2017 - DOJ subpoenaed records of members of Congress

As stated above, I put my $$$ on Barr.


Former and all talk about Biden hesitating in speech. Barr sure had BIG trouble getting and words out when questioned by Sen Kamala Harris, now VP Harris.

I have no clue about this site. Who knows it popped up and here it is. It's late night and I wandered....

Several people have mentioned this scenario in passing so it seems there is a possibility although, remote! If there were/ are rogue operatives, we are really in bigger trouble the any of us could have imagined.

This is funny, only it isn't.

What if Barr is Telling the Truth? Some are Asking What If Trump Controlled a Small Secret Group at DOJ
BY JASON MICIAK
JUNE 13, 2021

First things first.

It is taken as a given that the Trump administration was insane about policing leaks. Absolutely. And it is also taken as a given that the Trump administration was certain that some of the intelligence leaks were coming out of the House committee. Thus, the White House would want to target some of the members of Congress in an attempt to find leaks. It is an extraordinary means to find those leaks, especially as it became a fishing expedition.

But it is also a given that Trump was always careful about leaving evidence around (he had been sued so many times and probably talked to so many criminal attorneys that he had a near law school class on evidence.) Speaking of which, Barr and Rosenstein would also know that it was best that they don’t know about a lot of things. There are instances where members of the military and intelligence communities choose – with good reason, to not tell the president specifics about specific operations. Would Barr and Rosenstein have a similar approach to DOJ?

What if Barr and Rosenstein didn’t even know about a secret group doing things they didn’t want to know? It is difficult to appreciate the size of the DOJ in Washington, the number of people doing a number of things, the many bosses under bosses is breathtaking. So what if Barr and Rosensentien are telling the truth and what if Trump knew he couldn’t ask Barr and Rosenstein to do something like this? But what if Trump and his staff thought they could do it by going around Barr and Rosenstein?

It is far more likely that Sessions, Rosenstein, and Barr knew, but it’s still a pretty interesting theory and unconscionably dangerous.

www.politicalflare.com/2021/06/what-if-barr-is-telling-the-truth-some-are-asking-what-if-trump-controlled-a-small-secret-group-at-doj/

Seems this prosecutor has an impeccable record and is very straight arrow. Very highly recommended by many assorted prosecutors, judges, coworkers etc. The article is long, worth reading the whole thing.

Friends and allies of a federal prosecutor tapped last year to dig into a series of leak cases are pushing back against perceptions that he was a pro-Trump crony brought in to try to pin leaks on Democratic members of Congress.

Associates said Osmar Benvenuto, 39, had misgivings about taking the assignment because he feared he might be seen as tarnished by the work given the perceived politicization of the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr, but the New Jersey-based career prosecutor ultimately decided to accept the job after friends counseled him to do so.

Several of Benvenuto’s friends and mentors said they found it utterly implausible that he would have taken on a political mission for the Trump administration. For one thing, Benvenuto is registered to vote in New Jersey as a Democrat and previously registered as a Democrat in New York City.

Paul Fishman, the Obama-appointed U.S. attorney who hired Benvenuto back in 2012, said he was startled by language in a New York Times story Thursday that suggested Benvenuto — better known as Oz — was part of “a small circle of trusted aides” around Barr.
***
A former colleague in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, Andrew Bruck, scoffed at the idea that his friend was carrying out political orders for Barr.

“The idea that Oz is or was Bill Barr’s stooge is just laughable. It’s just outrageous,” Bruck said.

Nonetheless, some lawmakers are already publicly demanding that Benvenuto be called before Congress.

“Bill Barr and Osmar Benvenuto should be invited to testify before Congress about the DOJ’s secret seizure of metadata and attempts to get private data on Democratic Members of Congress. If they refuse, they should be subpoenaed,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) tweeted Friday.
***
Former U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito confirmed that he offered up Benvenuto after Barr reached out seeking a seasoned prosecutor to handle unspecified cases at headquarters that had been lingering for a while without resolution.
***
“The attorney general told me that he wanted someone who was an experienced prosecutor and wasn’t afraid to make decisions. What he wanted to know was whether or not there was anything to these investigations, whether they should be closed or brought forward,” Carpenito said in an interview. “I told him Oz Benvenuto was someone I trusted to give him an honest answer and he has the experience to separate the wheat from the chaff. … I also told him Oz had the intestinal fortitude to give him a real answer: He would say, ‘yes or no.’”
***
Colleagues say Benvenuto didn’t linger over decisions and that was part of what landed him the sensitive assignment overseeing leak probes that had dragged on with little action for months or years.

“Stuff doesn’t languish on Oz’s desk,” Fishman said. He said he was aware of Benvenuto’s assignment to D.C. last year, but did not know the specific cases his former colleague was working on.

Fishman added that he “strongly recommended” Benvenuto for another assignment in Washington this year working as a top adviser to the acting head of the Criminal Division.
***
A former federal judge for whom Benvenuto clerked, Stephen Robinson, said Benvenuto came to him last year to discuss whether he should take on an unspecified special assignment in Washington.

“I never knew what it was about, but I did know he was asked to do it. Oz did what good, honest DOJ employees do: that is, he answered the call,” the former judge said.

Robinson, who was U.S. attorney in Connecticut under President Bill Clinton and was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush....

Robinson also said he was confident Benvenuto would have resisted any outcome that he didn’t think was justified.

“If there would be an instance where he had to push back on something he didn’t feel was appropriate, I’m confident that would be the case,” the former judge said. “When he was a clerk, he did that with me as a judge.”

An ex-prosecutor who worked with Benvenuto on the Grape Street Crips cases, Barry Kamar, described his former colleague as a straight shooter who sought to build cases that were “airtight.”
***⁹
“Oz is a prosecutor par excellence. He’s straight out of central casting, in terms of hard-nosed, buttoned-down guy who just follows the evidence wherever it leads,” Kamar said. “He’s a technocrat. He’s not an ideologue…. He would’ve been the worst person to select to do a political hit job.”

Kamar also said the fact that the cases Benvenuto was brought to Washington to resolve seem to now have been dropped proves the point. “If he was really supposed to do a number on someone, he failed miserably,” the ex-prosecutor said.
**"
“I remember he was an academic superstar at Fordham,” said Richman, who moved to Columbia Law School in 2007.

Richman said he has not kept in touch with Benvenuto and was not aware of his sensitive D.C. assignment...…

“He was smart. He was eager and he seemed at the time to have good judgment,” the professor said. “I was a former AUSA and he clearly wanted to be one and we discussed his future. … He persevered."

www.politico.com/news/2021/06/11/osman-benvenutor-bill-barr-prosecutor-493571

Moscow Mitch to the rescue!! He is going to protect Barr from the Democratic "witch hunt"

In Monday’s letter, the Democrats vowed to “vigorously investigate this apparent effort to weaponize DOJ against Trump’s perceived political enemies.”

Their push is unlikely to get much GOP buy-in. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday called attacks on Barr a "partisan circus" and suggested Democrats were pursuing a "witch hunt in the making."

www.politico.com/news/2021/06/14/senate-judiciary-democrats-garland-subpoenas-494366