NationalReview/Andrew McCarthy: CNN reports that an FBI attorney tampered with documents related to the Carter Page application. How much does it matter?
Is this the tip of a scandalous iceberg? Or is it a signal that Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s much anticipated report on investigative irregularities in the Trump-Russia probe will be much ado about nothing much?
A low-ranking FBI lawyer altered a document that was somehow related to the Obama Justice Department’s application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for a national-security surveillance warrant. The application, approved by the FISC in October 2016, targeted former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page — an American citizen, former naval intelligence officer, and apparent FBI cooperating witness — as a clandestine agent of Russia. Apparently, the document tampering made at least one of the application’s factual assertions seem more damning than it actually was.
The FBI attorney, who has not been identified, is also said to have falsified an email in an effort to provide back-up support for the fabricated claim. The lawyer, who was reportedly pushed out of the Bureau when the tampering incident came to light, was interviewed in Horowitz’s inquiry and is said to be a subject of the related criminal investigation being conducted by Connecticut U.S. attorney John Durham.
The news was broken on Thursday night by CNN. That in itself is noteworthy. The FBI’s former deputy director Andrew McCabe is a CNN contributor, and the Bureau’s former general counsel James Baker is a frequent CNN guest. The IG’s probe has scrutinized the conduct of both. CNN commentators also include other former federal law-enforcement officials, who have ties to the Bureau and to some of the former officials under scrutiny. CNN’s news story about the evidence tampering is sourced to “several people briefed on the matter,” who were not identified. The IG report is scheduled to be released on December 9, and witnesses have recently been permitted to review a draft of it under tight restrictions.
The ‘Premise’ of the Investigation
CNN adds that some of the witnesses interviewed expect the IG’s report will “find mistakes in the FBI’s handling of the FISA process, but that those mistakes do not undermine the premise for the FBI’s investigation.” The network describes that premise as the conclusion “that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.”
Of course, that only relates half the story — the uncontroversial half. The FBI’s full premise was that the Trump campaign was complicit in Russia’s election interference.
What is in issue is whether there were adequate grounds for suspicion of a Trump–Russia criminal conspiracy — enough to justify the FBI and the Justice Department in taking the fraught step of investigating the incumbent administration’s political opposition during a presidential campaign, exploiting such powerful counterintelligence measures as FISA warrants, the deployment of informants, and collaboration with foreign intelligence services against Americans who worked on the Trump campaign — the kinds of investigative techniques reserved for hostile foreign powers and terrorist organizations.
If the narrative taking shape is that there may have been some abuses but it doesn’t change the fact that Russia meddled in the election, that misses the point. The questions are: What was the FBI’s evidence — which it represented as verified information in the warrant application — that the Trump campaign was in a cyberespionage conspiracy with the Kremlin? What evidence led the Bureau and the Justice Department to allege that Carter Page — who as late as spring 2016 was apparently cooperating in a federal prosecution of Russian spies — was a willful agent of the Putin regime engaged in clandestine activities against his own country?
At the Washington Examiner, Daniel Chaitin and Jerry Dunleavy have a comprehensive report on what is currently known about the alleged document alteration by the FBI attorney. I would just add some relevant details about the lead-up to the FISA surveillance, which are more thoroughly outlined in my recent book, Ball of Collusion.
FBI–DOJ Tensions in Lead-up to FISA Application
Based on public reporting and the texts between then–FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, we know that in the weeks before the FISA warrant was issued, there was tension between the FBI, which was pushing for the warrant, and at least one skeptical Justice Department official. read more
So is anything going to come from this?
As for me, I’ll believe what I see happen when I see it happening. Until then, I’m not holding my breath about anything.
The no bottom swamp of Washington is alive and well… not a finger has been laid on it yet.
Anonymous NOVEMBER 25, 2019 AT 10:01 AM
“So is anything going to come from this?”
…well, they’ll try to impeach the President for no reason some more, but they’d do that ANYWAY, this just makes them want to do it times eleventy because, deflection, and also because they can claim that this report is retaliatory and start an investigation with THAT, and they’ll need President Trump’s tax returns for some reason…
CNN et al are trying to minimize everything, none of the press or anonymous sources have seen the whole report yet.
Fasten your seat-belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Never lose sight of the fact that had Hillary somehow won the election none of all this “bad stuff” that Donald Trump supposedly did, along with all the very real skulduggery and corruption that has consumed these self-righteous democRATs for three years solid would have ever seen the light of day!!
…you gonna mention that part where the ‘judge’ who signed off on the FISA was a good friend of Peter Strzok, how delighted Strzok was that they guy he partied with at a graduation blow-out was in charge, and discussed it with him over dinner at a party convened SPECIFICALLY to wine and and dine him to get the warrant, in Strzok’s OWN WORDS?
“Rudy is on the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]!” Page excitedly texted Strzok on July 25, 2016. “Did you know that? Just appointed two months ago.”
“I did,” Strzok responded. “I need to get together with him.”
“[He] said he’d gotten on a month or two ago at a graduation party we were both at.”
Contreras was appointed to the top surveillance court on May 19, 2016, federal records show.
The pair even schemed about how to set up a cocktail or dinner party just so Contreras, Strzok, and Page could speak without arousing suspicion that they were colluding. Strzok expressed concern that a one-on-one meeting between the two men might require Contreras’ recusal from matters in which Strzok was involved.
“[REDACTED] suggested a social setting with others would probably be better than a one on one meeting,” Strzok told Page. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to have to invite you to that cocktail party.”
“Have to come up with some other work people cover for action,” Strzok added.
“Why more?” Page responded. “Six is a perfectly fine dinner party.”
https://thefederalist.com/2018/03/16/revealed-peter-strzok-had-personal-relationship-with-recused-judge-in-michael-flynn-case/
…nothing? Just a low-level flunky?
…OK, fine, sure, whatever, and I suppose Epstein killed himself, too…
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-epstein-barr-suicide-storm-20191123-eepyshhnrvfcpfnwriyi2qbmlm-story.html
*sigh*
…you know, I love this President, but he DOES seem to have some difficulty getting people around him that will actually, you know WORK for him and be PATRIOTIC and stick up for the LAW and such, they just seem to all take the tack that “we can’t really do anything about Democrat treason, but we CAN send someone to rehab for five minutes to make up for that, there, peasants, now shut up and let the Dems finish impeaching the President for no reason like good little serfs and leave us alone, we’re just BETTER than you and will TELL you what to think, and when it’s time for you to surrender to your Democrat tyrant, why, we’ll be sure to tell you THAT, too…
Nothing to see here,move along.
My understanding of the process is that the IG (Horowitz) was tasked with reviewing the handling of both the Hillary Email investigation as well as the Russian collusion investigation as performed by the FBI, and if wrongdoing was uncovered, that a Special Council (Durham) would be appointed to handle the indictments. Durham is the guy with subpoena power, the guy that can empanel a grand jury and can indict.
Leaks have revealed that wrongdoing has in fact been uncovered, early on, as a matter of fact, that was why Barr hired Durham.
I know it’s hard to have patience, but the process is unfolding. Durham’s report and recommendations, those will have teeth.
But I’ve said all along that nobody is going to jail, nobody of significance anyway. What is important to me is that the truth comes out, the truth about how maligned and slandered Trump was, how insidious the Obama Deep State acted, and how important it is to reelect the one guy that wants to kill the Deep State and put the power back with the people.
Horobitch is firmly embedded in the Swamp. I fully expect a whitewash with pages and pages and pages of indictable findings ending with a recommendation that one low level asshole get fired.
What, no Arkancide coming??!
Maybe someone already pointed this out:
Could be that Durham’s investigative dragnet has the little Horowitz fishy in it, too.
More on this…
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1198657633550524417.html
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TO TheMule
Horowitz, swamp?! Pls go shoot yourself and get your pain over for the rest of us.
Horowitz is the FACT GATHERER; he DOES NOT “draw conclusions.”
As publicly stated by Trump, *Durham’s* work will be released shortly after Horowitz’s work.
Expect your Scorched Earth indictments from HIM.
Horowitz is a fact gatherer, he gathers facts and then buffers them to minimize accountability.
Criminal activity uncovered must be diluted to make a case for clemency.
That’s what a good swamp rat does.
I’m not holding my breath that any of these Obama/Clinton traitors will ever see the inside of a jail cell, let alone be stood up in front of a wall and shot as they deserve.
Maybe the deep state will set up a couple of low-level sacrificial lambs (like the Epstein prison guards), but don’t expect the powerful people behind the biggest scandal in American history like Clapper, Brennan, Rice, Jarret, Hildabeast, Obunghole, etc. to go down. The swamp protects its own.
There are 2 justice systems in this country – one for the rich, powerful and politically connected, and one for the rest of us. I won’t believe otherwise until I see these bastards in orange jumpsuits and I’d be shocked if that day ever comes.
Give up your free speech rights.
Surrender your religious freedom.
Give up your guns.
Give up your right to silence.
Give up your privacy.
Give up your property rights.
Give up your right to a trial.
Give up your right to be free from torture.
Obey.
Worship your masters. Lick their boots.
Love the state.
Ignore the history of the gulags in the USSR, the Nazi concentration camps, the Chinese cultural revolution, and the Cambodian killing fields.
Allow your overlords to decide your medical care, what you eat, what you wear, what you do, what you buy, where you go, what you say, what you read, what you think, and what you believe.
The government knows what’s best for you.
Tyranny is the American way, right?
It’s Tuesday and the report is a ‘no-show’?? I haven’t seen or heard a thing about it.