9/19/17, "Did Obama Know about Comey’s Surveillance?" Wall St. Journal, James Freeman, opinion
"The media is less interested in Obama Administration wiretapping than in how Trump described it."
"This week CNN is reporting more details on the Obama Administration’s 2016 surveillance of people connected to the presidential campaign of the party out of power. It seems that once President Obama’s appointee to run the FBI, James Comey, had secured authorization for wiretapping, the bureau continued its surveillance into 2017. CNN reports:
"US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court [FISA] orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe. The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump. Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive."
This means the wiretapping was authorized more than ten months ago and perhaps more than a year ago. It was presumably a tough decision for a judge to issue a secret warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enabling the administration to spy on someone connected with the presidential campaign of its political adversaries.
One would presumably only approve such an order if the request presented by the executive branch was highly compelling and likely to produce evidence that the subject of the wiretap was in fact working with Russia to disrupt U.S. elections. Roughly a year later, as the public still waits for such evidence, this column wonders how this judge is feeling now, especially now that CNN has reported that at least two of its three sources believe the resulting evidence is inconclusive.
One would also presume—or at least hope—that seeking to wiretap associates of the leader of the political opposition is not an everyday occurrence in any administration. At the very least, it seems highly unlikely that such a decision would be made by a mid-level official. CNN notes, “Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.”
It seems reasonable for the public to know exactly which officials made this decision and who else they consulted or informed of their surveillance plans. Was the President briefed on the details of this investigation?
And as for the information showing suspicion, where did the FBI come up with that? A September 7 column from the Journal’s Kim Strassel raises disturbing questions, based on recent events and a Washington Post story from last winter. Ms. Strassel writes:
The House Intelligence Committee’s investigation took a sharp and notable turn on Tuesday, as news broke that it had subpoenaed the FBI and the Justice Department for information relating to the infamous Trump “dossier.” That dossier, whose allegations appear to have been fabricated, was commissioned by the opposition-research firm Fusion GPS and then developed by a former British spook named Christopher Steele....The Washington Post in February reported that Mr. Steele “was familiar” to the FBI, since he’d worked for the bureau before. The newspaper said Mr. Steele had reached out to a “friend” at the FBI about his Trump work as far back as July 2016. The Post even reported that Mr. Steele “reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him to continue his work.”Oddly, even though CNN is the source of this week’s news, the media outlet seems less interested in President Obama’s knowledge of the surveillance activities that occurred on his watch and against his political adversaries than in how President Trump has described them. CNN’s scoop doesn’t even mention Mr. Obama except in the context of Mr. Trump’s accusations of wiretapping against the former president that appeared on Twitter in March. CNN has followed up with another story saying that Mr. Trump’s accusations have still not been proven.
That’s true, although Mr. Trump’s argument may be getting stronger. And whatever Donald Trump’s tweets say, Americans deserve to know how our government came to spy on people associated with the presidential campaign of the party out of power."
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Added: The FBI interfered in the 2016 election: Following 3 sources describe how the FBI sought to influence the 2016 election by meeting in Rome, Italy with a British political opposition operative and compiler of the "Golden Showers" anti-Trump dossier with the intention of putting him on the payroll of US taxpayers weeks before the 2016 election if he could find negative information on Trump. Asked in 2017 to explain their 2016 behavior, the FBI has said it can't comment due to "national security."
Due to "national security," the FBI won't confirm or deny whether it offered and/or paid $50,000 taxpayer dollars to tamper with the 2016 presidential election:
June 26, 2017, "FBI Won’t Confirm or Deny Existence of Records of Payment to British Trump Dossier Researcher," Washington Free Beacon, Jack Heretik
"The FBI argued that it cannot acknowledge the existence of or give access to potential records concerning financial transactions with Steele because the FOIA request "implicates records the FBI may or may not compile pursuant to its national security and foreign intelligence functions." The bureau provided other reasons for its decision not to disclose information, including concerns over privacy and interfering in ongoing federal investigations."
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Added: Three 2017 articles about FBI interfering in 2016 election: Washington Post, NY Times, Washington Times:
2/28/17, "FBI once planned to pay former British spy who authored controversial Trump dossier," Washington Post, Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman
4/22/17, "Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. from Politics. Then He Shaped an Election." NY Times, Matt Apuzzo, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau
April 25, 2017, "Ex-spy admits anti-Trump dossier unverified, blames Buzzfeed for publishing," Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough
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Source 1
2/28/17, "FBI once planned to pay former British spy who authored controversial Trump dossier," Washington Post, Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman
"In October (2016)...Steele and the FBI reached a spoken understanding: He would continue his work looking at the Kremlin’s ties to Trump and receive compensation [in the form of US taxpayer dollars] for his efforts."...
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Source 2
4/22/17, "Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. from Politics. Then He Shaped an Election." NY Times, Matt Apuzzo, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau
Former British spy Christopher Steele, compiler of the 'Golden Showers' anti-Trump dossier "met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October (2016), bringing a stack of new intelligence reports....The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him $50,000 [US taxpayer dollars] for his efforts....Ultimately he was not paid."...
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Source 3
April 25, 2017, "Ex-spy admits anti-Trump dossier unverified, blames Buzzfeed for publishing," Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough
"Presumedly, ['Golden Showers' anti-Trump dossier compiler] Mr. Steele would continue to investigate the president as a surrogate for the FBI. The deal, however, did not go through."...
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Added: Two articles about FBI refusing to confirm or deny existence of records of its election tampering meeting with 'Golden Showers' anti-Trump dossier compiler on grounds of "national security":
June 26, 2017, "FBI Won’t Confirm or Deny Existence of Records of Payment to British Trump Dossier Researcher," Washington Free Beacon, Jack Heretik
"The FBI will not confirm or deny the existence of records showing whether the bureau paid the researcher behind the unverified, controversial ['Golden Showers' anti-Trump] dossier alleging ties between President Donald Trump and Russia.
Christopher Steele, a former British spy, gathered information for the dossier while working for a Washington research firm that supporters of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign hired. Trump has denied that the dossier is true while Steele has said parts of it are unverified.
The Washington Post reported earlier this year that Steele had reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before Election Day in November to continue investigating then-candidate Trump.
Cause of Action Institute, or CoA, a nonprofit watchdog group, wanted to know whether Steele was ever paid by the FBI to probe Trump.
In March of this year, CoA filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI seeking access to records to determine whether the FBI paid, or intended to pay, Steele. CoA filed a lawsuit in federal court the following month (April 2017) against the FBI for not responding to the request.
The FBI replied to CoA last week in a letter, writing that the agency cannot speak to the potential existence of such records.
"The FBI can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records responsive to your request," the letter, signed by an official in the bureau's Records Management Division, said.
The FBI argued that it cannot acknowledge the existence of or give access to potential records concerning financial transactions with Steele because the FOIA request "implicates records the FBI may or may not compile pursuant to its national security and foreign intelligence functions." The bureau provided other reasons for its decision not to disclose information, including concerns over privacy and interfering in ongoing federal investigations.
Cause of Action Institute president and CEO John Vecchione released a statement castigating the FBI's response.
"The FBI is circling the wagons by claiming potential harm to national security if it discloses its relationship with Christopher Steele," Vecchione said. "Regardless of whether a payment was ever made, the FBI's affiliation with a political opposition researcher in the midst of a presidential election deserves scrutiny."
"The FBI should be forthcoming about whether and how the agency was relying upon a former foreign spy who, in the pay of private parties, compiled a report of salacious accusations intended to harm the reputation of then-candidate Donald Trump," Vecchione added."
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Second article:: "Who authorized a private citizen to engage in an unsupervised investigation of a candidate for president?"
June 27, 2017, "FBI Refuses to Say if It Paid ['Golden Showers'] Trump Dossier Author Money for More Fiction," RedState.com, Streiff
"This is the second of three related posts I’m going to write today on the FBI, Fusion GPS, and their actions during the 2016 election (part one), part three."...
"One of the mysteries surrounding the Trump [Golden Showers] dossier is how it was received by the FBI. Despite the fact that there was nothing in the report that could be actually verified— for instance, Czech authorities say that Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, did not visit Prague as alleged — the FBI became totally enamored with the document. So enamored, in fact, that they offered to pay the author, Christopher Steele, $50,000 if he could dig up still more stuff on Trump."...
We don’t know what happened next. And we may never know....
Keep in mind the issue here is NOT what Steele produced or any evaluation of Steele’s work but whether or not appropriated funds were spent to pay for a report by him. This kind of information is not protected by FOIA and it is routinely published on agency websites. Indeed, it must be reported to Congress.
There is no way divulging the expenditure of funds can impact an ongoing federal investigation particularly when the disbursement would be nearly a year old.
It is pretty obvious from the vociferous nature of the refusal to answer that the FBI DID pay Steele for more investigatory work. Congress should find out who authorized a private citizen to engage in an unsupervised investigation of a candidate for president and why they thought it was a good idea."
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