There is a lot of ongoing chatter about the guilty plea by Kevin Clinesmith, the former FBI lawyer who falsified and then attested to the accuracy of, a document that was presented to the FISA court to obtain a warrant on Carter Page.
Clinesmith is a relatively low-level cog in the conspiracy to overthrow the Presidency of Donald J Trump. Clinesmith’s crime of falsifying documents that were presented to the court occurred during the third renewal of the Page FISA warrant. At this point the Special Counsel’s office was running everything in Main Justice that touched on anything connected to Crossfire Hurricane.
Crossfire Hurricane was the counter-intelligence operation that tried to throw the election to Hillary Clinton. When that failed, it was transformed into an operation to stop the inauguration and then, when that failed, to execute a slow-motion coup.
What are the facts that are present in the plea deal?
- Kevin Clinesmith’s boss at the FBI then was Trisha Beth Anderson.
- Anderson asked Clinesmith to check on Carter Page as a possible “source” for another agency. We now know this agency was the CIA.
- At a minimum, Clinesmith reported that Page was indeed a “subsource” for the CIA.
- When the DOJ (being run by the Special Counsel) signed the Carter Page FISA renewal [June 29, 2017], the FBI deputy (Trisha Anderson) who reported directly to the FBI’s General Counsel (Jim Baker), who reported directly to FBA Director (Andy McCabe), knew that Carter Page was at least a CIA subsource.
- We know without question that Clinesmith had been informed by the CIA that the CIA had previously informed the DOJ and the FBI about Carter Page’s status, a year earlier, on August 17, 2016. This date is important since it is shortly after the initiation of Crossfire Hurricane (July 31, 2016). During this time the plotters were desperate to obtain a FISA warrant to restore cover to their illegal activities.
- The CIA provided the file explaining all of this.
- Within a few days, Clinesmith received a note from his boss, Trisha Anderson, asking if the info from the CIA was in writing. Clinesmith changed the official story to Carter Page was not a source.
- Trisha Anderson signed-off on the Carter Page FISA application, a Title-1 surveillance warrant, under penalty of perjury. We know from her own writings that the application contained materially false information and omissions.
- Anderson signed off the previous Carter Page FISA’s because they were presented to her pre-approved and pre-signed by the FBI and DOJ leadership (Comey-FBI, Yates-DOJ).
Clinesmith Plea agreement:
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000174-0950-dac0-adf5-1bf481a00000
What does this mean going forward? A gentleman whom I will call “Junior” had this to say:
The only new points are that Trisha Anderson was his direct superior, and the implication that her superior McCabe was the one who directed her to “ask” for the clarification. And she rubber stamped the first three from Comey/Yates shows her pattern of being subservient to the top, as to why she would be that same way on the fourth. They (Mueller group) were clearly desperate to get an extension as they had failed to goad Trump to do a “Saturday night massacre” yet.
If the basic Plea structure was obvious to me (a non-lawyer, but very experienced working with lawyers over my 50 years of business life), then Barr is not hiding anything.
As I said yesterday, Barr may not need anything else from Clinesmith. The key points are: 1) He admits that material addition was made, and what it was; 2) That this info was already known in August 2016, even before the first FISA; 3) That he gave the original email, as well as the doctored one, to a number of people; and 4) Now you have added at least two (Anderson and McCabe) who were recipients of those emails (are there more persons?)
THIS ALL THEY NEED TO START UP THE CHAIN. They don’t even need him to testify, the guilty plea and info doc is enough. From this you build up the chain with your strongest evidence that even a DC jury can’t avoid. Eventually as you go up you show the corrupt intent/conspiracy. After all, why does Durham even have a RICO specialist on his group?
I agree with this assessment. It will be interesting to see who will be next to opt for a plea deal. I would bet that those negotiations have been underway for some time.