ODNI Ratcliffe was busy today. He declassified a now-infamous memo that reveals exactly what happened at an August 2016 FBI “briefing” of the Trump campaign. He gave the document to Congress and now we have it to share.
It was written by Joseph Pientka, a character whose name has popped up over and over throughout this saga. While the memo reveals nothing you likely didn’t already suspect, it does verify that the FBI was not actually trying to brief the Trump campaign. Rather, they were trying to elicit evidence for Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation targeting the Trump campaign at the time.
Julie Kelly provides the full transcripts.
Newly declassified info shows the FBIs August 30, 2016 briefing with Trump campaign team wasn’t about Russian election meddling—it was part of Crossfire Hurricane investigation: pic.twitter.com/mAhfszcx9P
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) July 23, 2020
The attempts to trap Trump began long before he took office, with this briefing being disguised as an attempt to warn the campaign. In reality, they were prodding for dirt they could use to push their investigation forward. Of note is that nothing of note came from the meeting. Trump did not offer evidence he was a Russian stooge, nor did Michael Flynn. It was another dead end, getting them no closer to proving nefarious Russian collusion than they were before.
That’s really why this is so damning for the FBI. This was yet another dead end they refused to pay attention to. Instead, the FBI and its band of corrupt stooges in leadership pressed forward, desperately searching for anything that could be used to stop Trump’s rise. Under normal circumstances, Crossfire Hurricane would have been closed many months prior to when it was concluded due to lack of any evidence at all of what they suspected. But Comey, Strzok, the Obama administration, and all the rest were so deluded by their own conspiracies that they continued to abuse their power to target a political opponent, something we’ve been assured is the worst act possible by a government official.
Of course, that standard only applies when it’s being used against Trump. The media can’t muster a whimper for what was perpetrated against Trump and his campaign by Barack Obama. Ultimately, the arbiters of information have chosen to ignore the biggest political scandal in decades. If Trump had been caught using the levers of power to target a political opponent, Democrats and the media would have tried to remove him from office. We know that because they tried to impeach him when there wasn’t even direct evidence he had done anything nefarious regarding Ukraine and Joe Biden.
We live under a justice system consisting of two tiers. If you are a Democrat, liberal media member, or are otherwise part of the perpetual bureaucracy, you can break the law freely and not be pursued. Andrew McCabe showed us that when the DOJ declined his criminal referral for lying to the FBI. But if you are a Republican, you will be hunted relentlessly until they eventually destroy you. There’s little sign that dynamic is going to change.
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