[FoxNews] 'Now’s the time to rebuild the FBI’s trust,' said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley
The FBI blocked an investigation into allegations that the Chinese Communist Party manufactured fake driver’s licenses and shipped them to the U.S. in a scheme to influence the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden because it would "contradict" then-FBI Director Christopher Wray’s congressional testimony, newly declassified FBI documents obtained by Fox News Digital reveal.
The records, which include communications between FBI officials ahead of the 2020 election, were recently declassified by FBI Director Kash Patel and transmitted to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Fox News Digital reported in June that Patel located and declassified the original reporting document alleging the Chinese Communist Party sought to deliver fake driver’s licenses to Chinese sympathizers in the U.S. who would cast a vote for Biden in the 2020 election. The document did not say whether any ballots were cast as part of the scheme.
The FBI recalled that reporting, though, Sept. 25, 2020 – just a day after Wray testified before Congress that the FBI had not seen any coordinated voter fraud ahead of the 2020 election.
The FBI, at the time, had recalled that report "in order to re-interview the source." It also directed "recipients" of the original report to "destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer holdings."
But Patel, this week, declassified additional documents, including records relating to the re-interview of the source, and communications between FBI officials at the time discussing the decision-making behind the recall and its decision not to republish the intelligence reporting.
The records were sent to Grassley and Fox News Digital has reviewed the records.
"Although the source was reengaged and provided additional context to support the initial IIR, FBI Headquarters maintained its position not to republish the report," Assistant FBI Director Marshall Yates wrote in a letter to Grassley, obtained by Fox News Digital. "One reason cited for not releasing the IIR was because ‘the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony.’"
During a Senate hearing on Sept. 24, 2020, Wray said he had not seen any widespread fraud by mail, and if he had, it would be something that we would investigate seriously… and aggressively."
"We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it is by mail or otherwise," Wray testified. But "people should make no mistake. We are vigilant as to the threat and watching it carefully, because we are in uncharted new territory."
But Wray also testified that the Chinese had been "expanding their influence efforts," saying they had been "looking for different ways to take a page out of the malign foreign influence playbook that they have seen elsewhere."
Yates, in his letter to Grassley, explained that the recall of the original reporting document was "abnormal."
"The rationale provided to Albany staff for the recall was that Headquarters deemed the report not ‘authoritative,’ but this characterization was met with disagreement by those in the Albany office," Yates explained.
Grassley told Fox News Digital: "These records smack of political decision-making and prove the Wray-led FBI to be a deeply broken institution. Ahead of a high-stakes election happening amid an unprecedented global pandemic, the FBI turned its back on its national security mission."
"One way or the other, intelligence must be fully investigated to determine whether it’s true or if it’s just smoke and mirrors," Grassley said.
Fox News Digital was unable to reach Wray for comment.
The report was recalled at the direction of Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Nikki Floris.
Fox News Digital first reported that Floris was the FBI official to deliver a "defensive briefing" to Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., in August 2020, claiming that their Hunter Biden investigation advanced Russian disinformation.
The FBI declassified internal emails among Albany, New York, staff, obtained by Fox News Digital, reflecting concerns that suppressing the document would be "dangerous if we cite potential political implications as reasons for not putting out our information."
Yates explained that it "was not the role of analysts to align intelligence with public testimony."
"Albany staff further warned against FBI assuming the role of sole gatekeeper for the Intelligence Community (IC), emphasizing that suppressing field-generated reporting could deprive other IC elements of the opportunity to corroborate or discredit intelligence," Yates said.
In an email on Sept. 30, 2020, reviewed by Fox News Digital, agents questioned why the report could not be released, to which another replied: "Again, the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony."
Continued on Page 47
#2
so we have a conspiracy to aid and abet chinese influence in our elections headed by Wray. At a minimum, everyone involved should be punished with life in prison, death would be preferred.
[X] President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... has indicated he is open to an investigation by the Department of Justice into former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. This interest stems from criticisms regarding Mayorkas' handling of border security during the Biden administration, which has seen a significant influx of illegal migrants colonists. Trump's comments were made in response to questions about accountability for Mayorkas' actions.
[NY Post] Paramount Global and CBS agreed on Tuesday to pay President Donald Trump a sum that could reach north of $30 million to settle the president’s election interference lawsuit against the network.
Trump will receive $16 million upfront. This will cover legal fees, costs of the case, and contributions to his future presidential library or charitable causes, to be determined at Trump’s discretion.
There is an anticipation that there will be another allocation in the mid-eight figures set aside for advertisements, public service announcements, or other similar transmissions, in support of conservative causes by the network in the future, Fox News Digital has learned.
With these considerations, CBS would pay well in excess of the $15 million ABC paid Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit last year. Current Paramount management disputes the additional allocation.
Sources close to the situation told Fox News Digital that CBS has agreed to update its editorial standards to install a mandatory new rule.
Going forward, the network will promptly release full, unedited transcripts of future presidential candidates’ interviews.
People involved in the settlement talks have referred to this as the “Trump Rule.”
“With this record settlement, President Donald J. Trump delivers another win for the American people as he, once again, holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit. CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle. President Trump will always ensure that no one gets away with lying to the American People as he continues on his singular mission to Make America Great Again,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told Fox News Digital.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2025 05:20 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[140 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Let's hope it has the Media being reporters again, not the Political Fiction writers and Puppet Propagandists that too many have become.
Scary to think.
But the internet, despite its liberal leanings, was far more accurate than the Big 6 MSM, in getting the FACTS out to the voters.
#4
One condition of the settlement should have been that CBS would report the settlement as their lead story. They should have been forced to eat crow on prime time TV so the whole world could see that they are liars.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/02/2025 11:10 Comments ||
Top||
#5
They really, Really, Really didn't want to go to discovery.
They were lying and their bosses knew it.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/02/2025 11:46 Comments ||
Top||
#6
I'm predicting a massive 'Burn Bag' backup at Klingon Central.
[IsraelTimes] US president suggests that the state assembly member is in the country illegally, throws support behind incumbent Eric Adams, whom he says he ‘helped out a little bit’ in the past
US President Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons... threatened during a presser on Tuesday to arrest New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani should he win the mayoral elections in November, hours after his victory in the primaries was formally confirmed.
The president, who was speaking at an immigration roundtable at a new Florida detention facility, also repeated an unfounded claim that Mamdani entered the US illegally and voiced support for New York City Mayor Eric Adams ...Hizonner da Mare of Noo Yawk. As a Manchurian candidate, Hizonner was all in favor of law and order and that kind of stuff. Once in office, a bunch of his friends found cushy jobs with the city, the windows kept getting broken, and Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg remained right where he was. Most people comfort themselves with the thought that he's not Bill di Blasio but that's pretty small comfort with kids who actually go to school getting bumped off while standing in front of them. But he's a Dem, so the rubes will vote for him next election too, so he's what they deserve... , who is seeking reelection.
Asked about Mamdani’s plan to oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in New York City, Trump said that if this happened, the US administration would "have to arrest him."
"We’ll have to arrest him," Trump said. "We don’t need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation."
Mamdani earlier said that the immigrant raids were "terrorizing people," and that agents who carry them out have no interest in following the law.
"We send him money, we send him all the things that he needs to run a government," Trump said, repeating his threat from earlier this week that Mamdani would have to "do the right thing" or forgo federal funds.
"A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally," Trump said. "We’re going to look at everything and ideally he’s going to turn out to be much less than a communist, but right now he’s a communist, that’s not a socialist," he said.
Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian parents and became a US citizen in 2018.
Trump has often used citizenship and immigration as a weapon with which to attack his political opponents, having claimed repeatedly that former US president Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... was born in Kenya, and that former vice president Kamala Harris once a marijuana-busting Caliphornia DA , whom he defeated at the polls last November, did not meet citizenship requirements to run for president.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and state assembly member, is a member of the far-left Democratic Socialists of America, which is not a communist organization.
The DSA has made anti-Israel activism one of its planks, and Mamdani has come under fire from some parts of New York City’s Jewish community for his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state — saying instead that he believes it "has a right to exist as a state with equal rights" — and for refusing to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada," which is generally viewed as a call for violence.
Trump also used Tuesday’s roundtable event to offer support to one of Mamdani’s opponents, incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who is standing for reelection in November as an independent, following a since-dismissed federal bribery case.
"Mayor Adams is a very good person. I helped him out a little bit, he had a problem and he was unfairly hurt over this question," Trump said, calling corruption allegations against Adams a "phony indictment."
Adams has friendly ties with Trump, who is unpopular in New York City.
The federal corruption charges against Adams were dismissed in April, which the judge in the case said "smacks of a bargain" between Adams and the Trump administration.
President Trump on if Zohran Mamdani doesn't cooperate with ICE: "Well, then we'll have to arrest him. We don't need a communist in this country, but if we have one I'm going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation." pic.twitter.com/oqV7POiClL
[FoxNews] Tens of thousands of employees who are in the process of being terminated remain on the government payroll due to court orders that are currently being challenged by the administration, OPM says. Oh sure. Nothing will come of that.
The Trump administration released data on Tuesday morning showing that it had slashed the federal government workforce, while promising that there is more to come as Trump continues his push to rid the government of waste.
Data released by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) shows that the United States employs 2,289,472 federal workers as of March 31, which is down from 2,313,216 on September 30, 2024.
The reduction of more than 23,000 positions "reflects the administration’s early efforts to streamline government and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy," OPM said in a press release.
"The American people deserve a government that is lean, efficient, and focused on core priorities," Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell said in a statement.
"This data marks the first measurable step toward President Trump’s vision of a disciplined, accountable federal workforce, and it’s only the beginning."
Trump signed an executive order in February instructing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to coordinate with federal agencies and execute massive cuts in federal government staffing numbers.
That order is reflected in the new data, OPM said, showing that agencies averaged 23,000 new monthly hires from April 2024 to January 2025 but dropped by nearly 70% to just 7,385 per month once the freeze was fully implemented.
The agency said the cuts saved the taxpayers "billions."
OPM added that "hundreds of thousands more workers" will drop from the rolls in October 2025, when more workers depart via the Deferred Resignation Program that was offered to employees in an effort to trim the workforce.
Tens of thousands of employees who are in the process of being terminated remain on the government payroll due to court orders that are currently being challenged by the administration, OPM says.
Trump's effort to shrink the federal workforce has faced stiff resistance from Democrats and various courts, with critics saying that the administration is cutting critical jobs.
"It's a judge that's putting himself in the position of the President of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes," Trump said aboard Air Force One on a flight back to Washington in March, after a federal judge blocked one of his efforts to fire federal workers.
"That's a very dangerous thing for our country. And I would suspect that we're going to have to get a decision from the Supreme Court."
Last month, OPM unveiled a new rule it said will make it easier to terminate federal employees for serious misconduct by cutting through the red tape that currently impedes that process.
Fox News Digital reported in 2023 that under current law, the vast majority of the federal workforce is not at-will and may only be terminated for misconduct, poor performance, medical inability or reduction in force. Federal employees are also entitled to sweeping due process rights when fired, which can create a cumbersome process for agencies to remove a worker.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
07/02/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[114 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
The only problem with 'lean and mean' organizations is they are unable to respond to changes, generally because there's no resources available.
Just my $.02.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/02/2025 11:55 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I don’t see any evidence that the fat and lazy government was responding to emergent needs very well. East Palestine, Maui and the border crisis are examples from the Biden clown show.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/02/2025 18:09 Comments ||
Top||
How unstatesmanlike. President Bush, at least, was trained in good manners, and knows better. Poor President Obama was brought up by Communist spies, and so all he understands is power plays. Not that anyone cares what either of them think on the subject, as President Bush never mastered the Deep State and President Obama co-opted it, inasmuch as they were not his enthusiastic fellow travellers.
[Daily Beast] Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush have joined forces to shoot down President Trump’s "colossal mistake" to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The Trump administration cut around 90 percent of USAID’s foreign aid contracts during Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rampage back in February. Musk oversaw the depletion of the workforce from 10,000 to less than 300.
The agency will be absorbed by the state department, where it will be replaced by a new organization called America First.
In a farewell video message to staffers on Monday, USAID’s last day before it is folded into the state department, the two former presidents decried its treatment by Trump.
Continued on Page 47
#2
Interesting that it is specifically the USAID shutdown that triggered this bipartisan condemnation.
USAID was possibly a money laundering outfit that was not only important but essential for the deep state.
Rerouting money streams will be difficult because the public is now aware of the general scheme. This is true even if an establishment figure should succeed Trump.
#4
The Bush people have been against Trump from day one. Let's not pretend anything has changed.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/02/2025 8:13 Comments ||
Top||
#5
^ Still sore about JEB!
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2025 8:38 Comments ||
Top||
#6
JEB! was just frosting on the loathing cake. The Bushes have been patrician class Republicans for generations in Connecticut and environs — and that side trip to Texas his father started. They’ve served in both houses of Congress, as governors and vice presidents, on political commissions and charitable boards and as ambassadors, and married into families just like them for even longer. George HW Bush was their first president, and George W their second…. and someone discovered that Barack Obama is something like a tenth cousin, so while they move in different circles, at official president functions they stand together.
The Donald is a nouveau riche, second generation landlord from Queens who, as they no doubt see it, bought his way into the White House instead of knowing his place.
#7
TW nails it. JEB's defeat was a gift. I suspect the family secretly realized as much. Mexican lawn services hire only Mexicans. Same is true of the Yale, Ivy League crowd.
#11
Because they are the last two where the money trail can get to them. Biden will be dead in a couple years, or at least so bad he cant get prosecuted and we will never go after Jill, the next to are these idiots. They know they will be in the DOJ sights soon...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/02/2025 16:55 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Oh no. Hey everyone, Bono is crying. Remember Bono? Yeah, he's crying. We should probably put stuff on hold until we can get him a nappy or something.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!...
[NY Post] Paramount Global and CBS agreed on Tuesday to pay President Donald Trump a sum that could reach north of $30 million to settle the president’s election interference lawsuit against the network. 
...Hizonner da Mare of Noo Yawk. As a Manchurian candidate, Hizonner was all in favor of law and order and that kind of stuff. Once in office, a bunch of his friends found cushy jobs with the city, the windows kept getting broken, and Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg remained right where he was. Most people comfort themselves with the thought that he's not Bill di Blasio but that's pretty small comfort with kids who actually go to school getting bumped off while standing in front of them. But he's a Dem, so the rubes will vote for him next election too, so he's what they deserve...
