MORE: In statement, Attorney General Bill Barr says evidence compiled by IG shows FBI "launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken." https://t.co/VDyYyO67Br
— ABC News (@ABC) December 9, 2019
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1204096700807299079
I have no doubt that that will be MSNBC's headline today no matter what the report says. https://t.co/PJ4UHMWA2Z
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 9, 2019
Brennan testified under oath to the contrary: https://t.co/foDzo3TQCc
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) December 9, 2019
The whitewash is successful.
Long live the coup.
The AG Guidelines and the DIOG do not provide
heightened predication standards for sensitive matters,
or allegations potentia lly impacting constitutionally
protected activity, such as First Amendment rights.
Rather, the approval and notification requirements
contained in the AG Guidelines and the DIOG are, in
part, intended to provide t he means by which such
concerns can be considered by senior officials.
However, we were concerned to find that neither the AG
Guidelines nor the DIOG contain a provision requiring
Department consultation before opening an
investigation such as the one here involving the alleged
conduct of individuals associated with a major party
presidential campaign.Crossfire Hurricane was opened as a Full
Investigation and all of the senior FBI officials who
participated in discussions about whether to open a
case told us the information warranted opening it. For
example, then Counterintel ligence Division (CD)
Assistant Director (AD) E.W. “Bill” Priestap, who
approved the case opening, told us that the
combination of t he FFG information and the FBI ‘s
ongoing cyber intrusion investigation of the July 2016
hacks of the Democratic Nat ional Committee’s (DNC)
emails, created a count erintelligence concern that the
FBI was “obligated” to investigate. Priestap stated that
he considered whether the FBI should conduct
defensive briefings for the Trump campaign but
ultimately decided that providing such briefings created
the risk that “if someone on the campaign was engaged
with the Russians, he/she would very likely change
his/her tact ics and/or otherwise seek to cover-up
his/her activities, thereby preventing us from finding
the truth.” We did not identify any Department or FBI
policy that applied to this decision and therefore
determined t hat the decision was a judgment call that
Department and FBI policy leaves to the discretion of
FBI officia ls. We also concluded that, under the AG
Guidelines and the DIOG, the FBI had an authorized
purpose when it opened Crossfire Hurricane to obtain
information about, or protect against, a national
security threat or federal crime, even though the
investigation also had the potential to impact
constitutionally protected activity.Additionally, given the low threshold for
predication in the AG Guidelines and the DIOG..“Predication” means “pretext,” effectively. The rules provide for a very low standard — almost a complete lack of standard — for opening up an investigation into a Republican presidential candidate. They’re saying that literally anything can constitute a “good faith” reason for suspicion.
Here, the “FFG” information means “Friendly Foreign Government” and refers to Alexander Downer’s claim that Papadoplous said something about Russia having Hillary’s emails.
…we concluded that the FFG information, provided by a
government the United States Intelligence Community
(USIC) deems trustworthy, and describing a first-hand
account from an FFG employee of a conversation with
Papadopoulos, was sufficient to predicate the
investigation. This information provided the FBI with an
articulable factual basis that, if true, reasonably
indicated activity constituting either a federal crime or a
t hreat to national security, or both, may have occurred
or may be occurring. For simi lar reasons, as we detail
in Chapter Three, we concluded that the quantum of
information articulated by the FBI to open t he individual
investigations on Papadopoulos, Page, Flynn, and
Manafort in August 2016 was sufficient to satisfy the
low threshold established by the Department and the
FBI.Low threshold means “no threshold whatsoever.”
Now we turn to the whitewashing of bias:
As part of our review, we also sought to
determine whether there was evidence that political
bias or other improper considerations affected decision
making in Crossfire Hurricane, including the decision to
open the investigation. We discussed t he issue of
political bias in a prior OIG report, Review of Various
Actions in Advance of the 2016 Election, where we
described text and instant messages between then
Special Counsel to the Deputy Director Lisa Page and
then Section Chief Peter Strzok, among others, that
included statements of hostility toward then candidate
Trump and statements of support for then candidate
Hillary Clinton. In this review, we found that, while Lisa
Page attended some of the discussions regarding the
opening of the investigations, she did not play a role in
the decision to open Crossfire Hurricane or the four
individual cases. We further found that while Strzok
was directly involved in the decisions to open Crossfire
Hurricane and the four individual cases, he was not the
sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker as to
any of those matters. As noted above, then CD AD
Priestap, Strzok’s supervisor, was the official who
ultimately made the decision to open the investigation,
and evidence reflected that this decision by Priestap
was reached by consensus after multiple days of
discussions and meetings that included Strzok and
other leadership in CD, the FBI Deputy Director, the FBI
General Counsel, and a FBI Deputy General Counsel.
We concluded that Priestap’s exercise of discretion in
opening the investigation was in compliance with
Department and FBI policies, and we did not find
documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias
or improper motivation influenced his decision. We
similarly found that, while the formal documentation
opening each of the four individual investigations was
approved by Strzok (as required by the DIOG), the
decisions to do so were reached by a consensus among
the Crossfire “Hurricane agents and analysts who
identified individuals associated with the Trump
campaign who had recently traveled to Russia or had
other alleged ties to Russia. Priestap was involved in
these decisions. We did not find documentary or
testimonial evidence that political bias or improper
motivation influenced the decisions to open the four
individual investigations.Oh — there was an Interagency Consensus.
I see.
The omissions — the deliberate lies and actual fraud perpetrated upon the FISA court — is “concerning,” but none of the rats confessed to having been responsible for the lies, therefore there are no lies, or at least we’re going to pretend them away:
Well, if you rule out political bias, I guess there IS no explanation. Funny how the mistakes always flow only one direction. There is never an error in Trump’s favor, giving him or any of his people (none of whom, by the way, were found guilty of ANY collusion activities). ALL the “errors” are in the direction of more and more investigation.
Investigation of, by the way, a candidate for President, something Democrats are currently telling us is absolutely forbidden.
But, at least we can rule out political bias. Seems the only other possibility is gross stupidity. Is that really the conclusion they want to go with?
@Deplorable Me: Or because of their political bias and willingness to use that bias effectively they were promoted well above any proven skill level.
in the world of reason and psychology, there is a syndrome associated with this type of behavior. it is called the Kruger-Dunning Syndrome. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive biases in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities. bar fly polosi, toad nadler and slimy schiff all harbor this syndrome .