Posted on 12/12/2019 12:23:44 PM PST by Red Badger
One section of the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) report that hasn’t gotten as much attention highlights how the FBI not only altered evidence against one-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page, but also ignored exculpatory evidence to continue obtaining FISA warrants against him.
The FBI had believed Page was a foreign agent working with the Russians to help Donald Trump steal the 2016 election. In reality, Page had previously worked with an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency dealing with Russians for years at the beginning of the Obama administration. After the FBI started surveilling Page, he made several public statements about his past role as an asset for the intelligence community.
It wasn’t until the third FISA application, however, that the FBI apparently learned this was the case. Instead of realizing that the basis for their application was always bogus, they doubled down and simply omitted that information from the third FISA renewal application.
Near the middle of the IG report, a text message exchange between a person identified only as “SSA2,” who would be the affiant on the third renewal application, and someone identified only as “OGC Attorney,” who is believed to be FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith. The two went back and forth about whether Page was, indeed, working for another U.S. agency. At one point Clinesmith claimed this agency “confirmed explicitly [Page] was never a source.” He then told SSA2: “I mean, at least we don’t have to have a terrible footnote.”
SSA2 pushes back saying it was “interesting” this agency claimed Page was not a source, considering what the agency had written.
IG Michael Horowitz’s team spoke to Clinesmith about this exchange. He claimed his statement about being “explicitly” told Page was not a previous asset was meant as “shorthand” and that he had no reason to use the word “explicitly,” as he had been told no such thing. He claimed the message about a “terrible footnote” was in reference to the “laborious” process it would take to add such a footnote to the FISA application and claimed it had nothing to do with whether that footnote would completely undermine the application.
SSA2 felt differently. This person told Horowitz’s team that he took Clinesmith’s use of the word “explicitly” to be “the confirmation that I need[ed]” to report that Page had never been a source. Further, SSA2 told the IG that he believed the “terrible footnote” comment to mean they would be able to avoid having to explain in the renewal application that the FBI had “just now come to determine that [Page] was an asset of the [other agency] and probably being tasked to engage … [with] Russians which is … why we opened a case on him.”
SSA2 went on to tell the IG that “the optic” of such a footnote “would be terrible.”
Clinesmith, readers may recall, is the one who altered an email from the other U.S. intelligence agency that said Page did have a previous working relationship with them. Clinesmith inserted the words “not a source” into the email to make it appear as though a liaison from the other agency had said Page was “not a source.” Clinesmith sent this email to SSA2 and the FISA application was granted.
When Horowitz testified before the Senate on Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered his own explanation for why this information about Page was omitted.
“What does that matter?” Graham said. “Because if the court had known, then there is a lawful reason for Mr. Page to be talking to the Russian guy. He wasn’t working against his country. He was working with his country, which undercuts the idea he is a foreign agent. That’s why Clinesmith lied: because he didn’t want to stop this investigation.”
Yeah sure Page is a hero. He was the -only- person in the Trump campaign running around with Russians and dutifully reporting back to everyone in the campaign every time he had Russian dressing. So in thick with them, in thick with the CIA. And yet, Mueller (Weissman) just couldn’t seem to find a single thing to frame him on.
Page being in the campaign was an intel community op.
Yep. The most powerful and dishonest hacker of US elections is the US government.
We have an illegitimate government.
I agree....He’s just a lawyer....no power....Who ordered him to change it.
Exactly. And my bet is that John Durham will be able to prove it in court.
This should catch Clinesmith, McCabe, and Comey directly.
They didn’t ignore it, they lied about it and said he WASN’T working with the CIA. Omitting it is bad but that could argue maybe it was just an innocent error. Doctoring e-mails to change their meaning .... that’s not an error.
Mueller was their figure head the Judas Goat. I doubt he even looked at anything. His team was doing the BS. Having said that, fry them all, him for being stupid and them for the attempted coup. Oh, and Epstein and Seth Rich didn’t kill themselves and they weren’t a mugging gone wrong.
Comey is the one I want to see “demolished”. He tried to set up the President with his meetings and his “contemporary notes”. He was absolutely certain he had the goods on the President. AND the SOB leaked.
>> It wasn’t until the third FISA application, however, that the FBI apparently learned this was the case.
BS.
Carter Page being an Annapolis grad has been out for a long time. But he has always deflected questions about working as an intelligence officer while he was in Russia.
Obama’s Sedition Team wasn’t about to advertise that Page was a CIA asset because they were busy lying about him in order to get their illegal FISA warrant.
He knowingly committed a felony, and probably more than one.
A lawyer does not do that unless he believes there is practically no chance he will get caught.
He was definitely under someone’s orders to do this...................
...and I GUARANTEE you that everything they found was fed back to the Clinton Campaign.
Perhaps Clinesmith is the person to start putting the screws to. They have plenty of evidence against him, and he’s young, so he has a lot to lose.
“why didn’t Brennan say something....even after he went to TV”
Because Brennan is part of Obama’s sedition squad. If justice gets served he ends up in prison.
I don’t think Clinesmith “ignored” it. Didn’t he purposely add or delete one word to make it say the exact opposite of what Page had said?
He changed the e-mail to show the opposite of what it actually said.....................
“If he was not legitimate his lawsuits would expose him, so in following the lawsuit path we can know he has always been legit. Discovery is a bitch for liars.”
That’s correct. And Carter Page is going to end up very wealthy courtesy of Obama’s sedition team and their cronies in the MSM.
Well Lisa and Strzok did discuss risking ‘burning a source’....maybe they meant burning a US source of information- Carter Page- exposing his cover. If not him who were they taking a risk of burning? Mifsud?
I think that’s right.
Andrew Weissmann was the corrupt leader running the Special Counsel. He was organizing it before Mueller was ever selected to be its figurehead.
Mueller’s cluelessness about what was in his own report wasn’t an act.
Isikoff said his resulting story did not rely solely on what Steele told him.
“I talked to a senior U.S. law enforcement official who was well aware of these allegations,” Isikoff said. “For me, the key piece, the reason that this was a story, was the fact that the FBI was investigating Page.”
- - - - -
So this was a double circular source: The FBI used Isikoff’s article and the Steele’s “intel” and Isikoff used the FBI’s assurances and Steele’s “intel” to write the article! All based on one tainted source paid for by Hillary Clinton!
You just can’t make this stuff up!
2 posted on ?2?/?3?/?2018? ?3?:?11?:?34? ?AM by SubMareener
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