By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

FBI Director Christoper Wray, being very circumspect, suggested that he’s considered quitting and has pushed back against President Donald Trump’s recent comments casting doubt on Russian interference.

While being questioned by NBC’s Lester Holt at the Aspen Security Forum, he was asked if he’d ever considered resigning.

“I’m a low key, understated guy, but that should not be mistaken for what my spine’s made of. I’ll just leave it at that.”

The interview with Wray begins around the 1 minute mark in the video.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

FBI agents on Wednesday raided the Clovis, Calif. home of Merl Hefferman, president of a local chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

Hefferman was taken out of the house and held for several hours in a Clovis Police Department van, reports ABC 13 Eyewitness News.

He is known as the leader of an annual charity drive, giving bikes to underprivileged kids at Christmas.

Last year, several club members were arrested and indicted on murder and drug charges related to a three-year-old shooting at the Fresno Club headquarters, the station reports.

Scott Smith

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Whatever the reason, three of the FBI’ top cybersecurity officials are retiring from the bureau, the Wall Street Journal reports.

It comes at a time the country is facing unprecedented cyberthreats.

The Journal reports:

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

U.S. Secret Service agent Noel E. Remagen died after suffering a stroke while supporting President Donald Trump’s trip to Scotland, CNN reports.

The 42-year-old agent was working on protection for national security adviser John Bolton on the midnight shift when he was found to be unresponsive by colleagues at Trump’s Turnberry resort Saturday night, CNN reports.

He was rushed to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. A Secret Service press release says he passed away on Tuesday.

Remagen is survived by a wife and two small children, and was the son of a retired Secret Service employee.

By Investor’s Business Daily
Editorial

Email Scandal: Last week we learned that a “foreign entity” may have been secretly receiving Hillary Clinton’s emails while she was Secretary of State, including many that contained classified information. And that the FBI apparently ignored this information during its “investigation.” The reaction by the press to this bombshell? Crickets.

At one point during Peter Strzok’s congressional testimony last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert made a stunning claim: FBI investigators were told that Clinton’s emails had been surreptitiously forwarded to a “foreign entity.” And the FBI investigators who were allegedly conducting a thorough, unbiased, professional probe into Clinton’s mishandling of classified materials ignored it.

To read the full editorial click here.

FBI Director Christopher Wray (file photo)

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Thanks but no thanks.

That’s the message from FBI Director Christopher Wray, who says he’s not interested in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to have American investigators go to Russia to observe interviews of suspects wanted by the U.S.

“I never want to say never, but it’s certainly not high on our list of investigative techniques,” Wray said wryly at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News.

Wray also dismissed Putin’s proposed that Russian investigators be allowed to come to the U.S. and observe questioning of suspects that they’re interested in.

“That’s probably even lower on our list of investigative techniques,” Wray said.

On the Mueller probe, Wray said:

“I think it’s a professional investigation conducted by a man that I’ve known to be a straight shooter.”

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.