Someone should nudge
awake Connecticut U.S. Senators Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy. The FISA
warrant used to secure the services of special prosecutor Robert Mueller was
defective from the get-go, we learn in a series of stunning opinion pieces in The
Hill written by John Solomon.
It appears there is an after-story to the Mueller investigation after all, and
the second act will almost certainly disappoint the two Trump-slayers.
One of the stories’
ledes probably should garner Solomon a Pulitzer for commentary eye-candy: “The
FBI’s sworn story to a federal court about its asset, Christopher Steele, is
fraying faster than a $5 souvenir T-shirt bought at a tourist trap.” And the
second graph might be a close runner-up: “Newly unearthed memos show a
high-ranking government official who met with Steele in October 2016 determined
some of the Donald Trump dirt that Steele was simultaneously digging up
for the FBI and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was inaccurate, and
likely leaked to the media.”
Dates are important.
Trump did not become president-elect until November 8, 2016, much to the dismay
of the Friends of Hillary Clinton, Blumenthal among them. Had Clinton defeated Trump, the “dossier” on
the president might never have seen the light of day. Certainly, the dossier would
not have clanged through the first two years of the Trump presidency like a
warning fire bell.
“The concerns [over
the dossier] were flagged in a typed memo and in handwritten notes taken by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11, 2016,” more than two months before Trump was sworn
in as President, Solomon writes.
It is not improbable
that worry lines appeared on the usual placid brow of Blumenthal when Trump
laid his hand on the Bible and swore as President to uphold the Constitution of
the United States.
A band of brothers
in the Obama administration knew very early on that the misnamed Steele “dossier”
– an opposition research document full of campaign dirt, the more salacious
parts entirely fictional – was seriously defective as a court document intended
to convince a FISA court judge.
“It is important to
note,” Solomon writes, “that the FBI swore on Oct. 21, 2016, to the FISA judges
that Steele’s ‘reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal
proceedings’ and the FBI has determined him to be ‘reliable’ and was ‘unaware
of any derogatory information pertaining’ to their informant, who
simultaneously worked for Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and
the Clinton campaign to find Russian dirt on Trump. Her [Kavalec’s]
observations were recorded exactly 10 days before the FBI used Steele and
his infamous dossier to justify securing a Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s contacts with Russia
in search of a now debunked collusion theory.”
The collusion theory
was debunked, finally, by special prosecutor Robert Muller, but Muller’s mandate
did not permit him to investigate the origins of what some are calling an
attempted presidential coup.
If Blumenthal were
operating on the Republican side of the barricades, does anyone doubt he would
be overjoyed at the news that Attorney General William Barr has chosen a
Connecticut prosecutor, John Durham, to investigate how a FISA court was misled
by Steele and possible co-conspirators, some of them Russian from whom Steele
received his mud-balls, and others – dare it be said? – clustered around Clinton’s
shattered presidential attempt? Murphy, were he a Republican, would be barking
at Blumenthal’s side. According to both the New York Times and the Associated
Press, Durham’s probe will focus on whether the Justice
Department lawfully collected intelligence on Trump campaign associates.
It’s going to be
nearly impossible for Connecticut’s two US Senators to soil the reputation of
Durham before he turns up some inconvenient truths about the Trump collusion
prequel. Durham comes to the post highly recommended by, among others,
Blumenthal. It was Blumenthal and Murphy who recommended Durham to Trump as
Connecticut’s US Attorney. Blumenthal's recommendation swelled with unstinted
praise: “I know John Durham well, having known and worked with him over many
years. He is a no-nonsense, fierce, fair career prosecutor. He knows what it
means to try some of the toughest cases against career criminals. He knows what
it means to try to stop the opioid crisis in this country. He knows what
organized crime does to the fabric of our society. He is exactly the kind of
person we should have in this position.”
And – cherry on the
cake -- Durham bagged crooked FBI agents in Boston, as well as the notorious
former Governor of Connecticut John Rowland.
As Aaron once said
to the Pharaoh of Egypt about Moses, “What’s not to like?”
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