Steve Murphy (DEA photo)

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Steve Murphy, a retired DEA agent who helped track down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, talks about how realistic Netflix’s popular show ‘Narcos’ is.

“One-third of the show is true,” Murphy said, according to Real Clear Life. “Those events happened and they are depicted correctly. The second third, those events happened, but they’re not depicted the way they actually occurred. They dramatize it. They glorified it. They made it more exciting. They added sex to it and all that kind of stuff. And then the last third, well, that’s just straight out of Hollywood.

Real Clear Life writes:

Murphy’s exploits, alongside DEA partner Javier Peña, in the late 1980s and early 1990s form the basis of the Netflix drama Narcos…

Murphy and Peña were speaking to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) late last month as part of the DIA’s “Masterminds” guest speaker series. The DIA said the pair’s DEA work overlapped with their own because both agencies “play a role in transnational organized crime threats – to include narcotics and threat finance through the America’s Regional Center.”

The show is going into its fourth season.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

The DEA has unveiled new billboards at the border to discourage youngsters from smuggling drugs across the border, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

A billboard in Tijuana near the port of entry and two in San Ysidro along Interstates 5 and 805 were unveiled Monday.

James Comey (Twitter photo)

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Ex-FBI Director James Comey is stepping outside his box.

Comey, who had been registered as a Republican most of his life, urged “all who believe in this country’s values” to vote for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections, CNN reports.

In a tweet on Tuesday evening, Comey called the Republican-held Congress “incapable of fulfilling the Founders’ design.”

This Republican Congress has proven incapable of fulfilling the Founders’ design that “Ambition must … counteract ambition.” All who believe in this country’s values must vote for Democrats this fall. Policy differences don’t matter right now. History has its eyes on us.

— James Comey (@Comey) July 18, 2018

Having sold out our nation on an international stage, Mr. Trump will now explain it all to Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson? I’m guessing RT and Sputnick were unavailable. He owes it to our nation to sit down with a serious journalist.

— James Comey (@Comey) July 17, 2018

This was the day an American president stood on foreign soil next to a murderous lying thug and refused to back his own country. Patriots need to stand up and reject the behavior of this president.

— James Comey (@Comey) July 16, 2018

Joseph Moreno is a former federal national security prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice and a former staff member to the FBI 9/11 Review Commission. He is now a white collar litigation partner at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft.

Joseph Moreno

By Joseph Moreno
The Hill

The House committees opted to haul (Peter) Strzok before them for multiple days to repeatedly revisit the issue of his alleged bias against President Trump. Instead of applying a careful investigative approach, Republicans in the majority seemed primarily intent on using the Strzok hearing to cast doubt on the FBI and the Mueller investigation. The minority Democrats, understandably frustrated, did themselves few favors by veering too far in the opposite direction by heaping praise on Strzok. They likely would have been more effective had they simply issued a statement condemning the hearing and walked out.

These are serious times that call for serious oversight. The House committees had a prime opportunity to conduct a real hearing, sort out true issues versus distractions, and focus on restoring confidence in the FBI and another serious investigation, which is that of the special counsel into Russian meddling with our American election system.

We know the Russian government conducted active measures to interfere in the 2016 election. The intelligence community, the House, and the Senate have all confirmed this. We know that Mueller has conducted a professional investigation that has borne more fruit with indictments of Russian intelligence officers for hacking networks and email accounts related to the Democratic Party. We know the special counsel team has secured guilty pleas relating to multiple individuals associated with the Trump campaign for lying about their interactions with Russians.

To read the full piece click here.

Robert “LaVoy” Finicum was the spokesman of the occupation. Via YouTube.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Things just improved a little for FBI agent Joseph Astarita.

A Portland federal judge on Monday threw out two of the five charges against Astarita, who is accused of lying about firing his weapon during a 2016 confrontation with Oregon occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, who was fatally shot, The Oregonian reports.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones struck one count of making a false statement and one count of obstruction of justice.

In June, the judge dealt a blow to the government’s case by  ruling that part of  the government’s key evidence, a  3D model that pinpointed where prosecutors suspect the agent was standing when he’s accused of firing at Finicum, can’t be used. Astarita denies firing his weapon.

Jury selection begins next week.

U.S. Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

U.S. Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas says he’s talked to FBI agents who think agent Peter Strzok has gotten away with murder.

He tells Fox News:

“I heard from more FBI agents saying, ‘If any of us had done a fraction of what Strzok did, we would not only have been run off, we probably would have been prosecuted. This guy has gotten away with murder and he’s hurt our reputation around the country.’ So hearing more and more of that, and also hearing from other government employees, saying he’s giving government employees a bad name. I’m just still holding onto that hope that springs eternal, that justice will hold out, and it will end up holding Strzok accountable. We’re not giving up. “

Rep. Gohmert said.

Emmett Till

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

The Justice Department has reopened the racist killing of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago who was visiting family in Mississippi in 1955, NPR reports.

The department says it has received “new information” in the case but did not provide specifics.

A new book on the killing, The Blood of Emmett Till, combined archival research with new interviews, provided hope for Till’s family.

Two white men were acquitted by an all-white jury, but the men later confessed that they killed Till.

Roger Stone

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone could be in big trouble.

On Friday, he acknowledged that he’s “probably” the unnamed person mentioned in special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment against 12 Russian military intelligence officers who allegedly sought to influence the 2016 presidential election, USA Today reports.

The indictment refers to a U.S. person who “was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump” and exchanging messages with the conspirators, who were posing as Guccifer 2.0.