Home/Recent kwiples > Issues >

FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation)

Thursday 2nd of October 2025

2016 Presidential election For all the Republicans' talk of a top-down Democratic plot, [Christopher] Steele and [Glenn] Simpson appear never to have told their ultimate client –the Clinton campaign's law firm– that Steele had gone to the F.B.I. Clinton's campaign spent much of the sum- mer of 2016 fending off stories about the Bureau's investigation into her e-emails, without knowing that the F.B.I. had launched a counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump team's ties to Russia … As a top Clinton-campaign official told me, “If I'd known the F.B.I. was investigating Trump, I would have been shouting it from the rooftops!” Jane Mayer, New Yorker, March 12, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Jeff Jarvis @jeffjarvis Hey @Snowden, for context, how long would it take the NSA to dedupe 650k emails? — — — Edward Snowden @Snowden @jeffjarvis Drop non-responsive To:/CC:/BCC:, hash both sets, then subtract those that match. Old laptops could do it in minutes-to-hours. 5:19PM - 6 Nov 2016 Edward Snowden, responding to Jeff Jarvis, debunking Donald Trump's claim it would be impossible for the FBI to review 650,000 Hillary Clinton emails in 8 days, most of which were duplicates © 2016 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Putin and Assange win big, aided by FBI, white insurgents, minority disenfranchisement — — — — — Canadian immigration website crashes after tallying begins — Trump will be told bit-by-bit what winners know and want © 2016 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election A Washington Post investigation found that more than a year would pass before prose- cutors and FBI agents jointly embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election. Even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation. … The Justice Department's painstaking approach to investigating Trump can be traced to [Attorney General Merrick] Garland’s desire to turn the page from missteps, bruising attacks and allegations of partisanship in the depart- ment’s recent investigations of both Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election  and Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Carol D. Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, Washington Post, June 20, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Collusion [T]his is someone who said, “We have information on your opponent.” Oh, let me call the FBI. Give me a break. Life doesn't work that way. Donald Trump, defending his son, Don, Jr., who violated federal law by not reporting offers he received from Russians to meddle in the 2016 election to the FBI © 2019 Kwiple.com
Collusion You don't call the FBI every time you hear something that maybe – now, you see the people. The meeting, it also sounds to me – I don't know anything  about that meeting – but it sounds to me like it was a big nothing. Donald Trump, defending his son, Don, Jr., who violated federal law by not reporting offers he received from Russians to meddle in the 2016 election to the FBI © 2019 Kwiple.com
Criminal investigations The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.  Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts' involvement in criminal investigations. And both would violate bedrock separation-of- powers limitations. Accordingly, we agree with the government that the district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction, and that dismissal of the entire proceeding is required. From the Court of Appeals For the 11th Circuit's decision to end special counsel review of documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Criminal investigations This appeal requires us to consider whether the district court had jurisdiction to block the United States from using lawfully seized records in a criminal investigation. The answer is no. … The district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction in this case. For that reason, we VACATE the September 5 order on appeal and REMAND with instructions for the district court to DISMISS the underlying civil action. Beginning and ending of Court of Appeals For  the 11th Circuit's decision to end special counsel review of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Fake tears Look, this is terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election. James Comey, FBI Director and Republican, on his decision to disclose two weeks before the presidential election that the FBI had reopened its Clinton email probe without having yet studied the new emails, which it later said warranted no legal action © 2017 Kwiple.com
Fashion Tangentially, another devotee of the button collar, and perhaps the greatest exemplar of public-servant style, is former FBI director Robert Mueller. If you are ever wondering whether you are dressed conservatively enough for a given occasion, it is enough to ask yourself, “Would Mueller wear this?” Robert Armstrong, Financial Times, April 14, 2020, in an article about Dr. Anthony Fauci © 2020 Kwiple.com
Profiles in courage [T]he Department of Justice is not going to be extorted. Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General overseeing the Mueller investigations, on news that Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan and other uncommonly long-tongued kiss-asses known collectively as the Freedom Caucus are circulating an unsigned draft of articles of impeachment against him for not giving them unredacted  files from active FBI investigations into possible collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates [so they can share, and deny sharing, them with fellow Republicans and the witnesses, subjects the targets of the investigations] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Punt returners say The irony of your making that statement here, I cannot avoid. Angus King, responding to FBI director James Comey's claim during a Senate intelligence committee hearing that, “Especially in a public forum, we never confirm or deny a pending investigation,” ignoring the press conference he held eleven days before the 2016 election to announce that the FBI was reopening its investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails without announcing it was actively investigating Donald Trump's connections to Russia © 2017 Kwiple.com
The Russia thing  But regardless of the recommendation, I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it! And in fact when I decided to just do it I said to myself, I said, “You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should've won.” Donald Trump on firing James Comey © 2018 Kwiple.com
Supreme Court The FBI sacrificed her [Christine Blasey Ford] to the gale force political pressure applied by the [dark money] scheme [to capture the court] to get this well-auditioned nomineee [Brett Kavanaugh] into place. And let's get real. You don't apply gale force political pressure for judges who are just going to call balls and strikes. $400 million, $400 million has been spent in dark money on this court capture scheme. For $400 million, you don't want balls and strikes; you want judges who will throw the game for you. You want what you paid for: a captured Court, and if you look at its track record, that's this Court. It's the Court that dark money built, and it's delivering. Sheldon Whitehouse, September 21, 2021, summarizing the history of the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union For Europeans, today's America serves a useful function: a model for how not to run your society. The US has already demonstrated how easy it is to lurch into plutocracy, or to split a country into two hostile tribes. Now it is offering another cautionary lesson: how to let Russian interference succeed  by turning it into a partisan issue. Most Republicans are acting as if the problem isn't Russian meddling in the 2016 election but the FBI's handling of it. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, Feb. 8, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union We are entering Nixonian territory. … Not even Nixon fired the head of the FBI.  Edward Luce, Financial Times, May 9, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say The FBI, an organization set up to fight organized crime, has become the most powerful organized crime syndicate in the world. We now need to carry the fight against organized crime to its logical conclusion: Shut down the FBI and prosecute this gang of dangerous criminals. Dinesh D'Souza, who Trump pardoned for Trump campaign finance violations,  commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say The FBI is the crime family. Jeanine Pirro © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I'm gonna tell you something: I'm not into conspiracies; I'm not into anti-government rhetoric. This is the first time in my lifetime that I would say I am deathly afraid for Donald Trump. I would not put assassination behind these people. Bernard Kerik, former NYC Police Commissioner,  commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say The only possible violation there would be, was it a campaign finance violation – which usually would result in a fine, by the way – not this big stormtroopers [the FBI] coming in and breaking down his apartment and breaking down his office. Rudy Giuliani, on the FBI's warranted search of Michael Cohen's house, office and hotel room for documents related to Cohen's $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels [Cohen said they knocked on his door] © 2018 Kwiple.com
 
Trumpists say With this militant raid on President Trump’s home, we have become Russia. The FBI is the KGB. Michael Caputo, former assistant secretary of public affairs in Trump's Department of Health & Human Services,  commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com