By Steve Neavling

Kevin Clinestmith, a former FBI lawyer who was convicted of altering an email in connection with the surveillance of former Trump aide Carter Page, will lose his law license for one year. 

The D.C. Court of Appeals on Thursday approved the suspension, which was approved and recommended by a legal disciplinary committee as part of a negotiated settlement last month.

In the order, the Court of Appeals judge said they “agree the proposed sanction is not unduly lenient or inconsistent with dispositions imposed for comparable professional misconduct,” Reuters reports.

Clinesmith was sentenced to 12 months of probation and 400 hours of community service on Jan. 29 for altering an email used to seek the continued surveillance of Page. The email suggested that Page was not a source for the CIA, even though he had a relationship with the agency. 

In June, Clinestmith agreed to the one-year suspension of his law license. The suspension is retroactive to start in August 2020.

Clinesmith faces a two-year suspension as part of a separate disciplinary deal in Michigan. 

Last month, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility noted that Clinesmith showed remorse and had no prior disciplinary history. 

“All of the evidence regarding respondent’s intent supports the contention that he did not act with fraudulent intent,” the committee said.

By Steve Neavling

The Justice Department released videos showing rioters attacking Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick with a chemical spray during the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

Sicknick, who was trying to fend off rioters at the U.S. Capitol, died the day after the attack. He had two strokes, and his death was deemed “natural.” 

The videos are being used as evidence in the case against two men accused of assaulting Sicknick and other officers. 

The videos includes surveillance and body camera footage taken during the siege. 

Media outlets were given access to the videos, which still aren’t available for broadcasting. 

The Justice Department recently said it anticipates charging more than 500 people in connection with the riot.

The riot led to the deaths of five people, and more than 130 officers were injured. 

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday defended his decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate Russia’s election meddling, but blamed top-level FBI officials for “significant errors.”

“I still believe it was the right decision under the circumstances,” Mr. Rosenstein told the Senate Judiciary Committee about appointing Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel, The New York Times reports. “I recognize that people can criticize me for them. That’s the consequence of being in these jobs — you make decisions and people criticize you for them — but I believed it was the right decision at the time.”

Rosenstein, however, said he signed applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page based on erroneous information and omissions.

The Republican-led committee is ramping up its investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Some Democrats and Republicans in Congress are calling for a temporary ban on the federal government’s use of facial recognition technology after the FBI revealed it had accumulated more than 640 million photographs.

The photos, which come from driver’s licenses, mug shots, passports, social media and other places, can be used for the bureau’s facial recognition technology.

“This technology is evolving extremely rapidly without any real safeguards,” Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said during the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Tuesday. “Whether we are talking about commercial use or government use, there are real concerns about the risks that this technology poses to our civil rights and liberties and our right to privacy.”

The technology has been criticized, not just over transparency and privacy concerns, but because of its unreliability. Studies have shown the technology is less accurate on darker faces, which could lead to arrests based on false matches.

Kimberly Del Greco, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services section, told lawmakers that “Trust is crucial” to the FBI.

“Protecting the privacy and civil liberties of the American people is part of our culture.”

Some lawmakers questioned why the FBI was using noncriminal photos.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Conservative provocateur Roger Stone is threatening to file a federal lawsuit to determine whether he was under FBI surveillance during the Trump campaign.

“We have strong reason to believe that Mr. Stone was among three advisors to candidate Trump who was under surveillance by the FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign,” Stone’s attorney Paul Jensen wrote in a May 20 letter to the federal government, The Hill reports.

Jensen’s assertion is based on a January 2017 story by The New York Times, which revealed that the FBI had been monitoring Donald Trump associates and the Russian government during the presidential election.

“Having exhausted our administrative remedies we are now contemplating a tort lawsuit as a means to force the government to disclose the facts in this serious matter and to determine if Mr. Stone’s 4th amendment rights were violated,” Jensen’s letter continued.

Stone, who was unable to substantiate his claims, has been charged with seven counts, including making false statements to Congress, obstruction a government investigation and tampering with a witness. He is awaiting trial.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

Federal investigators wiretapped the phones lines of President Trump’s longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, in the weeks leading up to the raids on his office, home and hotel room, according to a new report.

At least one of those intercepted phone calls was from the White House, NBC reported Thursday afternoon.

The FBI raided Cohen’s properties last month and seized emails and records related to his clients, two of whom are the president and television personality Sean Hannity.

After the raid, Trump’s attorneys advised him to contact Cohen, who, among other things, is under investigation for a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

On Thursday, in an extraordinary admission that contradicts previous statements, Trump tweeted that he reimbursed Cohen for the payment.

Since the case is being investigated by New York prosecutors, Trump can’t stop the probe by firing special counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading up the Russia investigation and trying to determine whether the president obstructed justice.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

When James Comey became the FBI director in 2013, he placed atop his desk a framed copy of the letter that authorized the surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. as a reminder of the bureau’s “shameful.” 

In his new book, Comey said he deeply admired the civil rights giant and criticized the FBI’s treatment of him as “a dark chapter in the Bureau’s history.” Comey required the bureau’s entire workforce to read King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail” and created a curriculum for new agents to “remember how well-meaning folks lost their way.” New recruits were ordered to visit the King memorial and write an essay about one of their favorite quotes inscribed on the wall.

But what Comey doesn’t mention is the bureau’s “same racialized tactics and assumptions in his tenure as FBI director: broadly targeting the Muslim-American community, coercing informants, trafficking in racial profiling, surveilling Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock activists, and largely standing aside amid police violence and misconduct.”

The surveillance of the civl rights movement, which went far beyond King, wasn’t largely known until activists broke into an FBI office in Pennsylvania and stole the records before leaking them to the media.

“To become targets of the FBI, it wasn’t necessary for African Americans to engage in violent behavior,” said Betty Medsger, the Post reporter who broke the initial story. “Being black was enough.” Agents were required “to investigate and, if possible, infiltrate every black student organization at two year and four year colleges.”

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

Attorney General Jeff Sessions rebuffed calls from Republican lawmakers to appoint a second special counsel to investigate whether the FBI and Justice Department overextended their authority in surveilling a former Trump campaign aide.

Some House and Senate Republicans urged Sessions to make the appointment, continuing to assail the investigation of Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser during Trump’s campaign, as politically motivated.

In a letter to three congressional committee chairmen, Sessions said there’s no need– at least not yet – to appoint a special counsel because the matter is already the subject of two separate investigations  – one by the Justice Department inspector general, the other by the U.S. attorney in Utah. 

“I take the concerns you raise seriously,” Mr. Sessions wrote, adding, “I expect every person in this Department to adhere to the highest levels of integrity, ethics, and and professionalism.”

Sessions’ decision was criticized by some Republicans.

“Mr. Sessions, what’s it going to take?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said in a phone interview with Politico. “I’m hopeful this is just one last step Jeff Sessions wants to take before he realizes the obvious, which is there needs to be a second special counsel.”