WASHINGTON: An FBI agent who worked on separate investigations into Democrat Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump’s campaign defended himself behind closed doors for more than 11 hours Wednesday as House GOP lawmakers stepped up efforts to highlight what they say is bias at the Justice Department.
Peter Strzok exchanged anti-Trump texts with a colleague, FBI attorney Lisa Page, as both worked on the Clinton investigation and briefly on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. House Republicans have seized on the texts as part of investigations into the Justice Department, the FBI and decisions that both made during the 2016 presidential election. In one of the texts, from August 2016, Strzok wrote, “We’ll stop it,” in reference to a potential Trump election win.
The barrage of GOP criticism against the Justice Department comes just a few months before the midterm elections, and amid intense sparring between the parties over the FBI’s role in the Russia probe. The House is scheduled to vote Thursday on a resolution demanding the department hand over thousands of documents that Congress has requested by July 6.
Strzok’s questioning by lawmakers on the House Judiciary and the Oversight and Government Reform committees began before 10 a.m. Wednesday and ended after 9 p.m. The last two hours were held in a small classified session after lawmakers said Strzok had declined to answer sensitive questions about internal FBI protocols and the Russia probe, among other issues.
The interview showed no signs of changing entrenched partisan opinions — Republicans speaking outside the interview appeared unconvinced by an internal Justice Department report released earlier this month that detailed Strzok and Page’s texts but ultimately found no evidence that bias affected the decision not to bring charges against Clinton.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the Oversight panel, said in an interview that bias is “pervasive” and “impossible to separate out.” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., one of the most vocal critics of the Justice Department, said midway through the interview that while it’s possible Strzok’s individual bias didn’t affect the Clinton investigation, he believes that “what we are finding is the text messages were indicative of other decisions that were made or not made throughout the initiation of the Russia investigation” in the summer of 2016.
Frustrated Democrats called the interview a farce. In a statement after the interview was completed, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, suggested they had learned nothing new and called for the Republican chairmen to release the unclassified portion of the interview transcript.
“We just finished an 11-hour interview with Peter Strzok, and as today’s transcript will make crystal clear, House Republicans are desperately trying to find something — anything — to undermine Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign,” Cummings and Nadler said in a joint statement. “Unfortunately for them, they were entirely unsuccessful today, and their interview of Mr. Strzok will not help their misguided mission.”
Lawmakers leaving the interview said that Strzok expressed regret for the text messages and said FBI agents often hold political opinions but they don’t affect their decisions.
Strzok was recently escorted from the FBI building as his disciplinary process winds through the system, his lawyer has said. He “remains a proud FBI agent” who wants to serve his country but has been the “target of unfounded personal attacks, political games and inappropriate information leaks,” according to a statement last week from lawyer Aitan Goelman.
A seasoned counterintelligence agent, Strzok had a leading role on the investigation into whether Clinton illegally mishandled classified information through her use of a private email server while secretary of state. He later joined Mueller’s team investigating Russian election interference, but was reassigned last summer after the discovery of anti-Trump text messages he had traded with the FBI lawyer. Page had already left Mueller’s team when the messages were discovered and has now left the FBI.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump criticized the closed-door interview with Strzok, saying it should be “shown to the public on live television, not a closed door hearing that nobody will see.” In response, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Virginia, said there will be a public hearing “soon.”
The Strzok interview is one of several events this week in which House Republicans are criticizing the Justice Department. At a contentious session Tuesday, the GOP-led Judiciary panel approved the resolution requesting the department provide documents, despite an existing agreement to do so that was announced by House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office over the weekend.
Meadows and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio were behind that resolution, which would not be enforceable but would send a strong message to Justice officials.
Justice and FBI have already turned over more than 800,000 documents to congressional committees, but subpoenas from the Justice and Intelligence panels are demanding additional materials. Lawmakers have threatened to hold top Justice officials in contempt or impeach them if the documents aren’t turned over.
On Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will appear at an open hearing to testify about both investigations and the documents Republicans are seeking. Goodlatte said he intends to use Thursday’s hearing to question Wray and Rosenstein about complying with the requests and that he encouraged “others to do the same.”
Republicans grill FBI agent who said he would ‘stop’ Trump
Republicans grill FBI agent who said he would ‘stop’ Trump
- Peter Strzok exchanged anti-Trump texts with a colleague as both worked on the Clinton investigation and briefly on special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia
- The last two hours of the probe were held in a small classified session after lawmakers said Strzok had declined to answer sensitive questions about internal FBI protocols and the Russia probe.
Mali’s army claims arrest of an Daesh group leader
BAMAKO: Mali’s army said Saturday its forces had arrested two men, one of them a leading figure in the Sahel branch of the Daesh group.
The army announced they had also killed several of the group’s fighters during an operation in the north of the country.
A statement from the army said they had arrested “Mahamad Ould Erkehile alias Abu Rakia,” as well as “Abu Hash,” who they said was a leading figure in the group.
They blamed him for coordinating atrocities against people in the Menaka and Gao regions in the northeast of the country, as well as attacks against the army.
Mali has faced profound unrest since 2012 linked both to militants associated with Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, and to local criminal gangs.
The country’s military rulers have broken ties with former colonial power France and turned, militarily and politically, to Russia.
Iran protests Afghan dam project in new water dispute
- The dam in Herat province will store approximately 54 million cubic meters of water, irrigate 13,000 hectares of agricultural land and generate two megawatts of electricity
TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry said on Friday that an upstream dam being built by neighboring Afghanistan on the Harirud River restricts water flow and could be in violation of bilateral treaties.
Water rights have long been a source of friction in ties between the two countries, which share a more than 900-kilometer (560-mile) border.
Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesman for Tehran’s foreign ministry, voiced on Friday “strong protest and concern over the disproportionate restriction of water entering Iran” due to the Pashdan Dam project.
He said in a statement that the Iranian concerns had been communicated “in contact with relevant Afghan authorities.”
“Exploitation of water resources and basins cannot be carried out without respecting Iran’s rights in accordance with bilateral treaties or applicable customary principles and rules, as well as the important principle of good neighborliness and environmental considerations,” Baqaei added.
Abdul Ghani Baradar, Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs, said in a video statement last month that the Pashdan project was “nearing completion and water storage has commenced.”
According to the video, the dam in Herat province will store approximately 54 million cubic meters of water, irrigate 13,000 hectares of agricultural land and generate two megawatts of electricity.
In April, Baradar said the dam was a “vital and strategic project” for Herat province.
The foreign ministry statement on Friday follows remarks by an Iranian water official, similarly criticizing the dam construction.
“The situation has led to social and environmental issues, particularly affecting the drinking water supply for the holy city of Mashhad,” Iran’s second-largest and home to a revered Shiite Muslim shrine near the Afghan border, national water industry spokesman Issa Bozorgzadeh was quoted as saying on Monday by official news agency IRNA.
Harirud River, also known as Hari and Tejen, flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, passing along Iran’s borders with both countries.
In his statement, Baqaei said Iran expects “Afghanistan... to cooperate in continuing the flow of water from border rivers” and to “remove the obstacles created” along their path.
In May 2023, Iran issued a stern warning to Afghan officials over another dam project, on the Helmand River, saying that it violates the water rights of residents of Sistan-Baluchistan, a drought-hit province in southeastern Iran.
Series of Ethiopia earthquakes trigger evacuations
- The earthquakes have damaged houses and threatened to trigger a volcanic eruption of the previously dormant Mount Dofan, near Segento in the northeast Afar region
ADDIS ABABA: Evacuations were underway in Ethiopia Saturday after a series of earthquakes, the strongest of which, a 5.8-magnitude jolt, rocked the remote north of the Horn of Africa nation.
The quakes were centered on the largely rural Afar, Oromia and Amhara regions after months of intense seismic activity.
No casualties have been reported so far.
Ethiopia’s government Communication Service said around 80,000 people were living in the affected regions and the most vulnerable were being moved to temporary shelters.
“The earthquakes are increasing in terms of magnitude and recurrences,” it said in a statement, adding that experts had been dispatched to assess the damage.
The Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission said 20,573 people had been evacuated to safer areas in Afar and Oromia, from a tally of over 51,000 “vulnerable” people.
Plans were underway to move more than 8,000 people in Oromia “in the coming days,” the agency said in a statement.
The latest shallow 4.7 magnitude quake hit just before 12:40 p.m. (0940 GMT) about 33 kilometers north of Metehara town in Oromia, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center.
The earthquakes have damaged houses and threatened to trigger a volcanic eruption of the previously dormant Mount Dofan, near Segento in the northeast Afar region.
The crater has stopped releasing plumes of smoke, but nearby residents have left their homes in panic.
Earthquakes are common in Ethiopia due to its location along the Great Rift Valley, one of the world’s most seismically active areas.
Experts have said the tremors and eruptions are being caused by the expansion of tectonic plates under the Great Rift Valley.
Jimmy Carter’s 6-day funeral begins with a motorcade through south Georgia
- A motorcade with Carter’s flag-draped casket is heads to his hometown of Plains
- The 39th US president died at his home on Dec. 29 at the age of 100
PLAINS, Georgia: Jimmy Carter ‘s long public goodbye began Saturday in south Georgia where the 39th US president’s life began more than 100 years ago.
A motorcade with Carter’s flag-draped casket is heading to his hometown of Plains and past his boyhood home on the way to Atlanta. The procession began at the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, where former Secret Service agents who protected the late president served as pallbearers. A mournful train whistle filled the clear air as the pallbearers turned to face the hearse for a final goodbye, their hands on their hearts.
The Carter family, including the former president’s four children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, are accompanying their patriarch as his six-day state funeral begins.
The longest-lived US president, Carter died at his home in Plains on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.
Families lined the procession route in downtown Plains, near the historic train depot where Carter headquartered his presidential campaign. Some carried bouquets of flowers or wore commemorative pins bearing Carter’s photo.
“We want to pay our respects,” said 12-year-old Will Porter Shelbrock, who was born more than three decades after Carter left the White House in 1981. “He was ahead of his time on what he tried to do and tried to accomplish.”
It was Shelbrock’s idea to make the trip to Plains from Gainesville, Florida, with his grandmother, Susan Cone, 66, so they could witness the start of Carter’s final journey. Shelbrock said he admires Carter for his humanitarian work building houses and waging peace, and for installing solar panels on the White House.
Carter and his late wife Rosalynn, who died in November 2023, were born in Plains and lived most of their lives in and around the town, with the exceptions of Jimmy’s Navy career and his terms as Georgia governor and president.
The procession will stop in front of Carter’s home on his family farm just outside of Plains. The National Park Service will ring the old farm bell 39 times to honor his place as the 39th president. Carter’s remains then will proceed to Atlanta for a moment of silence in front of the Georgia Capitol and a ceremony at the Carter Presidential Center.
There, he will lie in repose until Tuesday morning, when he will be transported to Washington to lie in state at the US Capitol. His state funeral is Thursday at 10 a.m. at Washington National Cathedral, followed by a return to Plains for an invitation-only funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church.
He will be buried near his home, next to Rosalynn Carter.
Gunmen from Nigeria kill five Cameroonian soldiers, MP says
YAOUNDE: Gunmen from Nigeria have killed at least five Cameroonian soldiers and wounded several others in the village of Bakinjaw on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria, a member of parliament for the district and a traditional leader said on Saturday.
It is the latest in a series of attempts to seize territory in the area.
Aka Martin Tyoga, MP for the district of Akwaya in southwestern Cameroon, where the incident took place, told Reuters the attack happened early on Friday, when hundreds of armed Fulani herdsmen crossed the border from Taraba state in Nigeria to attack a military post.
He said it was a retaliation after Cameroonian soldiers killed several herdsmen the day before.
Agwa Linus, traditional ruler of Bakinjaw, said the attackers also burnt down his home.
“This is not the first time they are attacking — it’s very unfortunate,” he said.
