Posted on 05/07/2019 8:16:31 AM PDT by billorites
At a contentious hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General William Barr dropped a big hint about his investigation into the conduct of the Trump-Russia investigation.
"Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant and a FISA warrant," Barr said. "I would like to find out whether that is in fact true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort designed to stop the threat as it is being represented."
Here is what he meant. There has been a lot of discussion on the Right about the FBI's use of a confidential informant, an England-based college professor named Stefan Halper, to spy on some Trump campaign figures, including the sometime foreign policy volunteer advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. There has also been talk about the FBI's use of a FISA warrant, a court-approved permission to wiretap, against Page.
There was also speculation about other possible FBI surveillance, but the Halper operation and Page FISA case were the only ones definitely known. So Barr was saying: If the FBI really took the Trump-Russia matter seriously, if they thought it was a threat to the republic, would that be all they would do? No other wiretaps or other surveillance? No other confidential informants? Nothing?
Given that Barr was already looking into the question, his phrasing suggested he suspected there was more.
Sure enough, just days later the New York Times reported that in the summer of 2016 the FBI sent an undercover agent, a woman who went by the alias Azra Turk, to London to pose as Halper's research assistant and tease information out of Papadopoulos. (The Times was so reluctant to call Turk a spy that it referred to her, in a headline, as a "cloaked investigator.")
So now there are Halper, Turk, and the Page FISA warrant. If they represent the totality of the FBI's surveillance, that would still be a pretty anemic response to what some in the bureau viewed as a full-scale Russian attack on American democracy.
So the key question of the Barr investigation will be: Is there more?
The answer is not publicly known. But consider this: The Mueller report noted that on Aug. 2, 2017, the Justice Department authorized the special counsel to investigate specific allegations against four Trump campaign officials: Page and Papadopoulos, plus former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former security adviser Michael Flynn. Is it reasonable to believe that the FBI pulled out the big investigative guns, the spies and the wiretap warrant, against the two smaller figures, Page and Papadopoulos, and not against the far more important figures of Manafort and Flynn? Or if not against them, perhaps against others?
It wasn't that long ago, on April 10, when, during another Hill appearance, Barr set off a firestorm by declaring that "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign. Democrats pounced; how dare Barr call the FBI's investigation "spying"?
"Perpetuating conspiracy theories is beneath the office of attorney general," tweeted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
It is abundantly clear that Barr was correct. He was careful to add that the unknown factor about the spying was "whether it was adequately predicated" — that is, whether the FBI had a legitimate reason to do it. But there was no doubt spying happened.
Now, the question is whether there was more than is now publicly known. Congressional investigators are anxiously awaiting the results of an investigation into at least some of the surveillance by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz. That report is thought to be coming in the next couple of months. They are also watching to see what Barr will investigate on his own.
Both are deeply important efforts. Just as the public needed to know what is in the Mueller report, it needs to know about the FBI's secret political operations in the 2016 campaign.
Bolo wearers all over the place.
Why did McCain give the Dossier to Comey instead of Brennan or Clapper?
This is fixing to get very ugly. Should be fun to watch.
Still not a lot of info on the eavesdropping up to two jumps. My speculation is that this will quickly encompass the entire Trump campaign. And we also hear that Rice and company generated spreadsheets of unmasked conversations — all of which were not mentioned in Mueller, (unless tied to sources and methods) but we currently understand that they did not get any Russian conspiracy or obstruction value out of these conversations, But how about a lot of campaign strategy information?
A fall guy or two is being set up, but this is far beyond an easy fixit job for the Deep State to sweep under the rug. Too many big players and a number of foreign government intelligence agencies involved here too. This thing is about to blow up. This is the biggest case of espionage in our nation’s history. This is Mt. Veseuvius about to blow its top on top of Pompeii!
A better question is who gave it to McCain.
Most likely Harry Reid or Flake
A worshipful Susan "The Intel Snifter" Rice gets her orders from the Obama police state.
"Get me dirt on Penguin books so I can shake them down for big bucks on my book contract.
Lois Lerner loved that dirt you got on conservatives.
And get me the FBI and IRS files on Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi."
President Trump not only took down 2 modern day political "dynasties," he also "insulted" Barry Soetero by asking publicly that his real B.C. be released.
The usurper made Trump public enemy #1.
To hand it to Brennan or Clapper, it would appear that you were simply giving the dossier to an insider to the White House. I also imagine....that both had already at some point read the dossier (in its pre-stage). Comey was the better choice to make this appear as though he (McCain) was doing some act of law enforcement.
As dimwitted as McCain has proven over the past decade, I don’t think he ever understood that he was just a pawn, and being used.
enough to constitute a “crossfire hurricane”
The headline is like asking how much rape?
February 2016, London Centre of International Law (an FBI training center) used Linked In to reach out to Papadopolus with an offer to make him a Director at the Centre. Joseph Mifsud worked at Link campus (CIA/FBI) he was the go between between Papadopolus, Alexander Downer (Australia) and former prime minister Rossi (Italy)
We’ve heard little about the unmasking....which gives me pause...cuz that goes directly to spying...
Update: In response to a question Tuesday from NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell, former Obama White Housjpge National Security Adviser Susan Rice denied that she “prepared” spreadsheets of surveilled telephone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides. The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group, however, reported that Rice “ordered” the spreadsheets to be produced.
In addition, former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova, one of TheDCNF’s sources, said Tuesday in response to Rice that her denial “would come as quite a surprise to the government officials who have reviewed dozens of those spreadsheets.” Former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of legal phone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides when he was running for president, according to former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova. “What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals,” diGenova told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group Monday.
“The overheard conversations involved no illegal activity by anybody of the Trump associates, or anyone they were speaking with,” diGenova said. “In short, the only apparent illegal activity was the unmasking of the people in the calls.”
Other official sources with direct knowledge and who requested anonymity confirmed to TheDCNF diGenova’s description of surveillance reports Rice ordered one year before the 2016 presidential election. Also on Monday, Fox News and Bloomberg News, citing multiple sources reported that Rice had requested the intelligence information that was produced in a highly organized operation. Fox said the unmasked names of Trump aides were given to officials at the National Security Council (NSC), the Department of Defense, James Clapper, President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, and John Brennan, Obama’s CIA Director.
Joining Rice in the alleged White House operations was her deputy Ben Rhodes, according to Fox. Critics of the atmosphere prevailing throughout the Obama administration’s last year in office point to former Obama Deputy Defense Secretary Evelyn Farkas who admitted in a March 2 television interview on MSNBC that she “was urging my former colleagues,” to “get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration.”
Farkas sought to walk back her comments in the weeks following: “I didn’t give anybody anything except advice.” Col. (Ret.) James Waurishuk, an NSC veteran and former deputy director for intelligence at the U.S. Central Command, told TheDCNF that many hands had to be involved throughout the Obama administration to launch such a political spying program.
“The surveillance initially is the responsibility of the National Security Agency,” Waurishuk said. “They have to abide by this guidance when one of the other agencies says, ‘we’re looking at this particular person which we would like to unmask.'” “The lawyers and counsel at the NSA surely would be talking to the lawyers and members of counsel at CIA, or at the National Security Council or at the Director of National Intelligence or at the FBI,” he said. “It’s unbelievable of the level and degree of the administration to look for information on Donald Trump and his associates, his campaign team and his transition team. This is really, really serious stuff.”
Michael Doran, former NSC senior director, told TheDCNF Monday that “somebody blew a hole in the wall between national security secrets and partisan politics.” This “was a stream of information that was supposed to be hermetically sealed from politics and the Obama administration found a way to blow a hole in that wall,” he said. Doran charged that potential serious crimes were undertaken because “this is a leaking of signal intelligence.” “That’s a felony,” he told TheDCNF. “And you can get 10 years for that. It is a tremendous abuse of the system. We’re not supposed to be monitoring American citizens. Bigger than the crime, is the breach of public trust.” Waurishuk said he was most dismayed that “this is now using national intelligence assets and capabilities to spy on the elected, yet-to-be-seated president.”
“We’re looking at a potential constitutional crisis from the standpoint that we used an extremely strong capability that’s supposed to be used to safeguard and protect the country,” he said. “And we used it for political purposes by a sitting president.
So the key question of the Barr investigation will be: Is there more?
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Of course there’s more. A lot more. The scope of spying activities is going to be surprisingly large and will probably encompass dozens or more people. Yates, Rice, Clapper, Brennan, and Powers were all involved in unmaskings of Trump associates and who knows who else?
A proliferation of illegal unmasking is going to be at the core of all this spying in my opinion. Its going to be more expansive than anyone can imagine. Barr probably has a pretty good idea by now of just how expansive it really was.
The spying was not limited to Trump.
Deal with that.
As dimwitted as McCain has proven over the past decade, I don’t think he ever understood that he was just a pawn, and being used.
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Dimwitted and self righteous. A very dangerous combination.
My speculation is that this will quickly encompass the entire Trump campaign.
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It is entirely possible, given the intensity of partisan hatred by members of the cabal, that spying extended beyond the Trump campaign. We may see that others (e.g., some conservative members of congress) were surveillance targets as well. It appears that there were a lot of unmaskings, more than was needed to look at just associates of Trump. Just saying.
I think you are being way too charitable to the man who gave the finger to the US by voting against Trump’s obamacare reforms.
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