Briefly Noted: Paul Sperry On Fire, Developments

Raw tweets from today:

Paul Sperry‏

@paulsperry_

NYT & WaPo knew of "govt investigator" Strzok sent to spy on Papa-D w Halper since at least May 2018. They know "Aza Turk's" identity just like knew Halper's & won't divulge not to protect them but FBI handlers/leakers. Just like knew Steele's ID & HRC behind dossier. #CorruptMSM

#SpyGate What did Vice President Joe Biden know and when did he know it?

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Burr: “I think when we get through with our report (set for end-of-summer release), there won’t be any room for anybody to make these wild accusations about collusion.”

MYSTERY: Mueller Report states Joseph Mifsud interviewed Feb 10 2017. Yet no citation of an FBI 302 for interview. Mueller also states he has docs proving Mifsud made "false" statements to investigators. Yet he never prosecuted him for lying like Papa-D. Why was Mifsud protected?

DEVELOPING: Congressional investigators are looking into "a number of false statements" made by Mueller in Volume I of his report where he misrepresented the underlying evidence ostensibly to mirror the FBI's stated pretext for opening investigations on Trump campaign figures

What's The Bigger Picture On "Azra Turk"?

Sorry, this may be a bit disjointed--there are a lot of moving pieces.

In my first post regarding the FBI's revelation (through the NYT) that - Oh, did we mention that we actually did spy on the Trump campaign, just like Bill Barr said? - I briefly made two points: 

The first point was the importance of the date that the two FBI assets--the "flirty" Azra Turk (possibly an undercover agent - UCA), posing as Stefan Halper's assistant, and Halper himself--made contact with George Papadopoulos in London: September, 2016. The date is important because it means this contact was putatively legal, pursuant to an open and authorized Full Investigation: Crossfire Hurricane, opened on July 31, 2016. Of course, we know that Halper was making approaches to Trump campaign associates months before that, but I confidently expect that that will be covered by the revelation of a Preliminary Investigation of some sort. You can see from this why Barr keeps mentioning the "predication" for these "investigations." It's key.

The second point I made was that the most important purpose of this leak is probably to give the appearance that FBI targeting of the Trump campaign didn't really begin until they had open investigations going. This is probably another in a long line of falsehoods, and it's what I want to explore a bit more.

When did the FBI begin targeting Trump?

First Take On Azra Turk

So the interwebs are ablaze with the news that the FBI is admitting, via the NYT, that they sent either an agent or an asset of some sort to pose as Stefan Halper's female assistant in London, while meeting with George Papadopoulos. The woman went under the name Azra Turk and the meeting took place in September, 2016.

What's going on here? Sure looks like damage control, right? Several things may be involved.

For starters, the date is very important. September, 2016, places this meeting after the official opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the Full Enterprise Counterintelligence Investigation into "four Americans" in the Trump campaign. Crossfire Hurrican was opened on July 31, 2016. Therefore, targeting Papadopoulos with the "flirty" Azra Turk in September makes it legal, since there was an open investigation. That's very much the focus of the article.

There also appears to be a diversion angle at work. The NYT article places the focus on Azra Turk rather than Halper. It seems the FBI wants us to forget about Halper and his interactions with Papadopoulos and Carter Page before the Crossfire Hurricane opening. Presumably, there will be an explanation forthcoming for that interaction--such as, that there was a preliminary investigation going on, or that Halper met Page and Papadopoulos on his own or as part of something else that was happening in London. Again, they want us to focus on what happened after the Crossfire Hurricane opening, not on anything before. And the reason may be that reports say IG Horowitz is really focusing hard on Halper.

The goal of this leak, ultimately, appears to divert attention to just how far back the inception of the Russian Hoax goes. As we've seen, the appearances are that it may have started as early as a few weeks after Trump declared his candidacy in summer, 2015. The Lisa Page/Strzok texts also strongly indicate a very early beginning--a targeting of Trump campaign aides virtually as soon as they came on board with the campaign.

One wonders what AG Barr thinks of this leak. Has he spoken to the esteemed Chris Wray about it?

In any event, the hope has to be that other news organizations will forget the collusion narrative and start competing for scoops.