First conviction in Obamagate. Many more need to come.

 

Today was the first indictment by John Durham’s investigation into the Obama administration and Deep State’s illegal spying on the Trump campaign.  An Obama-era FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, hired by the FBI in July 2015, is expected to plead guilty to a charge of making a false statement in connection with the FBI’s application for a fourth FISA warrant to continue spying on Carter Page, a member of Trump’s campaign team.  Let me explain why this is a BIG DEAL.

 

First, what did Kevin Clinesmith do?  The context will be explained below, but Kevin Clinesmith took an email he had received from the CIA that said Carter Page had been a source of intelligence information for the CIA, doctored the email from the CIA to say that Carter Page was “not a ‘source,’” and forwarded that doctored email to a Supervisory Special Agent within the FBI in order to obtain a FISA warrant to continue spying on Carter Page.

 

Second, who is Carter Page?  Carter Page is a former Navy officer and was affiliated with Trump’s campaign as a foreign policy advisor in 2016.  Carter Page’s career had involved “ties” to Russia.  Duh.  That’s what foreign policy people do – talk to foreigners.  In the foreign policy business, foreign countries try to recruit Americans to turn traitor and spy for them.  Of course Russia does this.  Russia tried to recruit Carter Page in 2013.  However, Carter Page was actually a CIA asset and reported to the CIA on Russian intelligence actions against the United States between 2008 and 2013.

 

To spy on an American citizen, you must have probable cause of a crime.  See U.S. Constitution, Fourth Amendment.  Having no probable cause Carter Page committed any crime, the Obama Administration alleged Carter Page was suspected of being a traitorous spy working for Russia.  That way, they could get a warrant from the “FISA” court, i.e., “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” to spy on Carter Page and, hence, within the Trump campaign (i.e., tap his phones, bug his office, use his cellphone with the cooperation of Google and Apple to record without his knowledge, etc.). 

 

You still need evidence to present to the FISA court, the “FISC,” to support the government’s suspicion that Carter Page was a Russian agent.  Carter Page being a foreign policy expert had, of course, been to Russia and talked with Russians.  He did so in patriotic duty to the United States.  Obama’s FBI spun these Russia contacts into suspicion that Carter Page had turned traitor.

 

The FISA court is secret.  The suspect doesn’t get a say in whether a warrant issues.  This imposes upon the government seeking a FISA warrant a duty of complete candor to the FISC judge, to provide all material information, including evidence that contradicts or exonerates the suspicion that an American is a foreign agent. 

 

Obama’s FBI knew that Carter Page was in fact a CIA source providing the United States with intelligence on Russian agents working against the United States.  The CIA told Obama’s FBI that Carter Page was in fact an American CIA source of intelligence in a written memo in August 2016. 

 

Nonetheless, Obama’s FBI sought a FISA warrant to authorize spying on Carter Page in October 2016.  The FISA warrant application omitted the fact that Carter Page had worked for the CIA, providing the CIA with intelligence against Russia, from 2008 to 2013.  This fact would explain Carter Page's contacts with Russians as opposed to leaving the FISC judge with no other explanation.  The FBI filed three more FISA warrant applications seeking to continue spying on Carter Page, both before and after Trump’s inauguration.  None of these FISA applications disclosed to the FISC judge that Carter Page was in fact an American source providing intelligence to America against Russia.   Who signed these FISA applications?  James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein.

 

Now to today’s indictment.  Obama-era FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was part of the process within the FBI to obtain the fourth and final FISA warrant against Carter Page.  By that time, June 2017, the Muller Investigation was in full swing.  Carter Page had publicly announced that he had been an intelligence source for the United States.  This public announcement caused the FBI to once again ask the CIA whether Carter Page had ever been a CIA source. 

 

Kevin Clinesmith’s supervisor, a so-called “Supervisory Special Agent” (“SSA”) that the criminal information doesn’t name, asked him to confirm with the CIA whether Carter Page had ever been an intelligence source for the CIA.  Kevin Clinesmith then emailed the CIA and asked them.  In this email, Kevin Clinesmith acknowledged, “There is an indication that [Carter Page] may be a ‘[digraph]’ source.  This is a fact we would need to disclose in our next FISA renewal.”  (A “digraph” is a two-letter acronym the CIA uses to describe what type of intelligence source a person is.  The public criminal information against Kevin Clinesmith doesn’t specify the two-letter acronym, which is apparently super-secret CIA code.)  The CIA emailed Kevin Clinesmith back and said Carter Page was a former CIA source, and referenced the earlier August 2016 memo the CIA had provided to the FBI when it opened the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation against the Trump campaign.

 

Kevin Clinesmith then exchanged a series of text messages with his SSA.  In these texts, Kevin Clinesmith said that the CIA confirmed Carter Page was merely a “subsource,” “was never a source” and “CIA confirmed explicitly he was never a source.”  The SSA asked whether Kevin Clinesmith got that from the CIA in writing.  Kevin Clinesmith texted back that the CIA did put it in writing, and forwarded the email he had received by the CIA to the SSA.  Kevin Clinesmith doctored that email.  We all know that when you forward an email using Outlook, you can edit the text of the email you are forwarding.  Kevin Clinesmith inserted the words “and not a ‘source’” into the CIA’s email to him, then forwarded that doctored email to the SSA after falsely telling him the CIA had confirmed Carter Page was never a CIA source.  Because of this doctored email, the FBI SSA believed the CIA had confirmed Carter Page was not an intelligence source for the United States, despite his public pronouncements.  Thus, the fourth and last FISA application seeking an extension of the warrant to continue spying on Carter Page omitted the fact that Carter Page had been a CIA source of foreign intelligence information against Russia.

 

Who is Kevin Clinesmith?  A flat-out traitor.  After Trump’s election, he texted another FBI lawyer, Sally Moyer,

·         “I’m just devastated. I can’t wait until I can leave today and just shut off the world for the next four days.”

·         “I just can’t imagine the systematic disassembly of the progress we made over the last 8 years. ACA is gone. Who knows if the rhetoric about deporting people, walls, and crap is true. I honestly feel like there is going to be a lot more gun issues, too, the crazies won finally. This is the tea party on steroids. And the GOP is going to be lost, they have to deal with an incumbent in 4 years. We have to fight this again. Also Pence is stupid.”

·         “Plus, my god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff.”

·         When asked by Moyer, “Is it making you rethink your commitment to the Trump administration?” Kevin Clinesmith replied, “Hell no.” and then added, “Viva le resistance.”

 

In sum, a traitorous Obama-era FBI lawyer intentionally doctored an email he received from the CIA in order to continue illegally spying on a member of Trump’s campaign team.  He is about to plead guilty to this heinous crime.  Yahoo! and CNN are not covering the story, but to their credit, MSNBC and the New York Times do have this story on their front web pages.