The FBI Text Messages and President Obama

Earlier this week more text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were released. This time the texts included former President Obama. 

On September 2, 2016, Lisa Page texted Peter Strzok “POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing”. The text was in reference to then-FBI Director James Comey, who was preparing talking points for Obama regarding the probe into the former Secretary of State.   

Sen. Ron Johnson, along with majority staff from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, are releasing the texts, along with a report titled, “The Clinton Email Scandal and the FBI’s Investigation of it.   

Obama had said in April 2016 he could guarantee he wouldn’t interfere and there would be no political influence in the FBI investigation, during a FOX News interview. “I do not talk to the attorney general about pending investigations. We have a strict line” he said. 

Comey was to give Obama an update on the Clinton email investigation before the 2016 election. Comey then testified before Congress in 2017 that he only spoke to Obama twice as FBI Director, but did not mention whether he had sent him written reports.   

According to a newly released Senate report, the text from Page raised questions about Obama’s personal involvement in the Clinton email investigation. Three days after Page sent her text, Obama confronted Putin for Russia meddling in the 2016 election on the sideline of the G20 meeting in Hangzhou, China.  

FBI chief, intelligence officials to testify before Senate panel next week

Next Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a hearing focused on global threats. The open hearing will be titled, “Worldwide Threats”. The testimony is routine, part of an annual hearing intended to examine current threats to U.S. national security. 

Wray’s appearance, however, could trigger an entirely different set of questions related to a burning controversy on Capitol Hill over allegations that his agency and the Justice Department abused America’s secret surveillance court to spy on former Trump campaign advisers during the 2016 presidential elections. 

Wray could also face questions about the text messages exchanged between top FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, both of whom worked on the FBI's probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

When Will the Democrats’ Response Memo be Released? 

Trump met with a top Justice Department official on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018 to review the classified Democratic memo on the Russia investigation. The Democratic document is intended to counter the GOP memo, which suggested that the FBI withheld critical information about a tainted dossier.   

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to discuss the difference between the two memos. “We are undergoing the exact same process that we did with the previous memo, in which it will go through a full thorough legal and national security review.”  

White House chief of staff John Kelly said he’s instructed officials to complete an evaluation of the Democratic memo no later than tomorrow. “After that, we’ll brief the president on it and he will have a decision to make, on whether to declassify it entirely or perhaps declassify it with some redactions. Kelly said the Democratic version is “not as clean as the first one.”  

A congressional panel has voted unanimously to release a Democratic rebuttal to a Republican memo alleging bias against President Donald Trump.  

The President has five days to decide whether to declassify the 10-page document. This five-day time frame will be up on Friday.

NYC Rejects All 1,526 ICE Requests in Trump's First Year

The New York City Police Department received 1,526 requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain illegal immigrants and rejected them all during President Donald Trump’s first year in office. 

The number of ICE detainer requests was nearly 20 times higher than the 80 that were received in 2016, the New York Police Department’s legislative affairs director Oleg Chernyavsky told the City Council on Wednesday.

In 2016, police complied with two of the 80 requests to turn over illegals who had been arrested so they could be deported. The NYPD honored these two requests only because the illegals involved had federal arrest warrants. 

New York law says the city can’t hand prisoners over to ICE unless they’ve been convicted of one of 170 serious crimes, and the federal authorities must present a warrant. Some crimes not covered by the New York law are, dog-killers, animal abusers, insurance and welfare fraudsters and people who are guilty of grand larceny in the first degree. 

As of October 2017, the City Council passed a legislation, 41-4, saying that city employees will be banned from spending any time on duty or using city property to assist in enforcing immigration laws. The legislation expands rules that previously applied to the NYPD and city jails, which say officials can’t honor so-called detainer requests from the feds unless the person they’re looking for has been convicted of any of 170 serious crimes.

What to Look For in this Year’s Olympics

The Olympics will take place from February 9, 2018, to February 25, 2018. Some of the sports featured in this year’s Olympics will be, figure skating, alpine skiing, bobsledding, curling, snowboarding and ice hockey. 

The Opening Ceremony, which marks the official beginning of the Games will take place on Friday, February 9, 2018, in PyeongChang, South Korea. 

In December 2017, the IOC barred Russian athletes from competing in the 2018 Olympics over allegations of state-sponsored doping by Russia in Sochi. 

The country’s government officials are forbidden to attend the Olympics, its flag will not be displayed at the opening ceremony and its anthem will not be heard. The Russian Olympic Committee was also fined $15 million. 

However, Russian athletes who can prove they are clean will be invited to compete under a neutral flag and will be known as Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR). They will wear a uniform with that name on it, and the Olympic anthem will be played at any medal ceremonies for Russian athletes. At least 168 Russian athletes are participating in the Games, according to the PyeongChang official website.

Who’s Competing in the Olympics?

A recent poll conducted by Hub Entertainment Research revealed that 19 percent of those surveyed couldn’t identify a single potential Winter Olympics star, not even established talents such as Shaun White or Lindsey Vonn, let alone projected breakout athletes Nathan Chen, Mikaela Shiffrin, Chloe Kim or any number of others.

Top Team USA names you'll be watching in PyeongChang

Shaun White, the snowboarder is a two-time gold-medal winner. Lindsey Vonn will be competing in alpine skiing. Vonn is the best female at her sport of all time, she's trying to win again at age 33. Another alpine skier, Mikaela Shiffrin will be competing. Shiffrin became the youngest slalom champion in Olympic history in 2014. Brian Gionta will be on the ice as captain ofthemen's ice hockey team.

No NHL Players Allowed to Participate on the Olympic Team

On February 14, the U.S. men's team will take the ice for the first time in the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea against Slovenia. The NHL announced in April 2017 that none of its players would be competing in PyeongChang in February, breaking a 20-year streak. There seem to be multiple reasons the NHL decided not to send its players to the winter Games. First, the league and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have been at odds over who has to foot the bill for players' travel expenses and injury costs, a point of negotiation that has stayed at an impasse. 

Then there's the issue of the NHL season. Whereas some major-league sports don't coincide with the Games (the NBA season runs October through June, for example, and the Summer Olympics are often in July or August), the NHL is in the middle of its season during the Winter Olympics. This can prove inconvenient, especially if players get injured during the Games, which happened during the 2014 Sochi Games. 

This year's USA Men's team roster includes 15 players from European professional leagues, four from the AHL, and three collegiate-level players.

Mail Time!

• I haven't posted here before, but I was blown away by Mr. Tolman's interview. This was your all-time best guest. I loved the way he knew his stuff and laid it out so clearly. Fantastic! I have to admit, that the continued silence from the FISA Court has made me start to wonder whether they were also in the tank for Ms. Clinton and anti-Trump.
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