Excellent investigative work by Inspector General Michael Horowitz raises the suspicion that the Obama-Biden White House, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Glenn Simpson could well have been receiving information from the FBI in relation to the Trump election campaign from the date the FBI opened an individual file on Carter Page in August 2016 until President Trump was sworn in as President on 20 January 2017 - and perhaps well beyond that until 20 September 2017.
Obama and Biden were President and Vice-President respectively until 19 January 2017, whilst Hillary Clinton and the DNC had - through Perkins Coie lawyers - paid for the infamous Steele Dossier prepared by Russian sources engaged by Christopher Steele who was in turn hired by Glenn Simpson. Horowitz established the Dossier was false and was used to mislead the FISA Court to obtain four warrants to spy on Carter Page. Steele gave the Dossier to the FBI with the authority of Simpson.
Horowitz noted in his Report that Glenn Simpson declined Horowitz's request for a voluntary interview and could not be compelled to testify.
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Horowitz cryptically reveals what happened in the week after the first FISA warrant was obtained on 21 October 2016:
Emails and other communications reflect that in the first week of surveillance on Carter Page, [redacted] following the granting of the first FISA application in October 2016, the Crossfire Hurricane team collected [redacted] [Footnote 354]. Based on our review of the Woods Files and communications between the FBI and 01, we identified a few emails between Page and members of the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign concerning campaign related matters.
Footnote 354 quizzically states:
We did not review the entirety of FISA [redacted] obtained through FISA surveillance [redacted] targeting Carter Page. We reviewed only those [redacted] under FISA authority that were relevant to our review.
What were in those Trump campaign e mails? Were any more collected by the surveillance operation during Crossfire Hurricane? Why were Trump campaign-related e mails so important for the FBI to retain?
Were their contents made known to Obama, Biden, Clinton, the DNC Committee or Simpson? Did they give the Democrats an inside run into what was happening in the Trump campaign.
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The FBI reputation for leaking like a sieve had already been called out by Horowitz.
It is difficult to understand why Horowitz went into redacted mode at this critical part of his Report. Durham should hunt these campaign emails down.
Horowitz further states that the application to renew the first FISA warrant in January 2017 contained the five main elements enumerated in the first application and also added recent investigative results.
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