Sen. Chuck Grassley

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing for a showdown with the Justice Department after it prevented two senior FBI officials from testifying on Capitol Hill about President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey.

The Senate legal counsel plans to subpoena the senior FBI officials – Carl Ghattas and James Rybicki – to force their testimony about Comey’s firing, CNN reports. 

The Justice Department last week said it was preventing the FBI officials from appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee because of the DOJ’s “long-standing policy regarding the confidentiality and sensitivity of information relating to pending matters.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., aren’t backing down.

“We’ve got subpoenas at the Senate counsel office,” Grassley told CNN Wednesday, referring to the Senate office that would draft the subpoenas. “When we get done there, I’m gonna have to consult with Sen. Feinstein.”

President Trump, via White House

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is turning his attention to President Trump’s actions in office, including the termination of his national security advisor and FBI director.

The New York Times also reports Mueller is honing in on an Oval Office meeting between Trump and Russian officials after the president said dismissing Comey had relieved “great pressure” on him.” 

Mueller is asking the White House for documents related to some of Trump’s most scrutinized actions while in office.

The news indicates that Trump is now squarely in the crosshairs of the investigation.

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

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Corey Lewandowski

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

President Trump’s campaign team chairman, Corey Lewandowski, said if anyone colluded with Russia to undermine the 2016 presidential election, they should be jailed for life.

Lewandowski, speaking at George Washington University, said democracy is sacred and should not be tampered with by outsiders.

“I think if anybody, and I’ve said this, if Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, or Rick Gates or Carter Page, or anybody else attempted to influence the outcome of the U.S. election through any means that’s inappropriate – through collusion, coordination or cooperation – I hope they go to jail for the rest of their lives,” he said, according to the Washington Examiner.

But Lewandowski defended Trump.

 “Never ever ever ever did I hear him say, utter, insinuate anything to do with Russia,” he said.

Other Stories of Interest

• Dick Wolf Gets CBS Series Order for FBI Drama
• College Student Busted by FBI for Child Pornography
• FBI Tapping Campaign Aide Is Far from Proof of Trump’s Claim
• FBI Investigates Off-Duty Work by Seattle Police Officers
• Federal Judge Mulls FOIA Lawsuit of Muslim Man Alleging FBI Framing

Border Patrol agent makes an arrest. Photo via Border Patrol.

Read more »

Donald Trump Jr., via Wikipedia

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

President Trump’s eldest son and another top White House official will no longer be protected by the Secret Service, the New York Times reports.

Saying he wants more privacy, Donald Trump Jr. elected to forgo Secret Service protection.

It’s unclear whether the rest of his family has elected to forgo protection.

Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, also will no longer be protected by the Secret Service, which has been run over budget because of the president and his family’s penchant for traveling and going on vacations.

The Times reports:

Like other members of his family, Mr. Trump’s personal and business travel — often to far-flung Trump properties and projects around the world — has triggered frequent criticism and careful documentation by Democrats and other watchdog groups. Those groups argue that taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for the agency’s highly trained agents to accompany the younger Mr. Trump. The size of the first family had forced the Secret Service to shift agents who would otherwise be working on criminal cases or investigations into protective duty.

The Secret Service does not decide who falls under its protection. In the case of the president’s immediate family, the agency is required by law to provide round-the-clock security unless it is told not to and typically errs on the side of caution.

Ms. Conway’s protection is not covered by statute. The president approved her protection after Ms. Conway received several threats in the administration’s early days. That threat assessment has since changed, the official briefed on the decision said.

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The federal government may be closer to proving Donald Trump’s campaign was encouraging Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been under FBI surveillance beginning in 2014, CNN reports.

The surveillance included wiretapping and other types of searches that began in 2014, when Manafort was under investigation for work he did involving a group of Washington consulting firms for the former ruling party of Ukraine.

The wiretapping was permitted under a secret order authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court.

The information collected prompted concerns by the FBI that Manafort was encouraging Russia to meddle in the election. In 2016, the FBI obtained a second warrant because of suspicions that Manafort was acting as an agent of a foreign power. That warrant involved the bureau’s investigation into suspected collision between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.

Special counsel Robert Mueller Mueller.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s search warrant for information related to Facebook accounts of suspected Russian operatives trying to meddle in the 2016 presidential election could be a turning point in the investigation.

Before news broke of the warrant, “it appeared that Mueller was focused on several discrete areas of inquiry, such as potentially false disclosures by former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, potential tax charges and alleged obstruction of justice related to President Donald Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey,” former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti wrote for Newsweek. 

Mariotti said his main changed after reading news about the warrant.

“The importance of that development cannot be overstated,” Mariotti wrote. “It means that Mueller presented evidence to a federal magistrate judge who concluded there was good reason to believe that foreign individuals committed a crime by making a ‘contribution’ in connection with the election and that evidence of such a crime existed on Facebook.”