Day: February 2, 2023

UPDATE: A lot more recent info on him based on that Daily Beast article

Kallstrom is the NYPD sex crimes investigator who investigated Weiner-but who also donated thousands of dollars to Trump after the breaking of the Hollywood Access video. Interesting look for a sex crimes investigator…

In this book, I’ve argued vigorously for the idea that as outrageous as the idea that Russia interfered in the election to hurt Clinton and to  help Trump is, it’s just as outrageous that large swathes at the FBI did the same-and with the coordination and collusion of the same Trump campaign operatives as in Russia if you’re listening-Rudy Giuliani, Erik Prince, Jerome Corsi, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon-Bannon was certainly in the loop on anything involving Prince.

I’ve spoken a good deal of the ‘rogue agents’ at the FBI-though often it sounds like they were the majority in 2016; Comey himself in the IG report documented how tough it was to get many current and retired FBI agents-in what sounds less than a vocal minority than a vocal majority-to believe the choice not to indict Clinton was a fair one-when the real outrage was that there ever was an investigation to start with-as we saw in (Chapter A), there was no probable cause.

But who are these rogue agents? As noted in (Chapter B), you ought to talk to Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi who seem to know who many of them are. But also speak to Kallstrom, clearly a major ringleader among the rogue agents. The late and great Wayne Barret-who much of the research for this book regarding Roger Stone relies on-actually spoke to Kallstrom shortly before the election.

“Two days before FBI director James Comey rocked the world last week, Rudy Giuliani was on Fox, where he volunteered, un-prodded by any question: “I think he’s [Donald Trump] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”

Pressed for specifics, he said: “We’ve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”

“The man who now leads “lock-her-up” chants at Trump rallies spent decades of his life as a federal prosecutor and then mayor working closely with the FBI, and especially its New York office.

FN: There is clearly at least some Poetic Justice in this world as Not My Mayor Giuliani is now being investigated by the SDNY-which he once was in charge of; there will be a good deal more of Poetic Justice in this world if Rudes joins the cell next to Trump’s other fixer cum lawyer, Michael Cohen.

End of FN.

“One of Giuliani’s security firms employed a former head of the New York FBI office, and other alumni of it. It was agents of that office, probing Anthony Weiner’s alleged sexting of a minor, who pressed Comey to authorize the review of possible Hillary Clinton-related emails on a Weiner device that led to the explosive letter the director wrote Congress.”

Hours after Comey’s letter about the renewed probe was leaked on Friday, Giuliani went on a radio show and attributed the director’s surprise action to “the pressure of a group of FBI agents who don’t look at it politically.”

LOL-don’t look at it politically. Sorry, that literally doesn’t pass the laugh test.

“The other rumor that I get is that there’s a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion [not to charge Clinton] being completely unjustified and almost a slap in the face to the FBI’s integrity,” said Giuliani. “I know that from former agents. I know that even from a few active agents.”

Later on-as noted in (Chapter B) Rudy would being to change his story-as all Trumpster Deplorables end up doing-and claim that it was only retired agents-as it would be major trouble for an active agent to have leaked this information to Rudy.

As time as gone on, Giuliani’s ‘forgotten’ much of what he said before-like Roger Stone, like Jeff Sessions, like Papadopoulos-to get the truth out of the Coffee Boy, ply him with alcohol, like Donald Jr, like Trump himself; it’s a congenital amnesia of the Trumpster Deplorables.

But he had a lot to say prior to the Comey letter.

“Back in August, during a contentious CNN interview about Comey’s July announcement clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal charges, Giuliani advertised his illicit FBI sources, who circumvented bureau guidelines to discuss a case with a public partisan. “The decision perplexes me. It perplexes Jim Kallstrom, who worked for him. It perplexes numerous FBI agents who talk to me all the time. And it embarrasses some FBI agents.”

“Kallstrom is the former head of the New York FBI office, installed in that post in the ’90s by then-FBI director Louis Freeh, one of Giuliani’s longtime friends. Kallstrom has, like Giuliani, been on an anti-Comey romp for months, most often on Fox, where he’s called the Clintons a “crime family.” He has been invoking unnamed FBI agents who contact him to complain about Comey’s exoneration of Clinton in one interview after another, positioning himself as an apolitical champion of FBI values.”

As noted in a previous chapter  after Clinton appointed Louis Freeh, Freeh repaid him by going on to see investigating the Democratic President as the top national priority.

Last October, after President Obama told 60 Minutes that the Clinton emails weren’t a national security issue, Megyn Kelly interviewed Kallstrom on Fox. “You know a lot of the agents involved in this investigation,” she said. “How angry must they be tonight?”

“I know some of the agents,” said Kallstrom. “I know some of the supervisors and I know the senior staff. And they’re P.O.’d, I mean no question. This is like someone driving another nail in the coffin of the criminal justice system.”

Kallstrom declared that “if it’s pushed under the rug,” the agents “won’t take that sitting down.” Kelly confirmed: “That’s going to get leaked.”

As noted in (Chapter B), Jerrold Nalder has vowed to investigate the leaks by the rogue FBI agents when he becomes Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee next year. In investigating he clearly needs to hear from Kallstrom and what he said to Kelly here seems to be a prima facie public confession that the rogue agents were leaking information-and that Kallstrom himself was a top leaker.

When Comey cleared Clinton this July, Kallstrom was on Fox again, declaring: “I’ve talked to about 15 different agents today—both on the job and off the job—who are basically worried about the reputation of the agency they love.” The number grew dramatically by Labor Day weekend when Comey released Clinton’s FBI interview and other documents, and Kallstrom told Kelly he was talking to “50 different people in and out of the agency, retired agents,” all of whom he said were “basically disgusted” by Comey’s latest release.

FN: Again, as noted above, Comey himself in the IG report described a similar picture-a great number of both former and active FBI agents thought it was some how unfair that Clinton wasn’t indicted even though there was never probable cause for it in the first place.

By Sept. 28, Kallstrom said he’d been contacted by hundreds of people, including “a lot of retired agents and a few on the job,” declaring the agents “involved in this thing feel like they’ve been stabbed in the back.” So, he said, “I think we’re going to see a lot more of the facts come out in the course of the next few months. That’s my prediction.”

FN: Again, as noted above, Comey himself in the IG report described a similar picture-a great number of both former and active FBI agents thought it was some how unfair that Clinton wasn’t indicted even though there was never probable cause for it in the first place.

At the same time, of course, the rogue NYPD agents had ‘discovered’ Huma Abedin’s emails to Clinton on her husband’s laptop. They then left them sitting for a month before springing it on Comey at the last minute forcing his hand into writing the letter that flipped an election.

“Kallstrom, whose exchanges with active agents about particular cases are as contrary to FBI policy as Giuliani’s, formally and passionately endorsed Trump this week on Stuart Varney’s Fox Business show, adding that Clinton is a “pathological liar.”

This was just a week prior to election day. Sounds ‘apolitical’ and ‘nonpartisan’ to me.

But then, Kallstrom’s political ties to Trump during the 2016 election were much deeper than understood-in fact they haven’t been known about at all.

“Kallstrom, who served as a Marine before becoming an agent, didn’t mention that a charity he’d founded decades ago and that’s now called the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, was the single biggest beneficiary of Trump’s promise to raise millions for veterans when he boycotted the Iowa primary debate. A foundation official said that Trump’s million-dollar donation this May, atop $100,000 that he’d given in March, were the biggest individual grants it had ever received. The Trump Foundation had contributed another $230,000 in prior years and Trump won the organization’s top honor at its annual Waldorf Astoria gala in 2015.”

In other words you had a political beneficiary of Trump’s handling the Weiner investigation-that led to the ‘discovery’ of Huma’s emails that led to Comey’s indefensible ‘letter’ that handed the election to Trump. Small world.

While Cohen pled to paying hush money I wonder what campaign laws may well have been violated here-Trump’s payments to Kallstrom’s foundation, then Kallstron’s own donations to Trump post Hollywood Access-proving if nothing else that Kallstrom’s defense of sexual crime victims is a partisan sham.

“The charity, which Kallstrom has chaired without pay since its founding, says it has given away $64 million in scholarships and other aid to veteran families. Rush Limbaugh is a director and has given it enormous exposure on his show and helped it fundraise. Its executive director also worked at the highest levels of New York Governor George Pataki’s Republican administration, and its vice president is also the regional vice president for Trump Hotels in the New York area. The FBI New York office, the charity’s 2015 newsletter noted, then employed 100 former Marines.”

Again, sounds nonpartisan to me.

“Kallstrom’s victory tour this weekend also included an appearance on Fox with former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, another close associate of Pataki’s, who complained on air that she’d been the victim in 2006 when word emerged that the U.S attorney and FBI were probing her in the midst of a race she eventually lost to Andrew Cuomo to become New York Attorney General.”

Her concern about the political impact of law enforcement leaks, though, didn’t extend to Democrat Hillary Clinton. “He couldn’t hold on to this any longer,” Kallstrom said of Comey. “Who knows, maybe the locals would’ve done it,” he added, a reference to leaks that elicited glee from Pirro, who echoed: “New York City, that’s my thing!”

As documented in (Chapter C) Roger Stone said the same thing in his interview with the Intercept-that Comey’s hand was forced-otherwise  ‘the locals’ would leak.

“In a wide-ranging phone interview on Tuesday with The Daily Beast, Kallstrom first repeated his claim that he gets hundreds and hundreds of calls and emails but stressed they all came from retired agents, adding that he didn’t “want to talk about agents on the job.” Then he acknowledged that he did interact with “active agents.” The agents mostly contacted him before the recent Comey letter because “in all but two cases,” they agreed with what he was saying in his TV appearances, noting that those two exceptions both thought “I should be more supportive of Comey.”

“Kallstrom adamantly denied he’d ever said he was in contact with agents “involved” in the Clinton case, insisting that he didn’t even know “the agents’ names.” He asked if this story was “a hit piece,” and contended that it was “offensive” to even suggest that he’d communicated with those agents.

As we saw in the above quotes, his denial directly contradicts what he’d previously said. Wayne Barret called him on it:

“When I emailed him two quotes where he made that claim, he responded: “I know agents in the building who used to work for me. I don’t know any agents in the Washington field office involved directly in the investigation.”

He declined to explain why Megyn Kelly stated as a fact that he was in contact with agents “involved” in the case. Asked in a follow up email if he suggested or encouraged any particular actions in his exchanges with active agents, Kallstrom replied: “No.”

What about what he said in September about ‘more facts in the Clinton case coming out?’

And, though he predicted in September that more facts about the Clinton case would soon come out, he told me he was “surprised” by the Comey letter. Calling Giuliani a “very good friend,” who he’s seen in TV studios a couple of times recently when they were both doing appearances, Kallstrom said he thought Giuliani was more likely referring to WikiLeaks revelations or videotapes from Project Veritas when he teased big surprises to come.”

“Kallstrom said he hasn’t spoken to Trump for months, though he did email Trump’s office the day he endorsed him and got a thank you response from an aide. He says he first met Trump when he solicited a donation from him for a Vietnam Vet memorial and that they’d see each other—usually at public events and dinners—over the years, sometimes as often as two or three times a year. Kallstrom said he’d have breakfast at the Plaza with his wife and visit with Trump and his kids, who he got to know at an early age.”

“When Trump owned casinos in Atlantic City, he allowed Kallstrom’s organization to hold fundraisers “pro bono” there. Trump became a major supporter of New York’s Police Athletic League, run for decades by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, all moves that endeared him to law enforcement officials in jurisdictions where he did business.”

Despite all these ties to Trump and the Republican party, Kallstrom insists with a straight face that he’s ‘apolitical.’

“Despite his ties to Pataki, Limbaugh, and Trump, Kallstrom says he’s apolitical and has never been involved in a campaign, including Trump’s now. He says he’s a registered independent, and that the people he’s known in the FBI over all his years are as nonpartisan as he is.”

He donated to Trump after Hollywood Access and was the beneficiary of Trump’s charity event during the campaign and has deep ties to Rush Limbaugh but he’s ‘nonpartisan.’ Well Limbaugh never chooses between Republicans and Democrats, so, makes perfect sense…

And hey, he’s a registered ‘independent’ so it’s impossible he could be politically motivated… LOL. Sorry, failing the laugh test again.

So how is it that there is so little public knowledge of this? Because-as noted that earlier chapter the FBI is a very Republican place-in fact there’s never been a Democratic FBI Director before in its 111 history.

“But, as quiet as it’s kept, no Democrat has ever been appointed FBI director. Four Democratic presidents, starting with FDR’s selection of J. Edgar Hoover in 1935, have instead picked Republicans, including Obama’s 2013 nomination of Comey, who was confirmed 93 to 1. This tally does not include the seven acting directors, who were named for brief periods over the last 81 years. For the first time in FBI history, the agency is now run by a director who isn’t a Republican, since Comey announced in a congressional hearing this year that though a lifelong Republican, having donated to John McCain and Mitt Romney, he had recently changed his registration (he did not say how he is currently registered).”

“It’s not just the man at the top who’s invariably a Republican. Like most law enforcement agencies, the FBI hierarchy and line staff has a Republican bent—it’s a white, male, usually Catholic, and conservative culture.”

“Giuliani and Kallstrom claim that the agents revolting against Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton were doing it because they want apoltical investigations, with all targets treated the same. But neither of them, much less FBI brass or agents, were publicly upset when the worst Justice Department scandal in modern history exploded in 2007, with Karl Rove, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and the Bush White House swamped by allegations that they’d tried to force out nine U.S. attorneys and replace them with “loyal Bushies,” as Gonzales’s chief of staff put it. Democratic officials, candidates and fundraisers were five times as likely to be prosecuted by Bush’s justice than Republicans.”

Indeed, when explaining Comeygate-as well as the fact that Russiagate was totally kept under the radar-the long GOP partisan history at the FBI can’t be ignored.

Then at the top of the polls in the 2008 presidential race, Giuliani had to answer questions about it and said that he thought Gonzales should get “the benefit of the doubt,” calling him “a decent man” a few months before he resigned. “We should try to remove on both sides as much of the partisanship as possible,” lectured Giuliani. He recalled that strict rules were put into place while he was at the top levels of justice in the aftermath of Watergate limiting contact between law enforcement and political figures, a particular irony in view of the fact that he talks freely today about engaging in just such conversations on national television, oblivious to the fact that he is now a “political figure.”

FN: Even more ironic now with Rudy’s role in both Russia if you’re listening and Ukraine if you’re listening-as well as Emailgate.

“Giuliani’s mentor, Michael Mukasey, who succeeded Gonzales as attorney general, appointed a special investigator to examine the U.S. attorney scandal and she concluded that no laws had been broken. It was later reported that four days before Mukasey named this special prosecutor, a federal appeals court vacated seven of eight convictions in a case she supervised in Connecticut, ruling that the team suppressed exculpatory evidence, including the notes of an FBI agent. Kallstrom contends he didn’t say anything about the blatant partisan interference then because he was “never asked to comment,” though he had been a law enforcement consultant for CBS News in about the same time frame. How he became a frequent Fox commentator now is unclear.”

“It’s clear enough, though, why when Comey sent a note to FBI staff on Friday explaining his decision to inform Congress about the renewed Clinton probe, the scoop about that internal memo went to Fox News. Why Kallstrom gets booked to call the Clintons a “crime family.” Why Clinton Cash author Peter Schweitzer, caught in a web of Breitbart and Trump conflicts, would announce on Fox that he was asked in August to sit down with New York office FBI agents investigating the Clinton Foundation (with The New York Times reporting this week that the agents were relying largely on his discredited work when they pitched a fullscale probe).”

FN: As thin as the predication of Emailagte was the investigation into the Clinton Foundation was literally predicated by Clinton Cash; yet McCabe’s leaking the fake of this baseless and partisan investigation on three days after Comey’s letter was supposed to demonstrate bias against Trump. 

Fox is the pipeline for the fifth column inside the bureau, a battalion that says it’s doing God’s work, chasing justice against those who are obstructing it, while, in fact, it’s doing GOP work, even on the eve of a presidential election.

Post the Dems victory in November 6 Congressional elections there’s already talk about 2020. I don’t engage in much of that myself-my focus right now is the new Dem House-can’t wait for accountability to return to Washington-hopefully Pelosi will be Speaker and it seems likely she will be-Marcia Fudge basically has opened the door in saying she would support Pelosi if she agrees to only serve as Speaker two more years-something Pelosi has already agreed to.

But here is the only strong feeling I have in terms of what a hypothetical 2021 Dem WH should pursue: a Democratic FBI Director. I know-the GOP will no doubt accuse President Kamala Harris or President Corey Booker of partisanship.

UPDATE 2.0: It seems to me Kamala Harris should add that to her platform-a pledge to nominate a Democratic FBI Director. assuming we can find any actual Democratic agents. I mean I don’t think it’s too partisan of me as a Democrat to suggest that we have a Democratic FBI Director after 100 years do you?

FN: At the moment a President Joe Biden or President  Elizabeth Warren seems more likely though Harris apparently had a very good night last night in Iowa-she will need more. I still think she should discuss her own work on the Russia investigation from the Senate Judiciary and tie it to the current impeachment investigation. She’s simply not utilizing some of her best assets.