damning proof of innocence that FBI withheld in Russian probe

[dukkha]

growing evidence suggests both Trump campaign advisers made exculpatory statements — at the very start of the FBI’s investigation — that undercut the Trump-Russia collusion theory peddled to agents by Democratic sources.

The FBI plowed ahead anyway with an unprecedented intrusion into a presidential campaign, while keeping evidence of the two men’s innocence from the courts.

Page and Papadopoulos, who barely knew each other, met separately in August and September 2016 with Stefan Halper, the American-born Cambridge University professor who, the FBI told Congress, worked as an undercover informer in the Russia case.

Papadopoulos was the young aide that the FBI used to justify opening a probe into the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016, after he allegedly told a foreign diplomat that he knew Russia possessed incriminating emails about Hillary Clinton.

Page, a volunteer campaign adviser, was the American the FBI then targeted on Oct. 21, 2016, for secret surveillance while investigating Democratic Party-funded allegations that he secretly might have coordinated Russia’s election efforts with the Trump campaign during a trip to Moscow.

To appreciate the significance of the two men’s interactions with Halper, one must understand the rules governing the FBI when it seeks a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant such as the one secured against Page.

First, the FBI must present evidence to FISA judges that it has verified and that comes from intelligence sources deemed reliable.
Second, it must disclose any information that calls into question the credibility of its sources.
Finally, it must disclose any evidence suggesting the innocence of its investigative targets.

Thanks to prior releases of information, we know the FBI fell short on the first two counts.
Multiple FBI officials have testified that the Christopher Steele dossier had not been verified when its allegations were submitted as primary evidence supporting the FISA warrant against Page.

Likewise, we know the FBI failed to tell the courts that Steele admitted to a federal official that he was desperate to defeat Trump in the 2016 election and was being paid by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to gather dirt on the GOP candidate.
Both pieces of information are the sort of credibility-defining details that should be disclosed about a source.

What remains uncertain in the court of public opinion is whether the FBI possessed evidence suggesting Papadopoulos and Page — and, thus, the larger Trump campaign — were innocent of collusion. Republican lawmakers have suggested for months that such evidence existed and was hidden from the courts, but none has emerged in public.

My reporting from more than two dozen sources, many with access to the FBI’s evidence, suggests one answer to that question lies in Halper’s interactions with the two Trump campaign advisers, some of it documented in FBI records. And interviews with both men reveal just how much they told Halper about their innocence.

Page, an avid biker, rode his mountain bike on Aug. 20, 2016, to a Northern Virginia farm after being invited there by Halper for a casual Saturday visit. Page met Halper weeks earlier when invited by Halper’s assistant to a Cambridge academic conference. The two corresponded by email around the time of Page’s trip to Moscow and arranged to meet in Virginia.

By the time Page arrived at Halper’s farm, he had been rattled by media calls during the prior week in which reporters alleged having information that Page met with two senior Russian intelligence figures in Moscow. The reporters suggested his trip might have been part of a larger plot to coordinate with Russia to benefit Trump’s election as president.

That allegation, it turns out, was one of many in the uncorroborated Steele dossier guiding the FBI’s collusion probe.

Page told me he was incredulous at the suggestions and told everyone he knew, including Halper, that he had not met either Russian intel figure and knew of no Trump-Moscow coordination.

“I’m certain that nothing I said that day at the professor’s farm could be deemed as anything other than exculpatory. And once again, in September, I explained reality to the FBI. Contrary to the DNC’s false reports, I have never met those Russians, and I did not know of any effort to coordinate, collude or conspire with Russia. Period.”

Page said he went to Moscow in July 2016 simply to give a speech, at the same university where former President Obama spoke a few years earlier. And he said he consciously did not take any actions with Russians that might raise concerns, especially after helping U.S. prosecutors and the FBI in an earlier Russian criminal case and meeting with federal authorities as recently as the previous March.

“I’ve never done anything even vaguely resembling illegality throughout the countless trips to Russia. But I was exceptionally meticulous that trip to carefully avoid anything that could be remotely construed as questionable,” he told me.

Page’s recollection is backed up by a letter he sent to then-FBI Director James Comey a few weeks after his Halper meeting. “For the record, I have not met this year with any sanctioned official in Russia, despite the fact that there are no restrictions on U.S. persons speaking with such individuals,” he wrote in September 2016.

Multiple sources tell me none of the FISA applications the FBI submitted to judges over the course of a year’s surveillance of Page made any mention of exculpatory statements or protestations of innocence that Page made to informants.

If such statements exist, in the form of a tape or a transcript or an FBI interview report — three routine investigative tools the FBI uses when managing informers — then it would be a huge omission that likely violated FBI rules.

A month later, in London, Papadopoulos was paid $3,000 to present a foreign policy paper to Halper. On the second day of his visit with Halper, Papadopoulos said the conversation turned from academic work to a barrage of questions about Russia, Trump and collusion, including whether the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia on the hacked Clinton emails or changed the GOP platform on Ukraine to appease Vladimir Putin.

Papadopoulos told me he pointedly remembers his response: “I made it clear to Halper that what he was suggesting did not only amount to treason, but that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and had no information at all about anyone involved with the campaign who might have been involved with a conspiracy because there never was a conspiracy and no one was colluding with a foreign power, especially Russia.

“Furthermore, I made it clear to him that Ukraine should be supported and that Russia will always remain a competitor, even if Trump decided to work with Russia to stabilize Syria and East Ukraine while checking China’s rise.”

Sources familiar with the FISA applications say they contain no evidence that Papadopoulos made exculpatory statements unwittingly to an FBI informer.

Again, if such statements exist in transcripts, tapes or FBI reports, they’re a major omission.

Page never has been charged with wrongdoing. And Papadopoulos, after an exhaustive investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, was not accused of conspiracy with Russia; instead, he pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI about a months-old conversation with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer regarding a rumor that Russia possessed embarrassing emails from Clinton.

The crime was deemed so minor by the presiding judge that Papadopoulos was sentenced to a mere 14 days in jail.

If Page’s and Papadopoulos’s recollections of what they told Halper are accurate, former FBI officials Comey, James Baker, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok — all of whom played a role in the Russia probe and the FISA warrants — have some serious explaining to do. So does departing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who signed the fourth and final FISA warrant.

My reporting suggests a much bigger scandal — the intentional misleading of the nation’s federal intelligence court — soon may eclipse the Russia narrative that has dominated the media the past two years.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-ho...-russian-probe

[Nomad]

The "author" of the OPINION PIECE in the OP, is one John Solomon, former Executive Editor of the ultra conservative Washington Times.

From Wikipedia:

Paul McCleary, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, has been critical of John Solomon's reporting. In 2007, he wrote that Solomon had earned a reputation for hyping stories without solid foundation. In 2012, Mariah Blake, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, wrote that Solomon "has a history of bending the truth to his storyline," and that he "was notorious for massaging facts to conjure phantom scandals." In 2007, Deborah Howell, then-ombudsman at The Washington Post criticized a story that Solomon wrote for The Post which had suggested impropriety by Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards in a real estate purchase; Solomon failed to add context which would have made clear that there was no impropriety. Progressive news outlets ThinkProgress, Media Matters for America and Crooked Media have argued that Solomon's reporting has a conservative bias and that there are multiple instances of inaccuracies. Reporters who worked under Solomon as an editor have said that he encouraged them to bend the truth to fit a pre-existing narrative.

In January 2018, Solomon published a report for The Hill suggesting that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had foreknowledge of a Wall Street Journal article and that they themselves had leaked to the Wall Street Journal. According to the Huffington Post, Solomon's reporting omitted that the Wall Street Journal article Strzok and Page were discussing was critical of Hillary Clinton and the FBI, Strzok and Page expressed dismay at the fallout from the article, and Strzok and Page criticized unauthorized leaks from the FBI. According to the Huffington Post, "Solomon told HuffPost he was not authorized to speak and does not comment on his reporting. He may simply have been unaware of these three facts when he published his story. But they provide crucial context to an incomplete narrative that has been bouncing around the right-wing echo chamber all week."

That same month, Erik Wemple of The Washington Post said that newsroom staffers at The Hill had complained about Solomon's reporting for the publication. The staffers reportedly criticized Solomon's reporting as having a conservative bias and missing important context, and that this undermined The Hill's reputation. They also expressed concerns over Solomon's close relationship with Sean Hannity, whose TV show he appeared on more than a dozen times over a span of three months.

IOW, about as reliable a source as Rush Limbaugh or his butt buddy Sean Hannity.

Are you proud of yourself for being such a willing dupe for right-wing liars?

How do people like you even look in the mirror everyday?

Or do you?

[Stretch]

John Solomom's been correct on his reports for the past 2 years on this matter. A lot of his reports have been posted here during that time so it's been easy to see.

[dukkha]

The "author" of the OPINION PIECE in the OP, is one John Solomon, former Executive Editor of the ultra conservative Washington Times.

IOW, about as reliable a source as Rush Limbaugh or his butt buddy Sean Hannity.

Are you proud of yourself for being such a willing dupe for right-wing liars?

How do people like you even look in the mirror everyday?

Or do you?

you might as well be desh posting deflection instead of the story.

so what do you think of not including exculpatory evidence while seeking a warrant by an ex parte court?
got any problems with that? I sure as hell do!

[Nomad]

you might as well be desh posting deflection instead of the story.

so what do you think of not including exculpatory evidence while seeking a warrant by an ex parte court?
got any problems with that? I sure as hell do!

It's all BULLSHIT. Do you not get that???

Did you not pay any attention to the quotes from journalists who are familiar with him and have worked with/for him who've publicly stated that what he reports cannot be trusted????

But then again, everyone knows that Trump himself is a liar on a heretofore unseen gargantuan scale, yet you still happily tote his water. So why would you acknowledge that the ramblings of another junior liar who writes lies to support the big liar, are not to be taken seriously?

You wouldn't.

You'll keep on pushing the same tired old propaganda knowing full well that nobody believes it.

I seriously doubt you even believe it.

I guess it's just easier for you to keep pushing pro-Trump nonsense than it is to admit you got taken in by a shyster.

[Nomad]

John Solomom's been correct on his reports for the past 2 years on this matter. A lot of his reports have been posted here during that time so it's been easy to see.

Horse shit.

You'd give credence to any bullshit no matter how absurd as long as it portrayed some right-wing scumbag in a false positive light.

[jimmymccready]

The FBI plowed ahead anyway with an unprecedented intrusion into Clinton's presidential campaign

The courts were aware of the accused's defense.

[dukkha]

It's all BULLSHIT. Do you not get that???

Did you not pay any attention to the quotes from journalists who are familiar with him and have worked with/for him who've publicly stated that what he reports cannot be trusted????

But then again, everyone knows that Trump himself is a liar on a heretofore unseen gargantuan scale, yet you still happily tote his water. So why would you acknowledge that the ramblings of another junior liar who writes lies to support the big liar, are not to be taken seriously?

You wouldn't.

You'll keep on pushing the same tired old propaganda knowing full well that nobody believes it.

I seriously doubt you even believe it.

I guess it's just easier for you to keep pushing pro-Trump nonsense than it is to admit you got taken in by a shyster.

HA HA..you can't refute the story do you pull a desh and impugn the source- it's waste of my time to post to you

[dukkha]

The FBI plowed ahead anyway with an unprecedented intrusion into Clinton's presidential campaign

The courts were aware of the accused's defense.

FBI had no reasonable suspicion. what courts? FISC?
FISC was misled due to lack of exculpatory evidence and swearing the FISC was verifiec

[Darth Omar]

Horse shit.

You'd give credence to any bullshit no matter how absurd as long as it portrayed some right-wing scumbag in a false positive light.

Some of us think opening an investigation based on an unverifiable Dossier was absurd.

If you claim Solomon is lying, prove it.

[Nomad]

HA HA..you can't refute the story do you pull a desh and impugn the source-

HA HA..you can't VERIFY the story so....

The crap is an OPINION piece. It's not factually verified and it's written by a known right-wing goofball Trump-ass-licking, Sean Hannity butt-boys conspiracy theorist.

Add all that up together and it = ZERO. CREDIBILITY.

...it's waste of my time to post to you

I got news for ya, bub..... your posts are ALL a waste of time.

A waste of your time to post them and a waste of everyone else's time to read them.

[Nomad]

Some of us think opening an investigation based on an unverifiable Dossier was absurd.

If you claim Solomon is lying, prove it.

The investigation was not "based on" the Steele dossier.

It was only one piece of evidence among many.

Idiots like you voted for a Russian plant.

[canceled.2021.1]

The crimes of the Clinton campaign and Obama administration are the political scandal of the century. It will all come out eventually.

Remember when it was reported that Hillary said "If he wins, we all fucking hang"?

This is what she was talking about. She knew the lengths the fascist Obama used the intelligence apparatus of the United States against the republican candidate.

We learned yesterday that Paul Ryan did all he could to block Congressional investigations into democrats. Paul Ryan is scum sucking prick who deserves to die of the same ass cancer that killed BAC Panther. I hope Paul Ryans children are dismembered by illegal immigrants and thrown over the wall surrounding his house piece by piece.

[canceled.2021.1]

The investigation was not "based on" the Steele dossier.

It was only one piece of evidence among many.

Idiots like you voted for a Russian plant.

Bullshit. You guys jerked off to the Steele dossier. The Steele dossier was used to get FISA warrants. It is all crashing down. I smell your fear. Obama will be frog marched to jail, along with Brennan and Clapper for treason. Then I hope they are strung up like Saddam Hussein for their crimes after a fair trial of course

[Nomad]

Bullshit. You guys jerked off to the Steele dossier. The Steele dossier was used to get FISA warrants. It is all crashing down. I smell your fear. Obama will be frog marched to jail, along with Brennan and Clapper for treason. Then I hope they are strung up like Saddam Hussein for their crimes after a fair trial of course

Priceless.