Politics Prof: It Looks Like the Dam’s About to Break on Crossfire Hurricane

TRUNEWS with RICK WILES A politics professor has written a lengthy op-ed for RealClearPolitics in which he suggests the recent indictment of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith is a big problem for those who worked directly on the Crossfire Hurricane plot to bring down President Donald Trump. Chicago University professor emeritus Charles Lipson declared the establishment media’s narrative that Clinesmith’s indictment was a minor offense tied to a meaningless mid-level figure is “spin.” He added: “This plea is like finding water seeping from the base of a dam. The problem is not one muddy puddle. The problem is that it foreshadows the dam’s failure, releasing a torrent. That’s what the Clinesmith plea portends.” Last week, Clinesmith admitted he altered an email from the CIA to downplay Trump 2016 campaign volunteer Carter Page’s history as an asset with the agency. That doctored email, and dishonest misrepresentations to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, led to four FISA warrants to spy on Page – and by extension the Trump campaign. Click here to see our previous report on Clinesmith’s indictment: https://tinyurl.com/y4a68mq4 Lipson, however, notes that Clinesmith’s plea deal matters a great deal to the bigger picture, because it sheds light on U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham’s broader investigation and the potential crimes he is uncovering. The trail leading to those bigger crimes includes: • It was no surprise to learn last week that Kevin Clinesmith had altered an official document. Inspector General Michael Horowitz had already reported it, without naming the culprit. Durham had that information and could have indicted Clinesmith long ago. He didn’t because he was interviewing others about FISA abuses and didn’t want to give them any information from Clinesmith’s indictment. Releasing that information now shows Durham has completed his work on FISA fraud. • Other, more senior FBI officials must have been involved in these FISA abuses, though Durham hasn’t said so yet. Some committed abuse themselves. Others knew about it or should have known. Still others must have discovered the misrepresentations, but failed to report them to the FISA court, as they were required to do. Those failures are felonies. • Clinesmith has said he gave other FBI members the true document, not just the altered one. The 23rd paragraph of the charging information says Clinesmith “provided the unchanged C.I.A. email to Crossfire Hurricane agents and the Justice Department lawyer drafting the original wiretap application.” That’s a smoking bazooka. • How can Durham prove the CIA’s truthful information was circulated and then hidden? By thoroughly checking the FBI’s internal document system. It should record everyone who received Clinesmith’s accurate (unaltered) document and those they later passed it to. If the agents and lawyers merely discussed the falsification, then prosecutors will need several witnesses to substantiate it. • The real leader of the Mueller team, Andrew Weissmann, is still blowing smoke about these mounting legal problems. On Friday, he tweeted, “Clinesmith is charged with adding the words ‘not a source’ to an email about Carter Page, but nowhere does the charge say that is false, i.e. that Page was a source for the CIA.” Notice, Weissmann is not saying he knew nothing or that Page really was a Russian source. He simply saying that a 180-degree change in the document’s wording doesn’t mean what your lying eyes think it means. • Weissmann’s comment shows the Mueller team is sticking with their existing disclaimer. Their report says they won’t speculate on “whether the correction of any particular misstatement or omission, or some combination thereof, would have resulted in a different outcome.” In order words, “We don’t see something. We don’t say something. And we don’t know if it matters.” • Clinesmith actually worked on Robert Mueller’s team. He was tasked from the bureau to work with that team, which then submitted his falsified document to the FISA court. That’s crucially important. If attorneys on the special counsel team knew about his crime and did nothing to inform the court, if they continued to use a document they knew was fraudulent, they will face charges. That would implicate Mueller’s team for the first time in illegal activity to undermine the Trump presidency. That’s a much bigger matter than writing a biased report. • We know from other declassified documents that it wasn’t just Mueller’s FISA application that had false information. All four applications did. Indeed, they depended on it, especially on the Steele dossier. Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified that, without Steele, the warrants would not have been granted. Yet none of the agents and prosecutors ever told the FISA court about fraud, misrepresentation, and bias from Steele, Clinesmith, or others. • The Mueller team must have known Clinesmith’s actions were a problem. They didn’t just get rid him, they tried to shift the blame. That’s the meaning of an opaque footnote in their report, which said that the bureau, not the Mueller team, supervised “an FBI attorney” who worked for the special counsel. Hey, it’s them, not us! • This CYA footnote, clever as it is, doesn’t mean the Mueller team was ignorant of Clinesmith’s fraud when they submitted the FISA warrant application. Nor does it absolve them of responsibility for failing to tell the court promptly when they suddenly “discovered” it was inaccurate. • Did Clinesmith act alone or did anyone tell him to alter the document? That’s a critical question, and Durham has not answered it yet. Nor has he said who knew what Clinesmith had done. Again, the key to proving that is either a paper trail or multiple cooperating witnesses. We should get Durham’s answers when he issues more indictments. Lipson wrote that anyone who worked with Clinesmith on the Crossfire Hurricane case should be getting nervous right now, because he’s likely telling Durham everything he knows about the hoax investigation. Any plea deal would require complete disclosure – and Durham’s history as a prosecutor suggests he won’t settle for anything less. But, he added, everyone on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team – or elsewhere in the Justice Department and FBI (think upper management) – who knew Clinesmith altered the CIA email is in trouble. That leads to a few unanswered questions, he added: • The main questions are “how wide is this corruption?” and “how high up does it go?” Those go well beyond Clinesmith’s altered document. They include all the other lies in the warrants. • Does Durham have enough evidence—and fortitude—to charge senior officials who signed false applications? They will say, as former-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did to Congress, that they relied entirely on subordinates to give them complete, honest information. To rebut that, Durham needs hard evidence. He may also feel he needs evidence of intent. The higher up you go, the more evidence you need. We talk, rightly, about equality under the law, but, in practice, prosecutors want stronger, more unequivocal evidence to charge senior officials. • Were all the lies and misinformation a concerted effort, a true criminal conspiracy? That will be one of Durham’s toughest calls, and it would need approval from Attorney General William Barr. Such a charge would ignite a political firestorm, fueled by partisan media. But, then, so does everything these days. In conclusion, Lipson returned to his original metaphor about the failing dam: “The Clinesmith indictment is a telling puddle where the ground should be dry. It’s a troubling omen for those who violated Carter Page’s rights, spied on the Trump campaign, and systematically abused the powerful tools of law enforcement. They are living downstream, and they should be worried.” So, who are the “they” that Lipson wrote about? Here’s a short list of potential future defendants “downstream” of Clinesmith’s plea deal, based on what we already know: • Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch • Former Deputy Attorney General (and acting AG) Sally Yates • Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein • Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr • Former FBI Director James Comey • Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe • Former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann (Mueller’s “Pit Bull”) • Former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Bill Priestap • Former FBI Counterespionage Section Chief Peter Strzok As Lipson noted in his op-ed, how many of those people actually get indicted will depend on both the depth of Durham’s evidence and on his personal internal fortitude. (Photo Credit: PixShark) www.trunews.com