Title: 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.
Policy area: Crime and Law Enforcement

Summary:
Recognizes that the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and all federal law enforcement agencies have a duty to uphold the Constitution and to protect the United States without any partisan or ideological inclination affecting their important work.
Calls on DOJ to appoint a special counsel to investigate specified concerns.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 907 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






115th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 907

   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.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 22, 2018

Mr. Zeldin (for himself, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Perry, Mr. DeSantis, 
 Mr. Mooney of West Virginia, Mr. DesJarlais, Ms. Tenney, Mr. Meadows, 
Mr. Jody B. Hice of Georgia, Mr. Gohmert, Mr. Rothfus, Mr. Jordan, Mr. 
Budd, Mr. Rouzer, Mr. Yoho, Mr. Brat, Mr. Rokita, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Poe of 
  Texas, Mr. Williams, Mr. Duncan of South Carolina, Mr. Gibbs, Mrs. 
  Black, and Mr. Issa) submitted the following resolution; which was 
               referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                               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 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 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 negligent'', 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;
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;
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-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 dossier, 
        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 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);
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;
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
    Resolved, That it is the sense of Congress that--
            (1) DOJ, FBI, and all Federal law enforcement agencies have 
        a sacred duty to uphold our Constitution and to protect our 
        country without any partisan or ideological inclination 
        affecting their important work;
            (2) Congress acknowledges with gratitude that the vast 
        majority of the men and women who serve within these critical 
        agencies do so with the utmost integrity, independence, 
        patriotism, and commitment to the rule of law;
            (3) misconduct regarding FISA abuse, how and why the 
        Hillary Clinton probe ended, and how and why the Trump-Russia 
        probe began should immediately be investigated by a Special 
        Counsel who can act independently; and
            (4) the Attorney General of the United States should 
        immediately appoint a Special Counsel to conduct a thorough and 
        independent investigation of these grave concerns.
                                 <all>