Posted on 05/11/2019 9:22:05 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Former FBI General Counsel James Baker admitted on Friday that he is “nervous” about DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into the conduct of the DOJ and the FBI during the Trump-Russia probe.
Sitting down with with Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes in a crowded room at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Baker said he is “assuming that they will dig and find stuff” and that “we’ll try to sort it out and see what mistakes were made.” But Baker defended the FBI's actions, including its use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Horowitz’s investigation is particularly focused on alleged FISA abuse and the reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele in FISA applications targeting Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Steele’s dossier was funded in part by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm and the opposition research group Fusion GPS. The investigation is expected to finish in May or June.
Wittes said that Baker “had expressed great confidence in the way you guys conducted yourselves, in the integrity of these fundamental judgments, in the opening with respect to two separate investigations and with the respect to the handling of this FISA application.” Wittes then asked Baker: “So, how nervous are you about the IG?”
Baker said he is “always nervous about the IG," adding that “they’re coming in after the fact to look at what we did." At the time, he said, the FBI was “trying to do it in real time and having the pressure to deal with these threats as they were coming.”
Baker contended that he was “confident in the judgments that I made at the time based on the information that I had available to me.” But he left open the possibility that others may have engaged in wrongdoing...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
“confident in the judgments that I made at the time based on the information that I had available to me.”
This is the “I was out of the room whenever that was discussed” defense.
If that fails, he will use the “we were doing the best we could given the serious nature of the charges defense” (left unsaid regarding Trump because they surely did not do the best they could given the serious nature of the charges against the Witch)
Yeah, they’ll dig and find stuff. There’s so much that it won’t take much digging.
The real question is: What will be done about it?
I’m guessing that there will be more digging — like a cat trying to bury its Tootsie Rolls in the litter box, leaving an unsightly, smelly mess, that gets swept into a bag and set out with the trash.
No serious consequences.
At the time, he said, the FBI was “trying to do it in real time and having the pressure to deal with these threats as they were coming.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah, dealing in “real time” with the “threats” you manufactured is a lot of pressure.
“Conservative and patriotic lawyers could be in high demand the next 6 years.”
All seven of them?
“...we’ll try to sort it out and see what mistakes were made.”
Since when did seditious acts become mistakes?
> At the time, he said, the FBI was “trying to do it in real time and having the pressure to deal with these threats as they were coming.”
They were the threat
Flip material
Beat me to it.
The threats being a. anyone but Hillary and b. TRUMP!
Fixed.
My first thought as well....
Guess this means that DOJ IG Horowitz is next on the blacklist for contempt and impeachment. One suspects the citation has already been written by Slim Nadler. Maybe we can find a few hundred “former” (justifiably so) prosecutors to vicariously indict him.
For those who missed it. Here is a little background on Baker. A lawyer for the Perkins Coie law firm Michael Sussmann injected the dossier component about the Alfa bank server into the FBI via Baker.
Yes, its the old passive-voice switcheroo again.
He was there at the beginning. He knows the names of everyone involved in very step. He collected the alleged intel and wrote the dossier. He passed it on to Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS and others.
The focus should be on Steele. Get Steele to talk and it blows everything wide open.
He has talked via court cases in the US and UK and said he don’t know if much of it was true.
Lemmie clarify things for ya, Jimmy baybee...........
Yer ‘mistake’, for indeed that’s what it was, Was believing that the FIX WAS IN FOR HILLARY. That you and yours of the once-great FBI could do anything they goddamn pleased AND BE CERTAIN OF GETTING AWAY WITH IT.
How’s that workin’ for ya these days? Bolt hole in Paraguay, Argentina, Tierra del fuego??
Baker is the deepest of the deep state.
We have 7 conservative and Patriotic lawyers in America?
I would be pleased to just have one. From what I have seen that is one more than we have now.
Just one of the thousands of decisions er felonies James made er committed throughout his career would land him in prison for the rest of his life.
Damn straight James in nervous.
Somewhere, bald headed John is waiting for his new bride...
Anyone else suspect Kamala’s anti-lynching legislation was intended to protect deep state actors?
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