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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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As DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz weighs the question of whether or not fired FBI Official Peter Strzok’s anti-Trump bias caused him to open the counterintelligence investigation into Trump/Russia collusion, he has released several incriminating text message exchanges between Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. I wrote about some of them here. A new text was just published that demonstrates the direct connection between the FBI, the media, and the interview of former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos.

James Comey, on his book tour earlier this year, said the media was waiting for a “hook,” meaning evidence that President-elect Trump had been briefed about the Steele dossier, before breaking the story. He said that he had been under pressure, mostly from CNN, to do so. On January 6, 2017, in a Trump Tower meeting, Comey finally told Trump about the dossier. He gave Trump a two page summary of the 35 page document. And given the green light, most likely by Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CNN broke the story on January 10th.

This sequence of events indicates that there were “active communications between CNN and the FBI.”

Back to our paramours, Strzok and Page:

January 10, 2017

Strzok texts Page: Sitting will Bill watching CNN. A TON more out…Hey let me know when you can talk. We’re discussing whether, now that this is out, we use it as a pretext to go interview some people.

And several weeks later, George Papadopoulos was interviewed by the FBI.

So Comey briefed Trump and this development was leaked to CNN. They published the story and several weeks later Papadopoulos was contacted by the FBI. And shortly after that, Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious London professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt about Hillary Clinton, was interviewed. Mifsud is missing and may possibly be dead. I wrote a post about him here.

ZeroHedge reporter Tyler Durden reminds us of a very telling message exchange between Strzok and Page that occurred in October 2016. The two are trying to determine how to tell the team they “found” this news.

October 24, 2016:

Page: Article is out, but hidden behind paywall so can’t read it.”

Strzok: Wsj? Boy that was fast. Should I ‘find’ it and tell the team?

Another example of a series of Strzok/Page messages that match up with mainstream media reports relying on leaked information was reported by the Conservative Treehouse.

Page was texting with Strzok (on October 28, 2016) while “on the phone with Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett, then with the New York Times, at the very moment the news broke about the reopening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.  

October 28, 2016:

Page: 5:19pm “Still on the phone with Devlin. Mike’s phone is ON FIRE.”

Strzok: 5:29pm “You might wanna tell Devlin he should turn on CNN, there’s news on.”

Page: 5:30pm “He knows. He just got handed a note.”

Strzok: 5:33pm “Ha. He asking about it now?”

Page: 5:34pm “Yeah. It was pretty funny. Coming now.”

At 5:36 pm EST, Devlin tweets:

This is a possibility, per sources https://t.co/cxzWsWD8P1

— Devlin Barrett (@DevlinBarrett) October 29, 2016

Apparently the “per sources” reference is FBI Attorney Lisa Page and FBI Agent Peter Strzok leaking to Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett.

Note: The timestamp on the tweet as it appeared in the Conservative Treehouse article was 5:36 pm. When I copied the link from the internet, however, the timestamp read 8:36 pm.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired for his unauthorized leaks to the media as well as the lies he told investigators to cover his tracks.

Going back to the internal FBI emails revealed in May 2018 by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), we find that McCabe had advance knowledge of CNN’s plans to publish the Steele Dossier report (Published on January 10, 2017.)

In an email to top FBI officials with the subject “Flood is coming,” McCabe wrote: “CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story … The trigger for them is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment.” McCabe does not reveal how he knew CNN’s “trigger” was Comey’s briefing to Trump.

McCabe shot off a second email shortly thereafter to then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates along with her deputy, Matthew Alexrod, with the subject line “News.”

“Just as an FYI, and as expected,” McCabe wrote, “it seems CNN is close to running a story about the sensitive reporting.” Again, how McCabe knew this is unclear and begs investigation.

Johnson also wanted to know when FBI officials “first learned that media outlets, including CNN, may have possessed the Steele dossier. ”

As The Federalist noted in May, “To date, there is no public evidence that the FBI ever investigated the leaks to media about the briefing between Trump and Comey. When asked in a recent interview by Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, Comey scoffed at the idea that the FBI would even need to investigate the leak of a secret briefing with the incoming president.”

“Did you or your subordinates leak that?” Baier asked.

“No,” Comey responded. “I don’t know who leaked it.”

“Did you ever try to find out?” Baier asked.

“Who leaked an unclassified public document?” Comey said, even though Baier’s question was about leaking details of a briefing of the incoming president, not the dossier. “No,” Comey said.

And now it looks like we have an answer for why the FBI never investigated the leak…

That the leaders of the FBI (and other high level officials in the Obama administration such as James Clapper) were leaking to the media to accomplish their goal of first derailing candidate Trump’s campaign and later their attempt to delegitimize his presidency, can no longer be denied. It’s astonishing that Mueller’s investigation is still open. While Mueller tries to prove his relevance by convicting Paul Manafort of income tax evasion and putting bit player George Papadopoulos behind bars for 14 days, the evidence of the Obama administration’s conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump grows. And one day, it will be too big to hide.