OPINION| Well, well, well, it seems like the Trump admin, specifically the Justice Department is doing a 180 from the Neville Chamberlain esq policies of its former head, Jeff Sessions.
Barr and Durham are apparently not messing around and are not going to bend the knee to the desperate DS saboteurs. This is the most encouraging news I have heard in sometime, perhaps since Trump’s election.
I would love to write this one up myself, but Conservative Treehouse did a better job that I could do so here is the beginning of their report:
Opinion Via Conservative Tree House| This would appear to be one of the few positive indicators that AG Bill Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham are indeed doing more than bondo. The New York Times is reporting the Durham “review” has now officially moved into a full “criminal investigation”. [All emphasis mine]
WASHINGTON — For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began.
Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges.
My initial question was/is: does this mean the *interviews* with John Brennan and James Clapper were predicated on a shift into a criminal investigation? If yes, is that reality the baseline for the New York Times changing the reporting?
[…] The move also creates an unusual situation in which the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into itself.
Mr. Barr’s reliance on Mr. Durham, a widely respected and veteran prosecutor who has investigated C.I.A. torture and broken up Mafia rings, could help insulate the attorney general from accusations that he is doing the president’s bidding and putting politics above justice.
It was not clear what potential crime Mr. Durham is investigating, nor when the criminal investigation was prompted. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
[…] Federal investigators need only a “reasonable indication” that a crime has been committed to open an investigation, a much lower standard than the probable cause required to obtain search warrants. However, “there must be an objective, factual basis for initiating the investigation; a mere hunch is insufficient,” according to Justice Department guidelines.
When Mr. Barr appointed Mr. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, to lead the review, he had only the power to voluntarily question people and examine government files.
[…] Mr. Barr began the administrative review of the Russia investigation in May, saying that he had conversations with intelligence and law enforcement officials that led him to believe that the F.B.I. acted improperly, if not unlawfully.
The F.B.I. opened the investigation in late July 2016, code-named Crossfire Hurricane, after receiving information from the Australian government that a Trump campaign adviser had been approached with an offer of stolen emails that could damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
F.B.I. agents discovered the offer shortly after stolen Democratic emails were released, and the events, along with ties between other Trump advisers and Russia, set off fears that the Trump campaign was conspiring with Russia’s interference.
FBI agents “discovered the offer“? Interesting use of words within the article by an outlet who sells the position of the DOJ and FBI. The “offer” was from Joseph Mifsud, who we know is not a Russian intelligence operative, but rather now appears to be a western intelligence operative under the guiding control of the CIA. The “discovery” part was the report of that activity by Australian diplomat Alexander Downer.
So what the New York Times is outlining here, is the CIA ran an operation using Mifsud to place information into Papadopoulos, a classic set-up, and the FBI is now claiming they had no idea the CIA was the originating intelligence apparatus for that information. Very interesting…. aligns with the FBI defensive framework from last week.
[…] The F.B.I. did not use information from the C.I.A. in opening the Russia investigation, former American officials said. But agents’ views on Russia’s election interference operation crystallized by mid-August, after the C.I.A. director at the time, John O. Brennan, shared intelligence with Mr. Comey about it.
Well the claim: “The F.B.I. did not use information from the C.I.A. in opening the Russia investigation” is demonstrably false. The CIA produced an “electronic communication” (EC) to the FBI which officially launched the premise of operation “crossfire hurricane’. That EC has never been released, though it has been seen by congressional investigators. So whoever this “former American official” is, is lying. Read The Rest At Conservative Treehouse.com
