Techno Fog
@Techno_Fog
The Kevin Clinesmith plea agreement is now set for August 19.
It will be before Judge James Boasberg - who happens to be the presiding judge over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

9:28 AM · Aug 17, 2020
I assume the liberal Boasberg will nevertheless take a dim view of people who submit forgeries to the FISC. Here are two rulings he has issued this year at the FISC. They're not fire breathing demands for reform, but ...
NYT:
WASHINGTON — A secretive federal court on Wednesday effectively barred F.B.I. officials involved in the wiretapping of a former Trump campaign adviser from appearing before it in other cases at least temporarily, the latest fallout from an internal inquiry into the bureau’s surveillance of the aide.
A 19-page opinion and order by James E. Boasberg, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also largely accepted changes the F.B.I. has said it will make to its process for seeking national-security wiretaps following a damning inspector general report about errors and omissions in applications to monitor the adviser, Carter Page.
But Judge Boasberg ordered law enforcement officials to specifically swear in future cases that the applications to the court contain “all information that might reasonably call into question the accuracy of the information or the reasonableness of any F.B.I. assessment in the application, or otherwise raise doubts about the requested findings.”
That would include past connections to intelligence agencies, in the case of Page.
While Judge Boasberg also ordered the F.B.I. to report back about its progress on the changes, the move essentially brought to a close the court’s intervention after the report. His predecessor as chief judge in December had ordered the F.B.I. to explain what it would do to regain the confidence of the judges who review wiretap requests.
NYT:
WASHINGTON — A secretive court that oversees national security surveillance ordered the F.B.I. on Friday to conduct a searching review of 29 wiretap applications in terrorism and espionage investigations, after an inspector general uncovered pervasive problems with how the bureau prepared them.
In a rare public order to the F.B.I., James E. Boasberg, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, ordered the bureau to immediately tell the court the names of the 29 wiretapping targets, and to scour the applications and underlying case files for any inaccuracies or material omissions.
The F.B.I. is to submit by June 15 a sworn declaration about the results of that analysis, Judge Boasberg wrote. If the F.B.I. finds misstatements or omissions, it must also assess whether they undermined the legal basis for placing those targets under surveillance.
The result of that "searching review" was that the FBI reported back that the only mistakes they made were in the Carter Page FISA applications. Go figure, right?
Check out Matt Taibbi’s sub stack article on the Democratic convention drinking game.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Durham scheduled a hearing on the plea agreement implies the stuff Clinesmith's attorneys' were blabbing over the weekend that Clinesmith didn't "intend" to mislead anyone was all garbage.
ReplyDeleteIf the plea deal said that, the judge would not accept the guilty plea, and if the judge would not accept it, Durham would not have scheduled a hearing on it.
That's how I read it.
DeleteWe shall see. I'm not happy Boasberg is the guy, as I still don't see him as a straight shooter. His pipeline ruling was a joke, pure lawfare crazy green new deal anti-energy baloney.
DeleteHis order to the FBI to stop the lying and incompetence was a hoot, inasmuch as nothing happened. Maybe that was the point. Flap some wings and move on.
I hope I'm wrong. But if there is a way for the deep state to wriggle out of this, my sense is Boasberg is the man to get it done.
"Judge Boasberg ordered law enforcement officials to specifically swear in future cases"
ReplyDeleteThey were already swearing. Under penalty of ... no penalty. Now they have to pinky promise, too. Yeah, that'll fix it.
I presume the plea agreement hearing will involve Clinesmith: (1) agreeing to charge reflected in the Information, thus negating the statement his lawyer issued to NYT; (2) waiving his right to an indictment; and (3) pleading guilty as charged.
ReplyDeleteOn March 4, 2020, Judge Boasberg wrote a 19-page Opinion & Order in the FISC. The FISC had previously tasked FBI & DOJ to self-examine its procedures and report on suggested improvements. The FISC's prior order was in response to the OIG's prior report on Spygate. In his March 4 Order, Judge Boasberg wrote in his opening paragraph: "There is little doubt that the government breached its duty of candor to the court with respect to those [the Carter Page] applications."
The judge spent over 3 pages discussing the significant problems with the Page applications, including this involving our TDS-suffering lawyer: "Further, when pressed by the FBI declarant about the possibility of a prior relationship between Page and the other agency during the preparation of the final application in June 2017, the FBI OGC attorney [Clinesmith] added text to an email from the other agency stating that Page was "not a source." Id. [OIG Report] at xi, 254-55. The FBI declarant relied on that altered document in signing the final renewal application, which did not correct the omissions. Id. at xi, 248, 255."
See: https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Misc%2019%2002%20Opinion%20and%20Order%20PJ%20JEB%20200304.pdf
Thus, I don't think the judge will let Clinesmith skate.
I don't either. It's about taking the judiciary seriously as a constitutional institution (all controversies about the nature of the FISC aside).
DeleteExactly.
DeleteI should add that the court set the hearing "after discussions with the parties." Those discussions likely included the judge asking: (1) the parties whether they want him to recuse himself given that he wrote the March 20 FISC order; and (2) whether Klinesmith is backing out of the plea deal. There were undoubtedly other discussions between Durham's office & Justin Shur (Klinesmith's lawyer) regarding Shur's statement, with Durham's office reminding counsel that other charges can and will be filed against Klinesmith if he backed out.
I'm pretty sure you're right on both counts. I seem to recall seeing something earlier about the recusal issue and that no one asked for it. The fact that Boasberg offered it is probably a good sign that he's trying to be fair. Given that attitude--and his duty in the circs--he would undoubtedly have probed the meaning of KC's lawyer's statement. And I'm quite sure that Durham would have laid it on the line--sh*t or get off the pot, no games.
DeleteHow long before Weissmann and others flood Boasberg with Amicii?
DeleteI looked up the rules for the FISA court last week, and was shocked that they didn't have any counterpart to Rule 11 in the Fed Rules of Civ Procedure. This Rule requires every pleading to be signed by a lawyer, and that signature constitutes a representation to the Court that, after reasonable investigation, in brief summary, the pleading is not filed for any improper purpose, the claims are legally supported, and the contentions are supported by evidence. If a lawyer violates this rule, there are sanctions available for the court. This rule is not always paid attention to as much as it should be, but there are a lot of cases for sanctions out there. Why wasn't this sort of rule carried over to the FISA court? Was it just a license to do or say anything?
ReplyDeleteThis is a excellent article linked on SWC twitter https://uncoverdc.com/2020/08/17/crossfire-hurricane-was-never-a-counterintelligence-investigation/
ReplyDeleteI'm unimpressed. Read this Wiki article and note carefully that none of these people had access to classified information and were largely tasked with reporting on political matters.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program#FBI_arrests_and_criminal_charges
They were all charged under FARA and their cases were worked as CI cases--one of them by Peter Strzok.
What the article shows is that you can rise to a high level in the FBI yet not know anything about what you're supposed to be doing.
Another defect in the article: it refers to DNC emails being exfiltrated in April, but the DNC emails that were published by wikileaks were exfiltrated between May 23-25. Thus any discussion of DNC emails prior to May 23 cannot be referring to the ones published by wikileaks.
Delete(That does not preclude the possibility that OTHER DNC emails were exfiltrated earlier than May, but they aren't the ones that wikileaks published.)
Thanks for commenting on the article... How come SWC says this guy knows what he is talking about?
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that SWC was as good a prosecutor as he says he was--he always seems to make sense when he writes about criminal law. However, he was as far as I know a career AUSA. That means he worked cases in local USA offices. Since it's true that very few CI cases ever reach a prosecutive stage, that means that virtually no AUSAs ever come within shouting distance of a CI case during their entire careers--an exception being tech transfer type cases. As you've seen from the Russia Hoax, Main Justice in DC has a very significant National Security component.
DeleteI doubt that SWC ever touched a CI case. So he relies on a guy he probably met through Twitter and who has his heart in the right place and a nice sounding title. Of former Bureau guys commenting on these matters, I'd say Kevin Brock has a good handle on these matters.
One thing about SWC that irks me. He regularly agrees with knuckleheads who claim that CI squads are staffed with agents who had Giglio problems and are totally inept when it comes to criminal cases. That's simply not true, on either count. Or didn't used to be true. With the explosion of CT work after 9/11 it's possible that there are agents who have never taken a case to trial or a plea, but in the past the Bureau always had agents start out working strictly criminal matters for some years before they were considered for CI. In my career, while 2/3 or more was CI, I went back and forth several times and took cases to prosecution and I was far from unique.
Meanwhile the NYT continues to publish lying headlines and ledes that fizzle out when one keeps reading:
ReplyDeleteG.O.P.-Led Senate Panel Details Ties Between 2016 Trump Campaign and Russian Interference -
A nearly 1,000-page report confirmed the special counsel’s findings at a moment when President Trump’s allies have sought to undermine that inquiry.
But keep reading and you get to this:
Like the investigation led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who released his findings in April 2019, the Senate report did not conclude that the Trump campaign engaged in a coordinated conspiracy with the Russian government — a fact that Republicans seized on to argue that there was “no collusion.”
But the report showed extensive evidence of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and people tied to the Kremlin — including a longstanding associate of the onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, whom the report identifies as a “Russian intelligence officer.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/senate-intelligence-russian-interference-report.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20200818&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=108256783&segment_id=36403&user_id=68ed15cee0a36f3326a30763880aebdb
Oh, yes. At the bottom of the article, in italics, this note:
New York Times reporters are combing through the report for the most important developments. Check back for updates.
Off-topic, but what is Sundance going on about with this naming of the "real investigator" behind the Durham probe? Has he been reading too many Mad Magazines?
ReplyDeleteApparently his groupies think this is somehow significant. He's now trying to claim that HE'S THE ONE. Anything the investigators come up with will be because they were reading him. Right.
DeleteFor all its worth, he claims to be giving them leads, to dots he claims they've not connected, e.g about a letter from FISC to AG Barr, and into Senate Judiciary Committee, dated July 12, 2018.
DeleteHe claims to have personally interacted, with special investigator William Aldenberg.
For what it's worth, we have only his word that they have not connected these dots. Because they have not chosen to share the internal details of their investigation with him.
DeleteI understand that he sometimes has good information, but it's all quite cultish.
Of course, they'd be nuts to share *anything* on their investigation with him.
DeleteSo, whether they have connected these dots is none of his damn business.
We all eagerly await his next Ham Radio plot scoop.
DeleteRumor had it last week DOJ was negotiating with Sundance to hold off on releasing any names. I dunno.
ReplyDelete"Rumor"--as in sundance and his groupies? Barr negotiate with sundance? I don't think so.
DeleteWhat's to negotiate? That Sundance shouldn't pull his rhetorical pud in public? (insert eyeroll here) Give me a break!
DeleteLOL!
DeleteSD just dropped a name "William Aldenberg"...
ReplyDeleteAnd? Barr is gonna do what he thinks is best for the country. He's a serious man, and he understands the limits of his position--which are constitutional in nature as regards the Legislative branch. There is nothing for Barr to learn from sundance.
DeleteThere is no plug that can simply be pulled to drain the swamp overnight.
Delete