Sunday, January 7, 2018

FBI, DOJ, and Clinton Share the Hot Seat

The new year began with a bang as the long stalled congressional investigations of the top FBI and Department of Justice officials and Fusion GPS begin to see daylight and the Clinton Foundation slush fund investigation resumed, this time with greater probity than the former top officials at the FBI and DOJ permitted.
Congressman Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and Judiciary chairman Senator Chuck Grassley (along with Judiciary member Lindsey Graham) fired the first salvos of the year.
Devin Nunes
Chairman Nunes demanded and got from the long stonewalling FBI and DOJ the FD-302s and FD-1023s relating to the unverified, unverifiable, and totally discredited Steele dossier.  These forms document interrogations and interviews by agents.  Nunes now has the record of what Steele was asked by the FBI and what he answered.  I assume that this is the predicate for establishing that the FISA warrant permitting the spying on the Trump campaign (and subsequent unmasking) by the Obama administration was not based on legally adequate grounds to get a warrant.  Possibly, as well, they will show that certain individuals deliberately misled the FISA court (FISC).
Additionally, Nunes demanded and has received assurances that his committee will get access to eight key witnesses.  The witness list includes FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page (who previously worked on the Russian probe), and FBI general counsel James Baker (who has been reassigned).  Also on the list are FBI head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap (Strzok's boss during the relevant events and the man who Comey said decided not to inform the Committee of 8, who by law should have been alerted to the dossier-inspired investigation) and Bruce Ohr, a DOJ official now reassigned after concealing meetings with figures involved in the dossier. 

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