FISA Report Reveals Clinton Meddled In 2016 Election
If Russia spending $100,000 on Facebook ads constitutes election interference, and Donald Trump asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens is too - then Hillary Clinton takes the cake when it comes to influence campaigns designed to harm a political opponent.
Contained within Monday's FISA report by the DOJ Inspector General is the revelation that Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Clinton campaign to produce the Steele dossier, "was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media." (P. 369 and elsewhere)
And when did Steele talk with the media (which got him fired as an FBI source)? September of 2016, roughly six weeks before the election.
One of the more damaging articles to result from these meetings was authored by Yahoo News journalist Michael Isikoff, who said in an interview that he was invited by Fusion GPS to meet a "secret source" at a Washington restaurant.
That secret source was none other than Christopher Steele, a former MI-6 Russia expert who fed the Isikoff information for a September 23, 2016 article - which would have had far greater reach and impact coming from such a widely-read media outlet vs. $100,000 in Russian-bought Facebook ads.
This allegaton was found by special counsel Robert Mueller report to be false. Moreover, the FBI knew about it in December, 2016, when DOJ #4 Bruce Ohr told the agency as much.
"Steele told us that in September [of 2016] her and Simpson gave an "off-the-record" briefing to a small number of journalists about his reporting," reads page 165 of the FISA report, which says that Steele "acknowledged that Yahoo News was identified in one of the court filings in the foreign litigation as being present."
Put another way, Hillary Clinton paid Christopher Steele to feed information to the MSM in order to harm Donald Trump right before the 2016 election. Granted, there were intermediaries; the Clinton campaign paid law firm Perkins Coie, which paid Fusion GPS, which paid Steele. And if asked, we're guessing Clinton would claim she had no idea this happened - which, quite frankly, simply isn't plausible given the stakes.
Whatever the case - the act of Simpson paying Steele to peddle fiction to the media for the purpose of harming Trump, by itself, constitutes blatant election meddling by every standard set by the left over the past three years.
We're sure Hillary can explain that if and when she jumps into the 2020 race.
Horowitz Report Is "Triumph" For FISA Abuse 'Whistleblower' Devin Nunes: WSJ's Kim Strassel
In her usual succinct and clarifying manner, The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel took to Twitter overnight to summarize the farcical findings within the Horowitz Report (and Barr and Durham's responses).
In sixteen short tweets, Strassel destroyed the spin while elucidating the key findings of the Horowitz report (emphasis ours):Yup,IG said FBI hitthreshold for opening an investigation. But also goes out of its way to note what a "low threshold" this is.
Durham's statement made clear he will provide more info for Americans to make a judgment on reasonableness.The report istriumph for former House Intel Chair Devin Nunes, who first blew the whistle on FISA abuse. The report confirms all the elements of the February 2018 Nunes memo, which saiddossier was as an "essential" part of applications, and FBI withheld info fromFISA court Conversely, the report is an excoriation of Adam Schiff and his "memo" of Feb 2018.That doc stated that "FBI and DOJ officials did NOT abuse the [FISA] process" or "omit material information."Also claimed FBI didn't much rely ondossier .In fact, IG report says dossier played "central and essential role" in getting FISA warrants.Schiff had access tosame documents as Nunes, yet chose to misinform the public. This is the guy who just ran impeachment proceedings.The Report is a devastating indictment of Steele, Fusion GPS and the "dossier."Report finds that about the only thing FBI ever corroborated in that docwere publicly available times, places, title names. Ouch.IG finds 17 separate problems with FISA court submissions, including FBI's overstatement of Steele's credentials. Also the failure to provide court with exculpatory evidence and issues with Steele's sources and additional info it got about Steele's credibility.Every one of these "issues" is a story all on its own.Example: The FBI had tapes of Page and Papadopoulos making statements that were inconsistent with FBI's own collusion theories. They did not provide these to the FISA court.Another example: FBI later gotinfo from professional contacts withSteele who said he suffered from "lack of self awareness, poor judgement" and "pursued people" with "no intelligence value." FBI also did not tell the court about these credibility concerns.And this: FBI failed to tellCourt that Page was approved as an "operational contact" for another U.S.agency , and "candidly" reported his interactions with a Russianintel officer. FBI instead used that Russian interaction against Page, with no exculpatory detail.Overall, IG was so concerned by these "extensive compliance failures" that is has now initiated additional "oversight" to assess how FBI in general complies with "policies that seek to protect the civil liberties of U.S.persons ."The Report also expressed concerns aboutFBI's failure to present any of these issues toDOJ higher ups ; its ongoing contacts with Steele after he was fired for talking tomedia ; and its use of spies against the campaign without any DOJ input.Remember Comeytelling us it was no big deal who paid for dossier?Turns out it was a big deal in FBI/DOJ, where one lawyer (Stuart Evans) expressed "concerns" it had been funded by Clinton/DNC. Because of his "consistent inquiries" we go that convoluted footnote.IG also slaps FBI for using what was supposed to be a baseline briefing for the Trump campaign of foreign intelligence threats as a surreptitious opportunity to investigate Flynn.Strassel's last point is perhaps the most important for those on the left claiming "vindication"...
When IG says he found no "documentary" evidence of bias, he means just that: He didn't findsmoking gun email that says "let's take out Trump."And it isn't his job to guess at the motivations of FBI employees.
Instead... He straightforwardly lays outfacts .Those facts produce a pattern of FBI playing the FISA Court--overstating some info, omitting other info,cherrypicking details.Americans can look attotality and make their own judgment as to "why" FBI behaved in such a manner.Finally, intriguing just how many people at the FBI don't remember anything about anything. Highly convenient.
Barr Skips Over IG Report To Durham, Says FBI May Have Acted In 'Bad Faith'
Attorney General William Barr says he believes the FBI may have been operating in "bad faith" when it launched a counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election, and that we should wait untilhis hand-picked prosecutor is done with his investigation of what happened.
"[T] hese irregularities, these misstatements, these omissionswere not satisfactorily explained ," said Barr in a lengthy interview with NBC, just one day after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released the so-called FISA report.
AG Barr: IG found “damning” irregularities, misstatements, & omissions in FISAapplication youtu . be/cfLYGzPBLAk
"And I think that leaves open the possibility to infer bad faith. I think it’s premature now to reach a judgment on that, but I think that further work has to be done and that’s what Durham is doing," he added, referring to US Attorney John Durham - who Barr hand picked to lead a concurrent investigation into the 2016 US election.Barr described Durham's role as "Looking at the issue of how it got started. He's looking at whether or not the narrative of Trump being involved in the Russian interference actually preceded July, and was it in fact what precipitated the trigger for the investigation.""He's also looking at the conduct of the investigation," added Barr - who then said that he instructed Durham to look just as carefully into the "post-election period.""I did that because of some of the stuff that Horowitz has uncovered, which to me is inexplicable. Their case collapsed after the election, and they never told the court, and they kept on getting renewals on these applications. There was documents falsified in order to get these renewals. Therewas all kinds of withholding of information from the court. And the question really is 'what was the agenda after the election that kept them pressing ahead, after their case collapsed?' This is the president of the Untied States!"
Barr, who has characterized the FBI's actions during Trump-Russia investigation asspying , slammed the Obama DOJ and the press for the Russiagate narrative that President Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to win the election.
"I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press," Barr said.
AG Barr: “Our nation was turned on its head for three years. . .based on a completely bogus narrative.”
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