Thread by @DawsonSField

I'm on the Kevin Clinesmith hearing conference call. Sentencing for falsely editing a CIA email that confirmed Page was a CIA source in order to get a FISA renewal.

#Clinesmith I'm hoping @carterwpage gets to reveal a few things in his statement!

#ButNothingsHappening

Judge Boasberg is hearing this case. I think Boasberg should be recused from the case is also the President Judge of the FISA Court who is forcing FBI to conduct reforms of their FISA Application process to prevent such false information being given to the FISA court.

Why would Carter Page pick McAdoo-Gordon to represent him?

She's a clown...

Not that type of clown, but one that isn't taken seriously.

Page is up first. He has 10 minutes to explain the impact on the victim of this crime.

He is limited to discussion of the 4th FISA application as this crime is specific to that application.

Using Maddow quotes from the FBI leaks accusing Page of being a Russian agent under court order used to surveil "spies & terrorists". Lead to death threats & forced him to live in hotels & like a fugitive to hide from those threatening him because Clinesmith lied to the court.

The lies applied to my service as a CIA intelligence asset, falsely accusing Page of being a foreign agent when he was a US agent.

The criminal acts of Clinesmith lead to both signals intelligence & human intelligence being deployed against Page that placed his life at risk due to the fact that he was a US intelligence asset.

Page has had (no date range given) has or had a Top Secret clearance with multiple SCI Secure Compartmented Intelligence clearances. Would love to know when or if his clearance ended. He said unlike the leakers he kept classified information secure. This is a critical point.

Page could have ended the false allegations of being a Russian spy, but revealing that he was an American spy. But that would have been revealing classified information.

Same day the 4th FISA application was laid on Acting DAG Boente's desk. FBI leaks were published in Washington Post falsely accusing him of being a Russian agent.

There was also a physical search of his hotel residence on 2 dates under the FISA warrant approved with the false application filed based upon Clinesmith's lies to trick the FBI special agent into signing that warrant application as the affiant.

Judge thanks Carter Page for explaining the harm that he suffered from this crime. Accepting Page's offer to submit a transcript of his testimony.

Scarpelli speaking for DOJ. Clinesmith's conduct undermined the entire FISA process. Changed the content of an email to submit a FISA application that did not disclose relevant facts. So FISA agreed to surveillance due to that fraud.

DOJ asks for a sentence at least in the upper range of the guidelines (so about 6 months.)
Notes Clinesmith was a lawyer for 10 years, 2 at the FBI, & was regularly trained on the ethics, procedures, & requirements in processing applications for FISAs.

Clinesmith participated in many of the major cases involved including Crossfire Hurricane, Mueller's Special Counsel investigation, & participated in many critical national security cases. He worked on all 4 Carter Page applications.

Crime was committed by Clinesmith because the FBI special agent who was to be the affiant, asked Clinesmith to confirm Page's TV statements that he was a CIA intel assets.
Clinesmith was told by CIA that Page was a digraph, providing reporting to the CIA (called OGA by the DOJ).

OGA stands for Other Government Agency, so that DOJ can say it is not naming the CIA in the court filings.
But everyone knows it is CIA & Page stated it on the record to make it clear.

Clinesmith specifically falsified the email because the affiant was continuing to ask for confirmation that Page was not a CIA agent. Clinesmith lied to the FBI SSA about it, an SSA who said by reading the docs it seems that he was a source. So he lied to change interpretation

When the SSA asked if he had it in writing, Clinesmith said yes. Then when the agent wanted it in writing, Clinesmith falsified the CIA email to add the word "NOT" to their description of Carter Page as a CIA source.

By altering the CIA email, Clinesmith placed the blame on the CIA for his lies by changing the wording in the CIA officials email. He falsified the document to support untrue information that he had provided to the affiant on the FISA application. Creating false probable cause.

The FBI & DOJ were required to review every FISA touched by Clinesmith to ensure this was not a pattern. They were also required to completely rebuild the FISA process to prevent this occurring again.

The defendant claims that he thought his lie was true, is completely untrue. The CIA email is clear, and if Clinesmith believed Page was not a source, then he had not need to fabricate the CIA email to support what he was claiming the email meant.

The CIA liaison offered to provide further explanation & language to the FISA court so they would understand Page's status as a CIA asset. Clinesmith instead altered their email to prevent what the CIA stated influencing the FISA application.

In addition to falsifying the CIA's answer that Page was a CIA source. Clinesmith deleted his question to the CIA to hide that CIA was responding to exactly the concerns that the FBI SSA had regarding @carterwpage status as a US intelligence source.

Clinesmith even noted in a message that his falsified email interpretation of Page's status, prevented the FBI from having to file an "embarrassing footnote" to the FIS Court explaining that the FBI knew before all 4 FISA's that Page was a CIA asset, not a Russian one.

US asking for jail time, using @GeorgePapa19 precedent!

And DOJ says that Clinesmith's crime is far worse than Pdop's crime!

They also bring in Alex Vanderswan's (spelled that wrong) case who got a longer sentence because he was a lawyer & knew better than to lie to the Feds!

Clinesmith is even worse because he was an FBI lawyer, lying to FBI agents who should be able to trust him to not provide them with false evidence for a court application.

Defendant's criminal conduct put his family in a bad situation, should not negate his sentence.

Clinesmith is also claiming that he might be exposed to COVID if he goes to prison. Yeah, FU Clinesmith!

DOJ respectfully disagrees with the US probation department on sentencing. The nature & circumstances of this offense, is one the high end of the offense & should have the high end of sentencing.

Defense is up next, judge is asking them to keep it short, he has their written briefing.

Doing the woe is me defense that everyone who worked with Clinesmith was a kind, honest person.

Except when forging CIA emails to frame a US intelligence agent for being a Russian agent!

Defense claiming Clinesmith made a bad mistake, but he didn't mean it, it's not like him, & he didn't do it for a bad reason. He believed he as telling the truth, even though he changed the email to make it sound like the lie he was telling the FBI SSA.

Defense tries to argue that falsely claiming that @carterwpage was "not a source" for the CIA didn't negate the language that he had provided intel to the CIA. He wrote those words specifically to claim Page was lying when he said on TV he was a CIA source.

The defense is arguing that Clinesmith interpretation of the CIA email was reasonable, because lots of other people at FBI read the August 2016 email about Page being a source & they didn't tell the FIS Court in the 1st 3 applications that Page was with the CIA.

First this implicates the other people at FBI for not informing the court of that information in the 1st 3 applications.
It also shows his intent, because the FBI SSA who was the affiant on the 4th application read that email as confirmation that Page was a source for CIA.

That is very big, he committed his crime because the affiant thought the August 2016 email from CIA was proof that Page was a CIA source as he claimed on TV. Clinesmith lied to negate that email & claimed he was clarifying it & the SSA was reading the CIA email incorrectly.

The email that he deleted from his response to the SSA, was Clinesmith asking CIA if his misinterpretation or the SSA's interpretation was correct. The CIA confirmed the SSA was correct, so Clinesmith deleted his question to CIA & added "not" to hide that the SSA was correct.

This also plays into the footnote issue, because with his lie to the SSA, CLinesmith avoided an "embarrassing footnote" that would have told the court that the FBI misinterpreted the CIA's email & filed false information to the FISC in the first 3 applications.

It also meant that it avoided explaining why one FBI Supervisory Special Agent was able to read & understand the August 2016 CIA email confirming Page as a source, when everyone else misread that email for 10 months.

Now Clinesmith is giving his carefully worded mea culpa, accepting his 'guilt' but mitigating it to avoid the consequences. He even seems to be breaking down to sell the court how sorry he really is about this 'mistake'.

If as CLinesmith claims, altering the email was such an aberration from his normal conduct as an FBI attorney, that requires explaining WHY such an aberration occurred.

Why would he do something so out of character? Because he was trying to cover up that FBI knew Page's status.

We know that multiple people on the Crossfire Hurricane case were sent the CIA email of August 2016 that confirmed that @carterwpage was a CIA digraph source. We need to find who those individuals were & if they were the affiants. If not, why did they not sign it?

Judge Boasberg sentencing, I need to weigh several factors. yada, yada, yada....

Judge: It is critical that courts all over the country rely upon affidavits everyday especially in ex parte representations such as FISA applications. The victim can't appear to defend themselves.

The stakes of FISA surveillance is so very high & as a FIS judge we have to require the highest level of honesty from FBI filings in our court & how the court & FBI have lost trust because of Clinesmith's actions. I've observed first hand the reforms required to fix this.

So the government is correct that this crime directly impacted the credibility of the FIS court & the US government. That process can only be valid if everything filed with the court is completely honest in all materially relevant information.

So the judge is considering that lens as he sentences the defendant. Then looks on the flip side.

Boasberg says he believes that Page was a Russian agent, and was taking a short cut rather than concealing information on purpose. That is pure BS on the facts in this case. Uses OIG report to claim there was not a case of political bias, but Horowitz felt there was unproven bias

He also considers that this one only one of the many 'errors' in the FISA application so the warrant might have been signed had Clinesmith not forced the email. So he is using the volume of false information to negate the one piece where false information was detected in writing.

Judge saying ruining his career is a serious punishment to Clinesmith. And the media coverage of Clinesmith has made him infamous & impacted his mental health.

So anyone who has watched Mr. Clinesmith losing his career should be deterred from repeating it.

So Judge Boasberg is sentencing him to 12 months of probation only & 400 hours of public service. A major miscarriage of justice in my opinion.

To explain this further, Boasberg was talking about Clinesmith's belief. That Clinesmith believed Page was a Russian agent & not a CIA source. That he changed the wording to avoid work & take a shortcut.

Correction on the one tweet above: Judge Boalsberg did not say that he thought Page was a Russian agent. He said that Clinesmith believed that Page was a Russian agent & not a CIA source so he wasn't truly lying when he inserted NOT into a CIA email saying Page was a CIA source.

Now if you think the Spygate prosecutions are over, you missed 2 other rulings in the Clinesmith case. Someone (unknown who) was denied leave to combine their case with Clinesmith's.
Someone charged with Obstruction of Justice, Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud & Other Crimes...

Any of the lawyers out there can explain if this ruling applies to additional charges against Clinesmith or if this is other defendants trying to join Clinesmith's case.
"Motion to Intervene and Combine Cases ... and Summary Judgment as to KEVIN CLINESMITH"