AN FBI INFORMANT IN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN? (2)
In her weekly Wall Street Journal column Kim Strassel delivers news and analysis you probably won’t see much of elsewhere. Following up on her own previous work that we noted here yesterday, Kim reports:
The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday when it allowed House Intelligence Committee members to view classified documents about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was “wholly appropriate,” “completely within the scope” of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.” Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down—accusing the House of “extortion” and delivering a speech in which he claimed that “declining to open the FBI’s files to review” is a constitutional “duty.” Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments—that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in “loss of human lives.”This is desperation, and it strongly suggests that whatever is in these files is going to prove very uncomfortable to the FBI.The bureau already has some explaining to do. Thanks to the Washington Post’s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting.
Sara Careter has more on yesterday’s meeting here. I have nothing to add but the observation that one can only draw adverse inferences from the DOJ/FBI’s handling of this evidence. Kim herself concludes that “what is clear is that we’ve barely scratched the surface of the FBI’s 2016 behavior, and the country will never get the straight story until President Trump moves to declassify everything possible.”
The Journal publishes a related column by retired FBI special agent and legal attaché Thomas Baker, “The FBI’s shocking disrespect for Congress.” Quotable quote: “I spent 33 years in the FBI, including several working in the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs. The recent deterioration in the bureau’s relationship with Congress is shocking. It truly is a change in culture.”
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