JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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This is a great article.
10 Disturbing Findings in the Justice Department Inspector General Report
10 Disturbing Findings in the Justice Department Inspector General Report
- The FBI’s Counterintelligence Division (CD) Assistant Director E.W. “Bill” Priestap considered whether the FBI should conduct defensive briefings for the Trump campaign to warn the campaign of Russian interference in the 2016 election but “ultimately decided that providing such briefings created the risk that ‘if someone on the campaign was engaged with the Russians, he/she would seek to cover-up his/her activities, thereby preventing us from finding the truth.’”
- The FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team tasked to investigate the Trump campaign sought help from a foreign intelligence agency to surveil Trump campaign members. “The Crossfire Hurricane team submitted name trace requests to other U.S. government agencies and a foreign intelligence agency, and conducted law enforcement database and open source searches, to identify individuals associated with the Trump campaign in a position to have received the alleged offer of assistance from Russia.”
- DOJ and FBI policy did not require the FBI to consult with any DOJ official before using confidential human sources — or spies — involving advisers to a major party candidate’s presidential campaign, and the FBI did not do so. However, “consultation, at a minimum, is required by Department and FBI policies in numerous other sensitive circumstances.”
- The FBI wanted a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on former Trump campaign member Carter Page in August 2016, but the FBI’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) and its National Security Division’s Office of Intelligence (OI) determined more information was needed to support probable cause that Page was an agent of a foreign power. Only after the use of the “pee dossier” were they successful.”Immediately after the Crossfire Hurricane team received Steele’s election reporting on September 19, the team reinitiated their discussions with OI and their efforts to obtain FISA surveillance authority for Page, which they received from the FISC on October 21. … We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order.”
- The Crossfire Hurricane team failed to inform department officials of significant information that was available to the team at the time that the FISA applications on Page were drafted and filed. “Much of that information was inconsistent with, or undercut, the assertions contained in the FISA applications that were used to support probable cause and, in some instances, resulted in inaccurate information being included in the applications.”
- The FBI made false assertions on their FISA applications. FBI agents “did not question Steele about his role in a September 23, 2016 Yahoo News article entitled, ‘U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump advisor and Kremlin,’ that described efforts by U.S. intelligence to determine whether Carter Page had opened communication channels with Kremlin officials.” However, the FBI asserted in the Page FISA applications, without any support, that Steele had not “directly provided” the information to Yahoo News.....