Earlier today, I posted about the strange frustration of House Democrats that their attempts to continue investigating Russia collusion after the Mueller Report cleared the President. All that is happening is what any reasonable person would have expected. But while we're on the subject of frustration among Democrats, I couldn't let the moment pass without mentioning that such frustration is likely to get much worse as a result of the investigation being run at the direction of Attorney General Barr. Just the other day, Barr made clear in an interview that the investigation includes the use of the bogus Trump Dossier to get and renew FISA warrants that permitted spying on the Trump campaign. It includes the "briefing" of then president-elect Trump about that dossier by Jim Comey and the immediate leak of that fact to CNN. It also includes the conduct of both the FBI and the CIA.
Assuming that the news reports on this point and the documents already public are correct, we already know the following facts:
1. The Trump Dossier was compiled by Christopher Steele with the assistance of agents of the Russian government.
2. Steele was hired for this job by Fusion GPS. Fusion was, in turn, hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee. Clinton and the DNC attempted to camouflage the hiring of Fusion GPS by funneling the $13 million paid to Fusion for this work through the Perkins law firm in DC.
3. The Trump Dossier in various forms was leaked to the media during the 2016 campaign, but no one printed it or even relied on what it said. It was an obvious phony and even the Democrat supporting media wouldn't use it.
4. Around the first of October of 2016, a high ranking State Department official interviewed Steele about the dossier. She concluded that the dossier contained many errors and was unreliable. She also learned that Steele had leaked the document to the media.
5. The State Department official wrote a memo that went to the leadership of the FBI, State Department, and CIA among others which reported that the Steele dossier was highly flawed, likely totally bogus and already leaked to the media.
6. After receiving this memo, the FBI and DOJ asked for and received a warrant from the FISA court that was used to spy on the Trump campaign. The application for that warrant relied almost exclusively on the discredited Trump Dossier. Prior to making that application, no one from the FBI, CIA or DOJ made any attempt to verify any of the content of the Trump Dossier.
7. The law regarding applications to the FISA court is clear. Information used in support of applications has to be verified. This requirement is there because these are secret applications about which the target is never notified. Congress place the burden for using verified info on the FBI or other agency seeking the warrant in an attempt to be fair to the target.
8. By seeking a FISA warrant using the unverified Trump Dossier, the FBI and others broke the law. But it is worse. Not only was the FISA warrant based upon unverified information, but the FBI didn't even try to verify that information and they had been warned by the State Department that the dossier contained bogus information. And the FBI never told the FISA court any of this.
Let me put the conclusion this way: someone is going to be convicted of a crime for this.
The briefing of president-elect Trump about the Dossier is also a prime source for indictments. Comey and Brennan know this. In the last few days, they have been pointing fingers at each other as to who was in charge of this briefing. Hopefully, they will both be indicted. After all, they both knew that their scheme was wrong. Intelligence agencies are not supposed to run hits on the incoming elected president of the United States.
Assuming that the news reports on this point and the documents already public are correct, we already know the following facts:
1. The Trump Dossier was compiled by Christopher Steele with the assistance of agents of the Russian government.
2. Steele was hired for this job by Fusion GPS. Fusion was, in turn, hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee. Clinton and the DNC attempted to camouflage the hiring of Fusion GPS by funneling the $13 million paid to Fusion for this work through the Perkins law firm in DC.
3. The Trump Dossier in various forms was leaked to the media during the 2016 campaign, but no one printed it or even relied on what it said. It was an obvious phony and even the Democrat supporting media wouldn't use it.
4. Around the first of October of 2016, a high ranking State Department official interviewed Steele about the dossier. She concluded that the dossier contained many errors and was unreliable. She also learned that Steele had leaked the document to the media.
5. The State Department official wrote a memo that went to the leadership of the FBI, State Department, and CIA among others which reported that the Steele dossier was highly flawed, likely totally bogus and already leaked to the media.
6. After receiving this memo, the FBI and DOJ asked for and received a warrant from the FISA court that was used to spy on the Trump campaign. The application for that warrant relied almost exclusively on the discredited Trump Dossier. Prior to making that application, no one from the FBI, CIA or DOJ made any attempt to verify any of the content of the Trump Dossier.
7. The law regarding applications to the FISA court is clear. Information used in support of applications has to be verified. This requirement is there because these are secret applications about which the target is never notified. Congress place the burden for using verified info on the FBI or other agency seeking the warrant in an attempt to be fair to the target.
8. By seeking a FISA warrant using the unverified Trump Dossier, the FBI and others broke the law. But it is worse. Not only was the FISA warrant based upon unverified information, but the FBI didn't even try to verify that information and they had been warned by the State Department that the dossier contained bogus information. And the FBI never told the FISA court any of this.
Let me put the conclusion this way: someone is going to be convicted of a crime for this.
The briefing of president-elect Trump about the Dossier is also a prime source for indictments. Comey and Brennan know this. In the last few days, they have been pointing fingers at each other as to who was in charge of this briefing. Hopefully, they will both be indicted. After all, they both knew that their scheme was wrong. Intelligence agencies are not supposed to run hits on the incoming elected president of the United States.
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