While We’ve Been Obsessing Over Christine Ford, Trump Ordered the Release of FISA Court Applications and Other Key Documents

The Democrat’s elation over Brett Kavanaugh’s misfortune turned to anger and derision when the White House announced that President Trump had ordered the declassification of the FBI’s FISA Court applications for the warrant (and renewals) to spy on Carter Page, FBI “302” reports of Bruce Ohr briefing McCabe and Strzok on the latest news from British spy Christopher Steele after Steele had been terminated, and additional text messages between former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page,  and the DOJ’s twice-demoted Bruce Ohr.

It is unclear when the unredacted documents will be made available. Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, who has followed this case closely, said it was expected that the requested pages of the FISA Court applications and the FBI’s 302 reports summarizing Bruce Ohr’s briefings to their counterintelligence team will be made available within days. The unredacted copies of text messages between Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page and Ohr may require additional time.

The FBI tried to obtain a warrant to spy on former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page to provide a window into candidate Donald Trump’s world. It is important to note that Page was never questioned by the FBI, nor was he ever charged with a crime. The basis of the application for the original FISA Court warrant to spy on page, according to the Grassley-Graham letter and the Nunes memo (which, although instructive, were not definitive because of their heavily redacted condition), was the Steele Dossier. This corrupt, unverified dossier was commissioned and paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC who worked through law firm Perkins Coie to hire Glenn Simpson’s opposition research firm, Fusion GPS. The FBI presented this document to the FISA Court without noting that it was unverified or that it was opposition research bought and paid for by HRC and the DNC. The declassified documents ordered by President Trump are expected to prove that the basis of the warrant application and subsequent renewals was this dossier and therefore, fraudulent.

After the FBI terminated Steele for leaking to the media in October 2016, they still wanted access to his information and used Ohr to serve as their intermediary. Following each meeting Bruce Ohr held with Christopher Steele, he would brief Andrew McCabe or Peter Strzok and these meetings were documented on FBI “302” forms. Congressional investigators learned much new information during Ohr’s closed door testimony in August, including that Steele had been “very concerned” about Comey’s firing and was “afraid they will be exposed.” A glimpse of these reports will be illuminating.

And finally, the unredacted text messages between all of the key players should provide a fascinating perspective into their motives and methods.

In the last several days, several new developments occurred which support the theory that the whole Trump/Russia investigation was a hoax. First, Catherine Herridge obtained copies of the transcript of Lisa Page’s July testimony before Congress. Page testified that in May 2017, when Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller to the Special Counsel, the FBI had no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians. I wrote a post here about this.

Next, another text message from Strzok to Page was revealed from May 9, 2017, the day James Comey was fired. Shortly after the news was released, Strzok texted: “We need to open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy is acting.”

The last item involved Bob Woodward, author of the new book, “Fear,” about the world inside the Trump White House. He was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt on Friday.

Hewitt: Did you, Bob Woodward, hear anything in your research that sounded like espionage or collusion?

Woodward: I did not — and, uh, of course, I — I looked for it, looked for it hard and  — uh, so, you know, there we are. We’re gonna see what Mueller has.

Hewitt: But you’ve seen no collusion?

Woodward: I have not.

Critics are saying that Trump ordered these documents to be released after hearing that Paul Manafort and Robert Mueller had reached an agreement. The WSJ reports:

“The order came three days after former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the Mueller probe. And on Monday, in a signal that Mr. Mueller’s investigation was moving closer to the finish line, his office said it was ready for a federal judge to sentence Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, on Nov. 28.”

However, the declassification of these documents was reported to be “imminent” ten days ago. On Friday, September 7th, the news was expected as early as that weekend or early the next week. Neither Manafort’s deal with Mueller nor Michael Flynn’s sentencing news had been released yet.

The announcement by Mueller’s office that Michael Flynn is ready for sentencing “signals they don’t need his testimony in any trial or prosecution of any other defendant” and may be a sign Mueller is close to wrapping up.

Democrats can spin this latest development any way they choose, but this will be like placing a chisel on a rock and striking it with a hammer. The rock will split open and will reveal details of the abuse of power by Obama’s top officials. The DOJ and the FBI have been working feverishly to prevent this information from becoming public, fearing that the whole world would see there never really was any “there there.”