Thread by @themarketswork

1) A great thread by @KimStrassel

https://twitter.com/KimStrassel/status/1109955285198626816

2) It raises a point we've been highlighting for some time.

Per Nunes, we know there was no official intelligence used to open the FBI Counterintelligence Investigation into the Trump Campaign on July 31, 2016

3) The FBI was informed on July 22, 2016, of the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation.

A conversation that appeared to have been set up in advance by Downer.

However, Downer's version of events make the actual conversation seem almost pedestrian.

4) Bruce Ohr met with Steele on July 30, 2016.

Ohr then called Andrew McCabe and later met with him - likely in the first days of August.

Meanwhile, the FBI opened their counterintelligence investigation into the Trump Campaign on July 31, 2016. One day after Steele met w/Ohr.

5) In other words, the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into a rival presidential campaign, based on no official intelligence.

6) Downer: “Nothing he said in that conversation indicated Trump himself had been conspiring with the Russians to collect information on Hillary Clinton.”

7) We will almost certainly find that Brennan was applying heavy pressure to the FBI in the months leading up to the investigation:

8) More importantly, Brennan quite literally said his information served as the basis for the FBI investigation:

9) But the FBI wasn't done.

Likely realizing they were going to need more, they decided to open a FISA warrant on Carter Page - painting him as an Agent of a Foreign power in the process.

And ignoring assistance Page had provided them in the Evgeny Buryakov case.

10) Page has not been arrested, nor will he be.

He was fully exonerated by Mueller today. He is owed an enormous apology.

Meanwhile, Papadopoulos was not even interviewed by the FBI until six months AFTER the FBI opened their investigation.

11) As Kim so rightly states:

"If you are going to investigate a presidential campaign, and on a charge as grave as collusion, and with the heavy-handed tactics the FBI employed--you'd better have a highly convincing reason to act."

12) From the Mueller Report we have:

1) No Collusion
2) No Obstruction

At least on the part of the President Trump and his Campaign.

13) As I noted in my Spygate article:

In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored.

14) We learned a lot in 2018.

Note: there is an infographic that can be clicked on. Scroll to enlarge.

theepochtimes.com/the-spygate-sc…

15) But now, America is deserving of a fuller accounting.

Kim is right. The Mueller Report is only half the story.

It's time for some answers. It's time for declassification.

16) Because a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and our political agencies?

17) Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger problem?

Note: there is an infographic that can be clicked on. Click again to enlarge.
theepochtimes.com/spygate-the-tr…