UPDATED: Clinesmith Agrees To Plea Deal

But we don't know the details. Yet.

Sean Davis
@seanmdav 

Boasberg points to a 10-page plea agreement between Clinesmith and DOJ, signed by Clinesmith, and asks if that is the plea agreement Clinesmith intends to be binding. Clinesmith says that is correct. 

That 10-page plea agreement has not yet been made available to the public. 

12:21 PM · Aug 19, 2020·

For reference, the information is 5 pages long. Unfortunately I can't tell you whether that's meaningful or not. No doubt we'll be hearing more.

UPDATE 1: Commenter Tom Bop updates:

Guilty plea has been entered and accepted by the Court. Sentencing set for Dec. 10, at 11 a.m. Very thorough questioning by Court, and thorough waivers by Clinesmith. Very minimal release conditions.

I pretty much expected this from Boasberg. While he's unquestionably liberal in his politics and policy preferences, his past record seems to show that he's not inclined to introduce partisan preferences into his decisions on the bench. He has also shown seriousness as Chief Judge of the FISC. That's not an endorsement of anything he does in the future--simply my judgment on what we know about him at this point. The fact that Clinesmith's crime hit struck directly at the integrity of the entire FISA regime will be very much on Boasberg's mind unless I'm much mistaken.

The thoroughness of the proceedings indicates to me, for those of us who had some doubts, that Durham was having none of what Clinesmith and Shur had on offer.

UPDATE 2: Shipwreckedcrew takes on a number of matters re what has transpired with this plea. Three of these tweets were before the plea went down, the final one after:

For all who thought Andrew Weissmann was telling you the truth about Clinesmith needing to "admit" or the gov't to assert that Carter Page was a CIA "source", you now know he was lying to you.  That was never required under a "false writings" charge. 

The email that Clinesmith altered before forwarding to the SSA is the "false writing" and its falsity is established by virtue of the alteration, not the substance of the alteration.  It was not what it was reputed to be -- a written response from the CIA. 

It was material because the SSA told Clinesmith he wanted the CIA's answer in writing.  The "fact" of the writing is the materiality -- not its substance.  

Weissmann knows this -- he lied on purpose. 

He did so to gaslight followers and to drive the opinion that Durham is doing something improper. 

An Obama appointed Judge just went right through the plea and didn't even pause over the fact that Clinesmith said he "thought" the substance of the email as altered was accurate. 

12:53 PM · Aug 19, 2020·

What that last comment by SWC means, re Boasberg not even pausing, is that Boasberg dismissed Clinesmith's statement as so irrelevant as not even worth commenting on.

I would add that if Clinesmith is ever called to testify in a trial on any of this, I doubt that that statement about what he "thought" would be admissible. I'll stand corrected if anyone knows better, but I doubt it. It's simply not relevant. What will be relevant is what he pled to.

UPDATE 3: Leslie McAdoo Gordon provides the details of most interest to most readers ("JB" refers to Judge Boasberg):

JB going over the Statement of Facts now.  KC agrees he signed it and it is accurate.  JB specifically asking about him adding the "and not a source" language to the email and whether that is a false statement.  LOOOOOOOONG silence. 

Clinesmith saying at the time he thought the information was accurate, but he agrees that he altered the email. 

JB just confirms that back to him.  Doesn't challenge it. Asks if he's had enough time to talk to his lawyers and whether he's happy with them.

Again, the reason this is a false statement is that the FBI SSA told Clinesmith he wanted written confirmation of the CIA response--meaning, not Clinesmith's verbal opinion but the CIA's written opinion. Instead, Clinesmith falsified the email and sent it to the SSA, purporting to be sending an authentic CIA document--which it no longer was.

As I mentioned in a comment, I believe what was behind this was this: Clinesmith originally intended to not even mention the CIA thing in the 4th renewal, just as had gone down in the three previous applications. However, my understanding is that this SSA was a new case agent and neither Clinesmith nor the others knew whether they could trust him. So they altered the email. I also strongly suspect that someone in authority--Weissmann?--told Clinesmith, Hey, don't worry, Page wasn't an "actual" source the way we mean it so it doesn't really matter if you falsify the email to say what we all know the CIA should've said. I don't, myself, believe Clinesmith's claim. But it doesn't matter for the plea.

UPDATE 4: One more update should just about do it. SWC again, but I'll just quote his conclusion, since most of the article is another rehearsal of what we already know. The conclusion, however, is important for the future--although I have to believe that this has already been gone over by Durham and is the reason Durham agreed to this plea deal:

It remains to be seen whether Clinesmith has anything meaningful to provide to Durham.  I suspect he does.  It might not be evidence of “criminality” of the actions by either investigators or prosecutors on the Mueller SCO team. 

But Clinesmith worked with the Mueller SCO team up until February 2018 — a period of 8 months after Mueller was appointed.  He certainly can provide Durham with an “insider’s” account of the conversations and attitudes that existed.  There is no privilege that applies. 

THAT, in my opinion, is what Weissmann is trying so desperately to prevent from happening.