My Facebook Friends asked for this one…… This was a difficult blog to write. I made 3 attempts at “Simplifying” this complicated story. The roommates kept chiming in.. nope… too complicated… try again. So this is it. My final attempt. If this one is too complicated I’m just writing… “Kevin Clinesmith and Carter Page are Americans”.
On Friday we found out that ex-FBI/Mueller Special Counsel lawyer admitted to falsifying evidence against Trump campaign advisor, Carter Page. Clinesmith worked in the FBI’s National Security Division during 2016. He wasn’t JUST an FBI lawyer. He was a TOP lawyer at the FBI. Just so you can get a “real feel” for his views… the following is a text conversation after Trump’s landslide win. Clinesmith is “Attorney 2”.
READ the LAST 2 sentences. The part that starts with, “Plus my…… “. Yeah, that’s the part that’s a bit of a problem for Mr. Clinesmith. Hence the guilty plea. So… WHAT is his name ALL OVER??
When the FBI went to the FISA court and asked for a warrant on Carter Page you can imagine the court had some questions… Who is this Page guy? Why do you think he needs to be investigated? We now know that this “investigation” was targeting advisors to the campaign that had foreign ties. We also know that the court was lied to in order to obtain the warrants and to renew the warrants. Clinesmith falls into the “Renew” the warrants part.
The FBI had to convince the court they had reason to believe Carter Page was involved in illegal activity involving Russia. He traveled to Russia frequently, he had Russian contacts and now he was working for the Republican candidate for President. He was a managing partner of Global Energy Capital, a consulting firm specializing in Russian & Central Asian oil and gas. All of that was true. It is also true that the FBI knew Carter Page has a prior relationship with the CIA. The court wasn’t told that.
The 1st warrant and next 2 renewals are based on flimsy information (namely the Steele Dossier… which we are NOT getting into…. remember… SIMPLE). The final renewal in June 2017 is when Clinesmith’s criminal activity occurred.
In June 2017 when the final FISA was up for renewal, Clinesmith received an email that he altered to “omit Page’s prior relationship with the CIA despite being reminded of his status with them” He wasn’t a Russian spy, he was a CIA spy and a legitimate businessman with ties to Russia. The CIA certainly had vetted him before they began working on intelligence operations with him.
The email Clinesmith got was problematic because if the court saw that the FBI was being “reminded” of something they had previously been told of and NOT shared with the court… heads were going to roll. So, the FBI hid what they knew and Clinesmith doctored the email so there was NO indication of previous information sharing about Carter Page and hence… “Guilty Plea for falsifying documents presented to a federal court”.
Is it a big deal? Welp lying to a Federal Court is kinda a big deal. Is he just a minor player in the whole Russia saga and took matters into his own hands independently…. I don’t think so. Kevin Clinesmith did not work in a vacuum. This illegal FISA warrant fiasco went on for a year. I think you are a blind baboon if you believe he was a lone soldier in this saga.
He was put on the Mueller Special Counsel team and I don’t think that was a random placement. He was there looking for evidence implicating the Trump campaign as much as he was hiding evidence against himself and others. Remember… they had 20+ investigators, 2 years and $30 million and they DID NOT FIND falsified documents presented to the court. The Inspector General found this.
For ALL the knuckleheads out there that still think this is NOT a big deal because Carter Page was a nobody. Yes… he actually was a nobody and had a very minor role in the campaign. BUT… when the FBI gets a warrant they have access to MORE than just the named person on the warrant. They operate under a 2-hop rule. That means they get to listen/read/watch Carter Page…. anyone that Carter communicates with(1 hop) … and anyone that person communicates with (2 hop). So if Carter called Kellyanne Conway (1 hop) and she called Donald Trump (2 hop)… you see where I’m going here???!!
Let me go a bit further with this tale. One thing in this great big saga that has ALWAYS bothered me. WHY? Why were they spying on Candidate Trump and then later on President Trump? What in the world were they going to learn? His tactics for campaigning? Where he was going to have his next rally? Who was he going to pick for his cabinet? All of that is rather ridiculous when you think about it. It makes NO sense that they would “spy” to get that information. Unless…. they were spying to FIND something… anything… that could be used to REMOVE him from office if by some miracle the man pulled off a win against a candidate that had a 97% chance of becoming the 1st female President. And …. THAT is what AG Barr / John Durham are looking into.
This story is so much more complicated because there were other people the FBI was “investigating”. But for today… I’m making it simple. If you don’t quite understand what John Durham is looking into…. I’ll leave you with this.
In order for the FBI to investigate someone they have to have a pretense to begin. In our daily lives it would be referred to as probable cause. They can’t just start listening to you, and following you or interviewing you to see if they can catch you in a crime. Imagine if every time you left your driveway you had a police officer following your car. They haven’t been given any reason to follow your car, they just decided to follow. So they follow.. and they watch… and wait for you to do something wrong. That’s what the FBI was doing to Carter Page and other people affiliated with the Trump campaign.
Here’s another example…. Have you ever seen an announcement that police are setting up checkpoints at the corner of Poplar & Byhalia road and wondered why the hell are they announcing this?? People will just avoid the intersection. The reason is… they HAVE TO. In this country we have a 4th amendment that guarantees you protections from unreasonable searches and seizures. Law enforcement can’t just roll up and say… move over let me have a look in your car. They have to have a legitimate suspicion or REASON! There have been numerous documents released over the years and none of them seem to contain evidence of a legitimate REASON for ever obtaining a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
This my friends is why so many people are so appalled at what the justice department was doing in 2016/2017. It appears they had ZERO probable cause to launch these investigations. We will soon find out if in fact that DID occur and IF anyone is held accountable. As of now…. Kevin Clinesmith is the 1st…. we will see if he’s the last.
As of this very moment not one single American citizen has been charged with a crime related to the 2016 election. Not one. Not Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, or General Mike Flynn. NONE of their legal troubles are related at ALL to Russia. The FBI “found” other crimes after they illegally began looking.
If NONE of that makes sense… Kevin Clinesmith and Carter Page are Americans.
Good Day to you! Wash your hands and QUIT TOUCHING YOUR FACE!!!
The DoubleMdaily Blog 