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FBI Conspiracy?
I will not speculate too much, per the Code of Conduct, but something stinks at the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
Last night news organizations were given access to 375 text messages between FBI Counterintelligence Investigator Peter Strzok and his mistress/co-worker/lawyer Lisa Page. Most of them are pretty mild but do show a clear hatred of Donald Trump and some mild cheerleading for Hillary Clinton. But then there is this:
I want to believe the path u threw out 4 consideration in Andy’s office – that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event u die b4 you’re 40
A quick recap of the players here: Andy is Andrew McCabe who was Number Two at the bureau and took over as Acting Director when Trump fired Comey. Strzok was the lead investigator on the Clinton emails and interviewed Mrs. Clinton and her aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills. He was also the lead interviewer on Gen. Michael Flynn who has been charged with lying to the Bureau and remains Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s big catch so far. Lisa Page was also involved in all of the major political investigations and was hired and then removed from the Mueller team along with her lover.
The question here is just what was the “path” laid out in McCabe’s office? What was the FBI’s “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency?
To further muddle (or maybe clarify?) the picture, McCabe cancelled an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee this week because it came to light several days ago that Bruce Ohr, the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Director, was reassigned when it came to light that he had met with his wife’s employer — Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS and their controversial dossier author Christopher Steele.
Was the Steele dossier the FBI’s insurance policy? Or was it something else?
The FBI should have a certain level of independence and insulation against politicization. But as we saw with the Bureau’s founding director J. Edgar Hoover, independence without accountability breeds corruption. Something stinks at 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW and needs more than a plug-in air freshener. The place needs scrubbed and fumigated.
Published in Domestic Policy
Very unnerving, indeed. No way the organization can avoid political influence as they percolate in politics from every possible perspective. [Just wanted to flex my alliterative muscle group for grins]
So the answer is accountability. How do we hold this necessary group accountable without hampering their operations?
Way above my pay grade, but not beyond my concern.
yes – it is bad enough that they exhibit such rabid biases, but Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller has another more disturbing quote in his column today (http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/fbi-officials-discussed-insurance-policy-against-trump-presidency/)
It also sounds like Gowdy is hammering Rosenstein in a hearing today, but I haven’t heard details.
Hopefully, this will get more visibility.
Yet some say that talking about an American “deep state” makes you sound crazy.
To be fair, though, the text quoted above could refer to a number of things. Things like, “what do we do if this madman Trump tanks the stock market, and our investments go south?” “What path do we take if Trump cleans house at the FBI, and we need new jobs?” More examples will occur to you.
Here’s my favorite new wrinkle about Mr Ohr’s wife:
Or perhaps she just wanted a new hobby.
For those who want primary sources – always a good idea when something starts in a subreddit and bubbles up to anonymous blogs – the link in the quote goes right to the FCC / ULS License Archive.
At another point Page texts her lover: “And maybe you’re meant to stay where you are to protect the country from that menance.” She then linked to an anti-Trump article in the New York Times. (And quoted above by WillowSpring)
Exactly how is one man, Strzok, supposed to “protect the country” from Trump?
This!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZL9hGsMf8&feature=youtu.be
Watching these hearings, all I can do is wonder, “Is this really possible?” Can the FBI and this special prosecutor simply thumb their noses at both the Congress and the President like this, without consequences? Refusing to answer questions, refusing to produce documents, and no one can do a damn thing about it? How can that be possible?
Mueller is taking no interest in any possible Russian meddling in our elections. He is just going after Trump, and anyone close to Trump, for any damn thing he can think of. The fact that Trump-hatred seems to be the only qualification he wanted for members of his team is the least of it. He is not looking at Russia. He is not looking at Russia at all. Why do we have a special prosecutor to look into Russian meddling anyway? Isn’t that the job of the CIA and the Dept of State? What the hell is going on here?
This will end up being exactly what it looks like. Obama’s DOJ and Obama’s administration and Comey’s FBI colluded with Fusion GPS and Steele and Russia to spy on and destroy another party’s candidate through spying and planted stories, then, after Hillary lost they ( FBI/DOJ/Obama team) later on used the data gathered to hamper and hinder the president and his team through any means necessary.
This is a vast deep state conspiracy of anti-Trump actors and only pure sunshine will convince me otherwise.
So far all we get is gray fog from the FBI and DOJ heads. They know, they all know, and won’t say. They hide behind the OIG at the DOJ as the reason not to speak the truth.
Mr Rosenstein wants to assure the American public? Tell the truth for once.
Is Jeff Sessions the most incompetent man in history or does he have something planned as his Trump card?
It’s been happening for years. It will continue to happen unless Congress starts to get more active with the power of the purse. But who knows where that could lead. If you cut FBI funding, next thing you’ll find Congress cutting export subsidies and agricultural subsidies, and nobody wants that.
(I do give Congress credit for making a brief feint in that direction with the IRS.)
I despair of a full accounting. Can you picture Adam Schiff behaving like Howard Baker did in the Watergate hearings? Schiff is typical of the entire Dem leadership–a completely unprincipled hack. He is almost certainly behind the stupid Sept 4–oops–Sept 14 email fiasco because CBS and NBC could only have run that nonsense with a confirmation from someone with Committee connections. The fact that we still don’t know the source who humiliated them is also a pretty big clue.
It is abundantly clear that the collusion myth was a put up job by people like Comey & Strzok (who was at least candid about his motives) to destroy Trump. They will escape punishment because enough of the establishment believes that is a valid excuse for their gross misuse of office and hideously divisive assault on the sensibilities of their fellow citizens.
For a precedent, I suggest we recall the Alger Hiss trial. Undeniably guilty as sin, he was (and still is) defended to the death by lefties because (a) people of the right sort can never ever be held accountable or judged by grubby trogs like Whitaker Chambers and Richard Nixon even if guilty; (b) treason was probably the sophisticated thing to do given the sheer tackiness of the USA and the American masses.
The new traitors to law and institutional integrity also believe they are defending the rightful power prerogatives of the right sorts of people against the electoral preferences of the trogs.
This text message suggests (doesn’t prove, but is a smoking gun) that the FBI was engaged in a conspiracy/collusion to overturn a free election if the outcome did not suit the Bureau. The FBI can no longer claim to be a legitimate law enforcement agency, until and unless it can prove to general acknowledgement that it did NOT engage in an effort to undo an American election. It very much appears that that was the intent, and that is what the (well orchestrated–Comey to Rosenstein to Mueller–with many other players) Mueller investigation was set up to do, the investigation of Russian interference by damned. And Mueller, Rosenstein, et al, are doing their best to avoid any discussion of this question, pretending as if it doesn’t exist. But it does. This is what is called a Constitutional Crisis. This is attempt at overthrow of an administration by clandestine means.
As I said, I’m not accusing anyone of anything. But I asked the $64 Question. You get these three in a Committee Room and they’re all going to say that “the conversation was held last summer I cannot really recall now what we were referring to as an ‘insurance plan.’”
James, I can’t believe you are commenting in such an approving manner. I am suspicious of the entire special prosecutor/FBI/Russia collusion investigation myself, but I thought the Rico bigwigs (yes, you are) would see this as borderline conspiracy theory nuttiness. Makes me happy that you see there could be a problem with entrenched bureaucracy.
I’m not sure, but Mr. Lileks may be what is known in the trade as a loose cannon.
Anyone who doesn’t see this as a conspiracy is absolutely nuts. The question is how deep it runs. Rogue agents or top down is the question.
I wish the emphasis was more on fixing the problem than on trying to extract confessions in the committee room. But so long as Congress isn’t deadly serious about fixing things, the witnesses won’t be forthcoming, either.
Why fix what fills their pockets.
The FBI etc. perform much needed functions. We can’t just cut their funding without huge repercussions.
That, plus there are probably some Congresscritters for which hearing a Fed say “It’d be a shame if somebody found out about XXXX, wouldn’t it?” outweighs anything else.
Just as a technical matter, James, the highlighted sentence is not true. Not even close. Of course the government, and all governments, can monitor amateur radio frequencies. There’s nothing encrypted about them. They would be the least secure channel. Whereas anyone with an internet account can at least throw in some serious crypto and slow ’em down.
What fixes this? When pressed about it FBI Director Wray said, “I cannot comment on the IG’s investigation or what the FBI or Justice Department used to secure FISA warrants against the Trump campaign.” (Paraphrased not direct)
When any impropriety at the DOJ, the FBI and the CIA can simply be shoved under the rug because of “security reasons” what’s going to keep them under control?
They can but that doesn’t mean they do. It also doesn’t mean it’s unencrypted. The Russians and the North Koreans still run numbers stations. It’s low tech but often indecipherable unless you have the source code which can be randomly based on a popular or even a completely obscure book. Or simply the phrase, “Aunt Lucy has pneumonia” wouldn’t send red flags up for anyone. Especially in today’s climate when everyone is concentrating on Arabic language transmissions.
Certainly they can. But do they? It’s all analog, someone has to actually listen. They can’t just run a search for ‘bomb’.
I would think the agents would be in a position to know the answers to those questions.
While we’re at it, have you seen the Mike Morell story from Monday?
Morell is a former CIA deputy director.
Here’s the “money quote”
NOW he tells us. NOW he sees the downside. Now…oh, never mind.
Yes, though even in cases where it’s lining their campaign budget and not their personal bank account, it’s still a problem of the welfare programs corrupting our entire system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2xq04TzBqg
Whoah.
Update: This appears to be the complete archive on CSPAN:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?438282-1/deputy-attorney-general-good-fire-special-counsel
Good question, but maybe the system of security reasons needs to be modified.
OK, but is Mrs. Nellie Ohr really James Bond or MacGyver? If she was, wouldn’t there be simpler, less breakable means of communication? After all, here’s a case where the black helicopter brigade would have a point: for more than seventy years, the FCC has operated a fleet of mobile direction-finding unmarked vans specifically to track down unauthorized or unlicensed radio transmissions.
It’s all OK, because they “took action.” Of course, there are many things that can be labeled as “taking action.” Guaranteeing that their actions will have a proper result is another matter.