Tag Archives: Christopher Wray

crime news

Waiting for FBI to say: POTUS has broken the law

Donald Trump hired his share of clunkers during his term in office, but Christopher Wray, the head of the FBI, is not one of them.

Indeed, Wray has served the nation honorably and with as much dispassion as possible, given the immense pressure he must endure from the right-wing MAGA goon squad that occupies so much of the congressional Republican caucus.

I offer that as my declaration that if FBI director Wray says that the president of the United States has done something wrong, that he has broken the law, that he has done any of the misdeeds associated with the right-wing slime machine … then I’ll believe the crap being tossed around about President Biden.

Does it occur to anyone out there that Wray is a Trump guy, that he is known to be a lifelong Republican, that he harbors no particular favor toward Democrats, let alone to the current president?

None of that seems to matter to the right wingers who insist that Wray is part of the “deep state” who has “weaponized the FBI,” turning it into a cudgel to whip Donald Trump.

He is nothing of the sort. His agency has acted responsibly and within the parameters of the law in seeking evidence involving the former POTUS.

So, until Christopher Wray determines that Joe Biden has committed a crime, I am going to give the phony allegations against him all the attention they deserve.

Which is nothing!

crime news, legal news

Why target FBI?

Republicans are preparing to wage war on several fronts against the government they proclaim they want to protect

They have several targets in their sights but for the moment I want to focus on just one of them: the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The FBI used to be considered a sacred cow in GOP political circles. They dared not criticize the elite federal law enforcement agency for fear of being labeled “soft on crime,” or being a squishy liberal.

No more, man.

The FBI is now Public Enemy No. 1 among many Republicans for doing its job legally and by the book. What did the FBI do to incur the GOP wrath?

It acted on orders from the Department of Justice, the attorney general and entered the home of a former president to look for evidence of a possible (or probable) crime. The ex-POTUS took several boxes full of classified documents with him from the White House to his glitzy estate in Florida. AG Merrick Garland sought a federal judge’s permission — also by the book — to search the ex-POTUS’s estate for evidence. The judge granted it and so he sent the agents to the house to conduct the search.

That’s a no-no, according to the GOP stalwarts who defend the ex-POTUS to the hilt. How dare the feds do their job?

They are gunning for the attorney general and — get a load of this! — for the FBI director, Christopher Wray, who was appointed to his post by Donald Trump, the aforementioned ex-POTUS.

Let’s understand a couple of key points.

One is that the attorney general did nothing out of the ordinary. He ran all the necessary traps before authorizing the search at Trump’s estate. He acted within the law. Accordingly, AG Garland has declared that “no one is above the law,” and by “no one,” he means not a single American citizen … and that includes former presidents of the United States.

The FBI has not been “weaponized.” The AG has utilized the law enforcement agency totally within its scope of authority and for Republicans to declare their intention to “defund the FBI” makes a mockery of their criticism of progressives who said the same thing about local police agencies.

The world has been turned upside-down. We need to regain our balance.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

FBI isn’t ‘weaponized’

I need to set the record straight in a brief response to one of the criticisms being leveled at the FBI in the wake of its searching Donald Trump’s Florida home for evidence of criminality.

It’s this idiotic notion that the FBI is being “weaponized” to hunt for crimes that allegedly don’t exist. I happen to believe they do exist and that the federal judge who issued the warrant believes so, too.

Now for setting the record straight.

Donald J. Trump appointed Christopher Wray as FBI director in 2017 after he fired former FBI boss James Comey.

Thus, Wray is a “Trump guy” in the strictest sense of the word. However, Wray also is a law enforcement pro. He is a seasoned prosecutor with many years of experience looking for bad guys.

To suggest that Christophe Wray would turn the FBI into a political weapon would be to deny the man’s long and distinguished history as a career prosecutor. It also is to defame his reputation.

FBI Director Wray doesn’t need me to defend him. I just feel the need to remind those critics of the FBI search (I will not call it a “raid”) that the FBI boss is an official dedicated to finding the truth behind a potential criminal act.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

‘Missing the boat’ on terror?

At first, I wasn’t sure I heard correctly what a North Texas congresswoman said about President Biden’s responsibility for the terrorist attack on a Colleyville synagogue.

She said Biden is paying “too much attention” on “far-right domestic terrorists” and ignoring the threat from foreign terrorists. Biden is “missing the boat” on the terror threats, she said.

So said Beth Van Duyne, a Republican whose congressional district includes the Colleyville community that is home to the synagogue where a British citizen took four people hostage.

In a House floor speech, Van Duyne proposed a resolution citing the heroism of the rabbi who tossed a chair at the hostage-taker, giving himself and his three congregants a chance to escape. FBI agents then stormed the Congregation Beth Israel and shot the hostage-taker to death; Van Duyne wants to honor their heroism as well.

Yes, indeed, there is plenty of heroism to honor and I am glad Van Duyne wants to bestow that recognition.

However, I will not accept that President Biden is to blame for allegedly ignoring the threat of terrorists who come to this country to do us harm. My goodness, Biden responded quickly with a statement that declared the man’s threats in Colleyville to be a “terrorist act.”

I guess my question of the moment is: How in the world does one stop someone from doing what the lunatic did? He wasn’t on terrorist watch lists of which I am aware. He walked into the synagogue, shook hands with the rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, and then surprised everyone with demands that the Justice Department release a woman held in a federal prison on terror-related crimes.

Van Duyne said that the loon didn’t take hostages “at an Applebee’s,” that he targeted a synagogue because he intended to commit a hate crime.

I will point out, too, that FBI Director Christophe Wray — appointed to his post by Donald J. Trump — said in 2019 that domestic terror presented the gravest threat to our national security.

There’s a saying we hear in Washington from time to time about how officials are able to “walk and chew gum at the same time.” I believe President Biden is devoting ample attention to threats from all corners … be they foreign or domestic.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

FBI boss: They were domestic terrorists

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

FBI Director Christopher Wray today said what many millions of Americans have thought — or known — since we saw it occur.

The mob that stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 comprised “domestic terrorists,” Wray told a congressional committee.

I do not intend here to denigrate the FBI boss … but duh!

Look, I respect this man a great deal. He has the toughest job imaginable, which includes investigating the crimes committed on the day the terrorist mob stormed into the Capitol Building while committing an undeniable act of insurrection against the U.S. government.

The fact that the FBI director has made this statement aloud and in public gives the discussion the kind of impetus it needs. Wray gives the domestic terror element an element of gravitas. 

Indeed, I am not at all surprised to hear Wray hang this label on the riotous mob. He has stated already that domestic terror presents the greatest existential threat to our national security. It poses a greater threat than any foreign terrorist organization; that includes ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Taliban … you name it.

What happens now with the investigation of criminal suspects? My hope, and I am can speak only for myself, is that the FBI is able to ratchet up the charges against those it arrests, that they are able to prosecute the suspects on suspicion of committing terrorist acts.

They were whipped into a frenzy on Jan. 6 by a president who was two weeks from leaving office. Donald Trump told them repeatedly on the Ellipse that the election he lost was “stolen” from him and he urged the crowd to take back the government from some nefarious forces he said were committing electoral thievery.

Yes, he got impeached for it and yes he avoid conviction in the Senate. The imprint left behind by the terrorists is indelible and the scars will take years, maybe decades to heal — if they ever do heal.

The terrorists wanted to execute Vice President Mike Pence; you can hear them shouting their intent as they stormed into the Capitol Building where the VP was doing his constitutional duty, which was to preside over the counting and certification of the Electoral College votes that elected President Joe Biden.

Man, if that ain’t terrorism, then it doesn’t exist anywhere.

I am relieved to hear that the FBI director has called it what we have known all along.

It well might be time to declare a new “war on terrorism.” 

national news

Watch out, Mr. ‘Current’ POTUS

If Donald J. Trump is going to refer to Christopher Wray as the “current” director of the FBI, I am going to take it upon myself — through High Plains Blogger — to hereby refer to Trump as the “current” president of the United States.

Fair is fair, right?

I mean, to imply that Wray’s status as head of the world’s pre-eminent investigative agency might be in peril gives many of us license to infer the same thing about the man who appointed him.

Donald Trump’s status as the “current” president well might imply the same thing, if not through impeachment and removal in a Senate trial, then via the next presidential election.

national news

FBI director might be headed for the exits … yes?

When the person who appoints you to an important job refers to you as the “current” individual doing that job, then you might want to consider your next career move.

So it might be with FBI Director Christopher Wray, to whom Donald Trump referred as the “current director.” Why the qualifier? Well, Wray has backed up the findings of the Justice Department inspector general who said that the FBI did not launch its probe into the Russia election interference with any political bias.

Here is what Trump said via Twitter about Wray: I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!

Trump has alleged that former FBI Director James Comey was biased against him when he began examining allegations that Russia attacked our electoral system in 2016. He fired Comey in 2017. The IG was brought in to determine whether the probe began because of bias against Trump.

The IG, Michael Horowitz, said the FBI did not act with political prejudice, although he did scold the FBI for committing serious mistakes in seeking warrants involving one of Trump’s campaign aides. Political bias? Prejudice? Not there, said Horowitz.

And so now we are left to wonder whether Christopher Wray, whom Trump selected to succeed Comey, is headed for the proverbial political guillotine.

I have lived long enough to remember a lot of internal political battles. I’ve watched them from some distance. Even during Watergate, when the FBI got caught up in that hideous scandal, I don’t ever recall an embattled President Nixon refer to the FBI boss in terms that the current embattled president is using against Wray.

What does this do to morale among the troops in the trenches? How does it affect their performance? How do they concentrate on the myriad investigative duties required of them while the director is being singled out by the president?

The chaos persists. The bad news is that it is quite likely to worsen.

FBI

Is this the ‘impeachable’ moment?

Can it be that Donald Trump has just scripted his own impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives?

I am wondering if his declaration today to ABC News that he would be willing to break the law if a foreign power produced negative information about a political opponent while he is running for re-election as president of the United States. Trump said he would “look at” the information and wouldn’t feel the need to report it to the FBI.

FBI director Christopher Wray just a month ago told Congress that anyone who got such info must report it to his agency.

Trump told George Stephanopoulos that “the FBI director is wrong.”

Who do you trust? The lying, amoral, unethical head of state or the career professional prosecutor and law enforcement official?

I’m going to stand with Christopher Wray.

As for the House of Representatives and, yes, the Republican-controlled Senate, they should, too.

The question of the moment is this: Will they?

national news, national security

Stand firm, FBI director Wray

I want to declare right here and right now my strong desire for FBI director Christopher Wray to stay where he is, in charge of the world’s premier law enforcement/investigative agency.

You see, Wray has just been undermined by the man who appointed him to his office, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

Trump told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos that he would accept information about a political foe presented to him by a foreign power, even a hostile foreign power, such as, oh, Russia.

Director Wray, though, has said specifically and categorically that any political candidate whose campaign receives such information must turn it over the FBI.

Trump said when reminded of Wray’s view by Stephanopoulos that “The FBI director is wrong.”

There you have it. The president once again is refusing directly to back the wisdom cited by the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Do not go anywhere, Christopher Wray.

Yes, it likely will be a trying time for Wray as the 2020 presidential election gets into full swing. The Russians attacked our electoral system in 2016. Wray’s predecessor as FBI director, James Comey, began looking deeply into “The Russia Thing” and got fired by the president.

The FBI needs a strong leader. Christopher Wray appears to be a grownup and a law enforcement and legal pro. I realize that an ethical professional would find it trying, indeed, to work in a government administration led by someone without an scintilla of ethical understanding.

I just want to beseech Christopher Wray. The nation needs this man. Badly.

legal news, national news

Stand tall, Christopher Wray

FBI director Christopher Wray now finds himself in Donald Trump’s sights.

This is the fellow the president appointed to lead the FBI after firing his immediate predecessor, James Comey. Now it’s Director Wray who is receiving criticism from the president of the United States.

Why is that? Oh, let’s see. He declines to use the word “spying” when describing how the FBI conducts “intelligence-gathering” operations. Trump likes to use the words “spy” and “spying” when describing what he alleges occurred during the final months of the Obama administration, which he said involved illegal “spying” on the Trump presidential campaign.

Wray also has declined to endorse the idiocy promoted by Trump that suggests that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged “collusion” and “obstruction of justice” was an attempted “coup” by the FBI to “overthrow the president.”

No one has sought to launch a “coup” against Donald Trump. No one has sought to “overthrow” the president. That’s never happened. It won’t ever happen. We have this document called the U.S. Constitution that serves as a bulwark for this representative democracy that governs us.

Wray also has declared that Russia continues to interfere in our electoral process, just as it did during the 2016 presidential campaign. He smacks Trump squarely in the proverbial puss when he says what Trump continues to deny has occurred: that the Russians are supremely bad actors intent on sowing discord within this nation.

Christopher Wray is a seasoned professional. He runs the nation’s top law enforcement agency. He — just like Comey and Mueller, two former FBI directors — also possesses a first-class legal mind.

Donald Trump once again is attacking the agency led by someone he selected. He said over the weekend in yet another Twitter tidal wave that the FBI “has no leadership.”

Actually, the FBI does have competent leaders at the top of its chain of command. The lack of “leadership” exists inside the White House.