Things seem to be moving quickly now. It has been a remarkable few weeks in American history. Momentum is building toward uncovering the distasteful possibility that the targeting of a U.S. presidential campaign was actually a political operation, fostered at the highest levels of government, masquerading as an FBI counterintelligence investigation.
Attorney General William Barr has signaled that his interest in examining the origins of the investigation into the Trump campaign extends beyond whether the FBI operated “by the book,” as former FBI Director James Comey asserts. Barr also wants to understand the role that the larger intelligence community, or IC, may have played in all of this.
Barr has thrown punches that have left an interesting mix of characters with a standing eight count. Certain eyes around D.C. are a little glassy right now.
Barr’s words and actions are telling. First, he raised the concern that the Trump campaign was “spied” upon. His use of the word “spying” appears more calculated than casual. The wailing and gnashing of teeth that followed is also telling. “The FBI doesn’t spy” became the sputtering counter-refrain of those trying to mask their nervousness.
It’s a fair point that’s beside the point. The FBI is charged with acting under strict legal restrictions and court orders. Spying is not a term traditionally associated with those activities.
But it also misses the point Barr appears to be making. The IC does spy; that’s what they do. Barr may have been referring less to the FBI and more to the IC’s possible murky involvement.
This seems to be validated by Barr’s second haymaker in as many weeks: his appointment of a surrogate investigator, U.S. Attorney John Durham. Why would the attorney general add a third investigation to those under way by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and U.S. Attorney John Huber? Because those investigations are focused on the FBI. Durham’s assignment is not similarly constrained; his marching orders appear broader.
Through Durham, Barr can start dusting for fingerprints across the government, not just the FBI. The squirming has begun.
In just the past week, we’ve seen a rush to comment by the former directors of national intelligence and the CIA. The FBI’s former general counsel has chimed in publicly and, of course, fired FBI Director Comey has been on a media offensive, practicing character assassination as a strategy with Barr among those in his crosshairs.
Each appears to be anxious about his own role in handling the controversial Steele dossier from the Trump-Russia investigation, and so there is some elbowing under the basket to get optimum positioning. And who can blame them? The attorney general has stated that he is going to focus particularly on the dossier’s exploitation, and specifically on the actions of the leadership of those agencies.
Interestingly, this establishes these leaders as principal witnesses in Durham’s inquiry. In essence they are using their easy access to public media platforms to coordinate and communicate their stories among themselves.
Ordinarily, this type of witness activity is troubling, if not borderline obstructive when done privately. In this case, Durham may be licking his chops as a prosecutor since a certain element of finger-pointing among the principals has emerged.
Each also is dealing with an elephant that’s not just in the room but sitting uncomfortably in their laps. Christopher Steele’s dossier is clearly a Russian intelligence operation (“active measure” in IC-speak) that took advantage of a cooperative outreach by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
If these IC leaders didn’t recognize it as such, then it truly was amateur hour at the top. The more troubling scenario would be if each made a conscious decision to ignore the obvious Russian interference attempt and, instead, wring political value out of the dossier.
This is a key area that deserves Durham’s attention. After all, this Russian active measures operation was used to further an FBI counterintelligence investigation against American citizens, and even secure a court order to electronically intercept former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The American people shouldn’t feel badly if all this seems confusing. Even experienced counterintelligence investigators are scratching their heads. The former FBI general counsel to Comey, James Baker, added to the confusion last week with some lawyer language — that the FBI “took the dossier seriously, but not necessarily literally.” Say what?
I would hope they go through the entire rubber stamp FISA docket for the last 10 years, seems that system needs a bit of reforming.
Will we get more than a list of things that they should add to their policies, which they promptly ignore?
There is no reason for it NOT to move quickly. It’s not like they are having to CREATE the evidence as they go along, like the anti-Trump coup members did. The evidence, much of it, has been fully exposed for most (with eyes) to see. The only thing keeping seditionist trash like Comey, McCabe and Brennan from joining their Nazi compatriots in Argentina is their faith in the liberal media to keep shielding them.
They didn’t CARE where it came from. Perhaps the fact they didn’t waste on phone call on seeing if it was truth or not indicates they KNEW the source.
That sounds sort of like, oh, I don’t know… COLLUSION?
Right. And who of those suspected of this elaborate conspiracy against Donald Trump—which for some unlikely reason was undertaken long before anyone thought he had a snowball’s chance in hell of being taken seriously—has locked down witnesses with orders to ignore subpoenas; has fired officials who were reluctant to impede the investigative process; has replaced the heads of federal departments with those willing to openly break the law to do the same; has denied congressional intelligence committees access to evidence and testimony that Robert Mueller painstakingly compiled during a two year effort, as well as to parts of the official report itself; has engaged teams of lawyers in an effort to block subpoenas issued in the private sector; and has personally and repeatedly attacked the integrity and credibility of any and every person, institution, and agency that has been critical of him?
Things are moving quickly. The absurd legal assertions made in an effort to conceal are being rapidly knocked down in the courts, one after the other, exactly as they should be in a constitutional republic governed by law and protected by checks and balances. What will emerge once the obstacles are removed are the facts. It’s hard not to see that one side is working to see that happen, while the other is doing everything possible to prevent it.
@Greg: The witnesses have already been questioned at length, its over now the hero of the hour Mueller could not verify the dossier he knew before his expensive investigation was a pile of lies.
The congress are the death throws of the bullshit impeachment coup attempt.
0.000000% chance of full impeachment.
The entire thing no matter what congress may dredge out of the taxes and bank record wont make any difference.
With the pressing business of Congress set in a commode on the back porch no budget, no spending restraints, no immigration reform. I will almost think the house is lost.
Hillary was a badly flawed candidate, carrying serious legal baggage, prone to drunkenness and probably brain damaged. They were hedging their bets. Besides, who know that Obama did not run illegal surveillance on every Republican candidate? Trump was just the only one that needed to be pursued.
Everyone connected with Trump has complied fully and completely with any and all requests for documents and testimony. Enough is enough. Move on, crybabies.
Now that the sore losers are getting their hands on Trump’s private financial records (having NOTHING to do with his Presidency) one wonders what the next strategy will be when THAT turns up precisely NOTHING… just like collusion?
That statement is in diametrical opposition to readily observable daily reality. In the end, reality generally prevails.
@Greg:
No it isn’t; Mueller and his report confirms it. Yet Democrats want to keep pestering the same people over and over.
The lesson is that cooperating with Democrats is futile. They are garbage, beneath contempt. They deserve no respect or deference. Liars.