by Renee Parsons<\/p>\n
Even given the Obama Administration\u2019s disagreeable view of Donald Trump as a Presidential candidate, it is curious that initiation of the nation\u2019s first ever counter intelligence investigation into a rival presidential campaign had been so lightly, so thinly, almost frivolously conceived – except that the reality of an HRC 2016 loss was never considered a possibility. \u00a0 <\/span>In any case, the lengths to which the Obama administration\u2019s Department of Justice would go to subvert a democratically elected US President deserves far more analysis than it has received thus far. \u00a0 <\/span>It is essential to keep in mind that IG Michael Horowitz had limited authority to focus on DOJ employees and not members of the Obama White House staff while Special Investigator US Attorney John Durham has considerably broader legal authority.<\/p>\n Soon after the IG Report was released on December 9th, both AG Bill Barr and Durham refuted the IG\u2019s allegation that sufficient predicate existed for the FBI to open Crossfire Hurricane <\/a>(CH).\u00a0 <\/span>Their disavowal has some meaning, albeit obscure at the moment, but in the interests of better understanding Durham\u2019s ultimate conclusions, it behooves us to consider the IG\u2019s reasoning.<\/p>\n A reading of the IG Report\u2019s Executive Summary (ES) makes connecting the dots indisputable:\u00a0 <\/span>the HRC campaign, through the DNC, hired GP Fusion (which hired Deputy AG Bruce Ohr\u2019s wife, Nellie) and in June 2016, hired former MI6 agent Christopher Steele\u2019s consulting firm to identify any Trump – Russian ties or if Russia was trying to \u201cachieve a particular outcome in the 2016 election<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n While Christopher Steele agreed to be interviewed, GP Fusion\u2019s Glenn Simpson<\/a> and Jonathon Winer<\/a>, a former State Department official, did not.\u00a0 <\/span>It was Steele who allegedly prepared the salacious Steele Dossier which became the sole basis<\/span> for four FISA applications (2016-2017) to spy on Carter Page, a Trump campaign volunteer. \u00a0 <\/span>With the first of his election reports in July 2016, Steele\u2019s FBI handler was aware of an \u201cobvious political motivation<\/i>\u201d and later, others became aware of the \u201cpotential for political influence in his reporting<\/i><\/span>\u201d and\u00a0 <\/span>as \u201csignificant questions arose about his reliability<\/i>, the FBI failed to reassess his reporting<\/i><\/span>\u201d <\/i>vis-a-vis the FISA applications. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Early on, the FBI had sufficient reason to question the credibility of Steele\u2019s information and yet, one can only surmise that in their passion to \u2018get\u2019 Trump, the necessary bureaucratic accountability and oversight were forfeited in favor of maintaining the status quo.\u00a0 <\/span>Instead, the FBI continued to rely on the uncorroborated Dossier with the FISA Court even after<\/i> all elements were proven to be an unreliable fabrications<\/span>.<\/p>\n Steele was known to Bruce Ohr, Deputy AG and became an FBI source in 2010. He was designated a CHS (Confidential Human Source) in 2013 and <\/span>told the IG \u201cthat as a businessperson whose <\/i>firm<\/i><\/span> had a <\/i>contractual agreement with the FBI and whose obligations were to his paying clients (ie GP Fusion)<\/i><\/span>,<\/i> not the FBI<\/i><\/span>. <\/i>We concluded that this disagreement affected the FBI’s control over Steele during the Crossfire Hurricane resulted in the FBI formally closing Steele as a CHS in November 2016 (although the FBI continued its relationship with Steele through Ohr<\/i><\/span>.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n The ES cites two reasons that justified opening the CH investigation on Page, Georg Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort and Gen. Michael Flynn.\u00a0 <\/span>FBI Counter Intel Assistant Director Bill Priestap headed a task force of high level FBI officials based on receipt of a \u201cfriendly foreign government\u201d <\/i>report that was deemed \u2018trustworthy\u201d <\/i>which provided a \u201c<\/i>first hand account<\/i><\/span> of a meeting with Papadoplouos\u201d (<\/i>at a bar in Rome) where it was<\/i> alleged that the \u201cTrump team had received information from Russia with regards to the Clinton campaign.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>It remains for Durham to fill in the blanks regarding Josef Mifsud\u2019s efforts in Rome to embolden the Russiagate steamroller.\u00a0 <\/span>Former FBI Director Jim Comey has described Mifsud as a \u201cRussian agent<\/i><\/a>.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Secondly, Priestap indicated that a Russian connection with the 2016 WikiLeaks disclosure of the \u201chack of the DNC<\/i><\/span>\u201d created a counter intel concern that the FBI was \u2018obligated<\/i>\u2019 to investigate as a \u201cnational security<\/i>\u201d risk.\u00a0 <\/span>What is a curiosity is that the FBI never felt \u201cobligated\u201d to demand the DNC turn over its server for a forensic exam to determine the source of the alleged hack; nor does the IG ask the question<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>Ergo, a full CH investigation was opened based on an \u2018articulable factual basis,<\/i><\/span>\u201d whatever that means.<\/p>\n While FBI lawyer. Lisa Page is said to have briefly participated but \u201cdid not play a significant role,<\/i>\u201d Peter Strzok, Deputy Chief of the Counter Espionage Section who led the FBI\u2019s investigation (such as it was) into HRC\u2019s use of a personal email server, fully participated.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>On the issue of political bias, the IG agreed that Page\/Strzok communications revealed \u201ctext and instant messages that included statements of hostility toward then candidate Trump and statements of <\/i>support for then candidate Hillary Clinton<\/i><\/a>\u201d <\/i><\/span> but offers the assurance that Strzok was not the \u201csole or even the highest level decision maker<\/i><\/span>\u201d who participated in the \u2018multiple day discussions<\/i>\u2019. Along with Strzok were then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, Deputy General Counsel (presumably) Trisha Anderson and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. While Priestap is said to have made the ultimate decision to open CH, the ES confirms that the decision was a \u2018consensus<\/i><\/span>\u2019 reached with the majority of participants:<\/p>\n \u201c<\/i>We do not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or <\/i><\/span> <\/i>improper motivation influenced the decision to open the four individual <\/i><\/span> <\/i>investigations.<\/i><\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n Further, investigations on each of the four individuals cited-above were approved by Strzok (as required by the Domestic Investigation and Ops Guide) in August, 2016 via another consensus<\/i><\/span> decision among CH agents and analysts including Priestap. \u00a0 <\/span>Use of \u201cconsensus<\/i><\/span>\u2019 decision-making at this juncture may be indicative of a less than unanimous level of\u00a0 <\/span>enthusiasm which should have raised red flags within the FBI.<\/p>\n The ES states that the original consideration of a FISA affidavit on Carter Page needed more information to support a \u2018probable cause\u2019 finding and that immediately after the CH team received Steele\u2019s first\u00a0 <\/span>election \u2018reports\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>(which became known as the Dossier) on September 19th<\/sup>, the decision was made to seek a FISA surveillance order on Page as an agent of a foreign power<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>Considered \u201camong the most sensitive and intrusive investigative techniques,<\/i>\u201d approval from the FISA Court was received on October 21st<\/sup>.\u00a0 <\/span>While Page made multiple attempts to deny the FBI\u2019s assertions, the IG Report revealed that the FBI deliberately altered<\/a> an email from the CIA confirming that Page had been an asset (2008-2013).<\/p>\n The ES goes on to report that<\/p>\n \u201cthe decision to use this <\/i>highly intrusive investigative technique<\/i><\/span> was <\/i>known and approved at multiple levels of the Department<\/i><\/span>,including by then <\/i>Deputy AG Sally Yates for the initial FISA application and first renewal, and by then Acting Attorney General Dana Boente and then Deputy AG Rosenstein for the second and third renewals, respectivel<\/i><\/span>y<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the CH team \u201cfailed to inform Department officials of significant information that was available to the team at the time that the FISA applications were drafted and filed<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>In other words, the CH team continued to stand by the FISA applications as presented to the Court without updating or apprising FBI supervisors or the Court of pertinent new information.<\/p>\n During an August 2018 joint hearing<\/a> of the House Judiciary and Intel Committees, former FBI Principal Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson<\/a> who had the responsibility to sign off on all FISA applications prior to final approval, described an \u2018unusual\u2019 process. \u00a0 <\/span>Anderson identified how the \u201cnormal <\/i>checks and balances<\/i><\/a> were skipped<\/i>\u201d when FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy AG Sally Yates \u201cbypassed me and signed it themselve<\/i>s<\/span>\u201d before she and the FBI Legal Department had done their analysis on what proved to be \u201cfraudulent FISA applications<\/i><\/span>.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>We asked then Deputy Director Andrew McCabe about the testimony attributed to him in the January 18, 2018 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence\u00a0 <\/span>that “Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that<\/i> no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information<\/i><\/span>.”<\/span> McCabe told us that he <\/i>did not recall his exact testimony<\/i><\/span>, but that his view was that the FBI would have “absolutely” sought FISA authority on Carter Page, <\/i>even without the Steele reporting<\/i><\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n and<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that all of them (<\/i>four <\/i>Page <\/i>FISA applications) taken together resulted in FISA applications that made it appear that the information supporting probable cause was stronger than was actually the case. We identified at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications<\/i><\/span>\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n t<\/span>o be continued\u2026 <\/span><\/p>\n Renee Parsons<\/b> has been a member of the ACLU\u2019s Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. \u00a0 <\/span>She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC.\u00a0 <\/span>She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Crossfire Hurricane: First US Presidential Counter Intel Investigation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}According to the IG Report<\/h3>\n