With the twin investigations into the investigators by Trump's personal lawyer AG Bill Barr almost complete, we're already getting leaks about what the report contains as the regime's efforts to get impeachment off of America's front pages goes into overdrive.
Washington Post A1: Diplomat acknowledges 'quid pro quo' pic.twitter.com/TnooHaB2rq— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 21, 2019
There's little doubt now that another round of big font type headlines like this will end Trump's regime, so the subject is being changed.
A former FBI lawyer is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN.
The possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.
The finding is expected to be part of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's review of the FBI's effort to obtain warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide. Horowitz will release the report next month.
Horowitz turned over evidence on the allegedly altered document to John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed early this year by Attorney General William Barr to conduct a broad investigation of intelligence gathered for the Russia probe by the CIA and other agencies, including the FBI. The altered document is also at least one focus of Durham's criminal probe.
It's unknown how significant a role the altered document played in the FBI's investigation of Page and whether the FISA warrant would have been approved without the document. The alterations were significant enough to have shifted the document's meaning and came up during a part of Horowitz's FISA review where details were classified, according to the sources.
Some witnesses who have been interviewed in Horowitz's investigation have said they expect the inspector general to find mistakes in the FBI's handling of the FISA process, but that those mistakes do not undermine the premise for the FBI's investigation.
American intelligence agencies and the Justice Department have not swayed from their finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election by hacking the Democrats and spreading pro-Trump propaganda online. And even former top Trump campaign officials have corroborated special counsel Robert Mueller's finding that the Trump campaign planned some of its strategy around the Russian hacks, and had multiple contacts with Kremlin-linked individuals in 2016.
Horowitz's investigators conducted more than 100 witness interviews in their review. During one of interviews this year, they confronted the witness about the document. The witness admitted to the change, the sources said.
The identity or rank of the FBI employee under investigation isn't yet known, and it's not clear whether the employee still works in the federal government. No charges that could reflect the situation have been filed publicly in court.
The Justice Department and inspector general's office declined to comment.
So now it becomes a race, which happens first, House Democrats vote on and pass articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, or Barr starts indicting Russia collusion investigators in an obvious attempt to derail impeachment?
Ahh, but Trump and company are getting a major assist from Sen. Lindsey Graham. The Senate has their part to play in this mess too, and if Trump can't convince Ukraine to investigate Biden, then Lackey Lindsey will.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday requesting documents related to former vice president Joe Biden and his communications with Ukrainian officials, a step seen as a GOP effort to counter the House impeachment investigation of President Trump.
The inquiry by Graham (R-S.C.) is focused on any calls Biden may have had with Petro Poroshenko, then the Ukrainian president, regarding the firing of the country’s top prosecutor, as well as any that referenced an investigation of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural-gas company that employed Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Graham’s document request suggests he is seeking to legitimize Trump’s accusations that Biden, then vice president, put pressure on Ukraine to fire its lead prosecutor to protect his son, a claim without evidence that has been disputed by officials familiar with the investigation.
Graham, one of Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill, told The Washington Post in late October that he was under intense pressure to launch an investigation into Biden by Trump and his allies.
But he said he would not “turn the Senate into a circus” and would instead focus his committee’s work on the investigation into the Justice Department’s launch of the Russia investigation.
Taylor Reidy, a spokeswoman for Graham, said the senator is now seeking the documents because “Adam Schiff and the House Intel Committee have made it clear they will not look into the issues about Hunter Biden and Burisma.” Rep. Schiff (D-Calif.) is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
“Graham is requesting documents which could shed additional light on that issue and hopes they will be able to answer some of the outstanding questions,” she said.
We're coming up on the crossroads. The second week of December is when the House is expected to vote on impeachment before the holidays. Barr is going to wreck as much as he can in order to try to save his boss, and Graham is going to flood the zone with bullshit hearings and subpoenas in order to counter-program impeachment.
It's going to get truly nasty.
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