"Once-secret reports show the FBI effort to spy on the Trump campaign was far wider than previously disclosed, as agents directed an undercover informant to make secret recordings, pressed for intelligence on numerous GOP figures, and sought to find "anyone in the Trump campaign" with ties to Russia who could acquire dirt "damaging to Hillary Clinton."
The now-declassified operational handling reports for FBI confidential human source Stefan Halper — codenamed "Mitch" ... (a) wide dragnet that was cast to target numerous high-level officials inside the GOP campaign just weeks before Americans chose their next president in the November 2016 election.
... Almost immediately after the FBI opened a Russia collusion probe on July 31, 2016 narrowly focused on the foreign lobbying of a single Trump campaign aide named George Papadopoulos, agents pressed Halper for information on more than a half dozen other figures, including future Attorney General Jeff Sessions, foreign policy adviser Sam Clovis, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, economic adviser Peter Navarro, future National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and campaign adviser Carter Page.
Halper provided significant exculpatory (proof of innocence) evidence to the FBI — including transcripts of conversations he recorded of targeted Trump advisers providing statements of innocence — that was never disclosed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that approved a year of surveillance targeting the Trump campaign, and specifically Page.
... the memos' most explosive revelations are the sheer breadth of the FBI's insufficiently predicated dragnet targeting the Trump campaign, and the agents' clearly stated purpose of thwarting any Trump campaign effort to get dirt from Russia that could hurt his Democratic rival.
... Ordinarily, FBI counterintelligence investigations that target Americans legally must be predicated on specific allegations that narrowly focus the bureau's spy powers on limited targets to avoid unnecessary infringement of privacy and civil liberties.
But the Halper documents reveal a large, unfocused FBI search with little substantiation of alleged wrongdoing, and significant evidence that undermined the core allegations, experts told Just the News.
Former FBI Assistant Director for Intelligence Kevin Brock said the information about Papadopoulos' foreign lobbying that the bureau used to open the Russia collusion probe failed to meet the bureau's own legal standards to justify the larger dragnet that encompassed Page and many other Trump officials.
" ... The only sane, logical explanation why the Crossfire Hurricane team would doggedly perpetuate such an unfounded investigation is political bias,” Brock added.
Brock's comments echo the words of one of the lead FBI agents in the Russia case, William Barnett, who last year told the Justice Department in a lengthy interview that there was never any credible evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and that the investigation only persisted because there was a "get Trump" attitude among investigators.
... Just the News obtained the new informant documents — previously classified at the "secret" level — after Trump ordered hundreds of Russia collusion probe documents declassified during his final 24 hours in office last month.
The informant documents chronicle the efforts by the FBI to direct Halper as a confidential human source from August 2016 through early 2017.
... The other informant, the former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele, wrote the infamous dossier that became the basis for the FBI to seek a warrant to spy on Page in October 2016, just two months after opening the probe on the separate Papadopoulos allegations.
The memos showed Halper followed FBI instruction and helped the FBI make recordings that clearly captured (Carter) Page — unaware he was talking to an FBI informant — denying the key allegations against him.
On the recordings Page said that he had not met with two sanctioned Russians as Steele had alleged, that he had not played a role in modifying the RNC platform to help Russia, and that he was not involved with or aware of any effort by the Trump campaign to work with Russia to hack Clinton's emails.
... Those recordings — clear evidence of potential innocence — were never properly shared by the FBI with the FISA court that kept approving surveillance warrants targeting Page, the Justice Department inspector general has reported.
The memos show Halper occasionally brought information to the FBI that called into question the Russia collusion theory.
And when the FBI pressed for any information on whether Sessions, then a U.S. senator and senior adviser to the Trump campaign, might be involved in Russian collusion, Halper threw shade at the notion.
"The CHS does not know Sessions but opined that Sessions is a conservative who would not be friendly to Russia," an Aug. 15, 2016 bureau report concluded.
... The memos at various points mention several prominent names that the FBI sought information on, including Trump's first national security adviser Flynn, his campaign chairman Manafort, his economic adviser Peter Navarro and his foreign policy adviser Sam Clovis.
... Over the years, current FBI Director Chris Wray and fired former Director James Comey have suggested the FBI's activities in the Russia probe were not spying.
But the Halper memos clearly show the FBI employed many of the tradecraft tools of espionage, from recording and monitoring Halper's conversations with Trump figures to providing him questions, background information and even a believable cover story to justify his frequent contacts inside the campaign: he was seeking a job on team Trump.
... Brock, the former FBI executive, said Wray's and Comey's effort to avoid using the word spying in the Russia case were simply semantics.
... “When we employ the investigative techniques used against Carter Page to break the laws of another country and steal their secrets, it’s okay to call it spying.
When we use those same techniques against a U.S. citizen, it’s called an investigation." "
Saturday, February 27, 2021
"Once-secret FBI informant reports reveal wider-ranging operation to spy on Trump campaign" By John Solomon
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