR REMOVAL: ARTICLE II OF THE CONSTITUTION.

54. The July 16 memorandum terminating Ms. Comey indicated twice that she was being “removed from federal service.” This term was not defined in the letter. However, 5 U.S.C. § 2101 defines the “civil service” as “consist[ing] of all appointive positions in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the Government of the United States, except positions in the uniformed services.”

One of Ms. Comey’s attorneys, Margaret Donovan, is also among the attorneys representing Driscoll et al. And the lawsuit bears similarities to the FBI lawsuit. Whereas the Driscoll lawsuit focuses on former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin’s role in getting FBI agents, especially Spencer Evans, fired, this lawsuit blames Laura Loomer, dedicating at least eight paragraphs and several pages to Loomer’s interminable rants.

8. On May 18, 2025, Ms. Loomer called for Mr. Comey’s “liberal daughter” and her “Democrat husband” to be “FIRED from the DOJ immediately” “for being a national security risk via their proximity to a criminal [i.e., Mr. Comey] who just committed a felony by threatening to assassinate the President.”5 Ms. Loomer also declared that, “under [Attorney General Pamela] Blondi [sic], every Deep State Operator is being emboldened,” and she “question[ed] the impartiality of Maurene and Lucas [Maurene’s husband] in their prosecutorial roles, especially in high-profile cases, due to the undeniable bias and influence stemming from James Comey’s public criticism of Trump and the ongoing investigation into his Instagram post.”6 After Ms. Comey’s termination, Ms. Loomer boasted that the decision “c[a]me[] 2 months after my pressure campaign on Pam Blondi [sic] to fire Comey’s daughter and Comey’s son-in-law from the DOJ.”7

Ms. Comey alleges that she was fired solely for her association with her father. If this lawsuit were to survive, Ms. Comey might be able to access details of Trump’s witch hunt targeting the former FBI Director.

Of course, that allegation doesn’t match the timeline. As Loomer herself noted (even while claiming credit in a way that is very helpful to this lawsuit), Loomer’s rants were in May, two months before Ms. Comey was fired on July 16, right in the middle of Todd Blanche’s efforts to engage in a sex trafficking coverup. Ms. Comey’s firing was crucial to Blanche’s efforts to be as ignorant as possible when he conducted his so-called proffer with the convicted sexual predator. And sure enough, Ghislaine Maxwell made all sorts of statements in the proffer that obviously conflicted with the known public record.

Which is why I’m actually more interested in the references to Ms. Comey’s role on the Epstein and Maxwell prosecution teams than Loomer’s rants. Her role in the Maxwell prosecution appears throughout the complaint, most notably where she describes receiving the Director’s Award for her work on the trial (an important detail in case Todd Blanche tries to claim that poor Ghislaine Maxwell was treated poorly by Jim Comey’s daughter).

38. In addition, in May 2023, the Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys awarded Ms. Comey and her team the prestigious Director’s Award for “Superior Performance by a Litigative Team” with respect to the Maxwell trial.

Descriptions of the Epstein and Maxwell cases appear among a long line of other cases she worked (including supervising the Robert Menendez prosecution). In these sections (and elsewhere in the complaint), Ms. Comey notes that she was closely supervised on the cases, including by Trump US Attorney Geoffrey Berman and his successor, Audrey Strauss.

32. With her significant experience prosecuting matters involving violence and sexual exploitation, her SDNY supervisors assigned Ms. Comey to work on the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein in the spring of 2019. She was part of the team that conducted grand jury proceedings and secured an indictment against Mr. Epstein for sex trafficking and conspiracy; Mr. Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019.10 Ms. Comey was one of three prosecutors who then represented the United States in Mr. Epstein’s criminal case, successfully defeating his request for bail pending trial. Mr. Epstein died in federal jail on August 10, 2019, while awaiting trial; as a result, the charges against him were ultimately dismissed. Geoffrey Berman—then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, serving in the first Trump Administration— supervised Ms. Comey’s work on the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Epstein at all times.

33. At the direction and under the supervision of SDNY leadership, Ms. Comey and her team continued to investigate Mr. Epstein’s criminal operation after Mr. Epstein died. They uncovered details that implicated Mr. Epstein’s former girlfriend and collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell. On or about July 2, 2020, the SDNY, through Ms. Comey and her team, obtained an indictment charging Ms. Maxwell with enticing a minor to travel to engage in criminal sexual activity, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, conspiracy to commit both of those offenses, and perjury in connection with two sworn depositions.11 Ms. Comey and her team subsequently obtained a superseding indictment additionally charging Ms. Maxwell with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of a minor and sex trafficking of a minor.

34. At the direction and under the supervision of SDNY leadership, Ms. Comey successfully led the investigation and prosecution of Ms. Maxwell, including serving as one of the lead trial lawyers in a month-long trial, and secured justice for many victims of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell. On December 29, 2021, a jury convicted Ms. Maxwell on five counts, including sex trafficking of a minor, conspiracy, and transportation of a minor for illegal sexual activity. Ms. Maxwell was sentenced in June 2022 to 20 years in prison for her role in the sex trafficking scheme.12 U.S Attorney Berman and later Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss— both serving in the first Trump Administration—were deeply involved in supervising the investigation and prosecution of Ms. Maxwell during their tenures.

10 See https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1180481/dl

11 See https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1291491/dl?inline

12 See https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ghislaine-maxwell-sentenced-20-years-prisonconspiring-jeffrey-epstein-sexually-abuse

Note that Ms. Comey doesn’t describe that Epstein killed himself; she describes that he died in custody.

The complaint disclaims the import of her role in the Maxwell prosecution to explain her firing by noting that none of the other AUSAs on the prosecution team have been fired.

Nor could the explanation plausibly be that she mishandled her high-profile cases; she received accolades related to her work on some of those high-profile cases, and, on information and belief, among the at least fourteen AUSAs who participated in the prosecutions of Epstein, Maxwell, Hadden, and Combs, Ms. Comey was the only one who was terminated.

Except some of the Epstein and Maxwell prosecutors were already gone. One left at the end of the Biden Administration, at least one more was part of the Eric Adams purge.

All that said, the hypothesis that Loomer got Maurene fired because of who her father is, which has a better chance of surviving a motion to dismiss, might give DOJ a choice: explain, instead, that Todd Blanche had a sex trafficking cover-up to carry out, a cover-up which Ms. Comey’s continued presence at SDNY might threaten.

Or give Ms. Comey a whole bunch of discovery on Trump’s longtime targeting of Maurene’s father.

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The White House Bid to Turn the Charlie Kirk Murder into Their Anti-Trans Jihad

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In a Discord chatroom including at least one guy he knew from high school who had recognized Tyler Robinson in the pictures released by Charlie Kirk murder investigators, the accused murderer offered up the now-discredited report about trans bullets, but treated it with irony, just like he ironically claimed to be Kirk himself.

“I heard the ammo had somethin about trans stuff on it, but they aren’t releasing photos or exact quotes,” he wrote. He added: “and also the claim wasn’t backed by the official fbi, just some dude in the briefing room.”

A few minutes later, he joked: “I’m actually Charlie Kirk, wanted to get outta politics so I faked my death, now I can live out my dream life in kansas.”

The comment is deliberately non-committal, like all the others described in the NYT story on the Discord chat. But it is far more reliable evidence than a growing story, sourced to the White House, that one of two Robinson roommates cooperating with the FBI is trans and may even be Robinson’s lover.

The story started with one of the White House and Kash/Bongino’s favorite propagandists, Brooke Singman, whose belated story writing up the allegation she first tweeted out included a self-serving claim from the FBI officials who had nothing to do with finding Robinson, claiming they had instead “zero[ed] in on” him as a subject via the cooperation from the roommate.

FBI officials told Fox News Digital that the FBI had text messages and other communications between Robinson and his partner that helped FBI agents zero in on Robinson. Officials said the FBI took evidence from their apartment, including computers, which has been sent to Quantico for review, Fox News Digital has learned.

It went through the Daily Mail (which took a non-denial as confirmation the roommate was trans) and a NewsMax reporter who directly sourced the claim to Trump. Then, Marc Caputo, who is incredibly well-sourced to people like Susie Wiles and Roger Stone, but who has gotten increasingly credulous at Axios, mainstreamed it.

Authorities are investigating whether Tyler Robinson, suspected of killing Charlie Kirk, believed Kirk’s views on gender identity were “hateful” to people like Robinson’s transgender roommate, six sources familiar with the case tell Axios.

  • Why it matters: Investigators believe Robinson’s anger at Kirk’s views could be a key to establishing a motive for the slaying of the controversial activist whose death sent shockwaves through American politics.
  • Each of the six sources familiar with the investigation told Axios that investigators believe Robinson had a romantic relationship with his roommate.

All this is coming in advance of the expected filing of charges by Utah on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Steve Bannon has been on a tear because Utah Governor Spencer Cox, rather than Kash Patel, led the press conference announcing Robinson’s arrest the other day.

Did the ppl in the White House inform POTUS that one of his greatest haters, this goofball, girly man, weak governor of Utah, was going to sit there and do the entire briefing on the murder of Charlie Kirk and essentially give us almost no facts and just preach unity with the aggressively LGBTQ governor of Colorado?

Kash Patel is not just a colleague, he’s a very dear and close friend. I think the world of Kash. We don’t know what restrictions he’s under or even his ability to fully articulate what’s happening here. But whoever authorized one of the biggest Trump haters in this country, the governor of Utah, Cox, is a disaster. A true Trump hater, one of the worst in the Republican Party. Folks in Utah need to understand this man has embraced and pushed some of the most dangerous ideologies out there.

Bannon is very specifically demanding a story that a trans cabal killed Charlie Kirk.

There’s a very good reason why Cox was leading the presser and not Kash (besides Kash’s manifest incompetence): Because — as Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney noted the other day — as of now there’s no federal nexus to this crime.

The criminal case against the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk will likely play out in a Utah county courthouse, under the control of local prosecutors. But a national audience may very well be watching.

That’s because the alleged shooter, whom authorities identified on Friday as Tyler Robinson, is facing state-level criminal charges. And in Utah — unlike in federal court — criminal trials are routinely televised.

Robinson has been charged with three crimes under Utah law: murder, causing bodily injury with a firearm and obstruction of justice.

It might seem surprising that the case is not a federal one, given the national notoriety of the crime and the FBI’s heavy involvement in the investigation. But homicides can be charged as federal crimes in only a few circumstances — such as an assassination of a federal government official, a killing on federal property or a “hate crime” that was motivated by the victim’s race, religion or another protected characteristic.

The only way it could become a federal charge — the only way that Kash’s FBI would gain primary control over the facts and narrative told — would be if DOJ charged it as a hate crime, as Kash described trying to do in the case of the Robin Westman, the trans woman charged in the Annunciation Catholic School shooting last month, even while deadnaming her throughout.

As we continue to investigate yesterday’s barbaric attack from Robert [sic] Westman, the male subject, our teams have gathered information and evidence demonstrating this was an act of domestic terrorism motivated by a hate-filled ideology.

Some updates:

-Subject left multiple anti-Catholic, anti-religious references both in his manifesto and written on his firearms

-Subject expressed hatred and violence toward Jewish people, writing “Israel must fall,” “Free Palestine,” and using explicit language related to the Holocaust

-He wrote a an explicit call for violence against President Trump on a firearm magazine

The @fbi investigation is still ongoing. We will employ all of our counter-terror tools to ensure this is fully investigated and deterred.

And as promised, we will continue to update when able.

Of course, even if Robinson’s roommate were trans, even if they were in a relationship, the current story would be that because a person who willingly implicated their friend in a death penalty eligible crime, doing the work Kash’s FBI was too incompetent to do, it gives Stephen Miller license to arrest all trans people (or at least Pam Bondi to disarm them), just like he used fraudulent claims about Tren de Aragua to detain hundreds of men with innocent tattoos and send them to a concentration camp in El Salvador.

The alleged trans person here is the only one whose actions are above reproach.

And all that’s before you consider how Kash Patel has done much to make any bid for the death penalty  unsustainable (to say nothing about Federal charges against Westman), given his repeated evocations of love for Kirk, down to promising he would see him in Valhalla (wittingly or unwittingly repeating the words of the far right Christchurch killer).

Unless Robinson were to plead guilty (which would mostly likely only happen if law enforcement promised not to execute him), any such death penalty phase would be riddled with questions about the bias of Kash, Trump, and everyone else leading this case from the federal side. Frankly, the discovery would be epic — and badly discrediting to the FBI and the White House.

We don’t know what motivated Robinson, what turned him from the pro-Trump politics of his family or what appears to have distanced him from the Mormon Church (there has been little conversation about the significance of the fact that Robinson did not do a Mormon mission, but it may be the most important sign of rupture out there).

What we do know is that Stephen Miller wasted no time grieving his beloved friend, but turned immediately to politicizing his death. And Miller has never bothered to let truth drive his political jihads.

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Kash Patel Yapped His Mouth with a REAL Feeb

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There’ll be a lot of good articles on this lawsuit that three recently fired senior FBI agents — Brian Driscoll, Steven Jensen, and Spencer Evans — have filed against Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and the agencies that fired them. For example, NYT focuses on disclosures about Stephen Miller’s role in running DOJ. NPR focuses on Dan Bongino’s obsession with social media.

The complaint retells stories already reported in the press, such as how the Trump Administration intended to hire Robert Kissane as interim FBI Director but fucked up the announcement, so Driscoll served instead. There are descriptions designed to be embarrassing — if not debilitating to Kash’s ability to lead the agency — such as the revelation that Kash has a collection of whiskey and cigars in his office and  that Kash’s challenge coin that is unusually large. The audience for such disclosures goes beyond Judge Jia Cobb, who’ll preside over the case, to members of Congress who’ll hold hearings with Kash just days from now.

These details discrediting Kash’s leadership are matched by details describing how these men, especially Driscoll, were fired because of their efforts to treat FBI agents with respect and dignity, intervening to prevent firings or mitigate the impact of them. A long passage describes Driscoll’s efforts to undercut Emil Bove’s jihad against agents who–like Bove and Driscoll themselves–had participated in the January 6 investigation. This includes an anecdote about how Bove bolloxed an attempt to send an email to the entire FBI workforce to complain about Driscoll.

This is a speaking complaint written by people who’ve helped write their share of speaking indictments in their careers.

Which is why my favorite line is the one describing Kash acknowledging that these firings could lead to his deposition: “[Kash] again commented that he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed.” [my emphasis]

The deposition comment, as it pertains to Kash, appears twice in the lawsuit: once at the beginning, to substantiate that Kash knew these firings were unlawful, which the complaint immediately contrasts with the sworn promises Kash made to the Senate not to politicize firings.

4. Patel openly acknowledged the unlawfulness of his actions. On or about August 5, 2025, in a conversation with Driscoll, Patel plainly stated the reasoning behind his firing of FBI employees that Mr. Driscoll sought to defend. In sum and substance, Patel admitted that his superiors, who he referred to as “they” and who Driscoll understood to include Defendant Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the White House (which encompasses Defendant Executive Office of the President (“EOP”)), had directed him to fire anyone who they identified as having worked on a criminal investigation against President Donald J. Trump. Patel explained that he had to fire the people his superiors told him to fire, because his ability to keep his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the President. Patel explained that there was nothing he or Driscoll could do to stop these or any other firings, because “the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.” Driscoll indicated his belief that Patel’s reference to his superiors meant DOJ and the White House, and Patel did not deny it.

5. When Driscoll explained that firing employees based on case assignments would be in direct violation of internal FBI processes meant to adjudicate adverse actions and prevent retaliation based on case assignments, Patel said that he understood that and he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed.

6. Patel’s actions stood in stark contrast to his sworn testimony during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. There, he assured the Committee and the country that “all FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.” An exchange with Senator Richard Blumenthal on the topic of firing agents who worked on criminal investigations involving President Trump proceeded as follows:

Sen. Blumenthal: You’ve committed that the FBI will not be politicized. So here’s your first test. Will you commit that you will not tolerate the firing of the FBI agents who worked with the Special Counsel’s Office on these investigations? . . .

Patel: Senator. Every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard, and no one will be terminated for case assignments.

7. Likewise in his written responses to a Senate Questionnaire, Patel repeatedly emphasized his commitment that “personnel decisions should be based on performance and adherence to the law” and that “every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard, and no one will be terminated for case assignments.” He also asserted that he would “ensure that the appropriate processes are always followed” with respect to adverse actions against FBI personnel.

The lawsuit repeats the deposition comment twice in a longer passage where Driscoll describes how he was fired because he attempted to prevent the firing of another agent, Christopher Meyer, who had been assigned to pilot Kash’s frequent flights back to Las Vegas.

169. On or around August 1, 2025, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Chris Meyer became the subject of intense social media activity. Specifically, various social media posts claimed incorrectly that Meyer had been the signatory to the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit and was now Patel’s personal pilot.

170. In fact, Meyer was not the signatory to the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit. He was not the case agent for the investigation concerning President Trump’s handling of classified documents, nor did he participate in the search of Mar-a-Lago.

[snip]

173. On Saturday, August 2, 2025, the FBI’s Associate Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Will Rivers called Driscoll to ask him for details about Meyer. Meyer is a military veteran and a qualified pilot. As part of his duties with the FBI, he flew the FBI’s private jet, a Gulfstream G550, which means he served as the FBI Director’s pilot while on duty. Along with those duties, Meyer—and all of the G550 pilots—also flew HRT personnel to overseas missions and other mission-critical assignments. HRT is also responsible for flying “Foreign Transfer of Custody” missions, which detains and transports terrorists and criminals from overseas to the United States to face criminal prosecution. In short, each pilot in CIRG plays an essential role in critical FBI missions.

174. Rivers wanted to know Meyer’s current location and whether he was flying the Director on his current trip. He also asked Driscoll about Meyer’s tenure with the FBI, which was approximately 13 years. Rivers told Driscoll that Meyer was no longer permitted to fly the Director’s plane.

[snip]

179. At this point, Driscoll demanded an opportunity to speak with Patel in person, to which Rivers agreed. Driscoll scheduled a meeting with Patel for Tuesday, August 5, 2025.

180. Driscoll later spoke with Meyer over the phone and informed him that he would no longer be allowed to pilot Patel’s aircraft. Driscoll also told Meyer that he would be raising the issue with the Director and would challenge the decision.

181. On Monday, August 4, 2024, Driscoll received a call from Bongino. Bongino asked Driscoll if anybody would be able to “find anything” in his emails from the time he (Driscoll) was serving as Acting Director. Driscoll replied that there would be nothing incriminating to find in his emails during this time and took Bongino’s question to mean that somebody besides Bongino and Patel would be searching through his old emails in an attempt to find a basis for firing him. Bongino said that he would attempt to keep Driscoll in place.

182. On Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at 9:00 a.m., Driscoll again met with Rivers. This meeting included a status update on Meyer.

183. At 10:00 a.m. on August 5, 2025, Driscoll met directly with Patel to discuss Meyer. Specifically, Driscoll stated that summarily firing Meyer would be illegal based on his military veteran status and would also violate all established FBI policies for adverse actions against personnel.

184. Patel responded that Meyer would be fired by Friday, August 8, 2025, and that there was nothing either Patel or Driscoll could say or do that would stop it. Driscoll pointed out that Meyer had not committed any misconduct and that being assigned to cases could not be grounds for termination. Patel said he understood this, but that as Driscoll should know from “sitting in this seat,” meaning serving as the Director, that “you can’t save everyone.”

185. When Driscoll explained it, Patel acknowledged that the FBI would be sued and would lose in court. He also acknowledged that he would likely be deposed concerning his knowledge of the reasons for Meyer’s termination. He also acknowledged that the FBI workforce would likely respond negatively to Meyer’s termination.

186. Patel stated that all FBI employees who they identified who had worked on the cases against President Trump would be removed from their jobs, regardless of their retirement eligibility status. He then stated that Driscoll needed to understand that “the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.” Patel then stated that his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on the cases against the President, regardless of whether the agents chose to work on those cases or not. Patel acknowledged that this would be in direct violation of internal FBI processes meant to adjudicate adverse actions and prevent retaliation based on case assignments. He again commented that he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed. [my emphasis]

There’s even the equivalent passage where Steven Jensen staved off Walter Giardina’s firing for some months by warning Dan Bongino that he might face a deposition.

130. At some point in May 2025, Jensen received a phone call from Bongino, who was audibly upset. He asked Jensen whether he knew who SA Walter Giardina was and told Jensen that he has “got to go.” Giardina was an agent assigned to WFO. Jensen asked him to elaborate, but Bongino explained that he could not do so over the phone. Jensen met him at FBI Headquarters to continue the discussion. Jensen knew Giardina to be a dedicated and hardworking FBI agent who was assigned to high-profile investigations into members of both political parties because of these qualities.

131. Upon arriving at FBI Headquarters, Jensen found Bongino in his Chief of Staff’s office. Bongino looked as if he had not slept for several days. He seemed extremely anxious and agitated. Jensen asked him what was wrong. Bongino explained that he had found a room filled with classified documents and “burn bags” related to the now-closed Crossfire Hurricane investigation. He expressed shock at the existence of these burn bags.

132. By his comments, it seemed to Jensen that Bongino might not have been fully aware that the use of “burn bags” is a standard method across multiple federal agencies for preparing classified material for destruction when an investigation is deemed closed, or when physical copies of the materials are no longer necessary. He also appeared unaware that the FBI also stored digital copies of materials on the FBI’s classified computer system, and that this was likely the case with these materials. At the meeting, Bongino also made an unfounded additional allegation about Giardina’s handling of data, claiming that the allegation was “just out there.”

133. Bongino insisted that Jensen summarily fire Giardina. Jensen explained that Giardina was a military veteran and was entitled to certain rights which did not allow such a firing. He explained that if Bongino forced him to summarily fire Giardina, he would document in a report that the firing was at the direction of Bongino and had occurred after Jensen explained why the firing violated FBI procedures and Giardina’s rights. He explained that Bongino would likely be deposed in a lawsuit should Giardina choose to challenge his unlawful firing. Bongino did not pursue further his demand that Giardina be summarily fired in that meeting. In fact, Giardina was never assigned to work on Crossfire Hurricane. [my emphasis]

Note the similarity between these two conversations: in both, FBI’s top officials ordered their subordinates to fire someone based — at least partly — on false premises, shit floating around on social media (involvement in the Mar-a-Lago search in Meyer’s case, involvement in Crossfire Hurricane and mishandling data in Giardina’s case, both marked in blue). Both involve military veterans whose status prohibits certain kinds of firing (marked in red). In both, the subordinate gave warnings that such firings would be illegal (marked in green); Kash repeatedly acknowledged he knew those firings would be illegal.

Both of these exchanges, as described, were set up like witness interviews, where FBI agents know how to repeatedly get the core admission from the subject.

There’s some question whether Jensen and Driscoll documented these exchanges and if so how. Jensen said he would document the conversation if Bongino went ahead and fired Giardina in May, which he did not do. A footnote explains,

3 The facts alleged in this section are based primarily on the firsthand knowledge, best recollections, and/or communications of and involving Plaintiffs. Unless otherwise indicated with quotation marks, descriptions of conversations and other oral statements are reflected in sum and substance and to the best recollections of Plaintiffs.

That doesn’t explain what kind of documentation each man made of the conversations or when. Both men know well the lesson of Jim Comey, whose attempt to take official notes with him after he was fired was criminalized over the course of years. But both men were also trained, over decades, to write 302 reports after the fact that would be deemed reliable in court.

In any case, Driscoll makes sure to name the witnesses to various parts of this progression: The conversations with Will Rivers on August 2 and — just before the conversation with Kash — on August 5. The phone conversation with Bongino on August 4. Details of timing that would show up in phone records and official calendars.

These are men who know how to substantiate a case, and in the case of these crucial conversations, did so.

Which is why the warnings about the depositions are so delicious.

It actually is hard to demand that FBI Directors and their Deputies sit for a deposition. There’s a whole body of precedent that requires plaintiffs to work their way up to more senior officials. For example, Peter Strzok (the circumstances of whose firing and subsequent lawsuit, which made some of the very same First Amendment and Due Process claims, Driscoll and Jensen presumably also know well) had to fight hard to get Chris Wray to sit for a deposition, and even harder to get Trump to sit for one.

But here, the plaintiffs have the defendants on the record noting that they would have to sit for depositions.

The depositions themselves would be worse than embarrassing. They would record:

  • Both men’s rank ignorance of FBI processes
  • The erroneous social media conspiracies that dictated firings of highly qualified FBI agents
  • Acknowledgment — laid out elsewhere in the complaint — by both Bongino and Kash that these men were doing their jobs competently
  • As noted, the knowledge of all the reasons why the firings of Giardina and Meyer, as well as those of the plaintiffs, were illegal (note, at least per the biographies in the complaint, none of the plaintiffs are veterans entitled to special treatment on firings)

In that first instance, the warning about the deposition does something else.

The White House is a defendant in this lawsuit. The basis for that rests in part on Emil Bove’s repeated explanations that Stephen Miller was ordering up the FBI firings and specific references to White House involvement that both Bongino and Kash relayed to Jensen. But it also rests in that question — again, from a trained FBI agent — about who Kash meant by “they.” “Driscoll indicated his belief that Patel’s reference to his superiors meant DOJ and the White House, and Patel did not deny it.”

Again, this may help plaintiffs clear a hurdle that also proved onerous for Strzok and Andrew McCabe when they tried to pierce the orders the White House gave to politicize the FBI. Effectively, Driscoll already got the concession that he would have had to get in a deposition to start asking for details on — say — Stephen Miller’s role in all this, to say nothing of Kash’s understanding (and this is one of the few things put in quotation marks) that, “the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.”

Kash, because he ran his mouth, may have made it easier to demand a deposition of President Trump in this case.

And finally, there’s the contrast between the concession that he might have to sit for a deposition with the sworn promises that Kash made to get confirmed. Kash already has a history of false claims that got him in legal trouble, with the grand jury testimony that he succeeded in burying during his confirmation. But here, the plaintiffs have dangled the threat of posing one set of sworn statements — that no agents would be fired for the cases they worked — with the admissions Kash already admitted he might have to make in a deposition.

To be sure, this case still faces the same hurdles and delays that both McCabe and Strzok faced (Strzok is still waiting to hear whether his case will go to trial). But because neither Bongino nor Kash could acquit themselves competently when interacting with men who had spent years doing certain FBI agent things, they’ve already backed themselves, and the people — “they” — who ordered these firings, into certain corners.

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Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe Predicate ANOTHER Investigation on Emails Stolen from Foreign Spies

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NYT has a weird article — right wing propagandist Devlin Barrett is the first byline, with Maggie and Mike contributing as well — purporting to explain the John Bolton investigation. The first and fourth paragraphs claim that the investigation into Bolton is a “a long-running investigation” that “began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration,” claims that conflict with both the NYP’s seeded propaganda story on the search, which described that Kash Patel, “reopened the matter after he took over the FBI in February,” and a well-sourced CNN story, which described that, “the Justice Department reopen[ed] the years-old investigation.”

NYT bases its claim suggesting a continuous investigation on the collection from an adversarial spook service, during the Biden Administration, of emails purportedly sent by Bolton to family members.

The emails in question, according to the people, were sent by Mr. Bolton and included information that appeared to derive from classified documents he had seen while he was national security adviser. Mr. Bolton apparently sent the messages to people close to him who were helping him gather material that he would ultimately use in his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

But way down in ¶12, NYT describes that John Ratcliffe briefed these emails to Kash Patel and between them they decided that these emails included classified information.

During Mr. Trump’s second term, John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, briefed Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, on the information that had been collected about Mr. Bolton’s emails. The officials believed that the material Mr. Bolton had transcribed into the unclassified and unsecured email contained classified information. Each intelligence agency makes its own determinations about what information is classified, so it is often up to the “originating” agency to decide whether particular pieces of information are classified, and how sensitive they are.

That is, Ratcliffe found something he could use to target Bolton and brought it to Kash. That’s what gave Kash the excuse to reopen the investigation.

This is about where credible DOJ reporters would start ringing alarm bells, because it makes this investigation not like other investigations into classified documents — NYT likens this investigation to the Hillary email investigation, Trump’s own theft of classified documents, and the investigation into Joe Biden — but the John Durham investigation, which Ratcliffe and Kash launched based off emails stolen from Russia which — we now know — were fabricated.

There are even indices in this story that suggest caution. The object of the search, NYT says, was to see whether Bolton possessed anything to corroborate the emails, precisely the approach Durham tried to take with Leonard Benardo.

One major reason for conducting the searches was to see if Mr. Bolton possessed material that matched or corroborated the intelligence agency material, which, if found, would indicate that the emails found in the possession of the foreign spy service were genuine, the people said.

Even according to NYT, the FBI still has no fucking clue whether these emails are genuine (and apparently didn’t take less intrusive means to check, such as a covert warrant to Bolton’s email provider).

Nevertheless, NYT invents explanations for why the material in question didn’t end up in Bolton’s book.

The material in the intercepted emails included information that Mr. Bolton did not ultimately use in his book. That may suggest that he had been told it remained classified during early reviews of his manuscript or that he ultimately decided to omit it, because of either its sensitivity or its importance.

In a story that admits the FBI doesn’t know whether these emails are genuine or not, they don’t consider another explanation: That Bolton may not have written the emails at all, just as Leonard Benardo didn’t write emails reporting on a devious Hillary Clinton plot to make something of Trump’s ties to Russia.

Look, we just learned that Ratcliffe and Patel participated in a 4-year effort to frame Hillary Clinton based off emails fabricated by Russian spies. Can you please not be so horny to normalize all this that you ignore that the fact pattern here is precisely the same?

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Devlin Barrett and Mike Schmidt Mistake the Fox in the Henhouse for a Guard Puppy

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I’m used to Mike Schmidt ignoring Trump’s weaponization of DOJ against his rivals during the first term. I’m used to Devlin Barrett credulously writing down propaganda that right wing law enforcement sources tell him to write down as if it were true.

But this, from the two of them, is a remarkable exercise in disinformation in service of a weaponized investigation.

They describe that a fox is in the hen house, but are so ignorant, naive, or corrupt that they describe the fox, instead, as a guard dog.

The factual details the story describes are:

  • Kash Patel is investigating his claim that he found burn bags full of classified documents which, he claims, is proof people intended to destroy them (but which sources for the story explain is really dumb because any documents found in a burn bag would be on digital servers too)
  • Paul Abbate (who was considered a candidate to be Director of FBI after Jim Comey was fired) is a subject of the investigation
  • Kash put the investigation in WDVA, basing venue on a storage facility there, to avoid DC grand juries
  • The US Attorney for WDVA, Todd Gilbert, recently resigned shortly after being appointed
  • John Durham’s lead FBI Agent, Jack Eckenrode, who endorsed Kash to be FBI Director, is conducting interviews in the investigation
  • “One of the documents investigators have been asking about…was declassified in 2020, while Mr. Trump was in office”

The men describe the Durham Report as Devlin described it in 2023 when he credulously parroted Durham’s claimed findings, without mentioning how badly the report itself undermined Durham’s claims.

Mr. Durham ultimately concluded that the F.B.I.’s work on the Russia investigation suffered from “confirmation bias” against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Durham brought two separate cases to trial on charges that people lied to the F.B.I. in the course of its Russia investigation, but both trials ended in quick acquittals.

Such a description was sloppy in 2023 but is inexcusable now, in the wake of the declassification of the classified annex. The classified annex showed that by July 2021, Durham should have concluded that the premise of his entire investigation was based on documents fabricated by Russian spies to frame Hillary.

Here’s the NYT story on that, in case Devlin and NYT Mike have difficulties learning about this.

Once you understand that the classified annex disclosed that John Durham and Jack Eckenrode knowingly spent years investigating Hillary’s people based off a Russian fabrication — literally committing the crime they were investigating — then Kash’s burn bag claim would most immediately implicate Durham and his team, including Eckenrode. Durham went to great lengths to obscure that he had been chasing Russian disinformation, even in his classified annex. Such an effort bespeaks guilty conscience, the kind of guilty conscience that might lead someone to attempt to destroy evidence.

If this were a real investigation, Eckenrode would be a suspect, not the lead investigator.

Worse still, if Kash imagines (or claims to imagine) he’s found new, hard copy versions of what he himself helped declassify in 2020 — documents that included a report about the SVR documents bearing John Ratcliffe’s name (but undoubtedly written with Kash), heavily redacted notes from John Brennan, and a somewhat redacted version of the CIA version of a referral to the FBI — then the steps that Durham’s team (that is, Eckenrode) took to access those documents in 2019 and afterwards would likewise be a central focus of any credible investigation.

Indeed, the apparent fact that Durham — that is, Eckenrode — never presented an FBI version of a September 7, 2016 referral purportedly sent to the FBI, which none of the FBI witnesses remember seeing, would be a central issue in any investigation.

That referral is something that, if it exists in hard copy, if it exists at all, might present new investigative leads.

But also would raise still more questions about the criminal conduct of Eckenrode and Durham — their willing quest to chase disinformation created by Russian spies to frame Hillary Clinton.

And it would raise real questions about whether, after chasing a Russian fabrication for years, Kash’s FBI decided to start fabricating evidence themselves.

This is an investigation led by someone who should be a chief suspect. Such investigations never turn out well.

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Kash Patel Continues to Cover Up His Role in the HPSCI Investigations

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Tulsi Gabbard should be helping the President prepare to capitulate to Vladimir Putin.

She’s doing so, tellingly, by continuing to push propaganda — this time, the email via which NSA Director Mike Rogers registered his moderate rather than high confidence in intelligence showing that Putin wanted Trump to win — that she hopes will distract from the fact that the Russian investigation ratcheted up in 2017 because Trump’s National Security Adviser secretly undermined sanctions with Russia.

Indeed, the same day Rogers wrote that email was the day Flynn made his first call to Sergey Kislyak about undermining President Obama’s position on Israel, a call the transcript for which has not been released, but the follow-up to which records Kislyak describing Putin’s awareness of the calls: “your previous, uh, uh, telephone call, I reported to Moscow and it was considered at the highest level in Russia.”

More interesting is a cache of documents released to the Federalist, regarding the various investigations into leaks about Trump’s ties to Russia in 2016 and 2017, with the Adam Schiff documents plopped in there starting at 143, after the Genetic Christmas file.

The cache, in general, shows why FBI had difficulty finding the leakers on all the cases except James Wolfe (which I’ll return to), the SSCI staffer who had been dating Ali Watkins: the intelligence behind these stories was often shared with at least 60 and sometimes close to 300 people.

It also shows how aggressively Trump’s DOJ investigated these stories. Of particular note, after Durham investigated Jim Baker and others for a leak, his results were used to reconsider the other Trump-related investigations — the process that was first disclosed in 2021. Details of the subpoenas served on HPSCI (covered extensively in this DOJ IG Report), including both Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, are redacted. And the inclusion of the “whistleblowers” documents in this cache show how DOJ discredited his claims: after interviewing Michael Bahar, they realized the timeline they had been given misrepresented Bahar’s normal activities (which included contact with the press long preceding the conspiracy theories about Adam Schiff). In other words, the cache as a whole debunks the claims people are making about Schiff, rather than confirm them.

You won’t hear that from the frothers.

Several of the case files confirm the veracity of stories for which NYT or WaPo got Pulitzers. Trump is suing the Pulitzer Foundation for awarding those prizes, and these documents will help the newspapers defend the lawsuits.

Both the investigation into the Flynn story and the Carter Page one sputtered out after those records were declassified — in both cases, declassifications in which Kash Patel was centrally involved. To repeat: These investigations were largely halted because Kash declassified the information involved.

That makes the entire manufactured mob around this more interesting. Regarding the HPSCI “whistleblower” (whom Schiff has said was terminated for cause): at the time of the alleged leaks nothing went on in HPSCI without Kash’s involvement or awareness. Yet after making an enormous stink about being targeted in a lawsuit in 2023, Kash has released nothing about all that — not even the explicit concerns that Rod Rosenstein raised about Kash in January 2018, separate from these investigations.

Then again, there are a bunch other documents that Kash could release, such as the Crossfire Hurricane binder that he claimed was declassified on January 19, 2021, or the grand jury testimony that he obtained immunity to give. Kash could vindicate his past claims. Thus far, he has not.

Arctic Haze

Opened August 1, 2017

Closed September 9, 2021

Investigated source for details of the SVR documents as raised by Jim Comey in testimony about Clinton Foundation. The investigation focused closely on Daniel Richman, the Comey friend who got copies of his memos memorializing Trump conversations. In 2021, Comey shared his phone to show there was no evidence implicating him. Only at that late date did the FBI chase down possible other sources — but only the ones who might have a motive to protect Comey.

Echos Fate

First reported on January 24, 2017

Opened May 12, 2017

Closed December 9, 2020

Investigated source for David Ignatius story exposing Mike Flynn’s calls with Russia. It came to incorporate one redacted entity, as well as EDMO (where Jeffrey Jensen was doing propaganda for Bill Barr). The investigation determined that over 167 people had access to this information.

Foggy Falls

Opened May 10, 2017

Closed May 6, 2020

Investigated leak of Carter Page FISA application. The opening memo describes who in Congress got read only briefs of the application. Starting in 2018, after HPSCI released dueling memos on the application, FBI started asking whether they could prosecute at all.

Riding Hood

Opened October 18, 2017

Closed July 17, 2019

This is the Ali Watkins-based tip (from June) that led into the James Wolfe investigation. It is presented out of order in the cache.

Genetic Christmas

Story dated December 14, 2016

Crime report July 25, 2017

Opened October 23, 2017

Closed April 16, 2020

Investigated sources for NBC reporting that Putin was personally involved in election operation. Over 60 people had access either to the documentation or briefing.

Sirens Lure

Opened August 14, 2017

Closed May 11, 2021

Investigated sources for reports on Jared Kushner’s targeting in Russian investigation. There were 192 people in the subject pool.

Tropic Vortex

Referred by Dana Boente March 22, 2017

Opened January 31, 2019

Closed February 25, 2020

This was initially based on an October 2016 NYT story (which may actually be this story on an entirely different topic, a scan DOJ asked Yahoo to do, using a FISA warrant, for a terrorism-related selector). But it came to incorporate this story on Jim Comey’s effort to push back on Trump’s false “tapp” claim (only the NYT, which includes Mike Schmidt, is named, though ABC had the story too). The initial investigation was referred to John Durham because one subject of the investigation was a former senior FBI official. Durham submitted his report in January 2019, and DOJ decided to reconsider all the other investigations based on what Durham had discovered.

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Kash Patel and John Solomon Declare Their Own Sources and Methods Illegal

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The FBI released documents to John Solomon to run a hit piece on Adam Schiff that amounts to a confession that Kash Patel and John Solomon’s sources and methods were illegal.

At issue are some 302s from HPSCI whistleblower claiming that Adam Schiff tried to research and leak information about the Russian investigation.

Water.

Wet.

I mean, I don’t doubt that Schiff (and Eric Swalwell) did leak information from HPSCI, in the same way that I have no doubt that people close to Devin Nunes likewise leaked information.

There’s a very long history of members of Congress doing that, about all topics. It’s a safety valve for Executive abuse of classification authority.

I also know, for a fact, that the primary whistleblower, who describes that he was not part of Nunes’ team investigating Russia, gets key details about Schiff’s treatment of classified information and contact with the press in this precise period wrong. I also know that his imagined description of sources behind stories was badly flawed in at least one respect, in such a way that might have distracted the FBI from a far more ominous channel of classified information.

Keep in mind, too, that these 302s reflect a cherry pick of 302s from the investigation into leaks about Trump — an investigation that Kash himself has squealed mightily about (and was investigated in). Kash personally was considered a far bigger leaking concern into 2018 than Schiff’s staffers, even after this testimony, by Rod Rosenstein. And the flood of leaks to John Solomon (via whatever source) was institutionalized up to the end of Trump’s first term.

Indeed, after Kash claimed that Trump had declassified everything he took home with him in 2021, he had to invoke the Fifth Amendment when testifying about the claim before a grand jury.

Finally, they complain that ultimately — sometime after 2019 — DOJ decided that Speech and Debate prevented any charges here is pretty funny. That’s because the very same Speech and Debate protection prevented DOJ from accessing, much less prosecuting, most of the information implicating Scott Perry in Trump’s insurrection.

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