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The FBI Didn’t Use An Informant To Go After Trump. They Used One To Protect Him

Fenton

Fenton

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The FBI Didn’t Use An Informant To Go After Trump. They Used One To Protect Him

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/18/if-the-fbi-used-an-informant-it-wasnt-to-go-after-trump-it-was-to-protect-him/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6ecedaeeb398

" President Trump and his allies are outraged at reports that the FBI used an “informant” to spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign. “Really bad stuff!” the president tweeted early Friday. Supporters of the White House claim the FBI’s reported tactics were illegal. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has even subpoenaed the Justice Department for information on who the informant might have been; department and FBI officials say public disclosures of this kind could put sources in danger.

But Trump and his backers are wrong about what it means that the FBI reportedly was using a confidential source to gather information early in its investigation of possible campaign ties to Russia. The investigation started out as a counterintelligence probe, not a criminal one. And relying on a covert source rather than a more intrusive method of gathering information suggests that the FBI may have been acting cautiously — perhaps too cautiously — to protect the campaign, not undermine it."


:lamo :lamo :lamo

The media arm of the Democratic party have officially lost their minds. First, after spending the last 18 months denying that Trumps and his campaign were spied on, the NYTs runs a article detailing the extent of that surveillance. Obviously it was a attempt by most likely EX-DOJ / FBI officials to re-write the narrative prior to the release of new and incriminating information. That would most likely be IG Horrowitz report on the FBI / DOJ's handling of the Clinton E-mail investigation

The problem ( for them, not us ) is their attempt to get ahead of the coming storm backfired in epic proportion. Now predictably, they making it even worse...Hilarious ! Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of folks. Someone should tell WaPo and the NYTs that there is no way to spin this in their favor, no way to justify it, explain it away or to soften the blow. This was corruption on a massive scale that occurred at the highest levels of Govt, and media outlets were complicit


With no evidence whatsoever, the Obama DOJ / FBI under the pretense of a counter intelligence probe based off a fake collusion narrative, conducted extensive and covert surveillance on the opposition candidate and his campaign at the height of the 2016 election. It wasn't to protect Trump from Russians, it was part of a plan, a " insurance policy " to undermine and eventually take out a duly elected President and basically render null and void the votes of over 62 million Americans and it was put into effect almost immediately after the election

Trump was still President Elect when James Comey was given his " assignment " by Clapper to inform Trump of the more lurid allegations in the dossier. Comey was just looking out for the President, " protecting " him...:roll: As planned CNN leaked the meeting and the leaks didn't stop there as a complicit media continued to work with leakers in the IC, the CIA and FBI to PUBLISH anything that would legitimize the false collusion narrative. Now, its blowing up in the media's and Democrats faces and WaPo just made it worse with this ridiculous article
 
For the record, the trump campaign was up to its balls in Russian agents and trump supporters are angry that the fbi took an interest in that fact. Oh, and the fbi was undermining the trump campaign...by not going public with their counterintelligence investigation. Okey dokey.
 
Cardinal said:
For the record, the trump campaign was up to its balls in Russian agents and trump supporters are angry that the fbi took an interest in that fact. Oh, and the fbi was undermining the trump campaign...by not going public with their counterintelligence investigation. Okey dokey.
Click to expand...

We'll know more when the IG investigation is released.

Right now, we only have dueling biases.

It's interesting that the sides sharing your bias seem to be back tracking in their public statements.

I'm looking forward to an actual report as opposed to the continuous and usually retracted leaked stories.

Whatever happened to the whole colluuuuusion thingy?
 
Fenton said:
With no evidence whatsoever, the Obama DOJ / FBI under the pretense of a counter intelligence probe based off a fake collusion narrative, conducted extensive and covert surveillance on the opposition candidate and his campaign at the height of the 2016 election. It wasn't to protect Trump from Russians, it was part of a plan, a " insurance policy " to undermine and eventually take out a duly elected President and basically render null and void the votes of over 62 million Americans and it was put into effect almost immediately after the election
Click to expand...

Trump wasn't protected from the Russians (why would he need to be?), he was protected from the voting public finding out what his campaign was actually up to. The public had a right to know what this Manchurian candidate and his band of unregistered foreign agents were up to prior to the election. That information was withheld and now we're stuck with a severely compromised figure in a very sensitive office.
 
Cardinal said:
For the record, the trump campaign was up to its balls in Russian agents and trump supporters are angry that the fbi took an interest in the fact. Oh, and the fbi was undermining the trump campaign...by not going public with their counterintelligence investigation.
Click to expand...

Still living the dream, huh Cardinal ? Well, at least your consistent. Actually, Im not angry at all. I think this is all highly entertaining. Lacking the incrimination evidence needed to open a criminal investigation or a counter intelligence investigation for that matter, the FBI opens a Counter intelligence operation against the Trump campaign that includes widespread surveillance and unmasking of Trumps campaign. That is they used the powers that enable our government to spy on foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans who also happened to be their political adversaries

You and Wa Po and the NYTs still think it was all on the up and up ? Here's a list of Obama era senior DOJ and FBI officials who have either been demoted, fired, reassigned or were forced to resign over this scandal.


James Comey, FBI chief

* Peter Strzok, top FBI investigator (reassaigned)
* Lisa Page, top FBI attorney (reassigned)
* Andrew McCabe, Acting FBI Director and Deputy FBI Director
* James Baker, FBI General Counsel
* Stephen Laycock, Head of FBI Counterintelligence
* James Rybicki, FBI Chief of Staff
* Peter Kadzik, DOJ Asst. AG
* Preet Bharara, US Attorney, Southern District
* Bruce Ohr, Former US Associate AG (reassigned)
* Sally Yates, Acting AG
* Dana Boente, Former US AG Eastern Virginia district
* Mary McCord, Acting Assistant AG
* Hui Chen, DOJ Antifraud expert


I think I've already explained to why why it was kept hush hush, that it was part of the " insurance plan " to remove a duly elected President and besides, the NYT has offered a new and better explanation for why this investigation was kept quiet during the election. They didn't want to encourage or legitimize Trumps assertions that the election could be mettled with.....Lol ! Also, IF in the course of the FBIs counter intel investigation they ran across something truly incriminating, they would have leaked it in a heartbeat

The NYTs and WaPo's latest articles have given us a preview of whats in IG Horowitz report and or any new incriminating disclosures that are on the way. I guess they figured they could spin or re-shape the narrative by disclosing some seriously incriminating information. Man did that backfire, and trying to walk it back is making it so much worse
 
Cardinal said:
For the record, the trump campaign was up to its balls in Russian agents and trump supporters are angry that the fbi took an interest in that fact. Oh, and the fbi was undermining the trump campaign...by not going public with their counterintelligence investigation. Okey dokey.
Click to expand...

Yea, only notified everyone that Hillary was squeaky clean. Now they're in CYA mode.
 
Fenton said:
Still living the dream, huh Cardinal ? Well, at least your consistent. Actually, Im not angry at all. I think this is all highly entertaining. Lacking the incrimination evidence needed to open a criminal investigation or a counter intelligence investigation for that matter, the FBI opens a Counter intelligence operation against the Trump campaign that includes widespread surveillance and unmasking of Trumps campaign. That is they used the powers that enable our government to spy on foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans who also happened to be their political adversaries
You and Wa Po and the NYTs still think it was all on the up and up ? Here's a list of Obama era senior DOJ and FBI officials who have either been demoted, fired, reassigned or were forced to resign over this scandal.
James Comey, FBI chief

* Peter Strzok, top FBI investigator (reassaigned)
* Lisa Page, top FBI attorney (reassigned)
* Andrew McCabe, Acting FBI Director and Deputy FBI Director
* James Baker, FBI General Counsel
* Stephen Laycock, Head of FBI Counterintelligence
* James Rybicki, FBI Chief of Staff
* Peter Kadzik, DOJ Asst. AG
* Preet Bharara, US Attorney, Southern District
* Bruce Ohr, Former US Associate AG (reassigned)
* Sally Yates, Acting AG
* Dana Boente, Former US AG Eastern Virginia district
* Mary McCord, Acting Assistant AG
* Hui Chen, DOJ Antifraud expert

I think I've already explained to why why it was kept hush hush, that it was part of the " insurance plan " to remove a duly elected President and besides, the NYT has offered a new and better explanation for why this investigation was kept quiet during the election. They didn't want to encourage or legitimize Trumps assertions that the election could be mettled with.....Lol ! Also, IF in the course of the FBIs counter intel investigation they ran across something truly incriminating, they would have leaked it in a heartbeat

The NYTs and WaPo's latest articles have given us a preview of whats in IG Horowitz report and or any new incriminating disclosures that are on the way. I guess they figured they could spin or re-shape the narrative by disclosing some seriously incriminating information. Man did that backfire, and trying to walk it back is making it so much worse
Click to expand...

What your basically saying is here is the big long list of people Trump has had fired within the Justice Department to make their investigation of him go away. If Hillary had this kind of body count you'd be screaming at the top of your lungs about treason and the rule of law.
 
Greenbeard said:
Trump wasn't protected from the Russians (why would he need to be?), he was protected from the voting public finding out what his campaign was actually up to. The public had a right to know what this Manchurian candidate and his band of unregistered foreign agents were up to prior to the election. That information was withheld and now we're stuck with a severely compromised figure in a very sensitive office.
Click to expand...


This is all so...delusional. You realize if what you just said was true, the FBI could have opened up a criminal investigation. Instead they used Hillary funded and unsubstantiated oppo-research to justify a counter intelligence investigation and extensive covert surveillance of the opposition candidate and his campaign.


Had Hillary won, then yes we would have been stuck with a severely compromised figure in a very sensitive office, and all this corruption would have been swept under the rug. Face it, your party and its media arm are busted, and have been involved in corruption of a scale never seen before in the US THAT occurred at the highest levels of Govt.
Its what you would expect in some 3rd world hell hole banana republic, and I guess we can thank the Democrats and the Obama admin for bring it to the US
 
Fenton said:
...The media arm of the Democratic party have officially lost their minds...
Click to expand...

I'm curious about something, though I'm not sure you'll be able to answer my question. Suppose it is true that the Russians put intelligence assets in Donald Trump's campaign without him knowing about it, such that those assets were part of a coordinated effort to undermine the fairness of the election. Suppose it is also true that the FBI knew those assets were there, but did not know what they were up to (that is, Russian knows why they're there, but the FBI does not). What should the FBI have done in that instance?
 
RabidAlpaca said:
What your basically saying is here is the big long list of people Trump has had fired within the Justice Department to make their investigation of him go away. If Hillary had this kind of body count you'd be screaming at the top of your lungs about treason and the rule of law.
Click to expand...

Trump didn't fire Andrew McCabe or James Rybicki or James Baker and he didn't demote Bruce Ohr, Peter Sztrok, Lisa Page, etc. Trump only fired Comey after Rosenstein recommended his firing. Honestly, WTF ? You know, it was this level of devotion to Trump hatred that led to the creation of this huge scandal

Instead of trying to cover their asses, or explain away or justify what happened ( which is impossible ) the Media needs to own up to the part it played in creating this mess
 
Cardinal said:
For the record, the trump campaign was up to its balls in Russian agents and trump supporters are angry that the fbi took an interest in that fact. Oh, and the fbi was undermining the trump campaign...by not going public with their counterintelligence investigation. Okey dokey.
Click to expand...

Name one Russian spy that had infiltrated the Trump Campaign.
 
ashurbanipal said:
I'm curious about something, though I'm not sure you'll be able to answer my question. Suppose it is true that the Russians put intelligence assets in Donald Trump's campaign without him knowing about it, such that those assets were part of a coordinated effort to undermine the fairness of the election. Suppose it is also true that the FBI knew those assets were there, but did not know what they were up to (that is, Russian knows why they're there, but the FBI does not). What should the FBI have done in that instance?
Click to expand...

The FBI's spy was the insurance policy that Strzok was talking about.
 
Fenton said:
The FBI Didn’t Use An Informant To Go After Trump. They Used One To Protect Him

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/18/if-the-fbi-used-an-informant-it-wasnt-to-go-after-trump-it-was-to-protect-him/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6ecedaeeb398

" President Trump and his allies are outraged at reports that the FBI used an “informant” to spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign. “Really bad stuff!” the president tweeted early Friday. Supporters of the White House claim the FBI’s reported tactics were illegal. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has even subpoenaed the Justice Department for information on who the informant might have been; department and FBI officials say public disclosures of this kind could put sources in danger.

But Trump and his backers are wrong about what it means that the FBI reportedly was using a confidential source to gather information early in its investigation of possible campaign ties to Russia. The investigation started out as a counterintelligence probe, not a criminal one. And relying on a covert source rather than a more intrusive method of gathering information suggests that the FBI may have been acting cautiously — perhaps too cautiously — to protect the campaign, not undermine it."


:lamo :lamo :lamo

The media arm of the Democratic party have officially lost their minds. First, after spending the last 18 months denying that Trumps and his campaign were spied on, the NYTs runs a article detailing the extent of that surveillance. Obviously it was a attempt by most likely EX-DOJ / FBI officials to re-write the narrative prior to the release of new and incriminating information. That would most likely be IG Horrowitz report on the FBI / DOJ's handling of the Clinton E-mail investigation

The problem ( for them, not us ) is their attempt to get ahead of the coming storm backfired in epic proportion. Now predictably, they making it even worse...Hilarious ! Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of folks. Someone should tell WaPo and the NYTs that there is no way to spin this in their favor, no way to justify it, explain it away or to soften the blow. This was corruption on a massive scale that occurred at the highest levels of Govt, and media outlets were complicit


With no evidence whatsoever, the Obama DOJ / FBI under the pretense of a counter intelligence probe based off a fake collusion narrative, conducted extensive and covert surveillance on the opposition candidate and his campaign at the height of the 2016 election. It wasn't to protect Trump from Russians, it was part of a plan, a " insurance policy " to undermine and eventually take out a duly elected President and basically render null and void the votes of over 62 million Americans and it was put into effect almost immediately after the election

Trump was still President Elect when James Comey was given his " assignment " by Clapper to inform Trump of the more lurid allegations in the dossier. Comey was just looking out for the President, " protecting " him...:roll: As planned CNN leaked the meeting and the leaks didn't stop there as a complicit media continued to work with leakers in the IC, the CIA and FBI to PUBLISH anything that would legitimize the false collusion narrative. Now, its blowing up in the media's and Democrats faces and WaPo just made it worse with this ridiculous article
Click to expand...

That is crazy! And how many spies did it insert into the Clinton campaign? You know, the one that was being actually targeted by 'Russians'.
 
ashurbanipal said:
I'm curious about something, though I'm not sure you'll be able to answer my question. Suppose it is true that the Russians put intelligence assets in Donald Trump's campaign without him knowing about it, such that those assets were part of a coordinated effort to undermine the fairness of the election. Suppose it is also true that the FBI knew those assets were there, but did not know what they were up to (that is, Russian knows why they're there, but the FBI does not). What should the FBI have done in that instance?
Click to expand...

The FBI could have informed Trump of the names of the (allegedly known?) Russian agents working on behalf of his campaign.
 
Fenton said:
Trump didn't fire Andrew McCabe or James Rybicki or James Baker and he didn't demote Bruce Ohr, Peter Sztrok, Lisa Page, etc. Trump only fired Comey after Rosenstein recommended his firing. Honestly, WTF ? You know, it was this level of devotion to Trump hatred that led to the creation of this huge scandal

Instead of trying to cover their asses, or explain away or justify what happened ( which is impossible ) the Media needs to own up to the part it played in creating this mess
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's not a full out purge of people investigating him if he puts someone in the middle to do the official firing. :roll: You can't hold up these firings as proof of corruption when they were fired by the administration they were investigating.

Rest assured, if Hillary, Obama, or Bill had purged this many of people from the justice department while they were being investigated you'd be livid and speaking of treason. I don't think it's acceptable regardless of who's in charge.
 
Fenton said:
This is all so...delusional. You realize if what you just said was true, the FBI could have opened up a criminal investigation. Instead they used Hillary funded and unsubstantiated oppo-research to justify a counter intelligence investigation and extensive covert surveillance of the opposition candidate and his campaign.
Click to expand...

The bending over backwards the FBI did to keep their inquiry secret from the public to Trump's benefit is literally the point of your OP. And now it's your argument? Okay then.

And now we have a president beholden to hostile foreign interests for his election. It's the Founders' nightmare scenario and the FBI shoulders significant blame for it.
 
ashurbanipal said:
I'm curious about something, though I'm not sure you'll be able to answer my question. Suppose it is true that the Russians put intelligence assets in Donald Trump's campaign without him knowing about it, such that those assets were part of a coordinated effort to undermine the fairness of the election. Suppose it is also true that the FBI knew those assets were there, but did not know what they were up to (that is, Russian knows why they're there, but the FBI does not). What should the FBI have done in that instance?
Click to expand...

Thats not what happened, but for the sake of argument,why not allow the FBI to conduct covert surveillance on all Presidential and or political campaigns then ? I mean if the candidate doesn't know, and no one else knows there is a Russian agent inside the campaign so why restrict it to the political opposition of the current administration ?

In Trumps case, if the FBI actually possessed evidence that a Russian agent had infiltrated Trumps campaign and was working with the campaign to undermine the election, they wouldn't have had to rely on or submit the dossier to FISC, they would have opened up criminal investigation instead of a counter intelligence investigation, and there would have been no reason to coordinate politically damaging leaks with major media outlets.

Kind of hard to argue that this wasn't always just Political operation when you have Comey acting on orders from James Clapper to brief Trump on the most salacious details of Hillary funded oppo-research hit piece just so CNN could run the story immediately after the meeting
Comey kept the dossiers Political origins to himself of-course
 
ttwtt78640 said:
The FBI could have informed Trump of the names of the (allegedly known?) Russian agents working on behalf of his campaign.
Click to expand...

I didn't make this explicit in my question, but let's assume one further thing: the FBI does not know who else is involved or why they might be involved. That is, they cannot rule Trump out of being "in on it." (Of course, they also do not know that he is "in on it" in this scenario). In that case, what should the FBI have done?
 
Fenton said:
Thats not what happened, but for the sake of argument,why not allow the FBI to conduct covert surveillance on all Presidential and or political campaigns then ? I mean if the candidate doesn't know, and no one else knows there is a Russian agent inside the campaign so why restrict it to the political opposition of the current administration ?
Click to expand...

That wasn't exactly the question. In this (possibly hypothetical) case, the FBI does know there are Russian agents in Trump's campaign, does not know what they're up to, or who else may be involved (including possibly Trump himself). What should the FBI have done, in such a case?
 
Cardinal said:
For the record, the trump campaign was up to its balls in Russian agents and trump supporters are angry that the fbi took an interest in that fact. Oh, and the fbi was undermining the trump campaign...by not going public with their counterintelligence investigation. Okey dokey.
Click to expand...

The FBI is about to get seriously exposed. You'll wrap some concocted BS around it to placate yourself and preserve the politics that define you, but you know deep down what happened.

You're losing. Mueller is a corrupt fraud. Obama broke the law. And Americans see it, are bored with all this, and have moved on.
 
Greenbeard said:
The bending over backwards the FBI did to keep their inquiry secret from the public to Trump's benefit is literally the point of your OP. And now it's your argument? Okay then.

And now we have a president beholden to hostile foreign interests for his election. It's the Founders' nightmare scenario and the FBI shoulders significant blame for it.
Click to expand...

They kept it secret to keep themselves from going to jail.
 
The longer this "investigation" goes on, the worse it looks for the "investigators".

We knew Trump was critical of this "deep state" law enforcement, DoJ and intelligence community apparatus, he dismissed their daily intelligence briefings. Apparently their highly touted integrity is not as evident, Trump certainly seems skeptical of it, and they themselves have been shown to have sullied their reputation. I think the institutions got "too big for their britches" in the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act and inaptly named Homeland Security.


Now it is increasingly evident this "deep state" did become politically motivated, and I frankly find this absolutely intolerable. We know a politically motivated intelligence, justice and law enforcement system is an endemic feature in repressive governments, it is a natural feature there, but this can never be allowed by a free and democratic society.


Once this "investigation" is done, unless they oust Trump, it is inevitable the whole DoJ/FBI and to some extent the rest of this intelligence community will need to be very thoroughly purged, not for loyalty, but for integrity.
 
apdst said:
Simple common sense. Whatelse could his "insurance policy" be?
Click to expand...

Who knows? Well, other than Strzok himself, and anyone to whom he has explained the comment. Are you one of those?

It's not clear to me that FBI was doing what you guys seem to be accusing them of doing. Just as with about anything else, I'm willing to be convinced, but it'll take more than this. The only way someone could agree with your reasoning here is if they already agree with your view overall. I see no reason to think Strzok meant what you seem to think he meant. Doesn't mean you aren't correct--only that there's no reason to think you are.
 
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