Must Read: Bruce Swartz, Textbook Swamp Dweller

That's the title of an article by Jack Cashill at AmThinker today: Bruce Swartz, Textbook Swamp Dweller. I expect this sort of thing to continue for quite some time. The Horowitz Dossier is a treasure trove of names, facts, and dates. Researchers will be mining it for connections, which is what Cashill has done with Bruce Swartz. What Cashill's research shows is that Swartz has been part of the Clinton Organized Crime Family going back two decades. The continuity is stunning in its revelation of the scope of the Deep State/Swamp.

Swartz has been on our radar here for nearly a year. We first wrote about him in The FBI: Working Hand In Glove With Clinton Operatives and, very recently in connection with the Horowitz Dossier, again just yesterday in an update to AG Barr Speaks. Here's what I wrote in January:

When Ohr met Steele again in either late September or early October, 2016 he did so in company with quite a group: Peter Strzok and Lisa Page from the FBI, and three DOJ career officials from the criminal division, Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad, and Andrew Weissman--currently Robert Mueller's deputy. ... this also probably means that they were planning for the FISA application, given that the application was submitted on October 21, 2016, immediately after Steele's October 20 report--the report in which Michael Cohen's famous trip to Prague for a "clandestine" meet superseded the clandestine Moscow meet of Carter Page, who was no longer with the Trump campaign. Which leads to the supposition that this meeting with Steele was to tell him, inter alia, that more detailed information was needed for the FISA application--which Steele duly provided, in the form of the now famous Cohen-Prague miscue.

All in all, it's an interesting picture: three officials from DoJ's Criminal Division meeting with the second in command of the FBI's CI division (accompanied by the Deputy Director's counsel) to plan for a FISA on--in effect--a candidate for the presidency. Coaching the asset on what was now needed for the FISA to go through, which would be typical Weissman tactics.And all this without informing the Acting AG, Sally Yates. Or so they say.

And yesterday:

UPDATE 2: At the top I briefly referenced the significant fact that the same group of people who were involved in the Crossfire Hurricane pretense investigation were also involved in the Mueller witchhunt. To understand what I'm getting at, recall that Barr specifically mentions that his direction to Durham to concentrate just as much on the post-election period as on the origins stems from things that Horowitz uncovered. One of the things that Horowitz uncovered--actually, we've known this for a long time and I've placed great stress on it--is that Bruce Ohr was keeping several DoJ attorneys apprised of the FBI case. All three attorneys who were named by Ohr in his House testimony went on to play key roles on Team Mueller--Andrew Weissmann, Zainab Ahmad, and Bruce Swartz. These attorneys had actually met with Steele before the FISA. So when I say that the same people are involved, it's not just Strzok and Page. And, importantly, Horowitz points out that those attorneys had no reason to be involved during that time period, and that it was improper for Ohr to be briefing them. This is why Durham will necessarily be examining the Team Mueller operation. [My mistake: I say above that Swartz was on Team Mueller. As Cashill points out, Swartz did not play an official role on Team Mueller, implying--I believe correctly--that he had an unofficial role.]

Cashill also points out the significance of what the Horowitz Dossier has to say about Bruce Swartz:

The Inspector General’s Report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) features a heretofore unheralded costar by the name of Bruce Swartz, the assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division. Swartz was also the supervisor of the feckless Bruce Ohr, husband of Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr and frequent breakfast buddy of Christopher Steele of Steele dossier fame.

Cashill goes on to document what Horowitz has to say about the way in which Swartz inserted himself into the Manafort investigation:

As Swartz himself acknowledged, he had a Javert-like zeal to bring Manafort to justice. “Ohr and Swartz both told us that they felt an urgency to move the Manafort investigation forward,” reported Horowitz,  “because of Trump's election and a concern that the new administration would shut the investigation down.” This urgency translated into frequent semi-covert meetings with the FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Strzok told the IG that Swartz wanted him to "kick that [investigation] in the ass and get it moving." 

Swartz continued to “weigh in” on the Manafort investigation even though it was clearly outside his jurisdiction. ... 

Swartz hoped to get the cooperation of an unnamed “foreign national” to help squeeze Manafort.  According to Ohr, he and Swartz had “information that Manafort [was]... somehow... a possible connection between the Russian government and the Trump campaign."

One suspects that the foreign national in question was Oleg Deripaska, whom disgraced former FBI Deputy Director McCabe and Bruce Ohr were focusing on in the fall of 2016.

Swartz admittedly did not advise DoJ leadership of his maneuverings. He claimed the meetings were on the hush-hush to keep the Manafort investigation from being "politicized." More likely, Swartz hoped to pressure Manafort into rolling over on Trump and did not want Trump’s people to know about his intentions.

The "unusual level of interest" in the Manafort case by Swartz, Ohr, and Weissman caught the attention of some of their colleagues. Reported the IG, “The former senior Department leaders we interviewed expressed serious concern about Swartz's assertion that not informing Department leadership about case-related investigative activities somehow protected the Department.”

Admittedly Swartz didn't write Horowitz a letter stating that his extraordinary interest in a case outside his jurisdiction was politically motivated. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to at least surmise that Swartz's out of bounds interest in a person connected to Trump derived from an improper political motivation. But then Horowitz doesn't mention what Cashill does--Swartz' many years long connection the Clinton organization, along with Andrew Weissmann. And that shines an interesting light on Swartz's probable motiviations. Instead:

It seems likely that Swartz lied repeatedly to The IG’s office about the reasons for his unseemly meddling, and Horowitz more or less scolded him for it.

So what were Swartz's Clinton connections? You'll need to follow the link above to get the full story, which Cashill presents excellently. However, here's how he begins it, for those who have forgotten about the Sandy Berger affair:

Horowitz could have made a much stronger bias charge against Swartz had he been able to review Swartz’s handling of the Sandy Berger affair. 

Wait a minute--who says Horowitz couldn't review that? Maybe he just didn't want to.

Here’s the background. In 2002, according to a subsequent House report, former president Bill Clinton “designated Berger as his representative to review NSC documents” in relation to the 9/11 inquiry. 

In that capacity Berger made four trips to the National Archives. He did so presumably to refresh his memory before testifying first to the Graham-Goss Commission and then to the 9/11 Commission. Berger made his first visit in May 2002, his last in October 2003. 

During those four visits Berger stole and destroyed an incalculable number of documents. “The full extent of Berger’s document removal,” reported the House Committee, “is not known and never can be known.”

Yes, that's right. Berger was stealing and destroying Clinton related documents to prevent the 9/11 Commission from seeing them. Think about that.

Now think about this:

Swartz and his boys recommended a $10,000 fine for Berger and three-year loss of security clearance for a crime that would have put a Republican in prison for decades. Happily for the Deep State, Berger regained his clearance just in time to serve as a Hillary Clinton adviser in the 2008 campaign.

Call it The Deep State, call it The Swamp. It is desperate to destroy Trump.

Here's the good news. AG Bill Barr doesn't need to play catchup on any of this. He knows it all, and has for years. He came back because he saw a chance to do something about it.

ADDENDUM: Speaking of "improper motivation" or "political bias,"--which Horowitz can discern nowhere--it's worth remembering that Horowitz himself, as well as his wife (a former CNN producer), is a committed Liberal. That may help explain his blinders.