{"id":802363,"date":"2019-12-16T12:30:29","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T19:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=376086"},"modified":"2019-12-16T12:30:29","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T19:30:29","slug":"opinion-morgan-liddick-the-ig-report-and-fbi-incompetence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/opinion-morgan-liddick-the-ig-report-and-fbi-incompetence\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Morgan Liddick: The IG report and FBI incompetence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So Inspector General Michael Horowitz\u2019s long-anticipated report was released. After mopping their collective brow with relief, Democrats immediately proclaimed that all was well since \u201cpolitical bias\u201d was not the basis for the investigations into President Donald Trump before and during his presidency. In the giddy joy of calling the president a liar, they ignored what the report actually said, which was that there was no \u201cdocumentary or testimonial evidence\u201d of political bias behind the decision to open Crossfire Hurricane, the wide-ranging investigation into the Trump campaign and presidency. Nor was there \u201cdocumentary or testimonial evidence\u201d of political bias in seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page. Evidently, those committing crimes do not, when questioned, either give voice to their schemes \u00e0 la Dr. Evil nor confess their transgressions in writing. <\/p>\n

The report said much more, most of it chilling to anyone with an appreciation for civil liberties. With one noted exception, the following information comes from the report itself, available at justice.gov\/storage\/120919-examination.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The IG corroborated that Crossfire Hurricane began with information from a \u201cfriendly foreign government\u201d about George Papadopoulos saying Russians had information on Clinton<\/a> and were trying to share it with the Trump campaign. Horowitz\u2019s report did not \u2014 in keeping with its scope \u2014 explore origins of that information, but we know it came from Clovis Mafsud, Stefan Halper<\/a> and the \u201ccousins\u201d in British intelligence.<\/p>\n

Crossfire was a \u201cfull investigation,\u201d which by FBI rules must be based on \u201can articulable factual basis\u201d that \u201creasonably indicates\u201d any one of three defined circumstances exists: \u201cAn activity constituting a federal crime or a threat to the national security has or may have occurred, is or may be occurring, or will or may occur.\u201d Read that again. A crime doesn\u2019t have to occur for the FBI to bring the full weight of government to bear against anyone; someone just has to think it might.<\/p>\n

Although surveillance of a political candidate was initiated, \u201cheightened predication\u201d and consultation with top leadership of the Department of Justice was not undertaken, nor required by law. An oversight, said the IG, who expressed concern about this many times in the report.<\/p>\n

The Crossfire team obtained a FISA warrant for surveillance of Carter Page based almost entirely on the Steele dossier and its derivatives in the press. FBI policy mandates that the case agent ensure that all factual statements in a FISA surveillance application are \u201cscrupulously accurate,\u201d but in this case, none of them were.<\/p>\n

The report notes that \u201cthe team failed to inform Department officials of significant information\u201d that contradicted assertions in the FISA warrant application, a failing they repeated in all warrant renewals. The report outlines at least seven \u201cinaccuracies and omissions\u201d in the information supporting the first FISA application and details 10 others in the renewals. Officials up to and including James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed off anyway.<\/p>\n

The report also indicates that after the FBI fired Steele, he continued to funnel information to the Crossfire team through FBI Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nelly worked at Fusion GPS,\u201d an opposition-research firm employed by the Clinton campaign. Steele used this conduit to provide spurious information 13 times.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much more of the same. Following some of the less-friendly findings of the IG report: <\/p>\n