Matt Taibbi
...If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a “clearing” of the FBI, never clear me of anything. Holy God, what a clown show the Trump-Russia investigation was.
Like the much-ballyhooed report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Horowitz report is a Rorschach test, in which partisans will find what they want to find.
Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz’s conclusion that there was no evidence of “political bias or improper motivation” in the FBI’s probe of Donald Trump’s Russia contacts, an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had “authorized purpose” to conduct.
Horowitz uses phrases like “serious performance failures,” describing his 416-page catalogue of errors and manipulations as incompetence rather than corruption. This throws water on the notion that the Trump investigation was a vast frame-up. However, Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose “serious” procedural problems and omissions of “significant information” in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a president). Officials on the “Crossfire Hurricane” Trump-Russia investigators went to extraordinary, almost comical lengths to seek surveillance authority of figures like Trump aide Carter Page. In one episode, an FBI attorney inserted the words “not a source” in an email he’d received from another government agency. This disguised the fact that Page had been an informant for that agency, and had dutifully told the government in real time about being approached by Russian intelligence. The attorney then passed on the email to an FBI supervisory special agent, who signed a FISA warrant application on Page that held those Russian contacts against Page, without disclosing his informant role.
Likewise, the use of reports by ex-spy/campaign researcher Christopher Steele in pursuit of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authority had far-reaching ramifications. Not only did obtaining a FISA warrant allow authorities a window into
other Trump figures with whom Page communicated, they led to a slew of
leaked “bombshell”
news stories that advanced many public misconceptions, including that a
court had ruled there was “probable cause” that a Trump figure was an “agent of a foreign power.” There are too many to list in one column, but the Horowitz report
show years of breathless headlines were wrong. Some key points: The so-called “Steele dossier” was, actually, crucial to the FBI’s decision to seek secret surveillance of Page. Press figures have derided the idea that Steele was crucial to the FISA application, with some insisting it was only a “small part” of the application. Horowitz is clear: We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order. The report describes how, prior to receiving Steele’s reports, the
FBI General Counsel (OGC) and/or the National Security Division’s Office
of Intelligence (OI) wouldn’t budge on seeking FISA authority. But
after getting the reports, the OGC unit chief said, “receipt of the
Steele reporting changed her mind on whether they could establish
probable cause.” Meanwhile, the OI unit chief said Steele’s reports were “what kind of
pushed it over the line.” There’s no FISA warrant without Steele. Horowitz ratifies the oft-denounced “Nunes memo.”Democrats are not going to want to hear this, since conventional
wisdom says former House Intelligence chief Devin Nunes is a
conspiratorial evildoer, but the Horowitz report ratifies the major
claims of the infamous “Nunes memo.” As noted, Horowitz establishes that the Steele report was crucial to the
FISA process, even using the same language Nunes used (“essential”). He
also confirms the Nunes assertion that the FBI double-dipped in citing
both Steele and a September 23, 2016 Yahoo! news story using
Steele as an unnamed source. Horowitz listed the idea that Steele did
not directly provide information to the press as one of seven
significant “inaccuracies or omissions” in the first FISA application...MORE
Forgive the lengthy excerpt, but this is significant as it was published in the left-leaning Rolling Stone. I encourage you to read the complete column.
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Rolling Stone: An Inspector General’s Report Reveals the Steele Dossier Was Always a Joke
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