FBI started spying on the Trump campaign after foreign governments "by chance" discovered evidence that his advisors were colluding with the Russians, the government says. But now, multiple credible sources tell us that the CIA asked foreign allies to spy on 26 Trump associates. 
CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say
United States Intelligence Community targeted 26 Trump advisors for foreign spy agencies to “reverse target” and “bump”
by @Shellenberger @mtaibbi and @galexybrane
President Barack Obama with John Brennan, then-nominee to be director of the CIA, on January 7, 2013 (Getty Images)
Last year, John Durham, a special prosecutor for the Department of Justice (DOJ), concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should never have opened its investigation of alleged collusion by then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and Russia in late July of 2016.
Now, multiple credible sources tell Public and Racket that the United States Intelligence Community (IC), including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.
The new information fills many gaps in our understanding of the Russia collusion hoax and is supported by testimony already in the public record.
Until now, the official story has been that the FBI’s investigation began after Australian intelligence officials told US officials that a Trump aide had boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damning material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In truth, the US IC asked the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies, say sources close to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) investigation. The Five Eyes nations are the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
After Public and Racket had been told that President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had identified 26 Trump associates for the Five Eyes to target, a source confirmed that the IC had “identified [them] as people to ‘bump,’ or make contact with or manipulate. They were targets of our own IC and law enforcement — targets for collection and misinformation.”
Unknown details about the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and raw intelligence related to the IC’s surveillance of the Trump campaign are in a 10-inch binder that Trump ordered to be declassified at the very end of his term, sources told Public and Racket.
If the top-secret documents exist proving these charges, they are potentially proof that multiple US intelligence officials broke laws against spying and election interference.
CNN, Politico, The Guardian, and others reported in 2017 that the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the UK’s equivalent of the National Security Agency (NSA), was the “principal whistleblower” in the investigation into the alleged ties between Trump and the Russian government.
“GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious ‘interactions’ between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence” wrote a team of reporters for The Guardian in April 2017.
This intelligence sharing was supposedly just the result of “incidental collection.” Reported The Guardian, “It is understood that GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets.”
But now, sources say the GCHQ’s version of events is false. Instead, the US IC asked its foreign allies to target 26 members of Trump’s team, possibly to justify the FBI’s investigation.
“They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” a source close to the investigation said. “They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. The MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up.”
The IC, a source said, considered the 26 Trump campaign people identified to “bump” or “reverse target,” or manipulate through confidential human sources (CHSs), to be easy marks because of their relative inexperience.
Doing so was illegal, both because US law prohibits such intelligence gathering unless authorized by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant and because the weaponization of the IC for political purposes constitutes election interference.
Brennan, former President Barack Obama, under whom he served, and the CIA did not respond to requests by Public and Racket for comment. The Justice Department also declined to comment. But, the FBI and GCHQ did respond.
“The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” said a GCHQ spokesperson. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
However, in our email presenting the claims to GCHQ, we did not refer to "wiretapping" but rather to its UK spy agency’s broader alleged involvement in the scheme.
Said the FBI, “The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that [Justice Department] Special Counsel [John] Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented.”
But the new information provided by our sources should significantly alter the public’s understanding of how the US IC, including the FBI and CIA, began their illegal investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia...
United States Intelligence Community targeted 26 Trump advisors for foreign spy agencies to “reverse target” and “bump”
by @Shellenberger @mtaibbi and @galexybrane
President Barack Obama with John Brennan, then-nominee to be director of the CIA, on January 7, 2013 (Getty Images)
Last year, John Durham, a special prosecutor for the Department of Justice (DOJ), concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should never have opened its investigation of alleged collusion by then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and Russia in late July of 2016.
Now, multiple credible sources tell Public and Racket that the United States Intelligence Community (IC), including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.
The new information fills many gaps in our understanding of the Russia collusion hoax and is supported by testimony already in the public record.
Until now, the official story has been that the FBI’s investigation began after Australian intelligence officials told US officials that a Trump aide had boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damning material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In truth, the US IC asked the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies, say sources close to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) investigation. The Five Eyes nations are the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
After Public and Racket had been told that President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had identified 26 Trump associates for the Five Eyes to target, a source confirmed that the IC had “identified [them] as people to ‘bump,’ or make contact with or manipulate. They were targets of our own IC and law enforcement — targets for collection and misinformation.”
Unknown details about the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and raw intelligence related to the IC’s surveillance of the Trump campaign are in a 10-inch binder that Trump ordered to be declassified at the very end of his term, sources told Public and Racket.
If the top-secret documents exist proving these charges, they are potentially proof that multiple US intelligence officials broke laws against spying and election interference.
CNN, Politico, The Guardian, and others reported in 2017 that the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the UK’s equivalent of the National Security Agency (NSA), was the “principal whistleblower” in the investigation into the alleged ties between Trump and the Russian government.
“GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious ‘interactions’ between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence” wrote a team of reporters for The Guardian in April 2017.
This intelligence sharing was supposedly just the result of “incidental collection.” Reported The Guardian, “It is understood that GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets.”
But now, sources say the GCHQ’s version of events is false. Instead, the US IC asked its foreign allies to target 26 members of Trump’s team, possibly to justify the FBI’s investigation.
“They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” a source close to the investigation said. “They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. The MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up.”
The IC, a source said, considered the 26 Trump campaign people identified to “bump” or “reverse target,” or manipulate through confidential human sources (CHSs), to be easy marks because of their relative inexperience.
Doing so was illegal, both because US law prohibits such intelligence gathering unless authorized by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant and because the weaponization of the IC for political purposes constitutes election interference.
Brennan, former President Barack Obama, under whom he served, and the CIA did not respond to requests by Public and Racket for comment. The Justice Department also declined to comment. But, the FBI and GCHQ did respond.
“The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” said a GCHQ spokesperson. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
However, in our email presenting the claims to GCHQ, we did not refer to "wiretapping" but rather to its UK spy agency’s broader alleged involvement in the scheme.
Said the FBI, “The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that [Justice Department] Special Counsel [John] Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented.”
But the new information provided by our sources should significantly alter the public’s understanding of how the US IC, including the FBI and CIA, began their illegal investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia...
Please subscribe now to support the Public's groundbreaking investigations and to read this bombshell story with never-before-reported information.
https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1757487541211774985?s=20
TOMORROW: Inside the Top-Secret Russia Collusion Binder The Intelligence Community Won’t Release
There are people in the replies suggesting that "we already knew this."
No, we didn't. And no, you didn't. Only a tiny number of people knew about this until now.
And, as we note in our story, "If the top-secret documents exist proving these charges, they are potentially proof that multiple US intelligence officials broke laws against spying and election interference."
This is a massive scoop that upends what people knew about the origins of the Russia collusion hoax.
No, we didn't. And no, you didn't. Only a tiny number of people knew about this until now.
And, as we note in our story, "If the top-secret documents exist proving these charges, they are potentially proof that multiple US intelligence officials broke laws against spying and election interference."
This is a massive scoop that upends what people knew about the origins of the Russia collusion hoax.
In our piece, we describe how what has already been reported supports our new findings.
And more is coming soon...
And more is coming soon...
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