Kessler: The Real Story Behind The FBI’s Clinton Investigation

Veteran journalist Ronald Kessler (seen in the below photo), author of The Secrets of the FBI and other books on the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service, offers a piece in the Washington Times on the real story behind the FBI's Clinton investigation.

Rarely has the FBI been so embroiled in public controversy. And never has so much misinformation about its workings been so prevalent.

At a recent luncheon meeting of the Washington chapter of the Society of Former FBI Agents, Michael Steinbach, theFBI’s executive assistant director in charge of national security investigations, tried to straighten some of it out.

Mr. Steinbach told the 80 former FBI agents in attendance that while FBI Director James Comey made the final decision on the case, Mr. Steinbach himself supervised the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of her emails, according to John L. Martin, a former FBI agent who attended the lunch meeting.

About 25 FBI personnel worked on the case, Mr. Steinbach said. Contrary to what seems to be a given in some media circles, no rebellion of FBI agents has taken place because of Mr. Comey’s decision not to prosecute the presidential candidate. In fact, according to Mr. Martin, Mr. Steinbach said all of those who worked on the case said they agreed with Mr. Comey’s decision.

To be sure, many former agents disagree with the decision. But having written three books about the FBI, including one that led to the dismissal of William Sessions as FBI director over his abuses, I can tell you that all former agents never agree on anything.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/31/the-real-story-behind-the-fbis-hillary-clinton-inv/

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine interview with Ronald Kessler via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/02/q-with-ronald-kessler-author-of-secrets.html

Kessler: The Secret To Fighting Terrorism

Veteran journalist Ronald Kessler, the author of The Secrets of the FBI and other books on the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service, offers his view on the secret to fighting terrorism in the Washington Times.

Now that fighting terrorism is a hot campaign issue, it’s worth knowing just why we have not had a successful foreign terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001.

Two days after the attack, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III briefed President George W. Bush on the bureau’s efforts to investigate the crime.

“They talked about how the terrorists got plane tickets, got on planes, moved from one airport to another, and then attacked our citizens,” Andy Card, Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, told me for my book “The Secrets of theFBI.” “And the president, while he was very interested in that report, said, ‘Mr. Director, that’s building a case for prosecution. I want to know what you have to say about the terrorist threats that haven’t materialized yet and how we can prevent them.’ “

Mr. Mueller carried the message back to headquarters: Instead of simply responding to an attack, the FBI must uncover plots and roll them up before it’s too late.

Of course, the FBI had always sought to prevent terrorist attacks before they occurred. But under former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s leadership, the FBI tended to treat each incident as a separate case, instead of recognizing the larger threat and mounting an effort against the entire terrorist organization, as the bureau had done with the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia.

On top of that, before Sept. 11, because of relentless media criticism and a lack of clear authority under Justice Department guidelines, the FBI had become so gun-shy and politically correct that even though terrorists were known to hatch their plots in mosques, the FBI was averse to following suspects there.

Under guidelines in place before Sept. 11, FBI agents could not even look at online chat rooms to develop leads on potential suspects who might be recruiting terrorists or distributing information on making explosives. The FBI had to determine first that there was a sound investigative basis before it could sign on to chat rooms that any 12-year-old could enter.

“We were told before 9/11 that we were not allowed to conduct investigative activity on the Internet, even though it’s public,” Arthur M. “Art” Cummings II, who headed counterterrorism investigations as theFBI’s executive assistant director, says. “Same thing with a mosque. It’s a gathering open to the public, but we were absolutely precluded from going into a mosque as an FBI agent. And precluded from having a source in a mosque report on anything in the mosque, or look at anything in the mosque, unless we had a specific target within the mosque.”

That changed after Mr. Mueller came back from his meeting with Mr. Bush. Mr. Cummings told agents, “We’ve got this new mission. It’s a prevention mission.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/28/ronald-kessler-the-secret-to-fighting-terrorism/?page=all

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine interview with Ronald Kessler via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/02/q-with-ronald-kessler-author-of-secrets.html

Was Ron Kessler A CIA Journalism Asset?

Emily Greenhouse at bloomber.com offers a piece on veteran journalist and author Ronald Kessler and the Senate's CIA report.

In 2003, Ronald Kessler, the writer known today for breaking the news that U.S. Secret Service agents solicited prostitutes while in Colombia, published a book called The CIA at War. It included an impressive trove of classified information—of the sort that can launch federal investigations, followed by journalist subpoenas (as to the New York Times’ James Risen), and sometimes ending with leakers (like former CIA agent John Kiriakou) in jail.

Kessler wrote, for instance, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the 9/11 commission named the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks, “told the CIA about a range of planned attacks—on U.S. convoys in Afghanistan, nightclubs in Dubai, targets in Turkey, and an Israeli embassy in the Middle East.” He wrote that Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner from Al Qaeda, offered intelligence on “planned plots.” (The detainee was “singing” with information, Kessler said.)

But the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on torture, released Tuesday, called these statements “incongruent” with CIA records. It noted that CIA officials had “provided assistance” with Kessler’s book, in order to “shape press reporting on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.” The Senate report quotes then-Senior Deputy General Counsel John Rizzo saying that the Director of the CIA “blessed” Kessler with agency cooperation. It seems to paint Kessler as something of a chosen mouthpiece, the person in whom the CIA put its faith.

Kessler believes that the Senate report’s implication that he is any kind of preferred journalist, an asset and dissemination tool, is outrageous. “I’m not some kind of patsy,” he said by phone on Wednesday evening. He said that he followed “standard operating procedure for journalism. They tried to make it into some nefarious plot to bamboozle me. It’s not.”

“I think this report is bogus, bogus, bogus,” Kessler continued. “Some rant on the Internet. It’s just totally off base, and motivated by some desire to push this point of view. They dishonestly spin things, and in this case they present it as though the CIA was looking for some reporter to post about their program.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-12-11/was-ron-kessler-a-cia-journalism-asset

Note: I interviewed Ron Kessler about his book Secrets of the FBI for Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the interview via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/02/q-with-ronald-kessler-author-of-secrets.html

White House Secrets Revealed In Ronald Kessler's "First Family Detail" Book

James Rosen at foxnews.com interviews veteran journalist Ronald Kessler, author of a book on the U.S. Secret Service called The First Family Detail.  

President Obama is nice to the “little people” – but his wife wishes he were tougher with his political enemies. 

Ex-President Nixon was once observed sampling the dog treats he was feeding to his pet. 

And Hillary Clinton is the most detested person to whom the United States Secret Service presently provides protection – so nasty to her agents that being assigned to guard her is considered, within the agents’ ranks, a form of punishment.

 

Those are just a few of the juicy anecdotes to be savored in "The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents" (Crown Forum Books, 2014), by award-winning reporter Ron Kessler. 

 

You can read the rest of the piece and watch the video via the below link:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/09/11/foxhole-white-house-secrets-revealed-in-first-family-detail-book/

 

I interviewed Ron Kessler about his book The Secrets of the FBI for Counterterrorism magazine.

 

You can read the interview via the below link:

 

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/02/q-with-ronald-kessler-author-of-secrets.html 

Kessler: FBI Break-In Undercuts NSA Critics

Ronald Kessler, veteran journalist and author of The Secrets of the FBI, offers a good piece in the Washington Times on the differences between the FBI's past abuses and NSA's current surveillance programs.

Now that the burglars have come forward, critics of the National Security Agency surveillance programs have pounced on the 1971 Pennsylvania break-in that unearthed FBI abuses to bolster their argument that contractor Edward Snowden did a public service by publicly revealing NSA surveillance methods.

The truth is quite the opposite.

The FBI documents stolen from the bureau's resident agency in Media, Pa., opened a window on real abuses at a time when members of Congress not only did not conduct oversight of intelligence agencies, but affirmatively did not want to know what those agencies were doing.

Together with documents later obtained by NBC correspondent Carl Stern, the material painted a picture of an FBI that was conducting surveillance of Americans to stifle political dissent. Instead of using the existing laws to prosecute violators, the FBI engaged in a range of improper or illegal acts to harass targets.

... The FBI abuses led to reforms that included congressional oversight. Today, not only the House and Senate intelligence committees, but the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court scrutinize NSA and FBI surveillance programs.

The top four members of the intelligence committees have issued a bipartisan statement affirming that the NSA’s program to collect telephone metadata of Americans is a “valuable analytical tool” that allows the intelligence community to “connect the dots on emerging or current terrorist threats directed against Americans in the U.S.”

... In contrast to the FBI's activities under Hoover, no abuse — meaning actions taken for political or illegal reasons — has been found in the NSA programs. Critics say they could be abused.

So could any law enforcement action. To follow the critics’ logic, police officers and FBI agents should not carry weapons because they could potentially use them improperly.

... Those who fall for such spin to justify curtailing NSA surveillance programs will have only themselves to blame if the government is unable to connect the dots to stop the next attack, which could wipe out millions of Americans with biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/4/kessler-fbi-break-in-undercuts-nsa-critics/?page=all#pagebreak

Note: I interviewed Ronald Kessler for Counterterrorism magazine.

You can read the interview via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/02/q-with-ronald-kessler-author-of-secrets.html

Kessler: Behind The Boston Bombing Case

Ronald Kessler, veteran journalist and author of several books on the CIA, the Secret Service and the FBI, offers a piece on the Boston Marathon bombing case at www.mainjustice.com

Like it or not, the FBI’s failure to continue monitoring Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev for possible terrorist activity goes back to guidelines that were created to stop the bureau’s abuses under former Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Back then, the FBI conducted surveillance of anti-government activists regardless of whether there was intelligence or other information showing that they support terrorist activity. That meant the FBI not only violated their rights, it lost its focus when it came to pinpointing real criminal activity.

As we now know, the FBI opened an investigation of Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers who detonated bombs at the Boston marathon, after the bureau received a tip in 2011 from Russian authorities that he might be sympathetic to Islamist radical causes. The FBI found no indication that Tsarnaev might be planning terrorist activity and closed the case.

Few people are as knowledgeable about the FBI’s counterterrorism efforts as Arthur M. "Art" Cummings II, who headed FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations until 2010. Cummings put in place so-called "trip wires" that have led to roll-ups of dozens of terrorist plots. As an example, the FBI asks companies or laboratories that supply certain chemicals or biological materials to report any suspicious purchases to the FBI or police.

Cummings says that under Justice Department guidelines originally put in place after Hoover died, the FBI could not have continued to watch the older brother after finding no indication of a potential threat.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.mainjustice.com/2013/05/13/behind-the-boston-bombing-case/

I interviewed Ronald Kessler for Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the interview via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/02/q-with-ronald-kessler-author-of-secrets.html 

Ronald Kessler's Column: Cuba Rejected Lee Harvey Oswald's Overtures

Ronald Kessler, the veteran journalist, author of books on the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service, and chief Washington correspondent for Newsmax.com, writes in his new column about Lee Harvey Oswald, the Kennedy assassination and the idea that Fidel Castro knew in advance that Oswald was going to assassinate the president.

Many people find it difficult to accept the idea that a man like John F. Kennedy could be assassinated by a single nut.

They feel that trivializes an admired leader and want to believe that a president like Kennedy must have been the target of powerful forces — the KGB, Fidel Castro, or the Mafia.

But as with most assassinations, the sad fact is that a deranged man, Lee Harvey Oswald, killed JFK.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Cuba-Russia-Oswald-Kennedy/2012/03/23/id/433679

You can also read an earlier post on Brian Latell's Castro's Secrets via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2012/03/kennedy-assassination-did-castro-know.html

Note: My interview with Ronald Kessler about his book , The Secrets of the FBI, appears in the current issue of Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the interview via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/RonaldKesslerQASecretsFBI.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/RonaldKesslerQASecretsFBI2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/RonaldKesslerQASecretsFBI3.jpg 

  

My Q & A With Ronald Kessler, Author of 'The Secrets Of The FBI'

My Q&A with veteran journalist and author Ronald Kessler (seen in the above photo) appears in the current issue of  Counterterrorism magazine.

Kessler has written several books on the Secret Service, the CIA and the FBI and his current book is called The Secrets of the FBI (Crown).

You can read my interview with Ronald Kessler below:

John Dillinger Case Showed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover At His Best And Worst

Ronald Kessler, a veteran journalist and author of several books on the FBI, the CIA and other government agencies, including his most recent The Secrets of the FBI, wrote about the legendary FBI director J.Edgar Hoover and former Public Enemy Number One, John Dillinger, in his most recent Newsmax.com column.

The movie “J. Edgar” is once again focusing attention on Director J. Edgar Hoover and the imperious way he ran the FBI for almost 48 years. Nothing illustrates that better than the case of John Dillinger.

Of all the gangsters of the era, Dillinger was the most notorious. Beginning in 1933, his gang commanded the attention of the bureau and the media with a crime spree through the Midwest.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/Kessler-Dillinger-Hoover-movie/2011/11/21/id/418733

You can also read my two-part GreatHistory.com piece on John Dillinger via the below links:

http://greathistory.com/due-dillinger-a-look-back-at-americas-classic-bankrobber-part-i.htm

http://greathistory.com/due-dillinger-a-look-back-at-americas-classic-bankrobber-part-two.htm

And you can read my two-part GreatHistory.com piece on America's greatest crime wave and the birth of the FBI via the below links:

http://greathistory.com/depression-era-public-enemies-vs-the-fbi-part-i.htm

http://greathistory.com/depression-era-public-enemies-vs-the-fbi-part-ii.htm

The Case Against Convicted Spy Jonathan Pollard

Ronald Kessler, a noted journalist, Newsmax.com columnist and author of a good number of books on the FBI and the CIA, including his current book, The Secrets of the FBI, wrote an interesting column on convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.

As chief of the Justice Department’s counter-espionage section, John L. Martin supervised the prosecution of Pollard and 75 other spies. Only one case resulted in acquittal.

He tells Newsmax that no other spy for a friendly country has ever been prosecuted for espionage, as Pollard was. “No spy for a U.S. ally has engaged in anything like the magnitude of the Pollard case and been charged with espionage. There are no cases comparable to Pollard’s.”

Indeed, Pollard gave Israel access to classified documents that would fill a space 10 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet. “The enormous amount of material he turned over to the Israelis applied to just about everything imaginable, including communications intelligence information and some of our most closely guarded secrets,” Martin says. “A good deal of it did not relate to Israeli security.”

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/jonathan-pollard-israel/2011/08/22/id/408203

I interviewed Ronald J. Olive, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent who helped bring down Pollard, for Counterterrorism magazine.

You can read the magazine piece via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/PollardSpyCase1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/PollardSpyCase2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/PollardSpyCase3.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/PollardSpyCase4.jpg