Thursday, May 18, 2023

Matt Gaetz demands FBI agents be indicted after Durham report

"Rep. Matt Gaetz demanded that the FBI be defunded and its agents
criminally indicted after a report found that the bureau lacked evidence to launch an investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia in 2016.
Gaetz accused the FBI of becoming “the enforcement wing of the Democratic Party to play offense against Trump,” and argued that the agency should face harsh consequences for its wrongdoings." 
NYP

Karine Jean-Pierre ends press briefing after being pressed on Durham report: ‘Fled the podium’

"Even though the Durham report was released Monday, Jean-Pierre
was only asked once about it during a White House Press Briefing on Tuesday.
What is the White House reaction to special counsel report on how the FBI handled the Trump-Russia probe?” RealClearNews reporter Philip Wegmann asked. 
Jean-Pierre replied, “I would leave it to the Department of Justice to speak to that.”
Seemingly unsatisfied with her response, Wegmann pressed further, “The president talks often about how he wants the DOJ and FBI to remain independent and above the fray. That report seems to reflect the opposite. Does he agree with Special Counsel Durham that there needs to be wholesale changes at the FBI?” 
“Again, that is with the Department of Justice,” Jean-Pierre quickly replied, closing her briefing book. “Thank you so much. I’ll see you guys in Japan,” she said while leaving the podium before any more questions could be asked." NYP

Trump: "this should never be allowed to happen in our country"

"Special Counsel John Durham’s final report — while it did not recommend any new charges — exonerated former President Donald Trump of any Russian collusion and vindicated his claims of being targeted by a politicized federal law enforcement agency.
It’s a great vindication and it feels good, and the report has been wildly praised, I wish it would have come faster, but the detail that he went into — 308 pages — the detail is extraordinary, and all of these people, I guess you could call it treason, you could call it a lot of different things, but this should never be allowed to happen in our country,” Trump said in a recent interview with Newsmax.
Durham’s report confirmed that the FBI launched a politically motivated witch hunt against Trump, using the flimsiest of pretexts to “swiftly” launch an investigation into him while ignoring intelligence that Clinton’s campaign planned to accuse Trump of colluding with Russia to distract from her private server woes." Breitbart

Corrupt Ex-Fed Peter Strzok Insists Russian Collusion Investigation Was Honest

"Peter Strzok is the appallingly corrupt ex-FBI agent who was fired from the bureau after his ferocious partisanship and determination to kneecap Donald Trump’s run for the presidency was revealed, and who smirked his way arrogantly through a notorious 2018 Congressional hearing. 
Now, he has all too predictably come out against the Durham report. That report reveals just how deep the corruption was in the FBI while Strzok and others worked to frame a president of the United States for a crime he didn’t commit (and it has only gotten worse since then). So it is no surprise that a longtime corruptocrat such as Strzok would be working now to sabotage the report as energetically as he ever worked to sabotage Trump.
Strzok, however, was defiant even in the teeth of the evidence, insisting that “this is a predictable sad ending to an investigation that never should have taken place.” Demonstrating admirable skills in projection and accusing one’s enemy of what one is actually guilty of doing, Strzok continued: “Shortly after [Durham] was announced in 2019, he went on the record as a prosecutor making a rare public statement that he disagreed with IG Horowitz’s conclusion that the investigation was appropriately launched and then he spent the next three to four years with a cognitive bias trying to build a case that somehow it was. We saw the results today, and the results are clearly that he didn’t come up with anything.”
In reality, Durham found that the Justice Departmentand the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.” 
And one of the chief offenders who was making a mockery of the FBI’s mission was none other than Peter Strzok himself.
Fox notes that Strzok was “previously fired from the FBI after perceived bias against Trump during the ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation. In 2018, multiple anti-Trump texts from Strzok were discovered from 2016. One of the texts showed Strzok asserting to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page that ‘we won’t allow’ Trump to become president.” 
And he did his best, even while acknowledging privately that the whole Russian Collusion case against Trump was weak at best. The Durham report states: “Our investigation gathered evidence that showed a number of those closest to the investigation believed that the standard arguably had not been met, even Strzok, who drafted and approved the opening EC [electronic communication], said there’s nothing to this but we have to run it to ground. His view would seem to dictate the opening of the matter or at the most a preliminary investigation.
Nevertheless, now that the Durham report has exposed his cynicism and dishonesty, Strzok is sticking to his original story with all the tenacity of the 1950s Leftists who insisted that Communist spy Alger Hiss was innocent even after overwhelming evidence had been marshaled against him and he had been duly convicted."  
PJMedia

FBI Leadership Sabotaged Clinton Foundation Investigations: Durham Report

"Remember the Clinton Foundation? Which, took millions in foreign donations when everyone thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the 2016 US election, only to see donations plummet by 90% after she lost?
Now we learn, thanks to the Durham report, that the FBI had three concurrent investigations into the Clinton Foundation, which were shut down during the 2016 election year by top brass.
 
Durham’s scope included the FBI investigations “directed” at the Hillary Clinton campaign. It seems the purpose of that review was to assess and compare the favorable treatment received by Clinton to the targeting of Trump.
 
**The first investigation involved an FBI tip from a CHS that a foreign government was sending a person “to contribute to Clinton’s anticipated presidential campaign, as a way to gain influence with Clinton should she win the presidency.” (Which country?!) An FBI field office sought a FISA against the foreign contributor and made that request to FBI headquarters, which ignored it for four months due to the fact that they were careful that Clinton was “involved.” According to one FBI Agent, “They were pretty ‘tippy-toeing’ around HRC because there was a chance she would be the next president.” The FISA was approved on the condition that the FBI give defensive briefings to Clinton.
 
**The second Clinton investigation involved the same CHS, who in November 2015 reported to the FBI that another foreign government was looking to contribute to the Clinton campaign “in exchange for the protection of [that country’s] interests should Clinton become
President.
” That CHS would end up making a donation to the
Clinton campaign on behalf of a foreign insider, in violation of federal law which bans contributions by foreign nationals. The CHS told their handling FBI agent that “They [the campaign] were okay with it. […] yes they were fully aware from the start” of the contribution being made on behalf of the foreign interest.Who was the FBI’s confidential human source that caught the Clinton campaign in illegal activity?
Somehow, the FBI did not obtain copies of the illegal payment and the CHS’s FBI handlers “could not explain why this apparent illegal contribution was not documented in FBI records.” Instead, the FBI handling agent “told the CHS to stay away from all events relating to Clinton’s campaign.” Later on, the CHS, who had essentially caught a member of the Clinton campaign facilitating illegal contributions, was admonished by the FBI:
“do NOT attend any more campaign events, set up meetings, or anything else relating to [Clinton’s] campaign. We need to keep you completely away from that situation. I don’t know all the details, but it’s for your own protection.”
Durham questioned how the FBI could reconcile giving defensive briefings to the Clinton campaign while denying defensive briefings to the Trump campaign.
 
**The other Clinton investigation Durham reviewed – the investigation into “possible criminal activity involving the Clinton Foundation” – demonstrated, yet again, favorable treatment received by Clinton from FBI leadership. According to Durham, the Clinton Foundation case opening communication:
referred to an intelligence product and corroborating financial reporting that a particular commercial “industry likely engaged a federal public official in a flow of benefits scheme, namely, large monetary contributions were made to a non-profit, under both direct and indirect control of the federal public official, in exchange for favorable government action and/or influence.”
Additionally, the FBI Little Rock and New York Field Offices investigations “included predication based on source reporting that identified foreign governments that had made, or offered to make, contributions to the Foundation in exchange for favorable or preferential treatment from Clinton.”  
 
DOJ and FBI leadership essentially sabotaged the Clinton Foundation investigation. The DOJ was “hostile” to the Clinton Foundation presentations from the FBI Field Offices. And at a February 2016 FBI meeting to discuss the Clinton Foundation investigations, Assistant Director Andre McCabe ordered the cases to be closed." 
ZeroHedge

House Republican Submits Resolution To Expel 'Liar' Adam Schiff From Congress

"After Rep. Adam Schiff relentlessly peddled the Russiagate hoax and claimed without proof that there was "more than circumstantial evidence" that Donald Trump colluded with Russia in 2016, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has introduced a House resolution to expel Schiff from Congress after the Durham report concluded that there was no collusion.
"Knowingly using your position on House Intel to push a lie that ripped apart our country, cost taxpayers millions of dollars, and
authorized spying on a US President and then proceeding to double down on the lie within days of the Durham report coming out makes you unfit for office
," wrote Luna in a late Wednesday tweet, adding "Ethics should investigate."
Schiff notably doubled down on his claims Tuesday, tweeting that the Durham investigation was "flawed from the start."
Wall Street Journal editorial board member William McGurn says that the Durham probe was a "damning account of the corruption of the FBI and its accomplices.....Only Adam Schiff there in those clips talked about the collusion. I mean, Durham said the FBI opened the investigation without any evidence. He also found bias in the FBI, and he found double standards [in] how they treated the Hillary Clinton campaign," said McGurn, adding "And the problem is so many people in Washington were implicated in this hoax that they don't want the same thing. Their strategy now is to pretend it didn't happen and not discuss it." 
ZeroHedge

Elise Stefanik: Durham Report Shows ‘Criminal Abuse of Power’ Went Up to Obama-Biden White House

"Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said that Special Counsel John Durham’s report about the origins of the
FBI’s investigation into former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign revealed a “criminal abuse of power” that went up to the Obama-Biden White House.
The report also detailed how former CIA director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama and his top national security officials on the matter. Brennan briefed the Obama administration on the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” 
Breitbart

CNN's Jake Tapper: Durham Report ‘Devastating to the FBI’ — ‘To a Degree Does Exonerate Donald Trump

"Monday, moments after the long-anticipated Durham report about
the Department of Justice and
FBI probe into allegations the Trump 2016 presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the presidency, CNN’s The Lead” host Jake Tapper weighed in on the results.
Tapper acknowledged to his viewers the report, which criticized the FBI for the intelligence used to justify its investigation, was “devastating” to the agency and exonerated former President Donald Trump.
[T]he years-long investigation is over,” he said. 
It has dropped, and it might not have produced everything of what some Republicans hoped for — it is, regardless, devastating to the FBI, and to a degree it does exonerate Donald Trump.”
Breitbart

8 Takeaways from Durham Report

trickled out yesterday afternoon, hitting journalist inboxes just after 3:00 p.m. 
A quick read revealed the following key takeaways:
 
  1. There was no valid predicate for the investigation, and the FBI knew it.
From the report:
It is the Office's assessment that the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia. Similarly, the FBI Inspection Division Report says that the investigators “repeatedly ignore[d] or explain[ed] away evidence contrary to the theory the Trump campaign... had conspired with Russia... It appeared... there was a pattern of assuming nefarious intent.” An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the FBI to question not only the predication for Crossfire Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the FBI was being manipulated for political or other purposes. Unfortunately, it did not.
The entirety of the evidence the FBI used to launch its investigation of the Trump campaign is contained in what came to be known as “Paragraph Five,” because it ended up in that spot in a FISA warrant application on Trump volunteer Carter Page
 
  1. “There’s nothing to this, but we have to run it to ground.”
As soon as the FBI received Paragraph Five, Counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok and a supervisory agent rushed to London, where they met with an FBI legal attaché (UKALAT) and interviewed diplomats at the Australian High Commission. In a taxi on the way to the interviews, Strzok reportedly said, “There’s nothing to this, but we have to run it to ground,” as the attaché later told the FBI’s inspection division.
One of the Australian diplomats told the FBI team that “the Paragraph Five information was written in an intentionally vague way because of what Papadopoulos did and did not say,” and, because of their uncertainty about what to make of it. The report says Downer told the FBI that Papadopoulos simply stated, ‘The Russians have information…’ He made no mention of Clinton emails, dirt or any specific approach by the Russian government to the Trump campaign team with an offer or suggestion of providing assistance.”
 
  1. “It’s thin”; “There’s nothing to this.”
A message exchange on August 11, 2016 between the attaché and the supervisory agent shows the Americans were as skeptical as the British.
UKALAT-1: Dude, are we telling them [British Intelligence Service-I] everything we know, or is there more to this?
Supervisory Special Agent-1: That’s all we have.
Supervisory Special Agent-I: not holding anything back
UKALAT-1: Damn that’s thin
Supervisory Special Agent-I: I know
Supervisory Special Agent-I: it sucks
  1. The Trump campaign investigation was premised on “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence,” and U.S. intel agencies possessed no “actual evidence of collusion” when the probe began
According to Durham, the senior FBI officials who ordered the probe did not look at the Bureau’s intelligence databases, or consult its experienced Russia analysts, who could have told them they had seen no information about Donald Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials.
 
  1. Sensational stories published in the New York Times in February and March 2017 claiming Trump associates were in contact with Russian intelligence agents were false.
Declassified FBI documents from the period surrounding publication of two influential New York Times articles include Strzok’s annotated refutations of the Times stories, which cited as sources “four unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials.” Strzok wrote that there was no information “indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russian intelligence officials.”
Durham’s report disputed the
Times accounts that saying US law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted communications of Trump associates and campaign officials showing repeated contacts with “senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election”; that the intercepted communications had been captured by the NSA; and that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had been heard on intercepted calls. The Times has repeatedly said it stands by those stories, including as recently as February of this year when former Times reporter Jeff Gerth wrote about Strzok’s rebuttal of that reporting in the Columbia Journalism Review.
  1. FBI Director James Comey pushed heavily for an investigation of Carter Page, starting in April 2016 when Page was a government witness in an espionage investigation of Russian diplomats in New York.
Getting a bead on Page was “a top priority for the director,” one
intelligence agent said. The attorney who prepared the first of four FISA applications on
Page recalled being constantly pressured to move forward by FBI management.” The report cites Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report in stating that McCabe and Comey were agitating for lawyers to complete the Page FISA. McCabe told interviewers that, “Comey repeatedly asked him ‘Where is the FISA, where is the FISA? What’s the status… with the Page FISA?”
The FISA was found by the IG to be deeply flawed, riddled with false information and errors. Comey declined to be interviewed by the Durham team.
  1. At the direction of the FBI, confidential human source Stefan Halper recorded lengthy conversations with Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, in which each denied the campaign had any involvement with Russian officials.
These tapes were in the possession of Crossfire Hurricane investigators, who discounted their denials and ignored exculpatory information they provided in seeking FISA warrants. From the report:
The FBI chose to adopt an interpretation of Papadopoulos's denials of any knowledge of the Trump campaign's involvement with the Russians in connection with the DNC computer intrusion and subsequent publication of certain DNC emails as being “weird,” “rote,” “canned,” and “rehearsed.”
The Bureau ignored assertions by Papadopoulos that assistance from the Russians would be “illegal,” and that “espionage is treason.” Agents were so determined to elicit incriminating comments from Papadopoulos that they pressed one of his friends into making 23 separate recordings of him, challenging him with “approximately 200 prompts or baited statements which elicited approximately 174 clearly exculpatory statements.” None of this information ever reached either the FISA court or the news media.
 
  1. Durham was highly critical of the FBI’s “startling and inexplicable failure” to investigate the so-called “Clinton Intelligence Plan.”
In late July, 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies “obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis” alleging Hillary Clinton approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against Trump, by “tying him to Putin and the Russians' hacking of the Democratic National Committee.”
Then-CIA Director John Brennan thought the information was important enough to brief the President, Vice President, Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI director  and other senior officials. On September 7, 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to Comey and Peter Strzok, but the two have said they don’t recall hearing about it. Numerous others at FBI were informed about it, the report said.
The report concludes the FBI:
Failed to act on what should have been—when combined with other incontrovertible facts—a clear warning sign that the FBI might then be the target of an effort to manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes during the 2016 presidential election.
The report notes in detail how false information intended to damage
Trump – the
Steele Dossier and the Alfa Bank claims – was provided to the FBI by people tied to the Clinton campaign. Had the FBI investigated what Durham termed the “Clinton intelligence plan” as it pursued its “Crossfire Hurricane” probe, it “would have increased the likelihood of alternative analytical hypotheses and reduced the risk of reputational damage both to the targets of the investigation as well as, ultimately, to the FBI.
Durham added that if the FBI looked into the “Intelligence Plan,” it might at least have cast a critical eye on the phony evidence it was gathering in Crossfire Hurricane, and/or questioned whether it was part of a political effort to smear a political opponent and to use the resources of the federal government's law enforcement and intelligence agencies in support of a political objective.”
ZeroHedge