Thread by @ClimateAudit

in Jan 2017, at start of leaking campaign, "officials" made a point of saying that Flynn "calls were picked up as part of routine electronic surveillance of Russian officials and agents in United States".
washingtonpost.com/world/national…

No one analysed this, but was it disinformation?

2/ in the same WaPo article (Nakashima, Miller), "US officials" also said that Flynn himself was "not the active target of an investigation"

3/ Mueller Report contradicted earlier claim. It said that "FBI had [already] opened an investigation of Flynn based on his relationship with Russian government" and that "Flynn's contacts with Kislyak became a key component"

4/ at the time, FBI would have had access to Flynn communications through two hops from Carter Page FISA plus whatever other surveillance FBI had in place under their Flynn investigation and their "enterprise" investigation of Trump campaign (Crossfire Hurricane).

5/ HYPOTHESIS: proximate source of FBI information on Flynn-Kislyak call was surveillance of Flynn, not Kislyak. While FBI undoubtedly surveilled Kislyak, they already knew of call from Flynn surveillance; attribution to (unmasked) Kislyak surveillance was smokescreen.