Posted on 07/06/2018 6:32:35 AM PDT by markomalley
Multiple reviews of whether FBI agents’ political bias affected the Russia-Trump collusion case remain in their infancy, but investigators already have unearthed troubling internal communications long withheld from public view.
We already know from FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok’s now-infamous text messages with his fellow agent and reported lover, Lisa Page, that Strzok — the man driving that Russia collusion investigation — disdained Donald Trump and expressed willingness to use his law enforcement powers to “stop” the Republican from becoming president.
The question that lingers, unanswered: Did those sentiments affect official actions?
Memos the FBI is now producing to the Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general and multiple Senate and House committees offer what sources involved in the production, review or investigation describe to me as “damning” or “troubling” evidence.
They show Strzok and his counterintelligence team rushing in the fall of 2016 to find “derogatory” information from informants, or a “pretext” to accelerate the probe and get a surveillance warrant on figures tied to the future president.
One of those figures was Carter Page, an academic and an energy consultant from New York; he was briefly a volunteer foreign policy adviser for the GOP nominee’s campaign and visited Moscow the summer before the election.
The memos show Strzok, FBI lawyer Page, and others in counterintelligence monitored news articles in September 2016 that quoted a law enforcement source as saying the FBI was investigating Page’s travel to Moscow.
The FBI team pounced on what it saw as an opportunity, as soon as Page wrote a letter to then-FBI Director James Comey, complaining about the “completely false” leak.
“At a minimum, the letter provides us a pretext to interview,” Strzok wrote to Lisa Page on Sept. 26, 2016.
Within weeks, that “pretext” — often a synonym for an excuse — had been upsized to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant, giving the FBI the ability to use some of its most awesome powers to monitor Carter Page and his activities.
To date, the former Trump adviser has been accused of no wrongdoing despite being subjected to nearly a year of surveillance.
Some internal memos detail the pressure being applied by the FBI to DOJ prosecutors to get the warrant on Carter Page buttoned up before Election Day.
In one email exchange with the subject line “Crossfire FISA,” Strzok and Lisa Page discussed talking points to get then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to persuade a high-ranking DOJ official to sign off on the warrant.
“Crossfire Hurricane” was one of the code names for four separate investigations the FBI conducted related to Russia matters in the 2016 election.
“At a minimum, that keeps the hurry the F up pressure on him,” Strzok emailed Lisa Page on Oct. 14, 2016, less than four weeks before Election Day.
Four days later the same team was emailing about rushing to get approval for another FISA warrant for another Russia-related investigation code-named “Dragon.”
“Still an expedite?” one of the emails beckoned, as the FBI tried to meet the requirements of a process known as a Woods review before a FISA warrant can be approved by the courts.
“Any idea what time he can have it woods-ed by?” Strzok asked Lisa Page. “I know it’s not going to matter because DOJ is going to take the time DOJ wants to take. I just don’t want this waiting on us at all.”
Until all the interviews are completed by Congress and DOJ’s inspector general later this year, we won’t know why counterintelligence agents who normally take a methodical approach to investigation felt so much pressure days before the election on this case.
Were they concerned about losing a chance to gather evidence at a critical moment? Or maybe, as some Republicans long have suspected, they wanted to impact the election?
The agents got the Carter Page warrant in October and, within two weeks, Democrats in Congress such as then-Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and some media members were raising questions about the FBI withholding word of a probe that could hurt Trump. FBI agents monitored those reports, too.
The day after Trump’s surprising win on Nov. 9, 2016, the FBI counterintelligence team engaged in a new mission, bluntly described in another string of emails prompted by another news leak.
“We need ALL of their names to scrub, and we should give them ours for the same purpose,” Strzok emailed Lisa Page on Nov. 10, 2016, citing a Daily Beast article about some of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s allegedly unsavory ties overseas.
“Andy didn’t get any others,” Lisa Page wrote back, apparently indicating then-Deputy Director McCabe didn’t have names to add to the “scrub.”
“That’s what Bill said,” Strzok wrote back, apparently referring to then-FBI chief of counterintelligence William Priestap. “I suggested we need to exchange our entire lists as we each have potential derogatory CI info the other doesn’t.” CI is short for confidential informants.
It’s an extraordinary exchange, if for no other reason than this: The very day after Trump wins the presidency, some top FBI officials are involved in the sort of gum-shoeing normally reserved for field agents, and their goal is to find derogatory information about someone who had worked for the president-elect.
As the president-elect geared up to take over, the FBI made another move that has captured investigators’ attention: It named an executive with expertise in the FBI’s most sensitive surveillance equipment to be a liaison to the Trump transition.
On its face, that seems odd; technical surveillance nerds aren’t normally the first picks for plum political assignments. Even odder, the FBI counterintelligence team running the Russia-Trump collusion probe seemed to have an interest in the appointment.
These and other documents are still being disseminated to various oversight bodies in Congress, and more revelations are certain to occur.
Yet, now, irrefutable proof exists that agents sought to create pressure to get “derogatory” information and a “pretext” to interview people close to a future president they didn’t like.
Clear evidence also exists that an investigation into still-unproven collusion between a foreign power and a U.S. presidential candidate was driven less by secret information from Moscow and more by politically tainted media leaks.
And that means the dots between expressions of political bias and official actions just got a little more connected.
“Unfortunately, it does not appear that Trump is willing to do”
Why on Earth would Trump do this before the midterms when all he would do is energize and focus his divided opposition with a “political persecution” (what it would be called by every single media outlet in the world)?
Once the Republicans have retained or solidified their majority in the midterms he will have much stronger support within his own party and no danger to any action he wants to take to reform DOJ and remove Sessions and Rosenstein (I actually expect them both to resign the day after the midterms if Republicans retain power). Winning one election can be a fluke, if he “wins” the midterms too, the Democrats will be in a world of hurt and unable to make any issue out of cleaning house at DOJ or FBI.
As for perp walks...I wouldn’t expect too much...the obvious fall guys like Page and Strzok and maybe McCabe - yeah, I could see that. But above that level, that’s pretty far outside American tradition and would be focusing on the past when American politics is always about the future...there’s little percentage in going after people who are out of office, out of jobs, out of power, when there are always problems that need to be addressed.
NEWS ALERT: Today is the House-imposed deadline for the DOJ to provide Russia documents.
https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/1015259987923349505
At this point all should be awaiting execution.
If President Trump, whom I love dearly, doesn’t act in a bigly and divisive way soon them he becomes part of the cover-up in a de facto sense. At that point the JCS must step in.
God, I hope Trump reads your post AND DOES THE OPPOSITE!
the start acting on information that was being pushed to them by CIA, State, MI-6, Clinton Camp, and the office of the DNI/prior administration.”
You remember Covfefe.... Trump put it out there on FaceBook then let it sink in for several hours. Then made reference to Covfefe in a rally speech, I believe.
Well..... I read somewhere on FR that it meant “Covert Five Eyes, Five Eyes”. The Brits and the Aussies perhaps were in on the spygate / corruption.
Go Trump. He is more popular now than on election night. Left can’t stand it.
The job of the FBI appears to be to protect liberal elites. AND the pet victim groups of liberal elites'...
We all pay with our taxes to protect the FBI - - under the delusion they protect all of us, but in fact they don't give a damn about average citizens. They care about liberal 'elites'...
The FBI cares about making sure Hillary can keep stealing, Bill can get away with rape, and the snowflakes on Martha's Vineyard are protected. Their other task is to trash and investigate 'deplorables' - just like the IRS did - to keep them from speaking out against corrupt elites.
“Nunes is obviously aware of the State Dept, but the CIA and DNI offices have escaped scrutiny to this point.”
Our President Trump came in to office with a plan.
Nunes, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chair, knows the whole story, and he’s carefully advancing it chapter by as need be.
Mike Pompeo started out as CIA Director: He knew where the bodies were buried, and immediately moved to secure all the evidence his predecessor, John Brennan, was unable to destroy or spirit away.
Now, as Secretary of State, he is unearthing all the evidence that his predecessors there—Hillary Clinton and John Kerry—had buried there “in the basement of Foggy Bottom.” Benghazi, the Iranian nuclear deal, Clinton Foundation graft, Haiti profiteering, human trafficking, child porn, et. al.
The raprochement is key, and not just for the prospect of a de-nuclearized Korean penninsula. The uniparty has had a vested interest in propping up the nuclear weapons ambitions of the Two Towers of Evil: North Korea and Iran.
President Trump is taking a direct, personal approach to de-fanging these regimes, though economic and trade incentives with North Korea and support for the growing revolutionary opposition to the Mullahs controlling Iran.
President would not have run for this job if he wasn’t convinced he could win. While it may be difficult for us to be patient, we must understand that it takes TIME for all these thing to fall into place. And, ultimately, TIME is on President Trump’s side.
Wait until the day after the elections. He’ll sweep them all out from Sessions on down.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
What is going on is more than corruption. It is subversion and therefore a threat to the nation and our institutions. We need Trump to step up and remove the rot from the executive agencies under his purview. As the chief executive, it is his responsibility.
There’s one solution to this mess:The Republicans should tell Trump that he has to declassify the stuff Congress has been demanding - on pain of impeachment.The Democrats can’t oppose that, so the Republican Congress can actually credibly threaten it. Only trouble is, the Republican Congressmen would have to stand up and be counted. The hiding would be over.
NEWS ALERT: Today is the House-imposed deadline for the DOJ to provide Russia documents.
*************
Too many “deadlines” to keep track of. Fake deadlines.
I’m gonna take a stab at why the criminals aren’t being forcefully brought to justice: the President has too many enemies in the Congress who would assist impeachment. This fact became evident after a few months of his Presidency. I believe even Trump was taken aback by the moral lassitude of Congress. Now he gets it. And therefore all he can do is try to shape the next Congress which we see him doing with all his speeches recently.
Why would Trump not declassify the documents being withheld by HIS agencies? This makes sense for two reasons: First its the right thing to do. The American people need to know the full scope and depth of this subversion. That seems intuitively obvious to anyone who cares about this country. Second, it would be politically advantageous to Trump as it would expose the deep seated antipathy against him and document the extremely dangerous political weaponization of our federal agencies. His opposition can’t do anything about it — and release of the documents will scorch them.
I disagree with you that Rosenstein and Sessions would resign. Sessions is a Deep State plant and his “sponsors”” expect him to remain in place where he can undermine Trump. Rosenstein is clearly Jeff Sessions’ alter ego. He is arrogantly defiant. People like that don’t willingly resign and give up power.
Trump is going to have to force them out. The sooner the better. Management 101 says never leave your adversaries in positions where they can undermine you and thwart your agenda. And...never underestimate the lengths they will go to to conspire against you, not to mention that they have lots of confederates who are willing accomplices. Its past time for Rosenstein and Sessions to be relieved of their duties. It is very dangerous to let them hang around.
The Deep-seated antipathy against Trump is already known and well-understood, there is nothing more to add to what is already understood by anyone who is not a leftist. The release won’t scorch the opposition, they won’t change their opinions no matter what. And it won’t do anything but reinforce what his supporters already know...there’s no real gain there, except for the historical record.
I don’t know if he will declassify or not, but I somewhat doubt he will take that risk if the midterms continue to look good. He’s not going to upset the political applecart with any potentially dangerous moves. The danger from declassifying the corruption is that there are a lot of people sitting in prison right now that we want to stay in prison - people who were prosecuted under federal law. If he blows up the DOJ with a declassify order, he might subject all those prosecutions to appeals because their processes have been shown to be corrupted. I don’t know how much risk there is from this, but that might be a reason not to utterly destroy the agency in that way.
I believe Sessions and Rosenstein will resign after the midterms in order that they don’t get fired...one of the two will happen and they know it. Zero sum game. If Trump wins the midterms, his power will be exponentially greater than it is today. That’s why he won’t take any risky actions before the vote. He’s better off as a beleaguered fighter, besieged by radical, crazy, wild donkey opponents before the election. It energizes his voters.
Management 101 isn’t Politics 101. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Abraham Lincoln is the model...his cabinet was full of bitter personal enemies. And he wouldnt take any major actions without having them be a follow on to a major victory. Trump understands this well.
John Solomon rips a scab off an open wound and The Hill relegates it to “opinion.”
Where’s the opinion?
Hat tip: John Solomon!
It’s time for Little Bobby Mueller and his nasty band of unemployed Clintoon shysters to take a hike or face charges. Americans are sick of paying those two bit bastards to continue with their commie left fiasco. The jig is up! Over! Kaput!
People are going to prison when? /s
“If President Trump, whom I love dearly, doesn’t act in a bigly and divisive way soon them he becomes part of the cover-up in a de facto sense.”
POTUS knows what he’s doing. He’s not telegraphing it but he’s let the frogs all get in the water. They jumped right into the pot.
Now, it’s set on low and going to hit a slow boil.
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