The Horowitz Report: Documenting One of the Worst Scandals of our History

[Zorro!]

Notice how Leftist Trolls avoid threads that discuss strictly facts?

Facts and logic are tools of cis white male christian supremacists.

 

[Zorro!]

Having read the entire IG Report, it is fair to say that the facts IG Horowitz documents are damning. The biggest scandal that can be inferred from his report is that the FBI continued to investigate the Trump administration after January, 2017, by which time the FBI’s case had collapsed (pp. 241-247) and there was no longer any reasonable ground to suspect that Trump or anyone in his campaign or administration had conspired with Russia. Despite this incontrovertible knowledge, Comey manipulated things to ensure a special counsel and two more years of investigations. Beyond that, the IG documents multiple other instances of fraud and deceit relating to the FISA warrants that the DOJ/FBI obtained against Carter Page.

Some FBI conduct was outright fraud. For example, Kevin Clinesmith doctored an electronic communication from the CIA addressing Carter Page’s relationship with the CIA (p. 252). Another example is that “Case Agent 1” told the attorney drafting the FISA request that Steele’s Primary Sub-Source appeared honest and reliable and that his extensive interview supported the criminal allegations Steele made when, in fact, both statements were outright lies. (pp. 241-247) And yet another fraud occurred when Dana Boente, the Acting Attorney General, signed two FISA re-authorization requests knowing that neither accurately reflected the significant fact that the Clinton campaign had employed Steele (p. 229).

Read the whole thing. What happens next will tell the world if Deep State has total control of our government or not.

The Horowitz Report: Documenting One of the Worst Scandals of our History - Bookworm Room

Well stated.

Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone wrote, "Five Questions Still Remaining After the Release of the Horowitz Report."

1. Who is Joseph Mifsud?

A congressional source last week said, “I don’t see any way the investigation can be aboveboard if Mifsud isn’t a Russian agent.”

Horowitz said all four of the FISA warrant applications for Carter Page relied upon a core probable-cause argument based on the idea that the FBI was conducting a legitimate investigation into Russian election interference.

Horowitz wrote that the “sole predication” for that investigation was a statement former Trump aide George Papadopoulos made to an Australian diplomat named Alexander Downer. Papadopoulos allegedly told Downer that a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud told him that Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

If Mifsud is not a Russian agent, the absurdity factor of all this multiplies: A years-long counterintelligence investigation will have been based on a botched game of telephone between three Westerners of varying degrees of shadiness, with no Russian-intelligence link ever found.

2. Someone is not telling the truth, Vol. 1:

The Horowitz report is not kind to former CIA chief John Brennan.

Brennan in May of 2017 testified before Congress that he was “aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons” that “served as the basis for the FBI investigation.”

Horowitz contradicts this:

We also asked those FBI officials involved . . . whether the FBI received any other information, such as from members of the USIC, that the FBI relied upon to predicate Crossfire Hurricane. All of them told us that there was no such information. . . . We also asked [James] Comey and [Andrew] McCabe about then-CIA Director John Brennan’s statements. . . . Comey told us that while Brennan shared intelligence . . . [he] did not provide any information that predicated or prompted the FBI to open Crossfire Hurricane.​

3. Someone is not telling the truth, Vol. 2:

Horowitz on pages 75-76 of his report says former Attorney General Loretta Lynch told his office that “in the spring of 2016, Comey and [former Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe pulled her aside and provided information about Carter Page, which Lynch believed they learned from another member of the Intelligence Community.”

Comey and McCabe both denied this, telling Horowitz they did not remember being told about Carter Page. With regard to Lynch’s recollection of a conversation, Comey said “he did not think it was possible for such conversation to have occurred in the spring of 2016 because the FBI did not receive the [tip from Alexander Downer] concerning Papadopoulos until late July.”

To recap: The attorney general recalled being told about Page by the FBI in the spring of 2016, and believed the information came from another intelligence service. The former head of the CIA testified he gave information to the FBI that was the “basis” for Crossfire Hurricane. Top FBI officials said they didn’t remember any of this, and insisted the investigation began with the Downer tip in July of 2016.

Three different stories, from officials at the CIA, FBI, and Justice Department.

4. To whom does footnote 461 refer?
At the bottom of page 310, Horowitz describes an unusual communication to the FBI by a “former” confidential informant:

[A] former FBI CHS . . . contacted an FBI agent in an FBI field office in late July 2016 to report information from “a colleague who runs an investigative firm . . . hired by two entities (the Democratic National Committee [DNC] as well as another individual . . . [who was] not name[d]) to explore Donald Trump’s longstanding ties to Russian entities.” The former CHS also gave the FBI agent a list of “individuals and entities who have surfaced in [the investigative firm’s] examination,” which the former CHS described as “mostly public source material.”

Horowitz goes on to say McCabe sent word that the FBI agent was not to collect any more information from this source, and should not “accept any information regarding the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

During testimony last week, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley asked Horowitz if the “investigative firm” in this footnote was Fusion-GPS. Horowitz said he’d have to get back to him.

This footnote raised a few eyebrows on the Hill. Among other things, it seems to imply that the “investigative firm” was connected with the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe at that early juncture in July of 2016. (Why else would McCabe need to insist on not accepting information regarding Crossfire Hurricane?)

It would be interesting to know who this “former FBI CHS” is, why this person felt a need to reach out to the FBI about his colleague’s firm, and why the FBI shut down this source.

5. Are media corrections forthcoming?

The Horowitz report makes clear that multiple news cycles over the past few years were dominated by reports that were either incorrect or lacking factual foundation.

These included assertions by multiple outlets that the Steele dossier was not central to the FBI’s efforts to secure a warrant on Page; that the FBI found Christopher Steele and his dossier “credible”; that tales of FISA abuse were a conspiracy theory (one of many claims Mother Jones called “bullshit”); that the memo written by Devin Nunes on the subject was wrong and had been “debunked”; that Russians “blocked” Trump from nominating Mitt Romney as secretary of state; that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was in Prague (presumably to meet Russian hackers); that a “pee tape” existed; that Russia’s Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign were communicating via a secret server; that the FISA warrant on Page must have been producing good intelligence in order to be renewed three times; and many other things.

The Washington Post is one of the few outlets to start the process of reassessing its coverage, noting in a fact check that a “fair amount” of the Nunes memo had been “vindicated” by Horowitz. Ari Melber of MSNBC also called out James Comey for being “over his skis” on the “pee tape.” These are first steps, but Horowitz’s findings suggest a much broader thematic media FUBAR that’s still being ignored.

Amazingly good points from Leftard Rolling Stone.

Soon: