Newly Released Texts Show That FBI Agents and Analysts Were So Distressed by Likely-Illegal Handling of Trump Investigation They Bought Liability Insurance to Protect Themselves From Subsequent Lawsuits

This is normal, right?

These are the precious MuhNorms that Charlie "3-Wives" Sykes is trying to preserve, right?

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents tasked by fired former Director James Comey to take down Donald Trump during and after the 2016 election were so concerned about the agency’s potentially illegal behavior that they purchased liability insurance to protect themselves less than two weeks before Trump was inaugurated president, previously hidden FBI text messages show. The explosive new communications and internal FBI notes were disclosed in federal court filings today from Sidney Powell, the attorney who heads Michael Flynn's legal defense team.

"[W]e all went and purchased professional liability insurance," one agent texted on Jan. 10, 2017, the same day CNN leaked details that then-President-elect Trump had been briefed by Comey about the bogus Christopher Steele dossier. That briefing of Trump was used as a pretext to legitimize the debunked dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign and compiled by a foreign intelligence officer who was working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch.

"Holy crap," an agent responded. "All the analysts too?"

"Yep," the first agent said. "All the folks at the Agency as well."

...

The FBI agents also discussed how the investigation's leadership was consumed with conspiracy theories rather than evidence.

"I'm tellying [sic] man, if this thing ever gets FOIA'd, there are going to be some tough questions asked," one agent wrote. "[A]nd a great deal of those will be related to Brian having a scope way outside the boundaries of logic[.]"

"[REDACTED] is one of the worst offenders of the rabbit holes and conspiracy theories," an agent texted. "This guy traveled with that guy, who put down 3rd guy as his visa sponsor. 3rd guy lives near a navy base, therefore…[.]"

Who's Brian? I don't know who that is referring to.

And who do you imagine is the conspiracy-theorist whose name is REDACTED here?

Chris Steele?

There was a recent story disclosing that Steele's FBI handler stated that Christopher Steele's behavior was "crazy."

"Crazy" was the term the FBI agent used to describe the behavior of Christopher Steele, author of the now-debunked Trump-Russia dossier. "I've seen crazy source-related stuff in 20 years in New York and this was one of the craziest," the veteran agent testified to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

...

Nevertheless, the FBI continued to rely on Steele's allegations -- that Donald Trump and his team were conspiring with Russians who possessed compromising information – to justify its surveillance of the Trump campaign. Without evidence to verify Steele’s claims, the FBI fell back on its assertion that the former British intelligence agent was reliable.

Steele went rogue, leaking crazy conspiracy theory bullshit to the media. When his handler confronted Steele about this, Steele admitted -- he did it because he was angry that Comey had opened (supposedly) an investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.

The handling agent was shocked: "I had no idea what he was talking about." Before Gaeta could inquire further, Steele started railing about ''your Director" and his "reopening of the investigation." This was an apparent reference to former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to reopen the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server after 340,000 copies of State Department emails between Clinton and her close personal aide, Huma Abedin, were discovered on a laptop used by Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner. ...

At which point it all became clear to the handling agent: "I'm now understanding that he did this because he was upset that the Director's reopening of the investigation was going to negatively affect the election for Hillary Clinton."

And yet the FBI continued to claim he was a "reliable" and "dependable" witness, and refused to admit his absurd bias to the FISA court.

The handling agent described his reaction to Steele’s behavior as "surprise and disbelief." Gaeta told the Senate that Steele’s actions and attitude weren't just "crazy source-related stuff," but "one of the craziest" the veteran agent had seen in two decades of handling sources. The words are significant: Steele's behavior with the FBI has been characterized as a sort of professional disagreement, uncomfortable perhaps but not unreasonable. Gaeta's blunt assessment casts things in a much harsher light and undercuts subsequent efforts by the FBI's top officials to rehabilitate Steele in order to justify using his "reporting."

Although it has been downplayed until now, Steele's acting out – and his overtly declared partisan motivations -- constituted a crisis for the bureau, so much so that the handling agent describes it in violent terms: "After that point – after everybody digests what happened," Gaeta told the Senate committee, "[p]hones were ringing at that point; people's ears were bleeding."

But Comey didn't know, huh?

But Rosenstein didn't know, huh?

So yeah: this checks out. It's almost certainly Steele who's being accused of conspiracy theories and bizarre crap with his bullshit sources, who can in fact be said to be "this guy knows this guy who once filled out a visa application for another guy..."

"Iggy" Dancheck's drunk Russian pals at the local gin-mill, I mean.

(BTW, I didn't read that article until now. But damn, it's is powerful stuff.)

Back to the Federalist article.

...

The explosive new text messages also show agents believed the investigation was being run by FBI officials who were in the tank for Hillary Clinton.

"[D]oing all this election research -- I think some of these guys want a [C]linton presidency," one agent wrote on Aug. 11, shortly after the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation against Trump.

In one series of texts sent the same day as the infamous Jan. 5 Oval Office meeting between Obama, Biden, Comey, Sally Yates, and Susan Rice, one agent admits that "Trump was right" when he tweeted that the FBI was delaying his briefings as incoming president so they could cook up evidence against him. As The Federalist first reported last May, that Jan. 5 meeting was the key to understanding the entire anti-Trump operation run out of Obama's FBI.

I think this is what Mollie Hemingway was getting at earlier-- that Trump had tweeted the "Intelligence" briefing, which was supposedly for the purposes of informing him, had been delayed to cook up a case against him.

Read the whole thing.

And if you have any tips for stories, please post them. It would be particularly helpful if you posted them in the previous post, linked here.

posted by Ace at 06:14 PM

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