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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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Tom Fitton, President of the Judicial Watch, spoke to Fox News’s Harris Faulkner about the most recently released Strzok/Page texts. He makes the point that “without Strzok, Page, McCabe, or the dossier, you wouldn’t have a Mueller investigation.”
In this case, you had the leadership of the FBI who thought they could get away with illegally targeting a candidate for the president of the United States. McCabe’s been fired. Comey’s been fired. Mr. Strzok’s been fired. And frankly, what I think needs to be done is we need to hold Mr. Mueller accountable for what went on here because these are the cops that made Mueller’s case. Without Strzok, without Page, without this illicit activity related to the DNC dossier, without the illegal targeting of Carter Page in my view, you wouldn’t have a Mueller investigation. And so, any other prosecution marred by this misconduct of the investigators would be shut down.
Truer words have never been spoken. All of the major players in this story have been discredited. The dossier has been discredited. Since when does the government open up a special counsel investigation targeting the President based on unproven claims made by his political opponent?
If all of the individuals who initiated this fraud have been fired, and the dossier has been found to be complete fiction, then what does Mueller have left? There is nothing to support the case. This is a corrupt investigation, originated by the misconduct of Obama administration officials who wanted to target Donald Trump.
Fitton says the FBI and the DOJ are covering up for Mueller by holding back the documents. He said that Judicial Watch is suing for materials and the FBI is telling them not to expect them until at least 2020.
At the very least, Fitton says Trump must declassify the FISA warrant applications that were behind this.
The first set of messages indicate that Strzok and Page were strategically leaking information to the media. Reporters would then publish stories based on this “news” which the FBI would later refer to on their application to the FISA Court for a warrant to surveil Carter Page. This practice, apparently favored by many in the FBI’s leadership, is known as “circular reporting.” Christopher Steele was terminated by the FBI in October 2016 for speaking to reporters. However, the article written by Yahoo’s Michael Isikoff, for which Steele had been the source, was used by the FBI to corroborate the dossier on their FISA Court application.
April 10, 2017: Strzok texts Page telling her, “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.”
April 12, 2017: Strzok texts Page and tells her that two new articles would be coming out about her “namesake,” a reference to Carter Page. He adds, “One is worse than the other.”
April 22, 2017: Strzok texts Page. “Article is out. Well done, Page.”
Strzok’s strategy bore fruit. The Washington Post published an article titled, “FBI Obtained FISA Warrant To Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page, ” on April 11th.
The article, citing “law enforcement and other U.S. officials,” reported that the DOJ and FBI had convinced a FISA judge there was “probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia.”
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said that the April 11th story “set off a flurry of articles suggesting connections between President Trump and Russia.” In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Meadows wrote:
Other documents indicate DOJ officials, specifically Andrew Weissmann [now part of the Mueller team] participated in unauthorized conversations with the media during this same time period.
Meadows noted that during congressional interviews with Strzok and Page, FBI attorneys kept saying the witnesses could not answer questions about ongoing investigations. “However, documents strongly suggest that these same witnesses discussed ongoing investigations multiple times with individual outside of the investigative team on a regular basis.”
Meadows wrote to Rosenstein to ask him to “review text messages, emails and other communications from various FBI and DOJ officials that might provide critical insight into the backdrop of the Russia investigation.” Good luck with that Congressman.
Strzok struck back through his attorney, Aitan Goelman. He put out the following statement.
The term ‘media leak strategy’ in Mr. Strzok’s text refers to a Department-wide initiative to detect and stop leaks to the media. The President and his enablers are once again peddling unfounded conspiracy theories to mislead the American People.
Fitton’s response to this ridiculous statement: “A media leak strategy is just what it says. An insurance policy is just what it says.”
The second set of texts between Page and Strzok occurred on December 15, 2016.
Page: Oh, remind me to tell you tomorrow about the times doing a story about the rnc hacks.
Strzok: And more than they already did? I told you Quinn told me they pulling out all the stops on some story…
(Note: A source told Fox News that Quinn likely refers to Richard Quinn, who served as the chief of the Media and Investigative Publicity Section in the Office of Public Affairs.)
Strzok: Think our sisters have begun leaking like mad. Scorned and worried, and political, they’re kicking into overdrive.
(Then Strzok misreads “rnc” as “mc,” blames “old man eyes.”)
(Note: “Sisters,” according to a Fox News report, may be a reference to the CIA.)
On that day, several media outlets reported that “U.S. intelligence officials were convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved, and approved Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.”
A few days prior, The New York Times published an article titled “Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election, U.S. Says,” citing “senior administration officials.”
We return to Strzok and Page:
Strzok: And we need to talk more about putting C reporting in our submission. They’re going to declassify all of it…
Page: I know. But they’re going to declassify their stuff, how do we withhold…
Strzok: We will get extraordinary questions. What we did, what we’re doing. Just want to ensure everyone is good with it and has thought thru all implications. CD should bring it up with the DD.
(Note: A source told Fox News “that “C” is likely in reference to classified information, whereas “CD” is Cyber Division, and DD could refer to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.”)
These text messages add to the growing case against Strzok and Page. The two officials, along with many of their colleagues, clearly abused their power and conspired to remove President Trump from office.
But, over the last year, a hundred equally damaging pieces of evidence have come to light. Do we really need any more proof that these people were corrupt? If I were to bake a cake, and all of my ingredients were poisonous, how could the cake possibly be safe to eat? If all of the elements of Mueller’s investigation are poisonous, how can the investigation be legitimate?
Strzok has been fired from the FBI. Page is out. Andrew McCabe has been fired and many other officials who were involved in this fraud upon the American people have either been fired or have resigned. Yet Mueller’s investigation continues.
Last week, rumors swirled that Trump was going to declassify critical documents that have been withheld from Congress by the DOJ and the FBI, as soon as last weekend or early this week. So far, nothing has happened.
Trump obviously realizes the stakes of the upcoming elections. He tweets about it. He addresses it at his campaign rallies. And he alone has the constitutional power to declassify the relevant documents that will show Americans how he was framed by a group of men and women in the very top echelons of the Obama DOJ and FBI. Do it President Trump.
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