Some of them could be consequential, but most surely are not.

National Review
Andrew McCarthy

Maybe this week . . . maybe next week. We’re led to believe President Trump is on the verge of revealing more of the currently redacted information from the Carter Page FISA-warrant papers.

This would be a welcome development. When it comes to the supposed factual basis on which the FBI and Justice Department sought a national-security eavesdropping warrant — alleging that Page was an agent of the Kremlin and that the Trump campaign was complicit in Russia’s hacking conspiracy — the more transparency the better.

Page has never been charged with any crime, much less with espionage. That is a salient fact because to get a FISA warrant on an American citizen, the FBI is required to show that the citizen’s activities on behalf of a foreign power violate federal criminal law. The FBI and Justice Department went to the FISA court four times over nine months, from October 2016 through June 2017, claiming to have grounds that Page was involved in heinous clandestine activity. Why isn’t he in handcuffs?

I believe it is because they never had a case. All they appear to have had were the 2013 attempt by Russian spies to recruit Page as an asset, and the Steele dossier. If I’m right about that, this would be problematic for the bBureau, for two reasons.

First, Page seems to have cooperated in the FBI and DOJ’s prosecution of the Russian operatives, and — both back then and in the ensuing years — to have made himself available pretty much whenever the FBI wanted to interview him. Page has said lots of stupid things about the supposed virtues of appeasing Putin’s anti-American regime, but he is also an Annapolis grad and former U.S. naval intelligence officer. It is not a crime to be targeted for recruitment (by a spy who concluded Page was “an idiot”), to have invested in the Russian energy sector, or to have loopy political views.

Second, the Steele dossier is a compendium of foreign-supplied, rank-hearsay opposition research sponsored by the Clinton campaign. It was never corroborated by the FBI (even though there are guidelines forbidding the bureau from presenting unverified information to the FISA court), and several of its key allegations have been convincingly refuted. It is, furthermore, the subject of libel lawsuits, in defense against which the author — former British spy (and rabid anti-Trump partisan) Christopher Steele — has shrunk from claiming his allegations are true, describing them merely as “raw intelligence” that was “unverified” and needed to be investigated. (Now he tells us.)

The Smoking Gun Must Be in the Redactions . . . Right?

Nevertheless, defenders of the FBI’s investigation push back, claiming there is more to the investigation of Page, maybe much more, than we know about. This doesn’t just fly in the face of the lack of any “collusion” prosecutions. Congressional investigators tell us that the Steele-dossier allegations were central to the FISA-warrant applications. The FBI’s former deputy director, Andrew McCabe, acknowledged that without the dossier the FBI could not have claimed probable cause for the surveillance.

So, what are the defenders relying on? The redactions. Far from complaining about the lack of transparency, they imagine that under those thousands of blacked-out lines lies the motherlode. The FISA documents amount to 412 pages, and those black-outs make up the lion’s share. Therefore, the defenders reason, the FBI had more than just a failed recruitment episode and the Steele dossier against Page — probably a whole lot more.

I doubt it.

I will have you know, dear readers, that I have spent long hours scrutinizing the FISA documents so you don’t have to. The vast majority of what is blacked out has nothing to do with the probable-cause showing against Carter Page. In fact, while the probable-cause showing is the most significant part of a FISA application package, it is a comparatively small part.

I use the term “package” because a government submission to the FISA court is not just an application signed by the investigative agent. It also includes a lengthy certification by a top-ranking national-security official (here, the FBI’s director or deputy director), a short approval declaration by the Justice Department (here, by the deputy attorney general), and the proposed warrant itself to be signed by the judge. In congressional testimony, former FBI director James Comey claimed that FISA submissions are often thicker than his wrists. Besides being a bit of an exaggeration, this description failed to explain that most of the extensive documentation is unrelated to probable cause, thus conveying the misimpression that FISA applications are always supported by mountainous evidence.

To compare, the first Page submission was just 83 pages — Jim Comey is a big guy; that wouldn’t make it too far up his wrist. Let’s analyze those 83 pages in order to consider how much the redacted information may bear on probable cause.

Extensive Redactions Unrelated to Page

Instantly, we find we drop from 83 down to 54 pages. Turns out the package’s last 29 pages are not part of the warrant application at all. They consist of the afore-described FBI certification, the DOJ approval, and a proposed warrant for the judge to sign — nothing to do with establishing probable cause that Page is a Russian asset conspiring against the election.

These 29 pages are very heavily redacted. You’re probably wondering why, because you’ve been led to believe that redactions must involve damning evidence against Page. Well, no.

See, FISA documents are not classified solely because of alleged clandestine doings by foreign operatives. They also set forth the secret authorities the government is granted in order to carry out the surveillance, the manner in which the surveillance is to be conducted, the communications facilities the FBI is permitted to monitor, the methods by which the bureau is permitted to gain access to those facilities, the minimization instructions that must be followed to avoid unauthorized monitoring, and so on.

This information must remain concealed. The FBI and the Justice Department wanted these redactions not because they bear on Carter Page’s activities, but because they relate to intelligence methods. Exposing this information would compromise virtually all of the government’s FISA investigations. Rest assured that, even if President Trump orders the disclosure of some additional details about Page, all this other information about the authorities, procedures, and techniques germane to national-security surveillance will remain blacked out.

FISA-Warrant Application Traces FISA Statute

So let’s finally turn to the 54-page application. Yes, a great deal of it is blacked out. But that hardly means we are clueless about what most of the redacted information conveys.

Here is the code that you need to crack. The application has numbered paragraphs (with a lot of subparagraphs within them). For the most part, these numbered paragraphs correspond to the sections of the FISA statute that governs FISA applications, Section 1804 of Title 50, U.S. Code. Conforming the paragraphs to the statutory requirements makes it easier for the court to see that all necessary information is included. The requirements are set forth in nine subsections of §1804 — numbered (a)(1) through (a)(9). If you compare the Page warrant application with the statute, you see that paragraph 1 conforms to (a)(1), paragraph 2 to (a)(2), and so on.

Well guess what? Of these nine statutory requirements, only one involves the all-important probable-cause showing: (a)(3). In it, Congress directs the FBI to provide the court with “a statement of the facts and circumstances relied upon” to justify the bureau’s beliefs that (a) the proposed target is an agent of a foreign power and (b) the facilities or places the bureau wants to monitor are being used for the target’s clandestine activities.

None of the other eight sections bear on probable cause. They direct the government to supply: the identity of the applying officer and the target, a statement of the “minimization procedures” the FBI will use to avoid unauthorized monitoring, a description of the nature of the information sought (i.e., foreign intelligence), certifications by high-ranking national-security officials that the government is seeking foreign intelligence, an explanation of how the eavesdropping will be carried out, a recitation of any prior applications related to the target, and a statement of the proposed duration of the surveillance.

That is a lot of non-probable-cause information, and it is heavily redacted. In the first Page application it takes up about 21 of the 54 pages.

That means only 33 of the submission’s 83 pages deal with probable cause, beginning on page 2 and continuing into page 36. Bear in mind, by the way, that these pages often contain fewer than 20 double-spaced lines, with many lines consisting of a sub-heading or just a word or two of text. Contrary to what’s been suggested, we are not talking War and Peace here.

The Probable-Cause Showing Seems Thin

Now, what about those 33 pages? Well, a goodly chunk of them at the beginning does not address Carter Page at all. It’s all about Russia: The FBI explains that the regime in Moscow is a foreign power, that it has been messing with our elections since the Cold War, and that it meddled in them in 2016 by cyberespionage (with the help of WikiLeaks). We are eight pages into the factual recitation before we get to Page.

Plainly, the Page section rests on the two grounds that we have been told about: the Russian attempt to recruit him as a source in 2013, and the Steele dossier. The latter makes up the bulk of the probable-cause showing, pages 15–27. This includes the allegation that the FBI patently hung its hat on: Steele’s claim that, while in Russia in July 2016, Page met with two Putin-regime heavyweights, Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin, discussing a corrupt quid-pro-quo arrangement involving sanctions relief for Moscow, as well as the possible transmission to the Trump campaign of “kompromat” (compromising information) about Mrs. Clinton that the Kremlin was purportedly holding. (Page denies knowing, let alone meeting, these men; there is no publicly known corroboration of Steele’s claim.)

Even parts of what the application labels the Page section have nothing to do with Page. There is, for example, the long, infamous footnote on Steele, a winding circumlocution in which the FBI and Justice Department strain to avoid telling the court that his work is sponsored by Clinton’s campaign and that he is passionately anti-Trump. There is also a discursion, based on media reports, about how Trump may be soft on Putin, how he may meekly accept the annexation of Crimea, and how the Trump campaign’s supposed intervention in Republican-platform-writing at the GOP convention weakened a plank on arming Ukraine (a claim that has been debunked by the Washington Examiner’s Byron York). Note that, even though the FBI had nine months to do its own independent investigation about these matters, the bureau and Justice Department instead regurgitated the same media reports in every FISA renewal application — and the FISA court apparently never questioned this peculiar “proof.”

The warrant application also contains a lengthy (five-page) section — repeated in all the renewal applications — that is largely based on Michael Isikoff’s September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article about Page’s purported meetings with Sechin and Diveykin. The upshot is that Page vehemently denied that these meetings took place, and the Trump campaign distanced itself from Page. It is difficult to understand how this section advances the case that Page is an agent of Russia; perhaps the government’s theory is that Page and the campaign were making false exculpatory statements that show consciousness of guilt. From what we can read, it is certainly not obvious that they were lying . . . but, if we’re going to talk about false statements, we must note that the FBI told the court that Steele was not the source for Isikoff’s news article, which turns out not to be true.

This section involving Page’s insistence that he is not a Russian agent is followed by six pages that are completely redacted. Is there smoking-gun probable-cause information hidden under these blackouts? I’d be surprised if there were, but we simply don’t know. If it can be done without compromising vital intelligence sources, it would be useful if the president ordered these pages to be disclosed.

Why Are Page’s Purported Crimes Redacted?

After that, though, this probable-cause section does not even purport to add to the probable-cause showing.

The final seven of the factual recitation’s 33 pages consist of a “conclusion” that begins by merely asserting what the FBI argues the foregoing pages have established. It then moves on to what, apparently, is a description of the criminal statutes Page has allegedly violated. We have to say “apparently” because these pages are all blacked out.

Why redact Page’s alleged crimes? Is it because Page is still under the investigation and the FBI doesn’t want to tip him off about its suspicions? Is it because the “crime” allegations come from the Steele dossier and the FBI would rather not acknowledge that? Is it because the FBI, confident that no one would ever get to see this FISA-warrant application, made extravagant claims? Again, we don’t know. But what would be the harm to national security in disclosing to the public what crimes the FBI and Justice Department alleged that Page had committed? We already know they accused him of being a Russian agent complicit in an espionage conspiracy against the election. How much worse can it be?

Anyway, that’s it as far as probable cause goes in the first application. As one would expect, the three warrant-renewal applications grow progressively (but not significantly) longer than the initial 83-page package (98, 110, and 121 pages, respectively). They incorporate and attempt to build on the first surveillance. There are more redactions in the probable-cause section, at least some of which appear to relate to Page’s then-ongoing activities. Again, since Page has never been charged with a “collusion” offense (no one has), and since he has been very public in both denying sinister dealings with Russia and demanding an accounting from the FBI, it would be surprising if the redactions were earth-shattering.

The point, though, is that while some of the redactions could be consequential, most surely are not. Their importance has been inflated. The combined 412 pages of FISA packages are duplicative, with what largely appear to be the same redactions threading through all four application packages. For the most part, if we compare the redactions to the requirements of the FISA statute, we can figure out the types of information the government has concealed and why it has done so.

The vast majority of what’s been redacted has nothing to do with establishing probable cause that Carter Page was a Russian asset whose clandestine activities involved criminal violations. The suggestion that, hidden in the redactions, there is a trove of evidence, derived from neither the Steele dossier nor the Russian attempt to recruit Page about five years ago, seems highly unlikely.

Link

^^^^

But there might be a "trove of evidence" revealed in the redacted FISA warrant which is very bad for the FBI.

I keep bringing up the fact that DEM Adam Schiff let a major secret out of the bag. Schiff said the first warrant application only used the Papadopoulos material from the dossier. Nothing else from the dossier.

The version of the highly redacted FISA warrant says no more information came from Christopher Steele after the FBI stopped using him as a Confidential Human Source on 1 Nov 2016.

If it turns out the three FISA extensions added more information from Steele to justify each extension, then that is a significant lie to the court. (in addition to other lies in the warrant)

Really hoping we see the full FISA warrant soon.

Wanted to string some events together. Not trying to especially connect the dots, some of this may just have been the way things went down

This is a mix of old stuff and new stuff

5 Jan 2017
Meeting at WH with Obama, Biden, Rice, Yates, Clapper, Comey, Brennan, Rogers. Briefing is on Russian interference in 2016 election.

Small meeting after the formal briefing: Obama, Biden, Rice, Yates, Comey

James Clapper (DNI in early Jan 2017) tells Comey (FBI Dir in Jan 2017) that Comey should tell President elect Trump about the sex tape claims of the Steele dossier. (source: James Comey)

After this meeting, Jeh Johnson (DHS) calls Comey. Johnson was worried the FBI director would be briefing the president-elect alone.

(How does Johnson know Comey will brief Donald Trump alone about the sex tape ? was he at the mtg?)

Johnson said “Be careful, Jim, be very careful”

"I took it as, 'Just choose your words carefully. Don't say more than you need to, less than you need to, try to get it just right, accomplish your goal, and then get outta there," Comey said.

https://www.businessinsider.co...teele-dossier-2018-4

6 Jan 2017

Comey tells Donald Trump about the sex tape, but nothing else about the dossier. (source: James Comey)

Comey tells President elect Trump that CNN had the dossier but was looking for a “news hook” to report it. Without the “news hook” (such as the fact that the government was reviewing the dossier), CNN was reluctant to report the wild dossier claims without any verification.

Comey has subsequently said he did not tell Donald Trump anything else from the dossier. Just the sex tape supposedly recorded by the Russians

7 Jan 2017

Comey writes to senior FBI leadership that he told Trump that he was providing the briefing about the dossier because “media like CNN had [the dossier] and were looking for a news hook.”

“I said it was inflammatory stuff that they would get killed for reporting straight up from the source reports,”

http://dailycaller.com/2018/09...ge-trump-interviews/

8 Jan 2017

then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe wrote to senior FBI leadership that “CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story … The trigger for them [CNN] is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment.”

McCabe, who was Lisa Page’s boss, also emailed then-deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and then-principal deputy Attorney General Matthew Axelrod, saying, “Just an FYI, and as expected, it seems CNN is close to running a story about the sensitive reporting.”

6 Jan 2017 was a Friday

10 Jan 2017

CNN puts out an article

“Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.”

“The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.”

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So two business days afer Comey briefed Donald Trump and warned CNN was looking for a “news hook”, someone leaked the “hook” to CNN. Clapper ? Comey ? McCabe ?

Within hours of the CNN report, Buzzfeed publishes the complete dossier

“ CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump.

Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.”

Coordinated?

Very recently new texts were released between Strzok and Lisa Page

Still on 10 Jan 2017,

Strzok to Page: "Sitting with Bill watching CNN. A TON more out,"

"Hey let me know when you can talk. We're discussing whether, now that this is out, we use it as a pretext to go interview some people."

“Bill” is likely Strzok’s boss, Bill Priestap


24 Jan 2017

FBI interviewed Michael Flynn in a blindside maneuver. No warning what the interview was about / no lawyer present. Flynn eventually pleads guilty to lying to the FBI


27 Jan 2017

FBI interviewed George Papadopoulos with no warning / no lawyer present. Papadopoulos eventually pleads guilty to lying to the FBI

Geo Papadopoulos putting out some odd tweets

After reviewing notes again: it seems that two months after a likely MI6 led operation against me in London, with Stefan Halper, the British government decided to deliver me Theresa May's personal congratulatory letter to Trump after he was elected.

Besides the fact that I notified the FBI a year ago about my suspicions that Downer was illegally recording my conversation with him. The lead up to the meeting with Downer in London was even more bizarre.

An Israeli diplomat named Christian cantor, who hated Trump, introduced me to his 'girlfriend' who just happened to be an Australian intel officer and assistant to Downer. Named Erika Thompson. After I humiliate David Cameron in the British press, Downer wants to meet.

There is a lot to come

http://thehill.com/hilltv/risi...usion-before-mueller

By John Solomon
Opinion Contributor

To date, Lisa Page’s infamy has been driven mostly by the anti-Donald Trump text messages she exchanged with fellow FBI agent Peter Strzok as the two engaged in an affair while investigating the president for alleged election collusion with Russia.

Yet, when history judges the former FBI lawyer years from now, her most consequential pronouncement may not have been typed on her bureau-issued Samsung smartphone to her colleague and lover.

Rather, it might be eight simple words she uttered behind closed doors during a congressional interview a few weeks ago.

“It’s a reflection of us still not knowing,” Page told Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) when questioned about texts she and Strzok exchanged in May 2017 as Robert Mueller was being named a special prosecutor to take over the Russia investigation.

With that statement, Page acknowledged a momentous fact:

After nine months of using some of the most awesome surveillance powers afforded to U.S. intelligence, the FBI still had not made a case connecting Trump or his campaign to Russia’s election meddling.

because there never was a connection, except a fabricated one

the FBI hadn't "made" a case, but they did "create" one out of dirty tricks and lies, targeting the elected President of the United States because they didn't like him

Page opined further, acknowledging “it still existed in the scope of possibility that there would be literally nothing” to connect Trump and Russia, no matter what Mueller or the FBI did.

“As far as May of 2017, we still couldn’t answer the question,” she said at another point.

I reached out to Page's lawyer, Amy Jeffress, on Friday. She declined to answer questions about her client’s cooperation with Congress.

It might take a few seconds for the enormity of Page’s statements to sink in. After all, she isn’t just any FBI lawyer. She was a lead on the Russia case when it started in summer 2016, and she helped it transition to Mueller through summer 2017.

For those who might cast doubt on the word of a single FBI lawyer, there’s more.

Shortly after he was fired, ex-FBI Director James Comey told the Senate there was not yet evidence to justify investigating Trump for colluding with Russia. “When I left, we did not have an investigation focused on President Trump,” Comey testified.

And Strzok, the counterintelligence boss and leader of the Russia probe, texted Page in May 2017 that he was reluctant to join Mueller’s probe and leave his senior FBI post because he feared “there’s no big there, there.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general asked Strzok shortly before he was fired from the FBI what he meant by that text, and he offered a most insightful answer.

Strzok said he wasn’t certain there was a “broad, coordinated effort” to hijack the election and that the evidence of Trump campaign aides talking about getting Hillary Clinton dirt from Russians might have been just a “bunch of opportunists” talking to heighten their importance.

Papadopoulos ? What a joke. Even if the Trump team had asked the Russians for dirt on Clinton, so what? Who did Clinton ask for dirt on Donald Trump ? She paid Russians for opposition research and then tried to dress it up as "intelligence"

Strzok added that, while he raised the idea of impeachment in some of his texts to Page, “I am, again, was not, am not convinced or certain that it will,” he told the IG.

So, by the words of Comey, Strzok and Page, we now know that the Trump Justice Department — through Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — unleashed the Mueller special prosecutor probe before the FBI could validate a connection between Trump and Russia.

Which raises the question: If there was no concrete evidence of collusion, why did we need a special prosecutor?

Page’s comments also mean FBI and Justice officials likely leaked a barrage of media stories just before and after Mueller’s appointment that made the evidence of collusion look far stronger than the frontline investigators knew it to be. Text messages show contacts between key FBI and DOJ players and the Washington Post, the Associated Press and the New York Times during the ramp-up to Mueller’s probe.

And that means the news media — perhaps longing to find a new Watergate, to revive sagging fortunes — were far too willing to be manipulated by players in a case that began as a political opposition research project funded by Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and led by a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, who despised Trump.

Finally, Page’s statement signals that the nation’s premier intelligence court may not have been given a complete picture of the evidence — or lack thereof — as it approved an extraordinary surveillance intrusion into an American presidential nominee’s campaign just weeks before Election Day.

There was no fault to the FBI checking whether Trump was compromised by Russia; that is a classic counterintelligence responsibility.

The real fault lies in those leaders who allowed a secret investigation to mushroom into a media maelstrom driven by official leaks that created a story that far exceeded the evidence, and then used that false narrative to set a special prosecutor flying downhill ahead of his skis.

No matter where Mueller ends his probe, it is now clear the actions that preceded his appointment turned justice on its head, imposing the presumption of guilt upon a probe whose own originators had reason to doubt the strength of their evidence.

It is worse than what Solomon writes. This was a conspiracy to frame Donald Trump.

Mifsud, Downer, Halper, Tawil, B Ohr, N Ohr, Winer, Blumenthal, Shearer, G Simpson, C Steele, ....

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Andrew McCarthy response to John Solomon article:

"Three times prior to Mueller appointment, and once after, FBI & DOJ swore to FISA court that there was probable cause to believe Trump campaign officials were complicit in Russia’s cyberespionage operation against 2016 election."

https://dailycaller.com/2018/0...nellie-ohr-congress/

Congress will interview Nellie Ohr , the wife of Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, later this week, Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe said on Sunday.

Ratcliffe said Sunday that Ohr is expected to appear for a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary and House Oversight & Government Reform Committees, in an interview on Fox News.

Ohr worked during the 2016 election cycle for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that investigated Donald Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC. Fusion hired former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous anti-Trump dossier that was used to obtain spy warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

While she worked for Fusion, Ohr’s husband, Bruce Ohr, was in contact with both Steele and Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS.

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John Ratcliffe had tweeted:

Looking forward to joining @MariaBartiromo on @SundayFutures to discuss the next steps in the House Republican probes into the DOJ & FBI’s actions leading up to the 2018 election, and the calls to declassify the FISA documents related to Bruce Ohr


President Trump later tweeted:

"Just watched Sunday Morning Futures with @MariaBartiromo on @FoxNews. This show is MANDATORY watching if you want to understand the massive governmental corruption and the Russian Hoax. It will be rebroadcast this evening at 6:00 P.M. on @FoxBusiness. A must see!"

Trump has ordered most of the FISA warrant declassified as well as tons of text messages released unredacted.

BREAKING: President Trump Directs Dan Coats (DNI), Jeff Sessions (DOJ) and Christopher Wray (FBI) To Declassify Documents and Release Unredacted Text Messages…

quote:

WHITE HOUSE – At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.

In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr. LINK

Carter Page made an odd tweet 9 Sep 2018

"guess I can answer an old question on when I spoke with FBI / SDNY Prosecutors whom I had helped. My records show March 2, 2016 ."

"Enough said, but maybe @PreetBharara knows more - 9 days before this:"

then there is a link to

https://abcnews.go.com/Interna...ap/story?id=37582518

11 Mar 2016

Russian Spy Pleads Guilty, Walked Into FBI 'Trap'

A Russian spy, who posed as a banker in New York City, today pleaded guilty to espionage-related charges after court documents revealed Russia's top intelligence service waltzed into an FBI "trap".

In a case that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said sounds "like a plotline from a Cold War-era movie," Evgeny Buryakov was arrested last year and accused of working as a "non-official cover" officer for Russia's foreign intelligence service, known as SVR, at a Russian bank in midtown Manhattan.

....

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C Page seems to be hinting that on 2 Mar 2016 he helped the FBI in the case against Buryakov

Wouldn't it be something if the FBI then set him up a few months later

Devin Nunes has said several times that there is exculpatory evidence re C Page that was not in the FISA warrant against him.

Devin Nunes:

"...people think the insurance policy was getting a FISA warrant on Carter Page... we believe .... the insurance policy was specifically what they did that is still redacted."

"it was always an investigation in search of a crime"

And just like that, journalists, who for decades and decades supported transparency, decided they didn’t support transparency...

Geo Papadopoulos continues to make aggressive tweets:

"The BRITISH (Stefan Halper), AUSTRALIAN (Alexander Downer and Erika Thompson) and TURKISH (Azra Turk, spy working for Halper) all spied on an American citizen and campaign. Obama, Brennan and Clapper knew."

John Solomon had an interview today w President Trump

https://thehill.com/hilltv/ris...crowning-achievement

video at link

President Trump in an exclusive interview with Hill.TV said Tuesday he ordered the release of classified documents in the Russia collusion case to show the public the FBI probe started as a “hoax,” and that exposing it could become one of the “crowning achievements” of his presidency.

“I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done… in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he said.

Trump also said he regretted not firing former FBI Director James Comey immediately instead of waiting until May 2017, confirming an account his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, gave Hill.TV earlier in the day that Trump was dismayed in 2016 by the way Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email case and began discussing firing him well before he became president.

“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don’t want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day on the job. ... I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don’t want him there when I get there.”

He criticizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court’s approval of the warrant that authorized surveillance of Carter Page, a low-level Trump campaign aide, toward the end of the 2016 election, suggesting the FBI misled the court.

“They know this is one of the great scandals in the history of our country because basically what they did is, they used Carter Page, who nobody even knew, who I feel very badly for, I think he’s been treated very badly. They used Carter Page as a foil in order to surveil a candidate for the presidency of the United States.”

As for the judges on the secret intelligence court: “It looks to me just based on your reporting, that they have been misled,” the president said, citing a series of columns in The Hill newspaper identifying shortcomings in the FBI investigation. “I mean I don’t think we have to go much further than to say that they’ve been misled.”

“One of the things I’m disappointed in is that the judges in FISA didn’t, don’t seem to have done anything about it. I’m very disappointed in that Now, I may be wrong because, maybe as we sit here and talk, maybe they’re well into it. We just don’t know that because I purposely have not chosen to get involved,” Trump said.

The president spared no words in criticizing Comey, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, lawyer Lisa Page and other FBI officials who started the probe. He recited specific text messages Page and Strzok traded while having an affair and investigating his campaign, arguing the texts showed they condoned leaks and conducted a bogus probe.

Those texts are to be released as a result of Trump’s announcement on Monday.

“It’s a hoax, beyond a witch hunt,” he said.

Trump cited one text released recently in which Strzok and Page appear to discuss getting McCabe to approve an expansion of the Russia case right after Comey is fired.

“Comey was a bad guy. He gets fired. They only have Andy left because they know they’re doing wrong,” the president said in describing how he felt wronged by the FBI.

He denounced the FBI for leaking to create what he said was a false narrative against him, saying it appeared to be an “insurance policy” to destroy his presidency if he won.

“Number one how illegal is it? And number two, how low is it,” he said.

“What we have now is an insurance policy,” the president said. “But it has been totally discredited, even Democrats agree that it has been discredited. They are not going to admit to it, but it has been totally discredited. I think, frankly, more so by text than by documents.”

Trump said he had not read the documents he ordered declassified but said he expected to show they would prove the FBI case started as a political “hoax.”

“I have had many people ask me to release them. Not that I didn’t like the idea but I wanted to wait, I wanted to see where it was all going,” he said.

In the end, he said, his goal was to let the public decide by seeing the documents that have been kept secret for more than two years. “All I want to do is be transparent,” he said.

Asked what he thought the outcome of his long-running fight with the FBI, the president said: “I hope to be able put this up as one of my crowning achievements that I was able to ... expose something that is truly a cancer in our country.”

^^^^^^
Re: “I hope to be able put this up as one of my crowning achievements that I was able to ... expose something that is truly a cancer in our country.”

I hope so too. And it’ll be his achievement. He’s getting no help from Wray as far as I can see.

I am beginning to think I totally underestimated how important Papadopoulos was to the investigation. Probably better to call it the "set up" or the frame job.

Note how much the FBI says the investigation started w Geo Papadopoulos and the meeting w Australian Alexander Downer.

Here is an interview GP (Papadopoulos) just did w Fox

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/st.../1042199672759218177

http://insider.foxnews.com/201...t-trump-russia-probe

Geo Papadopoulos announced he was on the Trump campaign team on 21 Mar 2016.

GP says he has retraced the steps that led to the mtg w Alexander Downer

GP was in London. An Israeli diplomat named Christian Cantor hated Donald Trump.

In April 2016, Cantor introduced Papadopoulos to Cantor's girl friend, Ericka Thompson.

Ericka Thompson was an Australian intelligence officer and a counselor to Alexander Downer.

Ericka Thompson probed GP about his ties to the energy business in Israel, and what the campaign was up to regarding Russia.

Note this was just a few weeks after GP was named to the Trump campaign.

Then in late April, Joseph Mifsud told GP about the Russians having dirt on H Clinton.

In early May 2016, GP gave an interview where he asked UK Prime Minister David Cameron to retract derogatory comments that Cameron had made about Donald Trump.

A couple days after that interview, GP was approached by 2 officials who he thinks were from the DIA of the U.S. embassy in London. They asked him what is happening.

A day or so later, Alexander Downer wants to meet w him in a bar. Erika Thompson is also present.

Downer was very belligerent and despised Donald Trump.

GP doesn't remember talking w Downer about what Mifsud had said regarding Russia having Clinton emails.

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This all looks very suspicious. We are hearing it publicly straight from Geo Papadopoulos (no anonymous sources)

It may turn out that Papadopoulos was targeted immediately after he was announced on the team, by U.S. intel, UK intel, and Australian intel.

That would be something the CIA and FBI would want to keep secret. This would be a major breech of protocol against the now sitting U.S. President by those we consider amongst our strongest allies.

and, as a routine reminder, Bill Priestap (head of FBI Counterintelligence Division) traveled to London the week that Downer met w Papadopoulos

Stefan Hapler also set up GP

national security, you think ?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

quote:

...used that false narrative to set a special prosecutor flying downhill ahead of his skis.

Nellie Ohr and James Baker not cooperating

https://dailycaller.com/2018/0...hr-congress-dossier/

Nellie Ohr, the wife of Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, is refusing to appear before Congress for a closed-door hearing that was scheduled to take place this Friday

Ohr, who worked for Fusion GPS, the firm behind the Steele dossier, was scheduled to appear for interviews during a joint session with the House Judiciary and House Oversight & Government Reform Committees. But a congressional source says that she is not cooperating with the requests and will have to be subpoenaed to compel her appearance.

The sources also say that former FBI general counsel James Baker is not cooperating with the committees’ request for an interview.

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Baker was supposed to testify a few weeks ago. I was wondering why we never heard anything.

James Baker was the FBI General Counsel who worked directly for Comey

He was removed from his position and eventually quit.

So Bruce Ohr was said to be fairly open in his testimony, but his wife refuses to appear.

The Ohrs both met Steele, a former British spy, in Washington, D.C. on July 30, 2016, a day before the FBI formally opened its counterintelligence investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

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In Dec 2017, Andrew McCabe was acting FBI Dir (Comey had been fired in May 2017)


from Conservative Treehouse,

"FBI legal counsel James Baker accompanied FBI Asst. Director “Andy” McCabe to a Tuesday December 19th, 2017, congressional hearing with the House Intelligence Community. Curiously, in addition to other lines of inquiry, during the questioning McCabe was asked about whether James Baker was authorized to speak to the media about the Steele Dossier and the underlying ‘counterintelligence’ operation. Asst. Director McCabe responded that Baker would not be authorized to take such action.

Following the December 19, HPSCI hearing, republican committee leadership announced their plan to subpoena James Baker for further questioning. [Keep in mind Baker was there.] Two days later, at the Thursday Judiciary and Oversight Committee hearings, James Baker did not accompany Andrew McCabe. Hours later, James Baker is removed from his responsibilities as legal counsel within the FBI. Cause: ‘unknown‘. Five months later Mr. Baker resigned from the FBI. Mr. Baker went to work with Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare."

it is known that James Baker was communicating w Mother Jones reporter David Corn just before Mother Jones published large parts of the dossier in late Oct 2016. Corn denied that Baker was the source of his dossier story


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Sara Carter:

Also hearing from a source former FBI SA Peter Strzok ( who was fired) is refusing to come back for additional testimony without a subpoena. I say subpoena Strzok, former Gen Counsel James Baker. Oh, and Nellie Ohr too. It May have something to do with all these texts were seeing

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

Since Geo Papadopoulos has been sentenced, he has been tweeting out quite a storm.

His latest:

I repeat: the British and Australian governments were illegally spying on the Trump Campaign by April 2016. Let that sink in.

Hons: @SenatorBurr and @MarkWarner in the interest of full transparency, and my role in this investigation, it is absolutely critical that I detail my encounters with Charles Tawil, who is listed as a fmr state department source in SA, who provided me with the $10,000 in Israel.

The British and Australian governments' attempt to sabotage the Trump campaign is about to backfire in a spectacular fashion.

The day that BRITISH intelligence source, Stefan Halper , lured me to London so that the British MI6 could spy on the campaign, the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited me to their offices to talk about Trump and what a threat him supporting Breexit was.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

WHAT ????

President Trump tweets:

I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents. They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies’ called to ask not to release . Therefore, the Inspector General.....

....has been asked to review these documents on an expedited basis. I believe he will move quickly on this (and hopefully other things which he is looking at). In the end I can always declassify if it proves necessary. Speed is very important to me - and everyone!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

put that together w Papadopoulos tweet above

Oh great more crap for the toothless inspector general to do. WAST OF TIME.

Imagine if we had a real attorney general, one who actually believed in the rule of law? One who enforced the law no matter what? No we have a cowardly piece of garbage who's only ability seems to be cashing a government check. Twenty years in the senate and it looks like that was all he was good at. He brings that same skill to the DOJ.

Time is running out. If the left takes the house any and all investigations into this abuse will end. Accountability and the rule of law NEEDS to be reestablished.

Remember Nunes saying "There's no intelligence" in the intelligence report" and there were no 5 Eyes Reports exchanged.