Authored By Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com (emphasis ours)
The top Republican with the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes told SaraACarter.com there is insurmountable evidence of the FBI’s malfeasance regarding the bureau’s probe into President Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, but what must be investigated is the FBI’s actions overseas into the campaign.
Those questions will also naturally involve the CIA and any relationship the clandestine agency had with the bureau during the Russia probe, Nunes said.
What has been revealed during the course of nearly three years of investigations by the Intelligence Committee and others, is that the FBI had informants spying on the campaign. The most damning information was that the FBI had specifically targeted volunteers with the Trump campaign: Carter Page, George Papadopolous, as well as others who traveled outside the United States. Once they were overseas, the FBI had continuing operations and received information from informants to build an investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia.
The details of what actually took place and when the investigation by the bureau actually began, however, remain murky. Nunes said there needs to be a thorough investigation into the role of the FBI and CIA regarding the Trump probe.
“There are so many unanswered questions about what happened in Cambridge, where numerous people were making strange unexplained attempts to contact Trump associates,” Nunes told SaraACarter.com. “We already know the FBI committed a lot of abuses in this investigation, and we want to discover whether more were being committed overseas.”
Nunes is referring to the University of Cambridge in London, ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar,’ where employees made successful attempts in contacting members with the Trump campaign in 2016, including Carter and Papadopolous.
The CIA And FBI
Nunes also spoke with Maria Bartiromo Sunday on Fox News saying that former CIA Director John Brennan still needs to answer questions. He said it’s important for DOJ investigators to know whether it was the FBI or CIA, or both, that lined up confidential sources to contact the Trump campaign.
“Well, as you know, we have jurisdiction over both FBI and CIA and what they do overseas,” Nunes told Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures. “We have lots of information about FBI people going overseas and doing things, we don’t really have any information from CIA.”
“So far, they’ve really come clean. I would say the only one who has questions to answer is John Brennan, because we now know that John Brennan briefed Harry Reid on the dossier in August 2016. At the same time he never briefed me or Paul Ryan who was the speaker of the House at the time.”
Nunes has also been pushing for the public release of currently declassified documents turned over by President Trump to the DOJ’s Attorney General William Barr. Those documents are expected to reveal details of the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign. In particular information regarding Page and Papadopolous, which sources say will expose that the FBI withheld exculpatory information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
According to several sources some of those documents could come as early as this week or next. But Barr has received fierce pushback from some in the intelligence community, including Brennan. After Trump ordered the intelligence community to cooperate with Barr the New York Times reported that if Barr declassifies the documents he would reveal one of the agencies most trusted assets in Russia.
According to the New York Times the asset is “close to [Vladimir] Putin” and someone who gave the CIA “information about [Putin’s] involvement” in U.S. election interference.
However, according to sources that spoke with SaraACarter.com, who have knowledge of the documents, Barr would not reveal any information that would harm U.S. national security.
The Professors: Mifsud And Halper
Durham’s investigation is also looking into Professor Joseph Mifsud, who made direct contact with Papadopolous. Mifsud shared information with the young campaign volunteer suggesting the Kremlin had the missing Hillary Clinton emails during the 2016 campaign. Mifsud’s attorney has told The Hill’s John Solomon, that his client was a “longtime cooperator of western intel.” This claim is huge because it is thoroughly missing from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report and begs the question: Why would a source connected to western intelligence be giving a Trump campaign official information from Russian’s suggesting they had Clinton’s emails?
Mueller’s report contends that Papadopolous contact with Mifsud was the reason the bureau initiated the investigation into the Trump campaign at the end of July, 2016. The bureau dubbed the investigation ‘Crossfire Hurricane,’ as the New York Times first reported.
Further, there are questions regarding Mifsud’s contacts with others at Link University in Rome and the London Center of International Law Practice (LCILP). Both of these policy institutes have ties to western intelligence.
The task of investigating the actions of the bureau and CIA overseas DOJ appointed prosecutor John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, and simultaneously Inspector General Michael Horowitz will not be easy, “as they navigate the various agencies and contend with classified information and sources,” said one former U.S. intelligence official, familiar with Russia.
Durham Questioning CIA Officers
Durham is also believed to be questioning senior CIA personnel, according to a recent New York Times report. According to The Times Durham’s inquiry is directly related to the Russia investigation and “focused partly on the intelligence agencies’ most explosive conclusion about the 2016 election: that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia intervened to benefit Donald J. Trump.”
More importantly, the inquiry shows the expansive nature of the Justice Department’s probe into the FBI and it’s handling of the case.
Durham’s inquiry reveals that the DOJ is investigating every aspect of the Russia Trump probe and the connection the FBI had with the agency.
“There is no possible way that Brennan didn’t know what was going on during the FBI’s investigation, particularly when agents were working with sources overseas in London and Italy,” the official said. “The agency would have been well aware of the issue, particularly because it involved a presidential candidate.”
Another major player in the DOJ’s investigation is former Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper, who was outed as an informant for the bureau, as previously reported. Halper was the director of American studies in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge. There, he taught classes and worked on research papers for Chatham House in London, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in D.C., and the U.S. Naval War College. He also has a close working relationship with former MI6 Director Sir Richard Dearlove. Dearlove was the director from 1999 to 2004. His extended family was also tightly connected to the agency.
Grassley’s Inquiry Into The DOD Payments To Halper
Currently, Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is investigating financing that was provided by the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment to Halper. He sent a letter early this month asking DOD Acting Secretary Mark Esper for more information regarding contracts awarded to Halper.
Grassely, R- Iowa, stated that the information be provided no later than July 25. He also requested a full in person briefing with his committee staff on all of Halper’s contracts with the DoD.
Grassley’s committee asked for the information after an audit was released by the DoD’s Inspector General’s showed that there was failure to conduct appropriate oversight of contracts awarded under the DOD. Halper had long career in the U.S. government under several GOP administrations. His connections to the CIA and FBI are extensive and he had been awarded multiple contracts with the DOD totaling $411,000 by Washington Headquarters Services on Sept. 26, 2016, for a contract that ran until this March, 2018, according to USASpending.gov.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LQ6v9b Tyler Durden