By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The FBI failed to ask Apple to help unlock the iPhone of the Texas church shooter in the two days following the massacre that left 26 people dead.

Apple, which has refused to offer help unlocking encrypted phones in the past, said it offered to assist the FBI but agents never reached out, Business Insider reports. 

“Our team immediately reached out to the FBI after learning from their press conference Tuesday that investigators were trying to access a mobile phone,” Apple said in a statement. “We offered assistance and said we would expedite our response to any legal process they send us.”

The phone, instead, was sent to a lab for analysis.

As a result, the FBI lost 48 hours without locking the device by using the finger prints of the shooter, Devin Kelley, if the phone was fingerprint-access enabled.

That’s significant because iPhones locked with a fingerprint for 48 hours or more require the user’s passcode.

The FBI declined to comment.

Hillary Clinton

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A federal judge for the second time has dismissed a pair of lawsuits that would have required the State Department and FBI to do more to track down former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg ruled the FBI has done all it reasonably can to recover Clinton’s emails, the Washington Times reports. 

The lawsuit, which was filed in 2015 by two watchdogs, Judicial Watch and Cause of Action, demanded a more thorough effort to recover all of Clinton’s emails, claiming she violated open-records laws by failing to retain her messages.

“Those efforts went well beyond the mine-run search for missing federal records … and were largely successful, save for some emails sent during a two-month stretch. Even then, the FBI pursued every imaginable avenue to recover the missing emails,” wrote Judge Boasberg, an Obama appointee to the court.

It was the second time the case was dismissed, but a higher court reversed the original findings, saying the government had a responsibility to “shake loose a few more emails.”

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

An alert off-duty FBI agent busted three teenagers and an adult who were breaking into cars in the Detroit suburb of Lyon Township.

The agent called Oakland County Sheriff’s deputies after he spotted suspicious-looking occupants of a Ford Taurus peering into parked cars and checking to see if the doors were unlocked, The Oakland Press reports. 

Arrested were two 17-year-old girls, a 17-year-old boy and a 23-year-old man.

Deputies searched the car with permission from the owner and found several wallets, work boots, a backpack, medical equipment and a concealed-weapon permit.

Authorities believe two of the suspects were involved in a string of other vehicle break-ins.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The Air Force took responsibility for not alerting the FBI to the Texas church shooter’s domestic violence-related convictions, a failure that allowed former Airman Devin Kelley to purchase guns.

Had the Air Force reported the incidents to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, or NCIC, he would have been barred from buying a firearm.

“The offenses for which the shooter in Texas was court-martialed should have been reported, and that’s why we launched a full-scale review of this case, and all others like it,” Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson told reporters on Thursday, ABC News reports.

The failure has prompted several investigations. In addition to the Air Force’s internal probe, the Department of Defense Inspector General is investigating all military branches to see if there is a pattern of failing to report violent crimes to NCIC.

“We are looking at all of our databases, and if we have problems that we find, we’ll fix them,” Wilson said. “Our approach here is to act in accordance with our values, which include integrity and excellence, and that’s the way we’re proceeding.”

In 2012, Kelley was court-martialed while serving in the Air Force for assaulting his wife and child. He served a year in confinement and received a bad conduct discharge.

That information was never passed on.

Former National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is accused of plotting to forcibly remove a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and delivering him to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the allegations involving Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., who reportedly were paid as much as $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, according to several reports. 

Flynn is accused of meeting with senior Turkish officials in December, a few weeks before Trump’s inauguration, to discuss the return of Gulen, who is a rival of Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

Flynn and others also are under investigation for allegedly plotting to free a Turkish-Iranian gold trader who is jailed in the U.S.

Authorities said the meeting allegedly occurred at an upscale restaurant just a few blocks from Trump Tower.

Other Stories of Interest

• Texas Church Shooter Practiced on Dogs, Says Former Colleague
• How Robert Mueller Can Play Hardball with Michael Flynn
• FBI, Canadian Cops Arrest Alleged Mafia Members in Fentanyl Bust
• Ex-FBI Counter-Spy on Mueller, Trump, Putin: ‘Russia Is Winning’
• Justice Department to Prosecute Traffickers of Any Fentanyl-Related Substance