DoJ internal watchdog report clears FBI of illegal surveillance of Trump adviser – live | US news

USMCA draws near. US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Jared Kushner, senior adviser to his father-in-law Potus, are off to Mexico tomorrow to try to get the new US-Mexico-Canada trade deal in the bag.

Comey on again off again Fox

Former FBI director James Comey, ahoy. Comey was fired by Donald Trump in 2017, (over “this Russia thing”), triggering the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to carry on with the Trump-Russia investigation.

After the US Department of Justice watchdog report today concluded that the FBI was right to start the investigation into the Trump election campaign’s dealings with Russian operatives in 2016, Comey hopped onto Twitter this afternoon.

A little earlier he wrote:

Noises off

US attorney general Bill Barr said of his DoJ’s watchdog report, which officially found that the FBI was justified in kicking off the Trump-Russia investigation in 2016:

“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a US presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said.

He added that “the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.”

Ever since the Mueller report that concluded the Trump-Russia investigation, Barr has been a fierce protector of Donald Trump, which infuriates critics who point out that Barr appears to act less like the independent AG at times and more like Trump’s personal defense lawyer.

And, in a day of crossover business on Capitol Hill

House Democrats have reached a tentative agreement with labor leaders and the White House over a rewrite of the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal that has been a top priority for Donald Trump, the AP writes.

“I’m hearing very good things, including from unions and others that it’s looking good. I hope they put it up to a vote, and if they put it up to a vote, it’s going to pass,” Trump said this afternoon. “I’m hearing a lot of strides have been made over the last 24 hours, with unions and others.”

The tentative accord was revealed by a Democratic aide not authorized to discuss the talks and granted anonymity because the agreement is not official.
Details still need to be finalized and the US Trade Representative will need to submit the implementing legislation to Congress. No vote has been scheduled.

The new, long-sought trade agreement with Mexico and Canada would give both Trump and his top adversary, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a major accomplishment despite the turmoil of his likely impeachment.
An announcement could come as early as today. Pelosi still has to officially sign off on the accord, aides said.

The new trade pact would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which eliminated most tariffs and other trade barriers involving the United States, Mexico and Canada.

The United Nations Security Council will meet publicly on Wednesday over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, diplomats said today.

The meeting has been requested by the United States. A US State Department official earlier said Washington wanted the 15-member council to discuss North Korea’s missile launches and the possibility of an “escalatory” provocation by Pyongyang.

The whirlwind bromance between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is definitely over.

Tensions are rising and they are veiled (or sometimes not so veiled) insults and threats are flying between the leaders again.

North Korea has recently given the US until the end of the year to come up with some offer to the hermit nation to break the deadlock over nuclear talks and sanctions, but pretty quickly on the heels of that, came an ominous assurance at the weekend that “denuclearization is already off the negotiating table with the US and lengthy talks with Washington are not needed.”

The Guardian has warned of a “brewing nuclear crisis”.

Kim Jong-un

US officials misled the public over war in Afghanistan

In case you missed it, the blog must draw your attention to the Washington Post’s exclusive, years-long investigation into the conflict in Afghanistan, showing presidents repeatedly hiding what they knew about how un-winnable the war was.

AOC has tweeted it out, btw.

A Justice Department inspector general report on the early days of the Trump-Russia investigation identified problems that are “unacceptable and unrepresentative of who we are as an institution,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said today, in detailing changes the bureau plans to make in response.

Wray said the FBI had cooperated fully with the inspector general, which concluded in its report released earlier today that the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia was legitimate but also cited serious flaws. Wray accepts all its recommendations, he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Wray said the FBI would make changes to how it handles confidential informants, how it applies for search warrants from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and how it conducts briefings on foreign influence for presidential nominees.

He also promised changes in how it structures sensitive investigations like the 2016 Trump-Russia probe – and he has also reinstated ethics training.

“I am very committed to the FBI being agile in its tackling of foreign threats,” Wray said. “But I believe you can be agile and still scrupulously follow our rules, policies and processes.”

He emphasized that the DoJ watchdog, Michael Horowitz, found the investigation justified and did not find it to be tainted by political bias. It noted some errors, however, and the appearance of bias from some.

Wray added: “The American people rightly expect that the FBI, when it acts to protect the country, is going to do it right each time, every time.”

Wray declined to say if there was one problem or criticism that he found most troubling, but noted: “As a general matter, there are a number of things in the report that in my view are unacceptable and unrepresentative of who we are as an institution. This is a serious report.”

US Senate Finance Committee chairman Charles Grassley has discussed alterations to the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal with US trade representative Robert Lighthizer today, and hopes that a deal can be announced soon, a Grassley spokesman said, the AP writes.

The spokesman offered no further details about the conversation, which came amid increasing signs the Trump administration, Mexico and Democrats in the House of Representatives are nearing an agreement for changes that can allow the rewritten North American trade pact to proceed to a ratification vote in the US Congress.

When Trump and the leaders of Canada and Mexico signed a deal rewriting the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) a year ago, it faced an uncertain passage through the US Congress.

Trump warned at the weekend that without quick action, the USMCA could collapse.

“We’re getting close, I’m confident,” Jésus Seade, the deputy foreign minister for North America, told reporters outside the US trade representative’s office on Saturday.

Mexico approved the USMCA this year but US ratification has been held up by Democrats who have voiced concerns over the enforcement of labor and environmental provisions.

The impeachment hearing just took a 15-minute break. Immediately prior, California Democrat Zoe Lofgren said the direct evidence against Donald Trump in his dealings with Ukraine “is very damning.”

“And the president has offered no evidence to the contrary,” she said, adding: “If he had evidence of his innocence why would he not bring it forward?”

Lofgren also said she had been discussing the impeachment process with her Texas colleague and fellow judiciary committee member Shiela Jackson Lee.

“We’ve been hearing over and over that it [the impeachment inquiry] is too fast,” she said. Then she pointed out that the impeachment process for Bill Clinton lasted 73 days, while the Trump impeachment process “is already on the 76th day”.