Lisa Page is at the heart of one of the FBI’s most embarrassing chapters. She had an affair with a then-top counterintelligence agent, Peter Strzok, who reportedly signed off on the Russian collusion investigation in July of 2016. They engaged in tens of thousands of texts that were anti-Trump. They shined a light on the bias within the institution at its highest levels and brought into question the FBI’s ability to be an impartial investigator in two of the most politically charged probes in recent memory regarding collusion and the Hillary Clinton email fiasco. The two discussed an “insurance policy” against Trump, with Strzok explicitly saying “we’ll stop” Trump from becoming president. The FBI has rightfully been accused of acting like the enforcers of the Democratic Party, specifically Barack Obama, whose Department of Justice ran amok for eight years. Its politicization reaching its final stages of evolution in the final months of that administration, perfect timing for when this collusion circus was being set up. The damage to the FBI has been severe because of these two, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, and others. So, why is Page doling out lectures about “generational harm” from the Trump White House? Oh, wait, is it because the Trump DOJ, under Attorney General William Barr, decided to declassify some documents? Is that it? Also, the opening to this piece in The New York Times is beyond ridiculous (via NYT):
Not long after the early 2017 publication of a notorious dossier about President Trump jolted Washington, an expert in Russian politics told the F.B.I. he had been one of its key sources, drawing on his contacts to deliver information that would make up some of the most salacious and unproven assertions in the document.
The F.B.I. had approached the expert, a man named Igor Danchenko, as it vetted the dossier’s claims. He agreed to tell investigators what he knew with an important condition, people familiar with the matter said — that the F.B.I. keep his identity secret so he could protect himself, his sources and his family and friends in Russia.
But his hope of remaining anonymous evaporated last week after Attorney General William P. Barr directed the F.B.I. to declassify a redacted report about its three-day interview of Mr. Danchenko in 2017 and hand it over to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Graham promptly made the interview summary public while calling the entire Russia investigation “corrupt.”
The report blacked out Mr. Danchenko’s name and other identifying information. But within two days, a post on a newly created blog entitled “I Found the Primary Subsource” identified him, citing clues left visible in the F.B.I. document. A pseudonymous Twitter account created in May then promoted the existence of the blog. And the next day, RT, the Kremlin-owned, English-language news and propaganda outlet, published an article amplifying Mr. Danchenko’s identification.
The decision by Justice Department and F.B.I. leaders to divulge such a report was highly unusual and created the risk it would help identify a person who had confidentially provided information to agents, even if officials did not intend to provide such a road map. The move comes at a time when Mr. Barr, who is to testify before lawmakers on Tuesday, has repeatedly been accused of abusing his powers to help Mr. Trump politically.
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Promised confidentiality by the FBI, a Russia expert who had collected Trump-Russia chatter for the Steele dossier agreed to cooperate with agents vetting it. Barr directed the FBI to declassify a road map to identifying him. w/ @adamgoldmanNYT https://t.co/z5vNJKSMsJ
— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) July 25, 2020
If Congress needed this 302 for oversight, DOJ/FBI could have made it available without handing it over to be leaked. If true, this cld get people killed, and they don’t care. No source will trust the FBI, and they don’t care. They are doing generational harm, and they don’t care https://t.co/CSHs8V5X7U
— Lisa Page (@NatSecLisa) July 25, 2020
This story prompted Page to tweet, “If Congress needed this 302 for oversight, DOJ/FBI could have made it available without handing it over to be leaked. If true, this cld [sic] get people killed, and they don’t care. No source will trust the FBI, and they don’t care. They are doing generational harm, and they don’t care.”
Oh, please. Spare us, guys. What is this? First, the dossier was trash. It was never verified, most of it couldn’t be, and it was used as the basis for the entire Russian collusion myth. Yes, it was a myth. There was no evidence of collusion and there never will be because it didn’t happen. And the dossier wasn’t vetted. We know that based on the shoddy and illegal FISA spy warrants secured against Carter Page, a former Trump campaign official. This dossier contained glaring errors that could have been corrected through a simple Google search—and it never happened. Why? Because the FBI never vetted this document, despite calling it credible evidence. Even our own intelligence officials voiced concerns about the document, which were buried. British intelligence officials also were skeptical regarding the claims to this document, which was collected by former MI6 operative Christopher Steele and funded by…the Clinton campaign and the Democrats. It’s political opposition research that was used to spy on Page, subject Michael Flynn to legal purgatory, and opened the spy operation against the Trump campaign proper. Oh, and did we mention that Strzok’s request that got Crossfire Hurricane, the campaign spy operation, was also a joke. I know you’re not surprised, but a former FBI intelligence official, Kevin Brock, looked at the document and wrote, “What this FBI document clearly establishes is that Crossfire Hurricane was an illicit, made-up investigation lacking a shred of justifying predication, sprung from the mind of someone who despised Donald Trump, and then blessed by inexperienced leadership at the highest levels who harbored their own now well-established biases.”
The Trump DOJ is rightfully torching this whole circus; they’re setting the big top on fire. The Trump dossier was debunked by two reports, the one submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller after he took over the FBI’s collusion probe in 2017, and the DOJ inspector general report on the FISA abuses against Page in December of 2019. The Mueller report has its own issues, especially concerning Flynn and Paul Manafort which raises the question that the FBI knew its counterintelligence probe into Russian collusion was off the rails but got a good ole’ former company man, Mueller, to give it a polish job with his investigation, one that blew up attorney-client privilege for Manafort in order to get dirt on Trump. They never did, but it sure looks like Mueller’s team of hyper liberals tried their best to prove collusion and failed…because there was none.
No one will trust the FBI now, Page said. They’re doing generation harm, Page said. I think that Rubicon has been crossed, especially when you look at the politically motivated persecution of Michael Flynn, who the FBI, who has no basis to request an interview, zeroed in on him because he might be a Russian agent or something. Oh, it was based on those run-of-the-mill conversations he had with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which then-FBI Director James Comey said were “legit.” Yeah, Comey and McCabe were going to get Flynn no matter what because it appears they got the green light to do so by former President Barack Obama who ordered that they get the right people on Flynn. The FBI had an interview with Flynn in January of 2017, who determined six days later that he was not a Russian agent. The agents who spoke with him also felt that he didn’t lie. But in the end, the Mueller investigation rehashes the FBI’s inquiry into him, despite the fact that the bureau was on the cusp of closing their investigation into Flynn and put the screws to him. He was forced to plead guilty to “lying to the FBI” charges after being threatened with total financial ruin. One of the people who suggested using the Logan Act to continue harassing Flynn was former Vice President Joe Biden, by the way, who initially denied ever knowing anything about this investigation. Also, this internal DOJ memo that totally exonerated Flynn on the Russian nonsense was kept in the dark for three years. Who ordered that? Someone at the DOJ and that deliberate attempt to destroy a man’s life over an election I think does “generational harm” to the FBI. Why should we trust them when they’re acting like the political arm of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration? But, apparently, the Trump White House is more of a threat in Page-land because he’s blowing up their whole scheme before their eyes.
Lisa, you and your goons thought you could get away with this. You left the breadcrumbs everywhere because, under a Clinton White House, you could sweep this under the rug and deep-six it. It’ll be as if nothing happened. Well, that plan got punched in the mouth. The generational harm has been done. It was by you and the rest of the Obama DOJ. The trust is gone. The American people should forever be skeptical of everything from the bureau, even in instances of terrorism. The FBI said that the congressional baseball shooting in 2017 that nearly killed then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) was “spontaneous” with no real target in mind. Yeah, sure, Jan.
Strzok was fired for his anti-Trump texts. He said those communications showed his patriotism, whereas Page said they meant exactly what they said. A lot of house cleaning still needs to be done regarding this apparent plot to hamstring and potentially remove a duly elected president because some people at the DOJ/FBI didn’t like the result. The “generational harm” is done, Ms. Page, and you were partially responsible. One word: Obamagate.
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