Posted on 09/12/2018 5:38:14 PM PDT by markomalley
A series of text messages released Wednesday reveal that former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok was in contact with reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post regarding stories they published about the FBI’s investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and President Trump’s campaign during the spring of 2017, according to a series of texts obtained by SaraACarter.com.
The text messages suggest that Strzok, along with his paramour, former FBI Attorney Lisa Page, had been in contact with reporters from both newspapers. Strzok specifically mentioned two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times writer Michael Schmidt his text message to Page.
Strzok wrote, “Also, apparently Times is angry with us about the WP (Washington Post) scoop and earlier discussion we had about the Schmidt piece that had so many inaccuracies. Too much to detail here, but I told Mike (redacted) and Andy they need to understand we were absolutely dealing in good faith with them,” Strzok texted to Page on April 14, 2017. “The FISA one, coupled with the Guardian piece from yesterday.” (The New York Times did not respond immediately for comment. The Washington Post also did not respond immediately for comment.)
According to several U.S. officials who spoke to this news outlet, “Mike” mentioned in Strzok’s text message is Mike Kortan, the former FBI assistant director for public affairs who retired in February. “Andy” was in reference to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe was fired earlier this year after it was revealed in DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report that said he lied to investigators and leaked information to the media.
These series of text messages appear to contradict statements made by Strzok’s attorney, Aitan Goelman, after it was revealed earlier this week that Strzok and Page discussed a “media leak strategy” in some of their text messages. Goelman insisted, “the term ‘media leak strategy’ in Mr. Strzok’s text refers to a Department-wide initiative to detect and stop leaks to the media.”
Goelman’s statement came after President Trump tweeted about the newly revealed text messages and North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asking him to investigate the text from Strzok regarding the “media leak strategy.”
In light of the recent Strzok and Page text messages, Meadows has also asked Rosenstein to provide the committee with the opportunity “to review text messages, emails, and written communication form FBI and DOJ officials Stu Evans, Mike Kortan, and Joe Pientka between June 2016 to June 2017,” first reported here.
Meadows stated in the letter, “to be clear, we are not suggesting wrongdoing on the part of Evans, Kortan, and Pientka- and, in fact, previously reviewed documents suggest that some of these individuals may share the committees’ same concerns.”
On April 11, 2017, The Washington Post broke a story titled “FBI Obtained FISA warrant to monitor former Trump advisor Carter Page,” which contained detailed information that the FBI had obtained a secret court order to monitor Page, a short-term Trump campaign volunteer, in October 2016. The story, written by Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett and Adam Entous referred to unnamed U.S. law enforcement and other U.S. officials who told The Washington Post that the FBI and Department of Justice obtained the warrant on Page after “convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.”
However, in April 2017, former FBI Director James Comey had signed the third renewal on Page, according to reports. In June, Rosenstein would sign off on the fourth FISA warrant renewal application to allow the FBI to continue monitoring all of Page’s communications, which ended in September 2017, after the renewal expired.
“It may constitute a waiver of any reason for secrecy provisions that are part of a warrant application,” said criminal and civil rights attorney, David Schoen. “Under the rules of the FISA court, their disclosure to a third party should have been revealed to the FISA court. It’s a material fact that should be disclosed under the FISA court rules and besides all that it would certainly violate FBI rules. The question is why was he doing that? Why was he leaking it?”
Schoen believes there is no reason the FISAs should not to be declassified considering they were willing to leak the information to the Washington Post.
The Washington Post story also suggested that the FISA warrant on Page “is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump associate was in touch with Russian agents.”
Page, who has denied any wrongdoing and has never been taken into custody for the claims made by the FBI, said his life was turned upside down when his name was leaked to the media. He said he has also received death threats and his reputation was tarnished after former British spy Christopher Steele leaked parts of his unverified anti-Trump dossier to the media.
“Like I’ve said all along this is a complete joke,” Page told SaraACarter.com. “It’s not about me, they are just trying to undercut the Trump administration’s accomplishments.”
This is what most Americans expect from the FBI. /s
Didn’t these assholes break some law they can be prosecuted under? Why the delay in incitement?
Spoon feeding leaks their favorite puppet media clowns.
Incredible.
Oh ho, check out what this Pulitzer Prize winning reporter actually won the Pulitzer Prize for!
How long does this charade go on?
DOJ: Do. Something. Please.
They’ve had these texts for many months. There is either a plan like an October surprise or we are being screwed BIGLY. Toss up in my book. Sessions castrated himself and appears bitter or perhaps sleepy. Rosenstein is so deep into the Swamp he’s part of this now.
> Why the delay in indictment?
It could be because they’re guilty of SO many distinct crimes that it’s taking a while to process them all.
Schoen is right. If the WaPo has the leaks why can’t the rest of America see the documents? Any claims of sources and methods have been declared “not worthy of security classification “ by their own actions. And because the media has the info AND has been sitting on it
Why on earth are these two traitors still walking around free? Why aren’t they prosecuted and set to spend the rest of their miserable lives in prison?
Goelman insisted, “the term ‘media leak strategy’ in Mr. Strzok’s text refers to a Department-wide initiative to detect and stop leaks to the media.”
further to the discussion on a previous Strzok/Page thread -
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3687025/posts
13 Dec 2016: AIM: Cliff Kincaid: Corrupt CIA Feeds Crooked Media
https://www.aim.org/aim-column/corrupt-cia-feeds-crooked-media/
The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S. presidential election
New York Times - 13 Dec 2016
updated 14 Dec 2016: Sydney Morning Herald: The perfect weapon: How Russian cyberpower invaded the US presidential election
by By Eric Lipton, David E Sanger, Scott Shane (New York Times)
What started as an information-gathering operation, intelligence officials believe, ultimately morphed into an effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald Trump.
Like another famous American election scandal, it started with a break-in at the DNC...
https://www.smh.com.au/world/the-perfect-weapon-how-russian-cyberpower-invaded-the-us-presidential-election-20161214-gtbcd2.html
we need all the names of “reporters” who colluded with the FBI, according to the IG report, to be made public.
drain the FakeNewsMSM swamp.
“They’ve had these texts for many months”
These texts are part of the batch that was lost due to a “technical glitch”.
They were just recovered. Someone is looking into this.
If this were the other way around, there would be non-stop coverage in the mainstream media.
btt
I’ll reserve comment.
more from that post-election week referenced in the Fox News Strzok/Page story today. what a concerted effort it was to create a fake narrative. Guardian was even hoping Trump wouldn’t get “confirmed”!
19 Dec 2016: Guardian: Robert Gates criticises ‘laid-back’ US response to Russia election hack
by Joanna Walters and Martin Pengelly
The CIA, FBI, the Director of National Intelligence and other agencies agree that Russia sought to influence the election in favour of Donald Trump. This week, the White House said it believed President Vladimir Putin played a direct role...
One of the main targets of the cyber-attacks, Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, gave his first interview since the election.
“The Russians clearly intervened,” he told NBC. “I think it was distorted. A foreign adversary directly intervened into our democratic institution and tried to tilt the election to Donald Trump.”...
The electoral college, in which Trump beat Clinton 306-232 despite losing the popular vote by more than 2.8m ballots, will meet to confirm the president on Monday. Prospects of a revolt by sufficient Republican electors to send the choice to the House of Representatives are slim.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/18/robert-gates-russia-election-interference-donald-trump-hillary-clinton
17 Dec 2016: news.com.au: Hillary Clinton says Russia’s cyber attacks are related to a personal beef with Putin
by NewsCorp/AP
HILLARY Clinton is blaming Russian interference for her defeat in the presidential race, casting her loss as part of a long-running strategy by Russian President Vladimir Putin to discredit the fundamental tenets of American government.
In an address to donors at a Thursday night gathering in New York City, Clinton cited a “personal beef” with Putin as a possible reason for the country to meddle in the race...
After spending weeks largely out of the public spotlight, Clinton and her team are taking a more visible profile on the Russia issue. Following an opinion piece in the Washington Post on Friday, Podesta is expected to appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday...
In an interview with NPR News airing on Friday, Obama said whenever a foreign government tries to interfere in US elections, the nation must take action “and we will at a time and place of our own choosing.”
https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/hillary-clinton-says-russias-cyber-attacks-are-related-to-a-personal-beef-with-putin/news-story/88dd22c15248ebba0b50e266dd82edd6
I am just stunned reading all this. I just can’t believe a majority of people are not interested in this.
Maybe it is too confusing to follow for most, however, it seems pretty straightforward to me. All these people were out to get Trump.
I'd say that using fake Russian dossier info received from Bruce Ohr, then leaking that fake info to the media so that the leaked media story can be used as evidence to get a FISA warrant to spy on an American citizen is covered under some Federal Statute.
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