April 17, 2020
Recently declassified information provides evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and senior Obama officials intentionally ignored exculpatory information, and knowingly used Russian disinformation in their dogged pursuit to tie Trump and members of his campaign to nefarious dealings with Russia.
George Papadopoulos
The transcript of a conversation recorded on October 31, 2016, between then-Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos and an FBI “confidential human source” was recently revealed to the public. Papadopoulos was a central figure in the Russian collusion probe. After a May 2016 meeting between Papadopoulos and Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, Downer asserted that Papadopoulos told him that Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton (Papadopoulos has denied ever saying this). According to the FBI, after the Russian hacking of the Democrat National Committees’ emails, the Downer claim sparked the Trump Russian collusion probe, which was opened on July 31, 2016, and dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane”.
The FBI’s “confidential human source” was a friend of Papadopoulos, who agreed to wear a wire for the FBI and probe him for information regarding Russian involvement with the Trump campaign. This conversation was documented in the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse released last December. However, the details of the conversation were omitted.
During the hours-long interaction between the CHS and Papadopolous, Papadopoulos unequivocally denied having any knowledge of Russian collusion, or that anyone from the Trump campaign was involved in the hacking of the DNC server.
CHS: You don’t think anyone from the Trump campaign had anything to do with the f***ing over the, at the DNC?
Papadopoulos: No
CHS: Really?
Papadopoulos: No. I know that for a fact.
CHS: How do you know that for a fact?
Papadopoulos: ‘Cause I go, I’ve been working with them for the last nine months. That’s (unintelligible) And all of this stuff has been happening, what, the last four months?
CHS: But you don’t think anyone would have done it, like under, undercover or anything like that?
Papadopoulos: No, I don’t think so…..There’s absolutely no reason…First of all, it’s illegal, you know, to do that s***.
CHS: You think Russia’s playing a big game in this election?
Papadopoulos: No.
CHS: Why not?
Papadopoulos: Why would they?
CHS: Don’t you think they have special interests?
Papadopoulos: Something like that (Banging sound) I don’t think so. That’s all bull****. No one know’s who’s hacking— them.
CHS: You don’t think that they, that they hacked the, the DNC? Who hacked the f***ing DNC then?
Papadopoulos: Could be the Chinese, could be the Iranians, it could be some Bernie, uh, supporters. Could be— Anonymous.
Papadopoulos’ denials, during what he believed to be a private conversation with a friend, should have provided evidence to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Team that neither Papadopoulos nor anyone in the Trump orbit had any involvement with the hacking of the DNC emails, which was the pretext given by the FBI to open the unprecedented probe into a presidential campaign. However, not only did the FBI continue the investigation, they omitted this exculpatory information from the three subsequent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications submitted to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Declassified Footnotes
Further, thanks to the urging of two U.S. Senators – Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis), once blacked-out words in dozens of footnotes in IG Horowitz’ report have now been disclosed.
Reminder- IG Horowitz assessed that the oppositional research produced by former British spy Christopher Steele, which was commissioned and financed by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, played “a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the first FISA order to begin the surveillance of Page”.
Incredibly one of the newly disclosed footnotes to the IG report reveals that “in early October 2016”, before obtaining the first FISA warrant on Page, the Crossfire Hurricane team knew that one of Steele’s main sources was “rumored to be a KGB/SVR officer.”
Even Steele’s employer, Fusion GPS’ Glenn Simpson had assessed that this source was linked to Russian intelligence. So, despite having evidence that Steele’s dossier was more than likely infiltrated with Russia disinformation the FBI presented it as evidence to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) under the pretext that it was verified and reliable information.
Former FBI Director James Comey signed off on the first three FISA applications. It’s a travesty that he, and the others responsible for committing fraud on the FISC, were not held to account.
Another uncovered footnote indicated that Steele had “frequent contact with representatives for multiple Russian Oligarch(s)”. It further stated that in early January 2017 the Crossfire Hurricane Team was informed that Steele’s reporting on President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen was most likely Russian disinformation.
The footnote reads in part, “The (redacted) stated that it did not have high confidence in this subset of Steele’s reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations”.
Further, in February 2017 the Crossfire Hurricane team received a report indicating that the salacious claims made in the dossier about Trump’s activities (lurid allegations about Trump and prostitutes) during a trip to Moscow in 2013 “were false”, and that they were the product of Russian intelligence infiltrating Steele’s source network.
A month earlier, in January 2017 the then-heads of U.S. intelligence agencies- James Comey, (FBI) James Clapper (NSA), and John Brennan (CIA), among others went to the White House under the pretext to brief then-President-elect Trump on the dossier. However, they only told Trump about the lurid contents in the dossier, and they neglected to let him know that the dossier was opposition research commissioned by the Clinton campaign.
Did they know at the time of this briefing that the information they were imparting to the president-elect was false? Based on the declassified footnotes, they must have known by February. Why didn’t they publicly clear the record a month later when it was known among U.S. intelligence that these salacious claims in the dossier were Russian disinformation?
Further why would the nation’s intelligence chiefs brief Trump on reporting they knew was sourced from Russian intelligence? Perhaps because it gave Steele’s improbable work credibility, allowing it to be leaked to the public to damage the new president.
Three days after the briefing CNN’s Jake Tapper reported:
“We have a CNN exclusive for you now. CNN has learned that the nation’s top intelligence officials provided information to President-elect Donald Trump and to President Barack Obama last week about claims of Russian efforts to compromise the president-elect.” The report went on to say that the “compromising personal” information about Trump came from “a former British intelligence operative whose past work U.S. intelligence officials consider to be credible.”
Evidence That Russian’s Preferred Clinton
The uncovered footnotes are a startling refutation of the prevailing narrative that Russia preferred a Trump presidency.
One footnote outright reveals that a Steele “sub source” had contacts with “the Russian presidential Administration in June/July 2016 [redacted] and the sub source voicing strong support for candidate Clinton in 2016 U.S. election.”
Remember, the Intelligence Community Assessment released in January 2017 concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump. The Russian disinformation contained in the Steele dossier belies this long-held belief.
U.S. Attorney John Durham
Despite finding “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the FBI’s handling of FISA applications, and that the FBI used Russian disinformation while excluding exculpatory information in applications to spy on Trump aide Carter Page, last December IG Horowitz concluded that the FBI Russia probe was justified and not biased against Trump.
Thankfully last year Attorney General William Barr appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. After the release of the Horowitz report, Durham publicly rebuked the findings stating “ we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened”.
It is beyond ironic that in their pursuit to show that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election the FBI used Russian disinformation as “evidence”. During a recent interview on Fox News Barr stated that the Russian collusion probe into the Trump campaign was one of the “greatest travesties in American history.”
Durham’s investigation, which has turned into a criminal probe, is expected to wrap up by the end of the summer. Hopefully justice will finally come.
