JOHN SOLOMON!
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.
The Controlled Opposition Party [COP] always has to sit at the back of the bus.
They are very corrupt, just less corrupt than the party that controls the Deep State whether they are “in power” or not.
Consider this my FRiend...
The DOJ and FBI have CLEARLY grown into uncontrollable monstrosities. The DOJ just “missed” another deadline to provide the documents requested by members of congress who are cleared to see them and who hold positions in committees charged with oversight responsibilities. This is stonewalling and obstruction of justice. And still, the DOJ continues to display contempt for the representatives of the people of the United States and their lawful oversight duties. This is nothing but pure defiance.
I appreciate your points but I think you’re missing the larger issue. Your arguments reflect mostly political considerations. I’m far more concerned about the direction the country is heading and where this obstruction and abuse of power is leading us. We are going down a very dark road.
What we are witnessing is the rise of a fourth branch of government that is wholly unaccountable to anyone, apparently even to the president. They act independently and do what they want.
I don’t know about you but that’s a very frightening development to me. It smacks of a police state and that simply cannot be allowed to happen in our democracy. And further, we know for certain that several agencies have been weaponized against citizens for partisan political purposes. This is unacceptable and the president needs to act swiftly to restore the public’s confidence in the rogue agencies.
Not to be melodramatic, but it seems that this de facto fourth branch of government (which stonewalls the congress, is so far unaccountable to the president, lies to the courts, violates individual rights, and has unlimited surveillance powers) is becoming like the loathsome Hydra in Greek mythology.
I think you would agree that we need to restore some semblance of accountability and integrity in the federal agencies that should be faithfully serving the American people instead of undermining our elections, conducting illegal surveillance against Americans, and refusing to submit to legitimate oversight.
I understand the political maneuvering and ramifications but we have a runaway train being driven by Rod Rosenstein, the de facto AG, and his subordinate Jeff Sessions. The train needs to be stopped before it derails and causes great destruction to the Republic.
The only way that runaway train will be stopped is with political power. Political power that the president does not currently possess. He barely has the tepid suppprt of his own reluctant party. He needs to acquire the power to change the personnel and the very culture of the federal government. It is him putting himself on the line (as he is) and winning that will give him that power. He won’t have it unless that happens. If he made the attempt now and failed in November, it’s all over, the gig is up.
It is only by winning the elections that we will reestablish accountability and integrity to our federal institutions. Well, there is another way - but that way leads to great upheaval, death and destruction...and is most certainly not the way that Trump is pursuing. We got these crimes because the people turned the power over to Obama. There is no recourse for that, except consistently electing the opposite of Obama. That is why you do nothing that has the potential to rebound negatively on you until you know you have the power.
That's the problem - only people who pay attention or watch Fox News have heard any of this. Most people have only heard the MSM telling us that the Mueller probe is moving forward and that there was Trump-Russia collusion (besides which, Trump says/tweets bad things about the courageous MSM). To most of the people in the US, there is no ammo that they have seen.
Strzok had better be singing like an opera chorus or else he’s going to jail for a long time and will lose all his federal benefits
Page is the next to be grilled and jailed.
McCabe is questionable on this but he has other problems.
You already have enough “conspirators” to make this a “conspiracy” plot against the U.S. government, which is sedition. Long sentences if guilty.
The first canary to really sing, not just chirp, will get a lighter sentence.
I do not want to be in the hallways of DOJ when the rush to be the “first” takes place. A guy could get run over.
The fact these idiots put this stuff in writing that could be retrieved at the push of a button is preposterous.
Be very afraid of the WASHINGTONIANS, they are insane.
They were all believing the polls and each other. They had no fear before the election and even after, they were confident they would hog tie Trump and quickly dispatch him as President.
It is a very strange mindset.
Most everyone was saying Bill Priestap was singing behind the scenes but his testimony was clear evidence that he has stuck firmly to the Swamp Party line. Stzrok, Paige and others are not going out quietly and they likely know with certainty a bullet awaits them if they turn states evidence. The only guilty verdicts will be arrived at in a hard fought trial. McCabe's case of purgery should have been a simple and straight forward case but three months later...nothing.
These are folks who honestly believe they were right to take the actions they did and there will be no easy cases to prove in a court of law. And yes, that is where these battles must end: doing it the right way and proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. To do anything else i.e. the "let's hang 'em, ship 'em off to Gotmo" crowd would have us do what the Swamp would like to do to us if they could. We would be no better than the scum we despise.
Ya think Congress and the IG will report will help her. If so, I gotta bridge for sell.
I can tell ya right now the reasoning without having to spend 100s of millions of dollars. They wanted as much shit on PDJT as they could get before the election.
They have not just become this. They have been corrupt for a decades. However, after 8 years of ObucketOshit, they have been emboldened.
Don’t hold your breath expecting much to be declassified due to the fact that this involves foreign intel agencies both “friendly” and hostile.
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.
ping.
RICHARD BECKLER was the counsel who told the Trump team their transition records would be safe at the GSA … before their emails were stolen from the GSA by the FBI
The guy who released the documents to the FBI was Lennard Loewentritt, the GSA’s deputy general counsel...
More like "un-evidenced" collusion.
JCS?
Joint Chiefs of Staff
A long time ago!
btt
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