FBI formally confirms its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server

MSNBC | By Pete Williams | 02/08/16 05:30 PM

In a letter disclosed Monday in a federal court filing, the FBI confirms one of the world’s worst-kept secrets: It is looking into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Why say this at all, since it was widely known to be true? Because in August in response to a judge’s direction, the State Department asked the FBI for information about what it was up to. Sorry, the FBI said at the time, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.

Now, in a letter dated February 2 and filed in court Monday, the FBI’s general counsel, James Baker, notes that in public statements and congressional testimony, the FBI “has acknowledged generally that it is working on matters related to former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server.”

Baker says the FBI has not, however, “publicly acknowledged the specific focus, scope or potential targets of any such proceedings.”

He ends the one-paragraph letter by saying that the FBI cannot say more “without adversely affecting on-going law enforcement efforts.”

The letter was filed in one of the Freedom of Information Act cases brought against the State Department over access to documents from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state. This one was filed by Judicial Watch.

DOCUMENTS: OBAMA HAS SPENT $74 MILLION IN TAXPAYER DOLLARS ON HOLIDAYS

Steve Watson | Infowars - FEBRUARY 5, 2016

The Obama family has wracked up a bill of $74 million, charged to the taxpayer, in vacations since taking office, according to recently obtained records.

The watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit to find out how much money the first family has spent on luxury getaways since Obama took office.

Documents, obtained after Freedom of Information Act requests were ignored, reveal that the total figure is at least $74,124,562.48.

“Now that we’ve sued, the Secret Service has stopped ignoring our requests for details on more of the costs of Barack Obama’s luxury vacations,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said on Wednesday.

The records show that just two of the most recent Obama family vacations cost taxpayers more than $5 million dollars.

Secret service accommodations alone for the 2014 Martha’s Vineyard and Honolulu vacations cost taxpayers $1,243,057.

“Taxpayers, the U.S. Air Force and the Secret Service are being abused by Barack Obama, who too often treats Air Force One and his security detail like some of sort of kingly entourage.” Fitton noted.

“Does Barack Obama really think that over $5 million for two family vacations, which include nearly $1 million in Secret Service hotel bills for a two week Martha’s Vineyard vacation, is an appropriate use of tax dollars?” the Judicial Watch President urged.

The group highlighted that in Martha’s Vineyard, the Obama family booked out a “plush, secluded seven-bedroom, nine-bath, 8,100-square-foot house in the exclusive Chilmark neighborhood.”

An earlier day trip to New York, just to “hang out with his girls” was said to have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In October, Judicial Watch revealed that in just two months the President spent close to $4.5 million on golfing and fundraising trips.

The documents showed that:

Obama’s February 14, 2015, golf outing to Palm Springs required a five-hour flight, costing taxpayers a total of $1,031,685.
Transportation for Obama’s February 19 day trip to Chicago cost taxpayers $619,011.00.
Transportation for Obama’s March 2015 fundraising trip to Los Angeles cost taxpayers $1,980,835.20.
Obama’s March 28, 2015, golf outing to Palm city required a 3.9-hour flight, costing taxpayers $804,870.30.

The two golf outings alone cost taxpayers $1,836,555 in travel expenses. Obama played a total of five rounds of golf, equating to a cost of $20,406 per hole.









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Steve Watson is a London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com.

Official: Some Clinton emails 'too damaging' to release

By Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne | Published January 29, 2016 | FoxNews.com

EXCLUSIVE: The intelligence community has now deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails “too damaging" to national security to release under any circumstances, according to a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding. 

The decision to withhold the documents in full, and not provide even a partial release with redactions, further undercuts claims by the State Department and the Clinton campaign that none of the intelligence in the emails was classified when it hit Clinton's personal server.

Fox News is told the emails include intelligence from "special access programs," or SAP, which is considered beyond “Top Secret.” A Jan. 14 letter, first reported by Fox News, from intelligence community Inspector General Charles McCullough III notified senior intelligence and foreign relations committee leaders that "several dozen emails containing classified information” were determined to be “at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, AND TOP SECRET/SAP levels."

The State Department is trying to finish its review and public release of thousands of Clinton emails, as the Democratic presidential primary contests get underway in early February.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, there is an exemption that allows for highly sensitive, and in this case classified, material to be withheld in full -- which means nothing would be released in these cases, not even heavily redacted versions, which has been standard practice with the 1,340 such emails made public so far by the State Department.

According to the Justice Department FOIA website, exemption “B3” allows a carve-out for both the CIA and NSA to withhold "operational files." Similar provisions also apply to other agencies.

Fox News reported Friday that at least one Clinton email contained information identified as "HCS-O," which is the code for intelligence from human spying.

One source, not authorized to speak on the record, suggested the intelligence agencies are operating on the assumption there are more copies of the Clinton emails out there, and even releasing a partial email would provide enough clues to trace back to the original – which could allow the identification of “special access programs” intelligence.

There was no comment to Fox News from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, or the agency involved. Fox News has chosen not to identify the agency that provided sworn declarations that intelligence beyond Top Secret was found in the Clinton emails.

Reached for comment by Fox News, a State Department official did not dispute that some emails will never be made public.

“We continue to process the next set of former Secretary Clinton’s emails for release under the FOIA process and will have more to say about it later,” the official said. “As always, we take seriously our responsibilities to protect sensitive information.”

The State Department was scheduled to release more Clinton emails Friday, while asking a D.C. federal court for an extension.

FBI investigators looking into the emails are focused on the criminal code pertaining to “gross negligence” in the handling and storage of classified information, and “public corruption.”

“The documents alone in and of themselves set forth a set of compelling, articulable facts that statutes relating to espionage have been violated,” a former senior federal law enforcement officer said. The source said the ongoing investigation along the corruption track “also stems from her tenure of secretary. These charges would be inseparable from the other charges in as much as there is potential for significant overlap and correlation."

Based on federal regulations, once classified information is spilled onto a personal computer or device, as was the case with Clinton and her aides, the hardware is now considered classified at the highest classification level of the materials received.

While criticized by the Clinton campaign, McCullough, an Obama administration appointee, was relaying the conclusion of two intelligence agencies in his letter to Congress that the information was classified when it hit Clinton’s server -- and not his own judgment.

Joseph E. Schmitz, a former inspector general of the Department of Defense, called the attacks on McCullough a “shoot the watchdog” tactic by Clinton’s campaign.

The developments, taken together, show Clinton finding herself once again at the epicenter of a controversy over incomplete records.

During her time as the first female partner at the Rose Law firm in Arkansas during the mid-1980s, she was known as one of the “three amigos” and close with partners Webb Hubbell and Vince Foster. Hubbell ended up a convicted felon for his role in the failure of the corrupt Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan which cost taxpayers more than $65 million. Hubbell embezzled more than a half-million dollars from the firm.

Foster killed himself in Washington, D.C., in July 1993. As Clinton’s partner in the Rose Law firm, he had followed the Clintons into the White House where he served as the Clintons’ personal lawyer and a White House deputy counsel.

Clinton’s missing Rose Law billing records for her work for Guaranty during the mid-1980s were the subject of three intense federal investigations over two years. Those records, in the form of a computerized printout of her work performed on behalf of Guaranty, were discovered under mysterious circumstances in the Book Room of the private White House living quarters.

The discovery of those records was announced during a blizzard in January 1996 by attorney David Kendall, who still represents Hillary Clinton. After Clinton testified before a grand jury, prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt she committed perjury or obstruction of justice.

Despite Clinton’s recent public statements about not knowing how the technology works, at least one email suggests she directed a subordinate to work around the rules. In a June 2011 email to aide Jake Sullivan, she instructed him to take what appeared to be classified talking points, and "turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure."

A State Department spokesman could not say whether such a fax was sent.



Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

Campaigning in style: How Jeb Bush blew through his warchest

Yahoo | By Michelle Conlin and Grant Smith | January 26, 2016

IMAGE SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

NEW YORK (Reuters) - There were stays at boutique hotels featuring rooftop pools, private soirees at members-only, jacket-and-tie clubs and fundraisers at the Four Seasons, the St. Regis and the Mandarin Oriental.

In the world of Jeb Bush, the campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has at times been a whirl of private planes and high-end affairs, according to the federal filings of Bush’s campaign and his Super PAC, Right to Rise, which can raise unlimited funds for Bush as long as it does not coordinate directly with him.

It is not unusual for U.S. presidential candidates to fly private or even sometimes stay in luxury hotels. But some disgruntled donors say they are unhappy with Bush's large outlays, which also include big spending on staff and tens of millions of dollars in ad buys.

Eleven of 16 major donors contacted by Reuters questioned whether it was money well spent, especially given how the one-time frontrunner has stumbled badly in the polls and is now facing questions about whether he should withdraw from the race.

(Graphic on Bush spending vs performance in polls http://tmsnrt.rs/1SKC4O1)

In contrast to Bush, Senator Ted Cruz, who is running second in national polls of Republican voters, favors cheaper accommodation options like Holiday Inn and often flies on budget carriers, campaign finance filings through the third quarter show.

Several members of the Bush camp vigorously rejected the donor critiques. Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said, “We are running a national campaign that is competing everywhere and we have made investments that have allowed us to do what serious campaigns must do to be competitive in the primary and general elections."

Ad-tracking firm SMG Delta says Bush's campaign and Right to Rise have spent $82 million on ads, significantly more than the three leading candidates in the Republican race: Donald Trump ($5 million); Senator Ted Cruz ($11 million) and Senator Marco Rubio ($49 million). The tracking firm’s data is more up to date than what has been reported so far in the federal filings.

"There is no return on investment on the Bush ad buys, zero,” said one high-dollar donor who asked not to be named, pointing to how the ads have done little, at least so far, to lift Bush in the polls or dent his opponents.

On Sunday, donors will learn just how much Bush has spent from his $100 million-plus warchest. That's when Republican and Democratic candidates and their Super PACs release their latest campaign finance reports. What is known so far is that Bush and Right to Rise spent at least $82 million, both in operating expenditures through the third quarter of 2015 and on ad spending through this month.

The campaign finance reports also show that between June 2015, when Bush formally announced his candidacy, and September, the Bush campaign spent $1.2 million on private planes versus the roughly $700,000 spent during the same period by Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Cruz spent $158,000 on private planes, and Rubio $293,300. Trump flies around the country in his own Boeing 757.

MONEY DOES NOT EQUAL SUCCESS

The former Florida governor's spending pattern illustrates the limits of campaign donations: Even in an era when candidates can receive unlimited sums from wealthy donors, money doesn't guarantee success.

“They are burning money,” said a second major donor, who, like all the other high-dollar donors interviewed, asked not be named for fear of displeasing the Bush family.

“Look, this is not the election cycle to be spending like a silver-spoon Establishment candidate," said a third donor. "It just doesn’t look right,” the donor said, referring to the way income inequality has emerged as a key theme in the 2016 election.

Ambassador Jeanne Phillips, a member of the Right to Rise governance committee, laughed off the criticism.

“I’ve known Jeb for 30 years, so the idea that Jeb would allow anyone around him to be frivolous with money is hilarious, it’s ridiculous. The man is the most conservative, fiscally responsible person I’ve ever worked with.”

Bush’s campaign committee paid for all lodging on the campaign trail and the vast majority of private air charter, while Right To Rise paid for nearly all the known ad spending.

Money donated by both large and small donors kept the Bush camp traveling in style. There were stays at luxury hotels including the Wilshire in Beverly Hills, the Viceroy in Florida, the St. Regis in Dana Point, California, and the W in Stamford, Connecticut, the campaign finance filings show.

The filings do not offer a complete picture. It is not clear for example, how many nights were spent at each of the hotels or indeed whether it was Bush himself who stayed or staff members.

Bush isn’t the only candidate spending at high-end hotels, but it’s a high proportion of his overall hotel spending. He spent $125,000,or 70 percent of his total hotel spending between June and September on hotels defined as luxury or "upper upscale" luxury hotels by STR Global, which tracks supply and demand data in the hotel industry.

Cruz and Rubio each spent less on luxury hotels and a smaller proportion of their overall lodging expenses on them, at roughly 56 percent and 61 percent, respectively, federal filings through the third quarter show. Trump flies home nearly every night so he can sleep in his own bed.

POSH VENUES

Bush also spent more than $400,000 on renting facilities and catering at posh venues, including the Union League Club and the upscale beachfront 1 Hotel South Beach in Miami, where the campaign spent $60,000 last year. Rubio and Cruz spent roughly $265,000 and $185,000 respectively.

Bush defenders said the spending on high-end venues was simply how the donor world operated.

"If you can hold an event at a fancy hotel and raise millions, then it's well worth holding it at a swanky hotel” said Charlie Spies, counsel for Right to Rise.

Spies said Right to Rise had negotiated "below market" rates with vendors and consultants, including an overall compensation cap for staff.

Nevertheless the Bush camp has spent more on staff and consultants than any of the leading candidates. Starting roughly in the spring, Bush paid out about $8 million. Cruz spent just $2 million; Rubio, just under $2 million; and Trump, $1.7 million.

Overall, Trump, Cruz, and Rubio have spent a small fraction of the $82 million Bush has reported paying out. Cruz spent $18.5 million and Rubio outlayed $32 million, according to the filings made so far.

Bush is certainly not the only candidate to spend big on the trail. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, for instance, ran an expensive campaign and burned through nearly $10 million before quitting after three months.

Bush's prospects were far brighter last summer. Trump had yet to join the race and Bush was making headlines for the size of his warchest. His Super PAC had just cracked its goal of raising more than $100 million in just six months — an unprecedented haul in American politics.

To celebrate, Jeb’s parents and family welcomed their large network of well-heeled donors to their oceanside compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, where attendees were treated to rides in private trolley cars, lobster rolls and group photos with the sprawling Bush clan.

(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Ross Colvin)