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In his testimony before the Senate last week, Attorney General William Barr used the word "spying" to refer to the Obama administration. She was spying on the Trump campaign. Of course, fainting ensued, with the collapse of the media-democrat complex. Former FBI director Jim Comey said he was confused by Barr's remarks because the FBI's "surveillance" had been authorized by a court.
(Needless to say, the former director failed to mention that the court was not informed that the Bureau's "evidence" regarding warrants was unverified hearsay paid by the Clinton campaign.)
The beading was predictable. Less than a year ago, we learned that the Obama administration had used a confidential informant – a spy – to approach at least three Trump campaign leaders in the months leading up to the 2016 election, seeking to prove that the campaign was complicit with the Kremlin. hacking democrat emails.
The night after the day, we had the same hysteria we had this week in the Beltway: a ridiculous semantics about the word "spying" – which, whether or not a judge authorizes it, is only the secret collection of information about an alleged alleged wrongdoer, organization, or foreign power.
There is no doubt that the Obama administration spied the Trump campaign. As Barr clearly explained, the real question is: what led to espionage? Was there a valid reason, strong enough to defeat our standard against political espionage? Or was it done recklessly? Has a political decision been made to use very intrusive investigative tactics when a more measured response would have been sufficient, such as a "defensive briefing" that would have warned the Trump campaign against a possible infiltration of Russia?
James Clapper, director of Obama's National Intelligence Service, admitted that the FBI was leading an informant last year as "spy" games began to unfold. but, we were told, it was simply to investigate Russia. Cross Clapper's Heart, it has nothing to do with the Trump campaign. No no no. Indeed, the Obama administration used an informant only because – I hope you did not know it – it is the most benign and least intrusive way to investigate.
Me? I think that the tens of thousands of convicted prisoners who are serving heavy sentences because of the penetration of their schemes by informants would not want to delay. (Well, Mr. Gambino, I assure you that it was for your good.). And imagine the Democrats' response if, for example, the Bush administration led a secret intelligence agent against the 2008 Obama campaign leaders, including the campaigners. co-chair. David Axelrod, Chuck Schumer, The New York Times and Rachel Maddow would surely say that "everything is forgiven" once they heard Republicans scrupulously analyzing the nuances between "spying" and "watching"; between "spies" and "informers"; and between the campaigners and those investigating the campaign itself – and the candidate.
The "spying" issue was raised last spring, when we learned that Stefan Halper, a source of long-standing intelligence for the CIA and British intelligence, had been charged, during the investigation of the FBI on Russia, to discuss with three advisers of the Trump campaign: Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Sam. Clovis. This was in addition to previous revelations that the Obama Department of Justice and the FBI had obtained espionage warrants on Page's communications, starting about three weeks before the 2016 elections.
The fact that the espionage took place was too clear for a credible denial. The reply was therefore a mistake: there had been no spying on Donald Trump or his campaign; on some bad potential players in the orbit of the campaign.
It was nonsense then, and it is now nonsense.
Police representatives who said what the FBI was doing were perhaps well served by listening to what he said.
On March 20, 2017, for example, the director of Comey, the director of Comey, testified before the House Intelligence Committee. Comey was not content to confirm the existence of a counterintelligence investigation into Russian spying aimed at influencing the 2016 election – even though the government usually refuses to . to confirm the existence of an investigation, let alone a secret counter-intelligence investigation. The director also identified the Trump campaign as the subject of the investigation, although, to avoid smudging people, the Justice Department never identified any untrained people or organizations making the subject of an investigation. As Comey said:
"The Ministry of Justice has authorized me to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the presidential election. 2016, especially on the nature of the links between people associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and there was a coordination between the campaign and the efforts of Russia. . . "
The FBI spied on it, and it was doing so as part of an investigation into the Trump campaign. That's why, for more than two years, Washington has been fascinated by the specter of "Trump's collusion with Russia" – and not the collusion of Page or Papadopoulos with Russia. Comey made extraordinary efforts to tell the world that the FBI was not just targeting people of different ranks in the campaign; the main question was whether the Trump campaign itself – the entity – had "coordinated" in the spying operation conducted by Russia.
In the months leading up to the elections, at the time of the Trump-Russia inquiry, some of the openly political and fiercely anti-Trump FBI agents leading the investigation discussed with one another the possibility of arresting Trump or the US. use as an "insurance policy". "In the very unlikely event that Trump won the elections. After Trump's dazzling victory, the Obama administration had a dilemma: how could the investigation be maintained if Trump was informed? After all, as president, he would have the power to close it.
On January 6, 2017, Comey, Clapper, John Brennan, Director of the CIA, and Michael Rogers, Director of the National Security Agency, paid a visit to President-Elect Trump in New York to inform him of the Investigation of Russia.
Just a day earlier, at the White House, Comey and then, the Acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, had met with the Obama administration's political leaders – President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and the advisor for national security, Susan Rice – to discuss the retention of information Survey of Russia's new Trump government.
Rice put this trick in the memo about the Oval Office meeting (written two weeks after the fact, while Rice left her office a few minutes after Trump's inauguration):
"President Obama said that he wanted to be sure that, in our discussions with the new team, we kept in mind to determine if there was a reason why we could not share information comprehensively regarding Russia. [Emphasis added.]"
It's easy to understand why Obama officials needed to discuss Trump's information retention. They knew that the Trump campaign – not just some people closely linked to the campaign – was currently being investigated by the FBI. An informant had been assaulted by campaign agents. FISA's monitoring of the page was ongoing – in fact, just before Trump's inauguration, the Obama administration had obtained a new warrant for another 90 days of spying.
After describing Russia's spying operations, the Justice Ministry told the court: "The FBI believes that the efforts of the Russian government are coordinated with the campaign of the No. 1 candidate.[.]Candidate # 1 was Donald Trump – now elected president.
The fact that the Trump campaign is being investigated for collaboration with Russia has not been hidden from the new president; he had been selected from the "Gang of Eight" congress.
In his testimony to the Chamber of Deputies of March 2017, answering the questions of the representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the director of Comey, Comey, acknowledged that the direction of the Congress had not been informed of the Trump-Russia survey at quarterly meetings from July 2016 to early March 2017 because it was a question of such sensitivity. Let's put aside the need to alert Congress to sensitive issues is exactly the reason why there is a gang of eight (made up of bipartite leaders of both houses and their intelligence committees).
Clearly, the case was deemed too "tricky" for disclosure, as it would have implied telling Republican congressional leaders that the current Democratic administration was using counter-intelligence powers to investigate foreign intelligence. Republican presidential campaign and on the party candidate, as alleged agents clandestine Kremlin. .
How to keep the investigation going when Trump took office? The plan provided for Comey to put the new president at ease by telling him that he was not a suspect. That would not have been a credible assurance if Comey had informed Trump that (a) his campaign had been under investigation for months and (b) the FBI had informed a federal court that Trump campaigners were suspected of being complicit in Russia's cyber-spying operation. .
Thus, in accordance with President Obama's instructions at the Oval Office meeting of January 5, 2017, the information relating to the investigation would not be disclosed to the elected President. The next day, intelligence officials would only talk to Trump about Russian espionage, not the alleged "coordination" of the Trump campaign with the Kremlin. Then, Comey will inform Trump of an article in the Steele case, the lugubrious story about peeing prostitutes, and not the main allegations in the case that a Trump-Russia treason plot would be committed.
This strategy did not please everyone at the FBI. Shortly before meeting Trump on Jan. 6, Comey consulted with his top advisors on the plan to tell Trump that he was not a suspect. At a later testimony in the Senate, Comey admitted that there had been an objection from an FBI official:
"One of the members of the management team felt that even though it was technically true [that] we did not have an open counter-espionage file on Trump, then president-elect[,] . . . because we are looking at the potential. . . coordination between the campaign and Russia, because that was. . . President Trump's campaign, this person's point of view was inevitably [Trump’s] behavior, [Trump’s] conduct will fall within the scope of this work. "
Note that Comey did not talk about "potential coordination" between, for example, Carter Page or Paul Manafort and Russia. The director was unambiguous: the FBI was investigating "a possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia".
It is clear that Comey's unidentified adviser put things into perspective: (a) because the FBI's investigation was centered on the campaign and (b) since the campaign was a Trump campaign, it was necessarily true that (c) his conduct was under his control.
The fact that the director of the time, Comey, relies on the trivial administrative fact that the FBI had not written Trump's name in the investigation file did not change the fact that Trump was obviously the main topic of the "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation.
Do you remember last year's rumor about Special Advocate Robert Mueller's request to interview the President? What need would have been to conduct such an interview if Trump was not the subject of the investigation? Why would Trump's political opponents have spent the past two years demanding that Mueller be allowed to complete his investigation of collusion and obstruction if he did not understand that the investigation – including espionage or, if you prefer, electronic surveillance, information, and information collected by National Security letter requests – was Donald Trump's focus?
This brings us to one last point. Congressional investigations have established that the Obama Department of Justice and the FBI have used the Steele case to obtain FISA warrants against Page.
The file, a Clinton campaign-back-project (again, a hidden fact of the FISA court), was essential to the required demonstration of the probable cause; Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified that without the file, there would be no warrant.
So . . . what does the file say? The lion's share of this party alleged that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin to corrupt the elections, including hacking and publishing e-mails from the Democratic Party. This allegation was based on unidentified Russian sources that the FBI could not corroborate. Comey's director, Comey, told Senate officials that the FBI had used this information because the bureau had found credible former British spy Christopher Steele even though b) Steele had misled the FBI about his contacts with the media – with whom Steele and his Clinton campaign allies shared the same information he shared with the office.
Finding a watchdog mandate from the FISA court is an important step in the investigation. Unlike the use of an informant (a human spy), for which no judicial authorization is required, FISA surveillance applications require approvals at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and Justice. FBI. After following this complex process, the Justice Department and the FBI presented to the court allegations on the record that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to undermine the 2016 elections.
Certainly, no sensible person claims that the government should refrain from investigating whether, on the basis of convincing evidence, the FBI suspects individuals – even campaigners, even a party candidate – to act as clandestine agents of a hostile foreign power. The question is what should trigger such an inquiry into a democratic republic whose norms strongly discourage the government's use of the government's espionage powers against political opponents?
The Obama administration has decided that this standard does not apply to the Trump campaign. If all that the Obama administration had tried to do was to check some bullshit with suspicious links with Russia, the FBI could easily have alerted one of the Trump campaigners with solid references in the matter. National Security – Rudy Giuliani, Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie. The agents could have asked for help from the campaign. Instead, Obama officials have made the Trump campaign the subject of a counterintelligence investigation.
This only makes sense if the Obama administration assumes that Donald Trump himself was a Russian agent.
Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is one of the editors of National Review.
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