Based on what we are told by the I.G., there are only two possible conclusions that can be reached regarding the official conduct of those responsible for infringing on Carter Pages Constitutional freedoms:
The first is that the hand selected team of investigators, attorneys, and Senior Executive Service officials with decades of law enforcement, administrative, and judicial experience were abject failures at a task that they were hired to perform. Speaking from personal experience, in FBI, DEA, and state and local wire tap investigations, the slightest omissions, misstatements, and clerical errors are routinely identified and corrected by the street agents and line prosecutors who do these investigations for a living. To believe that a "varsity level" team, with unlimited time, support, and resources, somehow inadvertently overlooked seventeen major omissions, misstatements, and/or outright falsehoods, is simply not believable.
The second possibility is that nearly everyone who significantly participated in obtaining FISA coverage on Page knowingly and deliberately operated outside the law to one degree or another. The reasons behind the decision to do so are irrelevant. The particulars regarding the seventeen I.G. findings are startling, taken individually. It's difficult to see how any of the individual omissions or misstatements could have happened accidentally. Viewed collectively, the apparent intentionality is nearly impossible to reconcile as anything but corruption.
Speaking for myself--and you'll see where I'm coming from if you read the article--I came to the second alternative almost immediately after beginning to learn just a small bit about the Carter Page situation. Nothing added up. The result was that, outrageous as it might seem, I had to conclude that intentional corruption was really the only possible explanation for what occurred.
As much as I appreciate the commentary in this AmThinker article as well as your blog, I have to say that I really want to hear from the current FBI staff...
ReplyDeleteA couple years ago I was heading that they're really angry and itching to testify, but then... nothing.
Did they decide that their pensions were more important?
Seven DoJ lawyers signed a statement saying they would prosecute Trump. Why didn't anyone sign a statement saying they would prosecute Clinton? Or, conversely, to defend Trump?
It seems like everyone is looking around, waiting for someone with courage to step forward. Maybe we need more than just Barr and Durham. If theirs are the only voices, then the left will find it easy to dismiss them as conspiracy theorists.
If we wait too long, we may find that we have lost before battle was ever engaged.
I understand people who are still employed being afraid of losing their pensions, but I'm very disappointed at how few retired people are speaking out.
DeleteI thought whistle-blowers were protected somehow??
DeleteIsn't that what all the Dem congresspersons are so insistent about? And all the media?
If a whistle-blower came forward now and "they" tried to shut them up, wouldn't the uproar be immense?
Depends on what you mean--protection from what? Protection from being fired, if they fall within the statutory definition? Yes. Protection from having their identity revealed? No.
DeleteThe IC has a bad reputation concerning whistleblowers, ask Bill Binney.
DeleteRob S
If President Trump wins reelection, there will be no reason to play nice with these folks? A Trump unleashed is a interesting situation to ponder.
ReplyDeletedo you really want 4 more years of this nonsense? I like the Trump policy positions but good gosh, there seems to be no intelligent thought being applied to government or social policy these days. Federal spending is sky high, no republicans are talking about national health care policy, Boeing cannot fix its problems, the list can go on and on ... With all that, there is no national republican willing or able to run as an alternative to Trump.
DeleteSteve, what a totally genius concept! Got a problem? Let the government solve it! What could possibly go wrong with that? Why hasn't it ever been tried before?
DeleteI saw this article at AT today and thought of you. I was going to refer you to it. As usual, you are on the ball.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, I did think "He and Mr. Wauck are on the same page."
ReplyDeleteFrom Adam Mill at American Greatness:
ReplyDeleteThere’s a lot of talk about FISA applications,” then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said during a May 1, 2018 “Law Day” event at the Newseum, a Washington D.C. museum of the news. “And many people I see talking about it seem not to recognize what a FISA application is,” he continued with his answer to a softball question lobbed by a CNN reporter.
“Just like a search warrant, in order to get a FISA search warrant, you need an affidavit signed by a career federal law enforcement officer who swears [Rosenstein raised his right hand for effect] that the information in the affidavit is true and correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. And if it’s wrong . . . that person is going to face consequences . . . you can face discipline or even prosecution.”
Oh, what a relief that assurance must have been to Americans worried that the Justice Department and its subordinate FBI had slipped free of any effective check on their power! The FISA applications require oaths! FBI agents and lawyers who lie to spy on Americans will be held accountable—even prosecuted! Don’t you feel better now?
So is Rod Rosenstein willing to be held accountable for false statements made under his signature on a FISA warrant application? Turns out, there’s a signature at the bottom of one of the FISA applications for Carter Page (see p. 101 of the June 2017 application) that is troubling. None other than Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein certified that the application “satisfies the criteria and requirement of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978…”
https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/27/revisiting-rosensteins-cover-up-of-crossfire-hurricane/
Just like the author at AmThinker, I really was initially shocked at what--to me--seemed obvious had happened. Now we see that it's just one small part of the bigger puzzle.
DeleteBut an important part.
Deleteand yet 2 years of a republican congress and republican president were not able to reveal this wrongdoing to the American voters before the 2018 elections? How could that have happened? No questions to Comey on what incriminating evidence was gathered from the FISA wiretaps. How could republicans have not found out that Page was reporting to the CIA? Why did republicans in congress never get Comey on record to say the FISA warrants were warranted. Never asked if Comey and Obama ever talked about the spying.
ReplyDeleteThe reason, I think, is because no one was certain that Trump had not dealt with the Russians in some way. Or that there was evidence that Trump had dealings with Russian gangsters.
Ever hear of Jeff Sessions? Also, Trump has himself to blame for some very bad personnel choices--beyond just Sessions. In the past I've pointed out that Trump had to pick people who could get through the GOP controlled Senate. Nevertheless, he was apparently warned against Sessions. I think you have to posit a real learning curve for Trump in personnel/policy areas affecting law and intel.
DeleteIn President Trump’s defense, he was a total outsider when he arrived in the White House. That amounted to good news, but also bad news. He didn’t know all the players. He was given suggestions/recommendations. Two that turned out to be really bad came from Condoleeza Rice. McMaster (who ultimately brought in Eric Ciaramella and made him his staff assistant, a very insider job) and General Mattis. She may also have recommended John Kelly, who brought his favored #2 Kirstjen Nielsen along from DHS. Reince Priebus, PDJT’s first chief of staff was undoubtedly involved in some of his bad appointments. Yes, the President needed a learning curve, something that is not really available to a president who has to hit the ground running when the Swamp is Deep ...
DeleteI suspect he shared the common view that high ranking military guys are competent, professional, and non-political, and therefore make good choices for key WH positions. He's been thoroughly disabused of that notion by now, I think. It's like the idea that all FBI officials are "straight arrows". Now we know how bent a disturbing proportion of them are.
DeleteHe, like a lot of Americans, wanted to believe that there is some sense of honor and decency to be found in even the most jaded public servant. He didn't realize that the very antiquated concept of 'public servant' in the District of the Capitol was smothered by 'lust for power' decades ago. Even now most Americans hope that there is some good to be salvaged from this pit of inequity. Unfortunately hope is not a strategy.
DeleteTom S.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/12/27/washingtons-unmasked-imperialism-towards-europe-and-russia/
ReplyDeleteI don't know who 'Strategic Culture' is, but the article reminds me that we are still some ways away from getting to the true bottom of the Russia Hoax. There are undoubtedly interests in play here that the American Public still doesn't understand.
Its popular and easy to say that the Deep State simply hates Trump. And they hate Russia.
But why exactly?
I saw that and I wondered ...
DeleteOne of the motivating reasons behind Nord Stream, of course, was the Russian desire to screw Poland and the German willingness to participate in that.
A possible reason for US desire to punish Germany, beyond the German participation in screwing Poland, is to force them to pay us for our defense commitments by buying our gas.
I'm only speculating.
OTOH, as for interests behind much of our Russia policy:
An American Oligarch's Dirty Tale Of Corruption
Now the fickle finger of fate points to Secretary Pompeo. Guilt by approval. The conspiracists seem to be running amok starting with the SSCI’s power to approve or not the presidential appointees. Your thoughts, Mark?
ReplyDeleteThe office of the presidency cannot overcome that institutional power dynamic; the only thing President Trump can do it attempt to work around them.
♦ Ipso Facto: If you accept the intellectual honesty behind the process issues above; and if you accept how the SSCI will only permit nominees that are not a risk to their interests; then it becomes of greater importance to consider who they *did* permit:
√ CIA Director Gina Haspel was not a threat to the corrupt state.
√ CIA Director Mike Pompeo was not a threat to the corrupt state.
√ICIG Michael Atkinson was not a threat to the corrupt state.
√ ODNI Dan Coats was not a threat to the corrupt state.
√ NSA Director Paul M Nakasone is not a threat to the corrupt state.
Following the use of the CIA (Ciaramella), DoD (Vindman) and Dept. of State to run the impeachment scam, my evolving contention is now that State Dept. Secretary Mike Pompeo was increasingly handling President Trump.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/12/27/atkinsons-ssci-confirmation-transcript-shows-senator-warner-focus-on-whistle-blower-controls/comment-page-1/#comment-7701923
I'm inclined to buy into this. I've expressed my distrust of Pompeo previously. It may be significant, as Natasha Bertrand pointed out, that Barr/Durham's assault on the Deep State is not going through channels--or at least is not going through non-DoJ channels--as was always done in the past. That would be part of the very good news--that Barr sees the problems in the IC and knows that much of it has to do with personnel.
DeleteNatasha Bertrand (Politico) is one of Ben Wittes’s (Lawfare) favorite journalists. She is definitely not pro-Trump.
ReplyDeleteRight, so coming from her we know how worried the Deep State is.
DeleteThink the root of this conspiracy — trying to rig the election for crooked Clinton and then trying to get POTUS removed — is mere hatred of Trump? More like fear. Fear the Trump administration will uncover serious criminal conduct.
ReplyDelete"If that f***er wins, we'll all hang!"
Based on what Trump knew at the time, he made the best appointments he could with a hostile congress that needed the votes of McCain and ilk, the Democrats being the “Resistance”.
ReplyDeleteAnd with the conspiracy against Trump, I’m still in awe he survived.
While that's largely true, the glaring exception was Sessions. And Trump knows it and has even said he was warned against that move, that he gave the position to Sessions out of a sense of loyalty based on Sessions' support during the campaign. Yet it was in many ways the most important appointment and the one that hurt him the most.
Delete