There is a growing body of evidence that the FBI leadership engaged in a criminal conspiracy and that the Department of Justice senior leaders were enthusiastic collaborators in a plot to take down President Donald Trump. The latest evidence comes courtesy of a partial look at the FISA applications that were filed by the FBI with DOJ approval seeking permission to spy on Carter Page, an American citizen. I write, "partial" because about 85% of the application is blacked out.
We owe thanks to Judicial Watch, who kept the heat on with FOIA requests and succeeded in getting this release. Unfortunately, in the typical sneaky, insidious practice of the Deep State--the document dump came late Saturday night.
The pdf file that Judicial Watch posted online consists of four FISA applications. Each application consists of four different sections--First, a Verified Application; Second, the Certification of the application; Third, approval by a DOJ official of the application; Fourth, a request for authorization; and Fifth, the approval by the Judge of the application by the Judge sitting on the FISA Court.
I took time to break out the various sections of the four FISA applications if you are inclined to dig into the document, which 412 pages in length:
October 2016 FISA APPLICATION (83 pages):
pp. 1-54; VERIFIED APPLICATION signed by Peter Strzok (note, his name is blacked out but other documents from other sources indicate that Strzok was the Supervisory Special Agent on this case).
pp. 55-63; CERTIFICATION signed by James B. Comey
pp. 64-65; APPROVAL OF FILING signed by Sally Quillian Yates
pp. 66 REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION signed by [BLACKED OUT]
pp. 67-83; PRIMARY ORDER AND WARRANT approved by Judge Collyer
January 2017 FISA APPLICATION RENEWAL (98 pages):
pp. 84-150 VERIFIED APPLICATION signed by Peter Strzok?? (note, his name is blacked out but other documents indicate that Strzok was the Supervisory Special Agent on this case).
pp. 151-159; CERTIFICATION signed by James B. Comey
pp. 160-161; APPROVAL OF FILING signed by Sally Quillian Yates
pp. 162; REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION signed by [BLACKED OUT]
pp. 163-181; PRIMARY ORDER AND WARRANT approved by Judge Mosman
April 2017 FISA APPLICATION RENEWAL (110 pages)
pp. 182-260 VERIFIED APPLICATION signed by Peter Strzok?? (note, his name is blacked out but other documents indicate that Strzok was the Supervisory Special Agent on this case).
pp. 261-269; CERTIFICATION signed by James B. Comey
pp. 270-271; APPROVAL OF FILING signed by Dana J. Boente
pp. 272; REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION signed by [BLACKED OUT]
pp. 273-292; PRIMARY ORDER AND WARRANT approved by Judge Conway
June 2017 FISA APPLICATION RENEWAL (119 pages)
pp. 293-380 VERIFIED APPLICATION signed by Peter Strzok?? (note, his name is blacked out but other documents indicate that Strzok was the Supervisory Special Agent on this case).
pp. 381-389; CERTIFICATION signed by James B. Comey
pp. 390-391; APPROVAL OF FILING signed by Rod J. Rosenstein
pp. 392; REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION signed by [BLACKED OUT]
pp. 393-412; PRIMARY ORDER AND WARRANT approved by Judge Dearie
Although much of the substance of the applications remains a mystery because most of the four applications are blacked out, what is left is alarming because of the political bias demonstrated. The first application identifies the target as:
Carter W. Page, a U.S. person, and an agent of a foreign power. . . .the FBI believes that Page has been the subject of a targeted recruitment by the Russian Government. Page is a former foreign policy advisor to [Donald Trump].
What is shocking is that the FBI opened this bullshit case without one shred of evidence. The first application makes this fact very clear:
"The FBI believes that the Russian Government efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with [Donald Trump's campaign].
Believes? This is not a religious revival nor is it a magic show. This is supposed to be a law enforcement investigation based on credible evidence. But the only evidence the FBI could come up with was dubious intelligence from an ostensibly retired British spook aka Christopher Steele.
On page 15 of the application, the FBI states:
According to open source information, in July 2016, Page traveled to Russia and delivered the commencement address at the New Economic School. In addition to giving this address, the FBI HAS LEARNED that Page met with at least two russian officials during this trip. First, according to information provided by an FBI confidential human source (Source #1), [BLANK] reported that Page had a secret meeting with Igor Sechin, who is the President of Rosneft [a Russian energy company] and a close associate to Russian President Putin.
The footnotes in the application are more informative that the actual content of the application. Footnote #8 at the bottom of page 15 in the first Application states that:
"Source #1 . . . has been an FBI source since [BLANKED OUT] Source #1's reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings and the FBI assesses source #1 to be reliable. Source #1 has been compensated [BLANKED OUT] by the FBI and the FBI is unaware of any derogatory information pertaining to Source #1."
To reiterate a critical point I have made in previous articles, the U.S. and the U.K have had a longstanding agreement that they would NOT (I repeat NOT) recruit each other's intelligence personnel. The FBI clearly violated this agreement by admitting that it had signed up Source #1 aka Christopher Steele as an official informant and had paid him. We do not yet know how long he was on the FBI payroll, but that information needs to come out.
Even more alarming is the fact that the FBI Supervisory Agent, Peter Strzok, admits he knew that Steele was working for the Democrats via Fusion GPS. Take a look at this little tidbit that is part of footnote #8. I am going to take the liberty of using the actual names so that you do not get lost in the FBI jargon:
Christopher Steele, who now owns a foreign business/financial intelligence firm, was approached by Glen Simpson, who indicated to Christopher Steele that a U.S.-based law firm, Perkins Coie, had hired Simpson to conduct research regarding Donald Trump's ties to Russia (Simpson and Steele have a long-standing relationship). Glen Simpson hired Christopher Steele to conduct this research. Simpson never advised Steele as to the motivation behind the research into Trump's ties [sic] to Russia. The FBI speculates that Simpson was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Trump's campaign.
Christopher Steele tasked his sub-source(s) to collect the requisite information. After Steele received information from the sub-source(s), described herein, Steele provided the information to Glen Simpson and to the FBI.
It is the subsequent paragraph that merits further scrutiny:
NOTWITHSTANDING STEELE'S REASON FOR CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH INTO TRUMP'S TIES TO RUSSIA, based on Steele's previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby Steele provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes Steele's reporting herein to be credible.
One of the blacked out sections clearly contains an explanation that Steele had other reasons for investigating Trump beyond the simple fact he had been hired to do so. What other motives were driving Steele?
I would also point out that there is no assumption of Donald Trump's innocence. No presumption that these charges might be baseless. The author of this application made it very clear, "TRUMP'S TIES TO RUSSIA." Nope. Trump was guilty and the FBI Supervisory Agent who wrote this application quoted liberally from the section of the Steele dossier that dealt with Carter Page.
The application, at least the part we can read, then takes a very curious turn and cites a press article as "proof" of Trump's Russian leanings. It was a piece by Josh Rogin, 18 July 2016, Trump Campaign Guts GOP’s anti-Russia stance on Ukraine:
The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington.
Throughout the campaign, Trump has been dismissive of calls for supporting the Ukraine government as it fights an ongoing Russian-led intervention. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, worked as a lobbyist for the Russian-backed former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for more than a decade.
Peter Strzok goes on to quote more parts from the Rogin article. Strzok writes in the application (see p. 21 of Application 1):
The August 2016 article further reported that Trump might recognize Crimea as Russian Territory and lift punitive U.S. sanctions against Russia. the article OPINED that while the reason for Trump's shift was not clear, Trump's more conciliatory words, with contradict the Republican Party's official platform, follow Trump's recent association with several people sympathetic to Russian influence in Ukraine, including foreign policy advisor Carter Page.
Strzok does not stop there. He is quite the media maven. He turns to Michael Isikoff's 23 September 2016 article, U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin as further proof, albeit indirect, of Trump consorting with the Russians. Isikoff wrote:
The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and “high ranking sanctioned individuals” in Moscow over the summer as evidence of “significant and disturbing ties” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau.
While even an imbecile of limited intellect would probably figure out that the Steele Dossier had made its way into the hands of the media, Peter Strzok (who was already certain that Trump was Putin's puppet) had his doubts. He notes the following in footnote #18 (see p. 23 of Application 1):
As discussed above, Steele was hired by Simpson of Fusion GPS to conduct research into Trump's ties to Russia. Steele provided the results to Simpson, and the FBI assesses that Simpson likely provided this information to Perkins Coie. Steele told the FBI the he only provided this information to Simpson and the FBI. . . . The FBI does not believe that Steele directly provided this information to the press.
Whoops!!! Turns out that was not true. Steele in fact did give the info to Isikoff and others. Not exactly the conduct one would expect from a supposedly professional intelligence officer.
The first application admits the FBI talked to Carter Page and that Page, both to the FBI and in public, denied being a Russian intelligence operative. But Strzok refused to entertain Page's denials as serious and signed off on the first FISA application. But Strzok was not acting alone. He had the backing of FBI Director Comey and Assistant Attorney General Sally Yates. This was not just one rogue agent. This was a pre-emptive coup.
Trump wins. But Strzok and company press on. Despite having carte blanche to collect on the unsuspecting Carter Page, they fail to turn up any important intelligence that could implicate Page or the Trump campaign. Rather than admit failure, the FBI doubled down and sought an extension. Only with the extension they did have the decency to disclose that Christopher Steele had gone rogue via an addendum to footnote #8:
Steele has been compensated [BLACKED OUT] by the FBI. [BLACKED OUT] in or about October 2016, the FBI suspended its relationship with Steele due to his unauthorized disclosure of information to the press. Notwithstanding the suspension of it relationship with Steel, the FBI assesses Steele to be reliable as previous reporting from Steele has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings. Moreover, the FBI notes that the indecent that led to the FBI suspending its relationship with Steele occurred after Steele provided the reporting that is described herein.
If you ever doubted that Peter Strzok and James Comey were corrupt, this one paragraph should erase any uncertainty. Steele had lied to the FBI about a substantive matter, i.e., passing information to the press. Why then should the FBI assume that he was not lying about Russia and Trump? Particularly since they had already acknowledged that Steele had other motives for going after Trump.
Despite acknowledging that Steele had lied and that he was the source for Isikoff's September article, the FBI continued to include the Isikoff material in its application to renew the FISA warrant. Strzok and Comey did not blink. Neither did DOJ Assistant Attorney General Sally Yates.
It is time for Donald Trump to wake the hell up and confront the sedition at the Department of Justice, at the FBI, at the CIA and at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Russia investigation is a fraud and has been from the outset. Though heavily redacted, the FISA application is damning of the FBI and DOJ and the Judges who acquiesced to this charade.
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