Thread by @themarketswork

Clinesmith confirmed:

Investigators for the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, uncovered errors and omissions in documents related to the wiretapping of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page...
nytimes.com/2019/11/22/us/…

...including that a low-level lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email that officials used to prepare to seek court approval to renew the wiretap, the people said.

Mr. Horowitz referred his findings about Mr. Clinesmith to prosecutors for a potential criminal charge.

Mr. Clinesmith left the Russia investigation in February 2018 after the inspector general identified him as one of a handful of F.B.I. officials who expressed animus toward Mr. Trump in text messages and resigned about two months ago, after the [IG's] team interviewed him.

The Justice Department obtained three renewal orders. The paperwork associated with the renewal applications contained information that should have been left out, and vice versa.

The email Mr. Clinesmith handled was a factor during the wiretap renewal process.

Clinesmith took an email from an official at another federal agency that contained several factual assertions, then added material to the bottom that looked like another assertion from the email’s author, when it was instead his own understanding.

Clinesmith included this altered email in a package that he compiled for another F.B.I. official to read in preparation for signing an affidavit that would be submitted to the court attesting to the facts and analysis in the wiretap application.

The details of the email are apparently classified and may not be made public even when the report is unveiled.

The investigators’ referral of its findings on Mr. Clinesmith went to John H. Durham.

Clinesmith worked on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Russia investigation. He was among the F.B.I. officials removed by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, after Mr. Horowitz found text messages expressing political animus against Mr. Trump.

In regards to Clinesmith, it should be noted that while he's now being portrayed by the media as a young, inexperienced, lower-level attorney, this is not the case.

Clinesmith was assigned to the Clinton Midyear investigation in early 2016.

And he held a crucial role in the Trump-Russia Investigation "and was the primary FBI attorney assigned to that investigation beginning in early 2017."

Clinesmith was later placed on the SC Mueller Team