FoxNews.com reports that
U.S. Attorney John Durham’s ongoing probe into potential FBI and Justice Department misconduct has transitioned into a full-fledged criminal investigation, two sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News on Thursday night.
One source added that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s upcoming report on FBI surveillance abuses will shed light on why Durham’s probe has become a criminal inquiry. Horowitz announced on Thursday his report would be available to the public soon, with “few” redactions.
The investigation’s new status means Durham can subpoena witnesses, file charges, and impanel fact-finding grand juries.
Fox News reported on Tuesday that Durham’s probe had expanded significantly based on new evidence uncovered during a recent trip to Rome with Attorney General Bill Barr.
Barr reportedly told embassy officials in Italy that he “needed a conference room to meet high-level Italian security agents where he could be sure no one was listening in.”
A source in the Italian Ministry of Justice told The Daily Beast earlier this month that Barr and Durham were played a taped deposition made by Joseph Mifsud, the professor who allegedly told ex-Trump aide George Papadopoulos that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Mifsud reportedly was explaining to investigators in the deposition why people would want to harm him, and why he needed police protection.
Papadopoulos has suggested he was connected with Mifsud as part of a setup orchestrated by intelligence agencies.
Sources told Fox News that Durham was “very interested” to question former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump critic who recently dismissed the idea. The New York Times reported Thursday that Durham’s criminal review has prompted some CIA officials to obtain criminal legal counsel in anticipation of being interviewed.
Brennan and Clapper were at the helm not only when Mifsud spoke to Papadopoulos, but also when the unverified and largely discredited dossier, written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, was used to help justify a secret surveillance warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page in the run-up to the 2016 election.
The FBI apparently obscured the fact that the Clinton campaign and DNC funded the dossier in its warrant application, telling the secret court only that the dossier was prepared at the behest of an unidentified presidential campaign.
Additionally, in its original FISA application and subsequent renewals, the FBI told the FISA court it “did not believe” Steele was the direct source for a Yahoo News article implicating Page in Russian collusion. Instead, the FBI suggested to the court, the September 2016 article by Michael Isikoff was independent corroboration of the dossier. But, London court records showed that contrary to the FBI’s assessments, Steele briefed Yahoo News and other reporters in the fall of 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS.
It has further emerged that Steele had communications with a State Department contact — which were relayed to the FBI — in which Steele claimed the Russians were running a “technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election” and that “payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami.”
There is no Russian consulate in Miami, a fact the State Department official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, emphasized in her notes. And, Steele had suggested his client was “keen” to see his information come to light prior to Election Day.
Kavalec forwarded her notes to the FBI and other government officials several days before the FISA warrant was issued for Page.
Also on Thursday, top Republicans revealed never-before-seen texts from fired FBI agent Peter Strzok, in which he apparently discussed systemic leaking at the bureau.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed the texts in a letter to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) requesting an update on whether the FBI’s apparent leaks to the media were being probed.
The senators pushed to know whether the ICIG was looking into Strzok’s email to FBI colleagues on April 13, 2017, when he wrote that an unidentified “agency” might be the “source of some of the leaks” to the media that he’d been seeing.
Well, it looks like the kitchen lights are about to be turned on and the Professional Bureaucratic Cockroaches in the CIA are scurrying for cover.
About that “unidentified agency” that was the “source of some of the leaks” to the Main Stream Media…could perhaps its initials be C.I.A.?
Consider how much Former CIA Director and Muslim convert Brennan absolutely despises President Donald J. Trump, I would say that it is highly probable.
The Obama Administration weaponized the DOJ, the FBI, and the CIA in a covert Deep State Operation designed first to prevent Donald J. Trump from being the Republican Nominee and then to prevent him from winning the 2016 Presidential Election.
When that failed, money was poured out through the Clinton Foundation and the Democratic Party to Christopher Steele to create the phony FISA Document.
With the FBI and the CIA involvement as stooges of the Democratic Party, the Special Counsel was soon named and America was put through a two and one half year nightmare simply because the Democrats are a bunch of sore losers.
We are still going through that same nightmare as Adam Schiff and the House Dems are holding secret Soviet-style meetings, created because Shifty Schiff’s people met with a “concerned whistleblower”, who, if he exists, is probably a professional bureaucrat and a Deep State agent in the CIA.
While I trust Durham and Barr, I have some doubts about Horowitz, who is himself, a professional bureaucrat like the rest of them.
I hope his report is the match in a the dry forest of Democrat corruption which gets the fire started, setting the stage for the Attorney General’s findings to Rain of the Democrats’ Impeachment Parade.
Until He Comes,
KJ
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