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April 11, 2018
Investigations into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign have been ongoing for almost two years now. Incredibly, there are still questions regarding the evidence that precipitated the commencement of the initial investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which began in July 2016. Shamefully the FBI and DOJ have been stonewalling Republicans requests for documents, thwarting their attempts to conduct an independent evaluation.
In an April 4th letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Chairman accused the Justice Department of “arbitrary resistance to legitimate oversight”, due to their refusal to hand over the unredacted version of the two page document, also known as the “electronic Communication” (EC), used to formally begin the federal investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
So far the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation have refused to comply, claiming that it identifies a foreign country that shares intelligence with the United States. This is an incredulous claim, since the foreign country has most likely already been identified in a December 2017 New York Times article.
The Times reported that an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, met with a minor Trump volunteer aide, George Papadopoulos, in a London bar in May 2016, in which Papadopoulos bragged to Downer that Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. According to the Times, two months later when hacked emails from the Democrat National Committee were leaked on- line Australian officials passed the Papadopoulos information to American intelligence, igniting the FBI to open the counterintelligence investigation.
Nunes originally asked for the EC on February 27. On March 14 he and his committee were given access to a heavily redacted version of the EC. Trey Gowdy stated that all of the important information was blacked out. He added that many of the documents provided by the FBI and DOJ look like “ink blot tests” because they are so heavily redacted.
Gowdy elaborated to Maria Bartiromo, on her show on the Fox Business Network, that without seeing the uncensored EC they can’t know what evidence the FBI relied upon, to launch the counterintelligence probe, and whether it was properly vetted and credible. Nunes and his committee, have a right to know exactly what evidence was presented to open this investigation, particularly if the unverified Democrat financed Trump dossier played a role.
Was the probe really launched due to the Papadopoulos revelation, or was this just a pretense? If the Papadopoulos information was important enough to start an investigation into the opposition’s party candidate for president, why was Papadopoulos never put under surveillance? He wasn’t even interviewed until January 2017. Papadopoulos did plead guilty to a crime, however he did not plead guilty to collusion with the Russians. He admitted to making false statement to the FBI.
The Obama FBI obviously wasn’t above monitoring members of Trump’s presidential campaign, as evidenced by the surveillance of Carter Page, a brief advisor to Trump during the presidential race, who was under FBI surveillance for nearly a year, starting in October 2016. To date there is zero credible evidence of any wrongdoing by Page.
Since the start of this investigation the DOJ and FBI have been uncooperative in providing requested documentation to congress. It was such a problem that in August 2017 the House Intelligence committee subpoenaed the FBI and the DOJ for documents related to the investigation and the infamous Christopher Steele Trump dossier. Last night, on the Fox News Laura Ingraham show, Nunes threatened that they would hold in contempt and impeach both Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, and Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General if they did not comply with the request to see the EC.
Several weeks ago Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the House Judiciary chairman, also sent a subpoena to Rosenstein to compel document production. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, has stated that attorney general Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein should both be held in contempt and that impeaching Wray is “in the toolbox”.
Acknowledging the slow pace of requested documents Wray recently agreed to increase the number of FBI personnel tasked with reviewing the documents demanded by the Republican house members from 27 to 54.
To help expedite the review and delivery of documents Sessions has appointed Northern District of Illinois U.S. Attorney John Lausch to oversee the delivery of the documents demanded by congress from the FBI.
Reportedly out of over a million documents under review at the FBI congress has seen less than 3,200. This lack of transparency is more evidence that the actions taken by the FBI and DOJ in this investigation are suspect. If they continue to stonewall congress hopefully the threats of impeachment and contempt, will not remain threats, but become actions.
**Note- Late afternoon April 11, the Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein has let Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy review the memo that launched the Russia probe
