Russiagate in the Footnotes

We're still digesting the results from declassification of footnotes in the Horowitz Report. Daniel Chaitin, WaEx, Declassified notes in FISA report have GOP investigators asking about James Comey and Robert Mueller

That's what Republican investigators are asking after the declassification of footnotes in a Justice Department inspector general report, showing the FBI received classified reports in 2017 which identified that parts of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier were likely influenced by Russian disinformation.

DOJ watchdog Michael Horowitz determined last year the FBI properly opened its counterintelligence investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, into potential ties between the Kremlin and Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, but GOP concerns are more focused on the dossier being used to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page and why leaders such as Comey insisted Steele's research be included in the 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference.

One burning question, according to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, is why Comey refused to allow his security clearance to be reinstated, allowing him to avoid questions about classified information that Horowitz wanted to raise for his audit of the Russia investigation.

"Why did former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI general counsel James Baker refuse to have their security clearances reinstated before they were interviewed by the inspector general? Was it so they wouldn’t have to explain this information?" Johnson, the Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published on Friday.

They're snakes, and they need stomping. M. Dowling at the Independent Sentinel, Comey-FBI knowingly used Russian disinformation to frame a president

We all now know, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, that this was illegal. Will we see the perpetrators brought to justice?

Rowan Scarborough at WaT, FBI sabotaged Trump's presidency: Barr

But sundance, ah, sundance, isn't letting Barr off the hook so easily in his long missive Footnote #350 – Declassification Puzzles and DOJ Intentions…

Meanwhile most people avoid asking why Attorney General Bill Barr classified the IG report footnotes in the first place.

The only material behind the classifications is material that exposes U.S. corruption; U.S. intentional wrong-doing; and the use of intelligence surveillance as a political weapon.

♦Footnote 334 Before

♦Footnote 334 After

Do you see any “sources or methods” in that redaction?

Of course not….

So why was it there?

The only thing the DOJ was hiding was: the reality of a Primary Sub-source who said his contacts were not viewed by him as a network of sources. That is correct, they were just random people he interacted with as an ordinary part of life…. and they chatted about rumors, gossip, innuendo, theories, and stuff. [Just like it said in the IG report]
. . .
Which brings me to the point of AG Bill Barr and his biggest challenge.

The challenge for Attorney General Bill Barr is not investigating what we don’t know, but rather navigating through what ‘We The People’ are already aware of…. And then finding a way to protect the institutions of the DOJ and FBI while getting people to stop demanding action to address the corruption within them.

We are once again stuck in this stupid place where DC pretends the previous CIA, FBI and DOJ officials were duped by “Russian disinformation”, while we roll our eyes at them because we know the truth; and we know that they know the truth; but their pretense is supported by a willfully blind media.

AG Bill Barr has to keep feeding the purveyors of investigative hope-porn as a method to keep the pitchforks at bay, while simultaneously trying to figure out how to do nothing of substance so he can preserve the institutions. Remember, the DC system operates on an entirely different legal principle when it comes to internal investigations within the bubble.

As a result we get AG Barr saying “if John Durham can find evidence of criminal conduct”; where “criminal” in DC is defined around a DC-exclusive legal theory of “intent” that doesn’t apply anywhere else in the country. [examples: see Hillary Clinton; or see IG Horowitz saying he couldn’t find intent.]

If John Q Public violated a law, the FBI would break down our door in a no-knock raid and use the violation as leverage to get us to break. The FBI would not sit around debating whether John intended to violate the law; they’d deal with that aspect after the raid and the pressure on us to fork over $250,000 in a legal effort to defend ourselves. [example: see Roger Stone]