Leak Of Crossfire Hurricane Agent’s Identity To The NYT Suggests More To Come

The leak of Stephen Somma’s identity to the pair of favored New York Times journalists looks like an attempt to preempt, and thereby soften, damaging information soon to come.

Federalist| Margot Cleveland-

Last week, The New York Times outed Crossfire Hurricane Case Agent #1 as Stephen Somma. Crossfire Hurricane is the Obama administration’s secret surveillance of the Trump campaign on the pretext of collusion with Russia that was later disproven by a two-year special counsel probe.

In a story headlined “National Security Wiretap System Was Long Plagued by Risk of Errors,” SpyGate denier Charlie Savage and his co-author, Adam Goldman, portrayed the egregious Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse targeting former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page as typical of the missteps made in other, less politically sensitive FISA court cases.

Of course, as Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 400-plus page report detailed, the FISA abuse in the Trump campaign was very unusual and very excessive—and the formerly unnamed Case Agent #1 played a large part in the plot to target the Trump campaign.

As such, the leak of Somma’s identity to the pair of favored New York Times journalists looks like an attempt to preempt, and thereby soften, damaging information soon to come. We saw a very similar tactic when the Times ran an article shortly before Horowitz’s report dropped that revealed government lawyer “Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email that officials used to prepare to seek court approval to renew the wiretap.”

The Times’ reveal of Case Agent #1’s identity will likely prove to be a tell that the spotlight will soon shine on Somma. With this in mind, a re-read of the IG report unearths several details now carry new significance.

Somma Immediately Suggested FISA Spying

“Almost immediately after opening the Page, Papadopoulos, and Manafort investigations on August 10, the case agent assigned to the Carter Page investigation, Case Agent 1, contacted [the Office of General Counsel] about the possibility of seeking FISA authority for Carter Page,” the IG report revealed.

The first question raised by a review of the IG report was a big one: What prompted Somma to push for a FISA warrant against Carter Page “almost immediately after opening” the Page investigation on August 10? more here