House resolution demanding appointment of second Special Counsel [Full Text]

115TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION                                                                                                   H. RES. _________

Expressing the sense of Congress that the Attorney General of the United
States should appoint a Special Counsel to investigate misconduct at
the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation, including
an investigation of abuse of the FISA warrant process, how and why
the Hillary Clinton probe ended, and how and why the Donald TrumpRussia
probe began.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. ZELDIN submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on _________________

RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of Congress that the Attorney General
of the United States should appoint a Special Counsel
to investigate misconduct at the Department of Justice
and Federal Bureau of Investigation, including an investigation
of abuse of the FISA warrant process, how
and why the Hillary Clinton probe ended, and how and
why the Donald Trump-Russia probe began.
Whereas there is an urgent need for the appointment of a
second Special Counsel in light of evidence that raises
critical concerns about decisions, activities, and inherent
bias displayed at the highest levels of the Department of

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Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) regarding FISA abuse, how and why the Hillary
Clinton email probe ended, and how and why the Donald
Trump-Russia probe began;
Whereas the concerns of the American people are serious and
the issues requiring an immediate, unbiased, independent,
and thorough investigation are broad;
Whereas misconduct during the 2016 presidential election by
high-ranking individuals within the FBI and DOJ may
have led to the premature conclusion of the FBI’s 2016
probe into then-presidential candidate and former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton;
Whereas during her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary
Clinton violated Federal law, and Department of State
rules, regulations, and protocol, by using a private email
server in her Chappaqua, New York, home;
Whereas official communications were transmitted on an unsecured
server and included emails that contained classified
information when they were sent, in addition to additional
emails which were retroactively deemed classified
by the Department of State;
Whereas FBI Director James Comey acknowledged that 65
of these illicit emails were classified as ‘‘Secret’’ and 22
were classified as ‘‘Top Secret’’;
Whereas there is significant evidence that the use of this private
server by Secretary Clinton was meant to avoid compliance
with the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C.
552) and done to obstruct justice by not having to turn
over incriminating emails in the case of a subpoena;
Whereas various sensitive emails subject to grand jury and
congressional subpoenas were destroyed on Secretary

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Clinton’s private server through the use of ‘‘BleachBit’’
software and the destruction of hardware before they
could be obtained by investigators in March 2015;
Whereas in a September 2015 meeting between then-Attorney
General Loretta Lynch and then-Director Comey, the
Attorney General instructed Director Comey to refer to
the Clinton email investigation as a ‘‘matter’’, thus watering
down the severity of the investigation and aligning
the FBI’s rhetoric with the messaging of the Clinton
campaign;
Whereas Cheryl Mills, who served as Counselor and Chief of
Staff to Hillary Clinton during her entire tenure as
United States Secretary of State, was offered immunity
from prosecution by the FBI during this investigation in
exchange for access to her laptop that contained many of
the questionable emails;
Whereas according to transcripts obtained by the Senate Judiciary
Committee, former Director Comey was prepared
to exonerate Hillary Clinton as early as April or May of
2016 when he began to draft a statement announcing the
end of his investigation, before up to 17 key witnesses,
including former Secretary Clinton and several of her
closest aides, were interviewed;
Whereas former Director Comey contradicted these transcripts
when he stated during sworn testimony before the
House Judiciary Committee on September 28, 2016, that
he made the decision not to recommend criminal charges
for Secretary Clinton ‘‘after’’ she was interviewed by the
FBI on July 2, 2016;
Whereas Director Comey, in the final draft of his statement,
allowed FBI Agent Peter Strzok to replace ‘‘grossly negVerDate

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ligent’’, which is legally punishable under Federal law,
with ‘‘extremely careless’’, which is not legally punishable
under Federal law;
Whereas Federal law states gross negligence in handling the
nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison
time or fines (18 U.S.C. 793, 798);
Whereas on June 27, 2016, Attorney General Lynch had a
covert meeting with former President Bill Clinton aboard
her plane on the tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona;
Whereas on July 5, 2016, Director Comey violated DOJ rules
and unilaterally exonerated then-presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton in a public statement to the media;
Whereas one day later, on July 6, 2016, an announcement
followed from Attorney General Lynch that the DOJ investigation
into then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
would be formally closed with no criminal charges;
Whereas in September 2016, the FBI, during an examination
of the personal laptop of former Congressman Anthony
Weiner as part of an unrelated investigation into him
sending sexually explicit messages to a teenage girl, discovered
previously unexamined Department of State classified
emails belonging to his spouse, top Clinton aide
Huma Abedin;
Whereas FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s wife, Dr.
Jill McCabe, was running for Virginia State Senate at
the time and, as of October 26th, had received $675,000
in donations from the Virginia Democratic Party and
Common Good VA, the Leadership PAC controlled by
Democratic Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a longtime
Clinton associate;

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Whereas an investigation conducted by the Office of the DOJ
Inspector General noted that on October 27, 2016, Director
Comey required that Deputy Director McCabe remove
himself from a conference call regarding the Clinton
emails discovered on Anthony Weiner’s laptop to avoid
the appearance of a conflict of interest after media reports
surfaced noting these questionable political donations;

Whereas it took until October 28, 2016, for Director Comey
to announce via a letter to the chairs of the relevant congressional
committees that he was reopening the investigation
into Hillary Clinton, an additional, egregious
delay after the FBI failed to even examine the illicit
emails after the FBI discovered them on Anthony
Weiner’s computer;
Whereas further investigation into whether then-FBI Deputy
Director McCabe and other FBI officials sought to purposely
delay the release of these illicit emails for politically
motivated purposes is warranted;
Whereas throughout the Obama Administration, the DOJ
failed to fully investigate serious concerns surrounding
former President Clinton, then-Secretary of State Clinton,
and the Clinton Foundation’s connection to Russian
company Uranium One, which received Department of
State approval to purchase U.S. uranium mines in 2010;
Whereas throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of
State, a family foundation controlled by the Chairman of
Uranium One made $2,350,000 in contributions to the
Clinton Foundation which were not publicly disclosed in
violation of an agreement Secretary Clinton had with the
Obama White House to publicly identify all donors;

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Whereas in 2010, while Russian State interests were working
to both acquire a majority stake in Uranium One and to
purchase American mines, Bill Clinton was paid
$500,000 for a speech in Moscow by a Kremlin-linked
Russian investment bank that was underwriting Uranium
One stock;
Whereas a confidential informant who worked with the FBI
to uncover bribery and other corruption related to the
Uranium One matter was threatened with reprisal by the
Justice Department under Attorney General Lynch when
he tried to come forward in 2016;
Whereas the Senate Judiciary Committee launched a probe in
October 2017 to investigate the Uranium One matter, including
whether Federal departments and agencies such
as the Department of State knew the FBI was looking
into possible corruption before the deal was approved;
Whereas an investigation conducted by the Office of the DOJ
Inspector General noted that a multi-State investigation
into the questionable dealings of the Clinton Foundation
with corrupt donors was shut down in August 2016,
when pressure was asserted on the FBI by senior officials
within the Obama Justice Department;
Whereas the same Inspector General’s report also noted that
shutting down this investigation into Clinton Foundation
impropriety and influence peddling was connected to high
ranking officials in the DOJ and FBI, including Attorney
General Lynch, Director Comey, and Deputy Director
McCabe;
Whereas the same Inspector General’s report also found that
Deputy Director McCabe, after consenting to the political
pressure to shut down the Clinton Foundation multi
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State investigation, attempted to later use unauthorized
leaks to the press to create a false narrative that he was
opposed to the closure of the investigation and that he
did this in an attempt to salvage his reputation following
revelations of questionable Clinton-connected money
being donated to his wife’s Virginia State Senate campaign;

Whereas in October 2016, the FBI and DOJ used politically
biased, unverified sources to obtain warrants issued by
the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
of Review (FISA Court) that aided in the surveillance of
U.S. citizens, including Carter Page;
Whereas these warrants grant U.S. intelligence and law enforcement
agencies sweeping power to collect bulk information
and conduct ‘‘about collection’’, which results in
surveillance of a broad array of private communications
from the past, present, and future, including those of
U.S. citizens not specifically targeted in the FISA authorized
warrant;
Whereas to obtain these warrants, FBI and DOJ officials
submitted an unverified dossier prepared by Christopher
Steele to the FISA Court, failing to disclose that Christopher
Steele was hired by the firm Fusion GPS, which
was hired by the Democratic National Committee and
Hillary Clinton campaign to prepare this dossier and that
the source was unreliable and was soon thereafter going
to be terminated as a source;
Whereas the FISA Court was not informed that Christopher
Steele was actively opposed to the election of Donald
Trump, that he was the unnamed source cited in the
media reports that the FBI used to corroborate his dos
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sier, and that Fusion GPS had been hired to perform
previous anti-Trump research efforts in 2015;
Whereas the Woods Procedures, which are the FBI’s mandatory
vetting process required for all FISA warrant applications
instituted to ensure that all the facts contained
in an application are accurate and verified to clearly support
probable cause for a warrant, were not followed;
Whereas former Director Comey admitted in sworn testimony
to the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 8, 2017, that
material contained in the Steele dossier was known to be
both ‘‘salacious’’ and ‘‘unverified’’;
Whereas since FISA warrant applications are rarely turned
down, are almost never subject to appeal, and are presented
in closed court with no public record where the
Government is not challenged by any defense, it is imperative
that the Government take extra care to validate the
information being utilized to build their case before they
take the extraordinary step of waiving rights of a U.S.
citizen without his or her knowledge or the opportunity
to present a defense;
Whereas at the FISA Court, the Government has a responsibility
not only to provide its best evidence in support of
its case, but also to provide the best evidence against its
case;
Whereas these deeply flawed and questionable FISA warrant
applications utilizing illicit sources and politically biased
intelligence were approved by DOJ and FBI officials at
the highest levels before being submitted to the FISA
Court;
Whereas it was further not disclosed to the FISA court that
the wife of fourth-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr

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worked for Fusion GPS and that Christopher Steele directly
transmitted the dossier and other information
through Bruce Ohr for submission to the FISA court;
Whereas to this day there does not appear to be any evidence
that President Trump colluded with the Russians to win
the 2016 election;
Whereas the initial FBI probe into the Trump Campaign and
alleged collusion with Russia was launched in July 2016,
based on questionable and insufficient intelligence and biased
motivations;
Whereas former Director Comey prepared a series of seven
memoranda containing classified information, including
notes on his conversations with President Trump;
Whereas former Director Comey admitted in sworn testimony
to the Senate Committee on Intelligence on June 8,
2017, that he had leaked this content to a personal
friend and encouraged that friend to share the material
with the press in order to trigger a Special Counsel investigation;

Whereas an investigation conducted by the Senate Judiciary
Committee later revealed that the personal friend of Director
Comey was Professor Daniel Richman of Columbia
Law School and that Director Comey provided him with
four of the seven memoranda;
Whereas Director Comey’s actions are a clear violation of
non-disclosure agreements he signed as a condition of his
appointment and a clear violation of FBI protocols regarding
the dissemination of sensitive information outside
of the Bureau which are based on provisions of the Privacy
Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552a);

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Whereas text messages exchanged between FBI Agent Strzok
and FBI Counsel Lisa Page, during the period of August
16, 2015, to May 17, 2017, contain serious evidence of
political bias and the improper handling of investigations
within the agency;
Whereas the texts contain egregious evidence of bias against
President Trump, including Lisa Page stating ‘‘Trump
should go f himself’’ and Peter Strzok stating ‘‘F
TRUMP’’;
Whereas those text messages were not stored within the FBI
archive system, an egregious oversight blamed on a technical
glitch, and even after these messages were partially
recovered by the Bureau’s Inspector General in January
2018, many unanswered questions remain regarding impropriety
and bias;
Whereas in March 2018, former FBI Deputy Director
McCabe was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions who
noted that Deputy Director McCabe ‘‘lacked candor—including
under oath—on multiple occasions’’ and had partaken
in ‘‘unauthorized disclosure to the news media’’,
among other violations noted in a report issued by the
Office of the DOJ Inspector General after a wide-reaching
investigation into Deputy Director McCabe’s conduct;
Whereas a myriad of DOJ and FBI personnel have been fired
or demoted, or have resigned, including FBI Director
Comey, Deputy Director McCabe, Chief of Staff to the
Director James Rybicki, FBI General Counsel James
Baker, FBI Agent Strzok, FBI Counsel Page, FBI Special
Agent Josh Campbell, DOJ Senior Official Ohr, FBI
Assistant Director Michael Kortan, and Assistant Attorney
General Peter Kadzik;

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Whereas evidence has come to light that raises serious concerns
about egregious misconduct within the DOJ and
FBI rooted in political bias;
Whereas the DOJ, FBI, or both appear to have planted at
least one person into Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign
to infiltrate and surveil the campaign;
Whereas the DOJ has failed to timely comply with several related
document requests by Congress;
Whereas providing Members of Congress with heavily redacted
versions of some but not all of the documents demanded
and offering Members limited in-person viewing
of these documents is an inadequate response to repeated
requests after months of delay by the DOJ;
Whereas the mission of the Office of the DOJ Inspector General
is limited to detecting and deterring waste, fraud,
abuse, and misconduct in DOJ programs and personnel
and promoting economy and efficiency in those programs,
and a fully independent Special Counsel has greater autonomy
than an Inspector General or Federal prosecutors
to run a non-biased investigation and if necessary bring
forth criminal charges; and
Whereas the DOJ and FBI cannot be expected to fully investigate
themselves regarding this matter: Now, therefore,
be it
1 Resolved, That it is the sense of Congress that—
2 (1) DOJ, FBI, and all Federal law enforcement
3 agencies have a sacred duty to uphold our Constitu4
tion and to protect our country without any partisan
5 or ideological inclination affecting their important
6 work;

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1 (2) Congress acknowledges with gratitude that
2 the vast majority of the men and women who serve
3 within these critical agencies do so with the utmost
4 integrity, independence, patriotism, and commitment
5 to the rule of law;
6 (3) misconduct regarding FISA abuse, how and
7 why the Hillary Clinton probe ended, and how and
8 why the Trump-Russia probe began should imme9
diately be investigated by a Special Counsel who can
10 act independently; and
11 (4) the Attorney General of the United States
12 should immediately appoint a Special Counsel to
13 conduct a thorough and independent investigation of
14 these grave concerns.

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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