Following on the FtN interview with James Clapper, Representative Mark Meadows discusses the ramifications of Spygate with Margaret Brennan. Additional conversation surrounds immigration.
Margaret Brennan starts off the interview asking former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper why presidential candidate Donald Trump would not have been informed of any potential issue if the intelligence community was truly concerned about Russia interfering in the election.
Watch his response; and more specifically listen to the language. “Tactical judgement”? Even the words he uses to explain the non-action involves admission of an operation:
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Note how Clapper states he is unaware of the “predicate” for the FBI origination of the Spygate operation. Also note the proactive briefing mentioned for both campaigns was specifically framed around “cyber-intrusion”.
President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani discusses current issues surrounding Special Counsel Robert Mueller, SpyGate and the vast interplanetary Russian conspiracy theory:
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Mr. Giuliani also appeared on CNN for an interview with Dana Bash.
With much of the media, and indeed the President himself, fueling the ongoing headline discussion over the ramifications of the Obama administration setting up “surveillance”, “informants”, counterintelligence operations and “agent provocateurs” against their political opposition, ie. “SpyGate”, it is perhaps time for some mental sorbet.
Relating to the overall issue, on March 28th, 2018, the DOJ Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz formerly announced an additional investigation of how the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation engaged with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in matters relating to the FISA Title-1 application filed against U.S. person Carter Page. However, one part of the OIG notification was generously overlooked by a defensive and IC compliant media:
As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications. (pdf link)
Two months later on Monday May 21st, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein added a significant DOJ mandate to the Inspector General review. Rosenstein expanded the original FISA review to include looking at whether officials within the intelligence community may have unlawfully used human intelligence assets to “spy” or “surveil” the Trump campaign:
“The Department has asked the Inspector General to expand the ongoing review of the FISA application process to include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.” (link)
The overall FBI and DOJ corruption and political weaponization discussion has now shifted to issues of politically motivated spies, surveillance and the use of intelligence agents to conduct domestic operations. There are obvious ramifications and seemingly and endless series of directions and outlines for evidence therein.
There is a particular coordination of events that has been visible since December 2017 when the first evidence of the FBI and DOJ operations against the Trump campaign surfaced. In the past six months a great deal of granular timing relates to this coordination. In January 2017 the DOJ IG began investigating FBI and DOJ conduct during the Clinton investigation in 2015 and 2016.
Toward the end of 2017 a joint House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee venture was established to look into the FBI/DOJ handling of the Clinton investigation, and the Trump counterintelligence investigation. Judiciary Chairman Goodlatte and Oversight Chairman Gowdy established the joint-oversight venture and then little happened as they awaited the completion of the OIG internal review.
Between the Fall of 2017 and May 2018 the final stages of the DOJ-OIG investigative inquires took place. In this period DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was joined with federal prosecutor John Huber. Horowitz focused on the ongoing internal investigation, while Huber received evidence carved out that holds value for criminal prosecutions.
During the period of January through May 2018 all congressional witness testimony from the FBI and DOJ participants to oversight committees was filtered through the need for U.S. Attorney John Huber to retain the integrity of criminal evidence. Toward that end, testimony from multiple witnesses, sought by congress upon members of the DOJ and FBI, was cancelled. Some of that testimony was cancelled at the last minute as the DOJ negotiated with congress and likely explained the reasoning therein. Example:
Tucker Carlson led off his broadcast on Tuesday night with a discussion of the latest developments in “Spygate”. An illegal operation by intelligence leadership within President Obama’s cabinet.
FBI Director James Comey, DOJ Attorney General Loretta Lynch, DNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan are all identified within the Spygate operation conducting and facilitating surveillance against their political opposition.
This is an interesting development. Until now, for some mysterious reason, no-one in congress has ever asked for the redactions of the Peter Strzok and Lisa Page text messages to be removed. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is the first politician to ask for all of the text messages without redactions.
In a letter today to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (full pdf below), Chairman Grassley cites examples of unnecessary redactions that are in place simply to avoid the embarrassment upon the DOJ and FBI. Accordingly this is not an acceptable reason for hiding information from congress and the American people.
Based on the details within the approximately 400 pages of text messages, there is a tremendous amount of evidence that points directly to the motives and intents of the DOJ and FBI group who were conducting the operation to exonerate Hillary Clinton; and the group who was working on the surveillance operation against the Trump campaign.
Prior to departing for New York to attend an immigration roundtable President Trump held an impromptu press conference on the South Lawn. The primary topic was the congressional leadership meeting tomorrow with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, FBI Director Christopher Wray and DOJ Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Edward O’Callaghan (formerly from DOJ-NSD).
During the impromptu remarks the term “spygate” was coined.
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