Thread by @JohnWHuber

Full DOJ IG Report into FISA: justice.gov/storage/120919…

A few initial thoughts to follow

"Two witnesses, Glenn Simpson and Jonathan Winer (a former Department of State official), declined our requests for voluntary interviews, and we were unable to compel their testimony"

"We reviewed relevant information that other U.S. government agencies provided the FBI... However, because the activities of other agencies are outside our jurisdiction...we also did not seek to assess any actions other agencies may have taken"

The "affiant" on the FISA warrants worked directly for Peter Strzok (SSA 2 in the report)

Michael Gaeta (FBI agent who met Steele in London on July 5 2016) told Steele directly that the FBI "the FBI would be interested in finding out the name of the law firm" that hired Glenn Simpson. Yeah, that would be Perkins Coie.

Kevin Clinesmith's alleged forging of an email relates to pretending that @carterwpage hadn't had a prior relationship with another US government agency to the "affiant" of a FISA warrant. Directly misleading the FISA court.

@carterwpage The first access to Steele's file in the FBI's CHS database by a Crossfire Hurricane team member was a month after the first FISA warrant using him as a primary source

Steele's file "document[s] Steele's frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs"

@carterwpage Steele denied to the IG that he had a relationship with Oleg Deripaska. Yeah, that's a lie folks.

@carterwpage Steele told the IG his source network on Russia did not involve sources "from his time [in MI6], and was developed entirely in the period after he retired"

Remember how the story was he was MI6's man in Russia? He developed no sources while he was there? Either useless or liar🤔

@carterwpage IG concludes that the FBI had sufficient "predication" to open:

—A Full CI investigation in July 2016: Crossfire Hurricane

—Full CI investigations in Aug 2016 for: Manafort, Papadopoulos, Flynn and Page

@carterwpage Get this: a counterintelligence investigation of General Flynn was opened, based on

"Information developed by the Crossfire Hurricane team through law enforcement database and open source searches"

That's it.

@carterwpage "The election reporting from Christopher Steele played no role in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane...[Crossfire Hurricane team members] did not receive the first Steele reports until September 19"

"We also found no evidence that the FBI undertook any investigative activities directed at the Trump campaign or members of the Trump campaign before opening Crossfire Hurricane on July 31 2016"

Peter Strzok helped prepare the Trump national security defensive briefing during the campaign in Aug 2016 (also attended by Flynn). The results were documented in the Crossfire Hurricane case file.

The details of that briefing were leaked to the press of course, wonder how...

Aug 30 2016: FBI uploads the briefing information to their case file.

Less than a week later, Fusion Ken reports: nbcnews.com/politics/2016-…

The IG reviewed the FISA applications & the underlying "Woods file" of supporting info and found:

—FISA "Facts" with zero documentation

—FISA "Facts" with some documentation, but not those facts

—FISA "Facts" that are directly refuted by the Woods file

🚨

The FBI nor NSD could not locate a signed copy of the certification for FISA Renewal 1 in January 2017, it is missing apparently. The IG determined Kevin Clinesmith was involved in the certification from "instant messages"...all good, nothing to see here

The FBI "affiant" swearing under penalty of perjury the FISA is true and accurate did not review the underlying materials or facts for renewal 1 and relied on previous assertions by two FBI agents involved. He raised "no questions" and "believed" everything to be true.

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@carterwpage FISA:

Draft
Steele was responsible for the Yahoo News leak, "was acting on his/her own volition and has since been admonished by the FBI"

Final version
"The FBI does not believe that [Steele] directly provided this information to [Yahoo]"

@carterwpage FBI relied almost entirely on Steele for the FISA warrant, as they admitted in internal discussions:

The FBI Office of General Counsel Unit Chief (Sally Moyer) said on Sep 22 2016 that "this is essentially a single source FISA", relying on Steele

@carterwpage Steele personally met with Clinton campaign lawyers Perkins Coie in July 2016 and October 2016

@carterwpage Steele told the IG that in his press meetings in Sep 2016, he avoided telling journalists he had provided his dossier reports to the FBI

Except that @Isikoff says Steele personally told him the opposite and even confirmed the FBI was taking them "very seriously"

Another lie

@carterwpage @Isikoff Steele said that if the FBI had told him not to leak to the press ("interfere in his assignment for Fusion GPS") he wouldn't have given them his information on Trump ("such an attempt would have been a showstopper").

So, Steele's claim is that Trump is a dangerous Russian asset and the best way to deal with that is to leak to the press at the direction of Fusion GPS, being paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign, rather than co-operate with the FBI responsible for defending America 🤔

At the FBI's meeting in Rome with Steele, they disclosed massive amounts of law enforcement sensitive information to a person many of them already knew was talking to the press, including the investigations of Papadopoulos, Flynn and Manafort

Steele admitted to the FBI in Rome that his info on @carterwpage "resulted from research he had been retained to conduct related to...debts allegedly owed by Paul Manafort"

That refers to Steele being hired by a lawyer for Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who was owed the money

@carterwpage If you're not following along at home, that is Steele who hated Trump, admitting that his "intelligence" on Carter Page came from work he was doing for a Russian oligarch, who had an axe to grind against Trump's campaign manager

For this meeting, the FBI offered Steele ¢15,000🤦🏻‍♂️

@carterwpage Typo - $ of course. It was probably worth a few cents though

@carterwpage Off to re-read the rest of the report in full, more detailed thoughts later...