Secret texts cast light on UK's early role in Trump-Russia inquiry

Two of the most senior intelligence officials in the US and UK privately shared concerns about “our strange situation” as the FBI launched its 2016 investigation into whether Donald Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, the Guardian has learned.

Text messages between Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI at the time, and Jeremy Fleming, his then counterpart at MI5, now the head of GCHQ, also reveal their mutual surprise at the result of the EU referendum, which some US officials regarded as a “wake-up call”, according to a person familiar with the matter.

While Russia had previously been viewed as a country that would seek to interfere in western elections, the Brexit vote was viewed by some within the FBI as a sign that Russian activities had possibly been successful, the person said.

Their exchanges offer new insights into the start of the FBI’s Russia investigation, and how British intelligence appears to have played a key role in the early stages.

In one exchange in August 2016, Fleming noted that members of the FBI and MI5 had “met on our strange situation”, a veiled reference to discussions about Russian activities, according to the source. The text messages between the two men were infrequent and cryptic and did not contain specific or sensitive materials, but occurred with some regularity after the referendum in June 2016.

The exchanges underscore a sensitive issue in the US – namely the role foreign intelligence services played in the FBI’s decision to initiate an investigation into the Trump campaign.

On 31 July 2016, the FBI opened a covert counterintelligence investigation codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane” into the then-presidential candidate’s possible collusion with Russia.

Our Intel agencies did not skirt our law. They flip the finger to it and ignored it. It’s pure sophistry for them to claim they’re not spying on Americans when they contract somebody to do it on their behalf in exchange for services and money. you’re spying on Americans whether it’s the CIA doing it, or whether the CIA goes to British intelligence and says please spy on these Americans.

Newspapers do a similar thing.

Papers like the Washington Post would never dirty their hands by paying for a story... that's tacky stuff like National Enquirer... But they ARE willing to take 'news packets' from democrat friends who throw in red meat plus a few self serving stories... AND THOSE DEMOCRATS HAVE NO PROBLEM PAYING PEOPLE TO TALK.

Kind of line National Enquirer by proxy. But the goody two shoes at the Washington Post never get their hands dirty...(yeah right)

Same as the crooks in our Intelligence Service. Same thing - bunch of creepy phonies laughing about giving the finer to all citizens and to the Constitutions.

And they wonder why Americans want the Swamp drained? Yeah, it's a mystery.

Newspapers do a similar thing.

Kind of LIKE National Enquirer by proxy. But the goody two-shoes at the Washington Post never get their hands dirty...(yeah right)

Same as the crooks in our Intelligence Service. Same thing - bunch of creepy phonies laughing about giving the finer to all citizens and to the Constitutions.

And they wonder why Americans want the Swamp drained? Yeah, it's a mystery.

As people who have been arguing with me on FR know, I think Brexit is a daft idea - but I am for hard, no-deal Brexit as I see profit in the UK crashing out.

However, I don’t see how Russia caused or even abated the Brexit vote.

The Brexit referendum worked out the way it did due to

1. Bad campaigning by the remain vote -
1.1. the remainers were Tories who had been taking about leaving for decades
1.2. it didn’t counter the various myths (curvy bananas etc)
1.3. it dismissed the concerns of potential leave voters

2. Decades of fake euromyths in the MSM

3. Decades of British politicians blaming the EU for their own shortcomings

4. Decades of British politicians gold-plating EU regulations with their own goals and then blaming the EU - for example, the EU regulations allowed a moratorium on taking in Central Europeans (Poles, Romanians etc) after they joined in 2004 until 2008. Germany and others used this, the UK did not as it wanted growth - it got that, but at the cost of large numbers of Poles and others moving to the UK. This was the UK politicians’ decision

5. Decades of UK politicians importing Muslims from pakistan etc. - changing the demographics. This had nothing to do with the EU, but there was no other forum to protest.

6. Real concern about high land-prices due to speculation, loss of jobs (Cadbury was bought by Kraft, an American company who then promptly shifted jobs and factories out of the UK)

7. Decades of bad education policies - the students in UK schools in the 2000s were put in a sample 1950s classroom and half of them failed, even the A+ students in the 2000s got B-s in the 1950s. The British schooling system is a mess

8. Decades of gutting out mining and manufacturing in favor of financial services and welfare

9. Because of #8, the creation of a permanent underclass - moving into the third generation. This underclass - you can call them chavs - exhibit the same problems that inner-city black Americans have. This shows you it is not a race problem (black people can be as smart as white, brown, yellow, pink, orange etc.) but a problem caused by liberal policies.

10. A stupidly, yes, STUPIDLY, defined referendum - firstly it was not clearly stated that it was going to be BINDING, secondly they didn’t put a threshold of % of voting population who should vote (in the end voting was just by 37% of the voting population), thirdly a stupidly defined single question — it should have been: Q1. You want to leave: yes/no? Q2. If yes, then what type of leaving do you want: 2.a. hard, 2.b. Norway, 2.c. Switzerland etc. — with explanations. But nothing. No preparation, nothing

Russia MAY have played on social media, but they didn’t cause the above problems

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.