“During this fourth recorded conversation, Page complained to CHS-1 about being under surveillance by the FBI, comparing his plight to that faced by Martin Luther King, Jr” – Durham Report, 209
“Contributing to the difficulties ... was how compartmentalized the ... investigation was, specifically the lack of information sharing between the intelligence analysts and the operational component .... Even as the team lead, I only had access to limited information, and from the start of my [temporary duty], I did not have a clear picture of everything going on in the investigation .... I was managing the day to day operations of the case without having complete information.”
Special Supervisory Agent assigned to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Durham Report, 296
Disclaimer: what follows is speculation exclusively based upon my reading of the Durham Report. My access to information is limited by laziness but also by my inability to view privileged documents and classified appendices referenced in the Report. Hence I’ve chosen to rely upon my knowledge of human nature and custom to fill in the gaps. Do not take my speculative conclusions as facts. You must do your own research and never trust the experts.
Part 1 of the series can be found here.
Part 2 Introduction
This part mostly focuses upon the public sector – law enforcement and national security – although digressions on private sector institutions and players will be necessary. The overall purpose here can be summarized in terms of the question of what strategies a Machine insider would pursue to protect the Hillary Campaign and harm the Trump campaign and administration. The obvious answer is that an insider would treat each campaign unequally under the law by, for instance, inconsistently applying policies and discretion.
In the first section of this article, we’ll take a look at how biased policy and discretion application by law enforcement and national security institutions protected Hillary and harmed Trump in the context of the Operation. In considering this unequal treatment, we’ll be diving into the minutiae of individual motivations and rationalizations, because understanding these micro-sociological factors is key to developing a healthy Bureaucrat Mindset.
In surveying the Fair Game operation in the first part of this series, I for the most part omitted discussion of evidence of actual conspiratorial intent by key Machine operators. I did this because I felt it would be more helpful to establishing a Bureaucrat Mindset if I demonstrated that conspirators tend to show their hand when lower level employees or non-conspirators – cogs in the machine – become obstacles to the conspiracy. For the most part, the cogs in the Durham saga include FBI agents and DOJ attorneys, but also more senior officials, IT executives, academics, and journalists. In some cases, they’re a lot like our fall guys or patsies from Part 1.
Cogs are often quite intelligent and therefore skeptical when enlisted in a conspiracy, and we’ll cover such skepticism throughout this article. Conspirators use a variety of strategies to get cogs to disregard their better judgment and deviate from standard operating procedure in service to a conspiracy. These strategies include:
Applying direct pressure upon independent cogs;
Exploiting the confidential informant system to farm opposition research;
Compartmentalizing unfavorable information through the willful omission of facts or by the application of confidentiality policies;
Assigning tasks to inexperienced, biased, or otherwise easily-manipulated staff [Durham lazily collapses this category under confirmation bias];
Relying upon the predictability of cog behavior created by internal policy and the media
Exploiting what I call Bureaufog and other the aspects of the job that protect bureaucrats from responsibility:
In Part 2.01, we’ll only look at the first three bullet points.
As a threshold matter, I’ll illustrate what I mean by conspiracy in the most obvious, intentional sense of the term by presenting two sets of evidence, which will become salient in the cog manipulation strategy section. I add a third more circumstantial set of evidence from Durham which supplements the strategy section.
Evidence of a Conspiracy against Trump
Much of the direct evidence of an intentional conspiracy is found in the text messages of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, throughout which the two DOJ employees discussed the political pressure, given Trump’s success, to finish the Clinton email investigation promptly and open an investigation into Trump. [59] Notably, the FBI received the pretext to open Crossfire Hurricane on Trump one day after Strzok and Page made these communications. And then on August 8, 2016, Strzok, removing all doubt as to the existence of a conspiracy, informed Page that “we” would prevent Trump from becoming President. [59]
For lesser-known examples relevant to our look at cog manipulation, we can turn to the emails of Charles H. Dolan Jr. and intelligence about what Durham refers to as the “Clinton Plan.”
Dolan
As you might recall from part 1, Steele’s fall guy, Igor Danchenko, sent an email to Dolan concerning a “project against Trump” in August of 2016. This would suggest that Dolan probably didn’t know about the smear campaign Danchenko was working with Steele, right? Indeed, Dolan told Durham he didn’t know much about this project.
In fact, Durham produces information that could be used as evidence to substantiate the conclusion that Dolan wasn’t being fully truthful here.
For example, we know that Dolan sent an email on April 30, 2016 stating that he had “intelligence work lined up in London” where Steele was coordinating the dossier smear operation. [141]
Furthermore, shortly after his stay at the infamous Ritz Carlton, on June 15, 2016, Dolan emailed an acquaintance from Moscow stating, "I'm in Russia making plans to be adopted in the event this mad man [Trump] gets elected.” [144] As we learned in part 1, Durham concludes that the Ritz Carlton content from the Steele Dossier came from Dolan.
Much later during the Mueller investigation saga in February of 2018, Dolan sent another email in which he appears to gloat about the indictment of General Flynn and promotes the veracity of parts of the Steele dossier:
“Dear boy - you must pay attention. Unlike your pal the short lived National Security Advisor General Flynn, I can remember meeting with Mr. Mikhail KULAGIN [sic] 922 several times and would be happy to come forward with details to the FBI and others. There are points in the dossier that are true! Let me know if you need additional clarification. 923” [155]
This is a strange thing for someone to say about a dossier, particularly one the creation of which the person claimed no foreknowledge. [159]
Durham was able to prove significant portions of the dossier were fabricated (suspiciously in connection with Dolan himself as we saw in Part 1), with the rest never being corroborated despite several years of substantial FBI and journalist efforts, not to speak of the FBI’s offer of $1 million to Christopher Steele for corroborating evidence. If Dolan was so willing to help the FBI, why didn’t he? There was $1M on the table for Steele – presumably that offer would’ve been available to Dolan.
More troubling is the question of why the FBI didn’t reach out to Dolan as soon as they discovered his connection to Danchenko. I’ll suggest an answer to that question below.
The Clinton Plan
Other evidence of conspiratorial intent was the intelligence, received in late July of 2016 by the “intelligence community”, that Hillary Clinton had personally approved a strategy on July 26, 2016 “to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians' hacking of the Democratic National Committee” (Clinton Plan). [81]
It’s possible this intelligence was seeded to the intelligence community to obscure the origins of the actual plan at the beginning of 2016, and indeed we saw that the Clinton Campaign made an effort to advertise that they did hatch a Russia collusion smear campaign, but only after the election, and after the FBI had begun its investigations. However, it’s also possible that it was real intelligence about a specific conversation in the Clinton camp. In any case, as further explained in the next section, the Durham report concludes that this was reliable intelligence that the FBI and CIA were, pursuant to internal policy, obligated to act upon.
At least as an initial step, intelligence officials like John Brennan, then the head of President Obama’s CIA, acted as though they agreed with Durham’s assessment, communicating the Clinton Plan to President Obama and James Comey, among other high-level officials within a day or two of receiving the intelligence in late July, 2016. [81]
Despite Brennan’s documented frankness with the President and Comey about the intelligence, Durham observes that Brennan’s motivations were inconsistent and partisan. Notably, Durham stresses that while both Brennan and Deputy CIA Director Cohen conceded to his office that Mueller “found no conspiracy”, Brennan had appeared on television shortly after Mueller released his finding to promote the conspiracy theory of Trump’s collusion with Russia:
[S]hortly after Special Counsel Mueller delivered his report to the Attorney General and the Attorney General had issued a short summary of the Report's findings [of no conspiracy], Brennan appeared on MSNBC 's Morning Joe program, where he stated that "[he] suspected there was more than there actually was" with regard to collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election, thus suggesting that he had no actual knowledge of such information. 282. [63]
As with the case of Dolan, we will discuss in a later section why the FBI took steps to prevent Trump investigators from considering the Clinton Plan evidence.
However, with these points of evidence of intentional conspiracy in place, we’ll first turn to more circumstantial evidence of a DOJ/FBI conspiracy against Trump.
Unequal Treatment of the Clinton and Trump Campaigns
A more circumstantial, but no less troubling, body of evidence suggesting a conspiracy against Trump can be found in Durham’s survey of the FBI’s unequal treatment of each candidate and their campaigns.
Prior to initiating the Operation against Trump, the FBI had been handling Clinton and her Campaign with white gloves. For example, in 2014, shortly before Clinton announced her campaign, the FBI learned through multiple, mutually-corroborating sources that a foreign government planned to send a non-US person to contribute to Clinton’s campaign to earn favors for the country if Clinton won. [69] While we don’t know which country this was, Durham informs us that it wasn’t Russia. [69] It appears that foreign entanglement is a regular aspect of American presidential campaigns.
Durham observes that the FBI tip-toed around this intelligence, engaging in extensive delays in “running it to the ground”, and treating it as a politically sensitive matter. [69] Specifically, although the field office receiving the intelligence immediately sought an expedited FISA warrant on the non-US person, the application was routed to FBI headquarters for approval where it sat “in limbo” for four months. [69] The field office staff claimed that when they followed up, the FBI management response was that they were concerned about getting a presidential candidate on tape. [70] Ultimately, FBI leadership authorized the FISA but only on the condition that Clinton and other campaigns be given “defensive briefings” about entanglement with the subject country. [70]
Durham contrasts this behavior with how the Trump collusion “intelligence” was treated, noting that Trump was never afforded a defensive briefing and that there was limited or no discussions about providing him with one. [71] As Durham observes throughout his reports, the Trump collusion intelligence was far flimsier than the intelligence that spurred the FBI to brief Clinton.
In summary, Clinton gets a defensive briefing effectively warning her that the FBI is watching her Campaign for collusion with a specific country, thereby tipping off anyone in her campaign, including herself, who may have intended to conspire with the foreign country. Durham concludes that the FBI’s claims that the cases of Clinton and Trump campaign collusion were distinct is unpersuasive:
The decision to provide defensive briefings to Clinton and others seems to conflict directly with [Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew] McCabe's notion that providing "a defensive briefing [to the Trump campaign] ... could ... eliminate ... or reduce your ability to get to the bottom of the threat." [72]
As we’ll see throughout this article, what this implies is that the Machine protected the Clinton campaign from incriminating itself while taking steps to encourage the Trump campaign to incriminate itself.
In a more troubling case from 2015, the FBI learned of yet another foreign interference campaign (by yet another non-Russian country) intending to influence both the Clinton and Trump campaigns. Initially, a government insider from the country, whom the FBI knew had criminal connections, wanted to set up a meeting with the Clinton Campaign to propose
"something" that CHS-A understood to be campaign contributions on behalf of Foreign Government-3 in exchange for the protection of Foreign Government-3's interests should Clinton become President. [74]
CHS-A revealed that the Clinton Campaign didn’t want the government insider to attend public campaign events because of the negative optics, but the Campaign’s fundraising staff suggested a private meeting away from public eyes. [74]
Durham would discover that this CHS-A ultimately claimed to have made an illegal campaign contribution to the Clinton Campaign on behalf of the “insider”, allegedly as a precursor to a much larger illegal donation on behalf of the country, and allegedly authorized by the Clinton Campaign.[75]
Rather than follow up on this potential violation of the law, Durham learned that the FBI handling agent, upon learning of the contribution, told CHS-A to “stay away from all events relating to Clinton's campaign.” [75] Specifically, the handling agent told CHS-A:
do NOT attend any more campaign events, set up meetings, or anything else relating to [Clinton's] campaign. We need to keep you completely away from that situation. I don't know all the details, but it's for your own protection."362 [77]
Once again, in contrast with the Trump investigations, which were opened on very thin and uncorroborated evidence, we have the FBI ignoring far more material evidence of Clinton campaign collusion with a foreign country. In other words, we have evidence of the FBI taking steps to protect the Clinton Campaign from incriminating itself.
In another investigative context Durham surveys, three field offices had opened an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. [78] The investigations were thinly predicated to the extent they were based upon the book Clinton Cash, but Durham summarizes other non-book evidence:
“The reporting, which in itself is not proof of wrongdoing, was a narrative describing multiple funds transfers, some of which involved international bank accounts that were suspected of possibly facilitating bribery or gratuity violations. The transactions involved occurred between 2012 and 2014, and totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars.”" [79]
When interviewed by Durham, one prosecutor described the FBI headquarters attitude toward the investigations as “hostile” [79]. Further, Durham discovered that Deputy Director McCabe had ordered that the investigations be closed and only relented when he was met with pushback (those present at relevant meetings described McCabe as annoyed, angry, and negative toward the investigations). [79] McCabe nonetheless retained discretionary control over the investigations, requiring “overt” investigatory steps to go through his prior authorization. [79]
According to Assistant Director in Charge at the New York office investigating the Clinton Foundation, Diego Rodriguez, an FBI employee called him on behalf of James Comey in May, 2016, instructing him to “cease and desist” Clinton Foundation investigations because of an “undisclosed counterintelligence” matter. [80]
Durham observes that although the Clinton Foundation investigations were thinly predicated, they were still handled with more sensitivity and diligence than the Trump investigations, especially Crossfire Hurricane. At multiple points in his report, Durham contrasts the speed and carelessness with which Crossfire Hurricane was pursued, given its very thin evidentiary basis, with the plodding care and inexplicable delays taken toward investigations that might harm Clinton. For instance, Durham concludes that the speed with which Strzok and others opened Crossfire Hurricane:
sharply contrasts with Strzok' s decision-making in the referral in September 2016 of a matter involving former Congressman Anthony Weiner's laptop computer. In that instance, according to the OIG, the FBI and Strzok did not act for over a month to pursue legal process to review thousands of missing Clinton emails found on Weiner's laptop. The OIG sharply criticized the FBI, and particularly Strzok, for this delay. ... the immediate opening of Crossfire Hurricane as a full investigation contrasts with the care taken in connection with the investigation of the Clinton Foundation and other matters. [56]
With these evidence points in place, we can move on to the strategies employed by the Machine to surveil Trump and manipulate cogs into compliant behavior.
Surveillance Farming
In the previous part, we saw in broad strokes how the Machine could use the public sector to legitimize defamatory opposition research. Now we’ll take a closer look at how the Machine uses law enforcement and intelligence agencies to exploit their Constitutional privileges to collect opposition research on a target.
As I observed in part 1, confidential human sources (“CHS”) make recurring appearances throughout this saga. Since CHS behavior can be manipulated through incentives like monetary compensation (for example, the $1M offered to Christopher Steele) or immunity or deferred prosecution, it’s reasonable to assume that they can be exploited to create the appearance of illegal activity and justify FBI surveillance activities. As the esteemed Loki observed before the OIG had completed its investigation:
Throughout the Report, Durham notes many irregularities with the CHS program and documents the intervention of an internal CHS auditing unit (known as the “VMU”), suggesting that the CHS program is rife with dysfunction if not outright abuse. Indeed, as a result of the inspector general’s investigation of Crossfire Hurricane, certain CHS handling policy changes were made [136]. I’ll touch upon those in part 3.
A salient example from the Durham Report is its assessment of the FBI’s insistence on retaining Danchenko as a CHS (whom they paid over $220,000.00 with your tax dollars!), notwithstanding his demonstrated unreliable track record as a source. Indeed, even after the VMU issued a report on Danchenko’s unreliability, even after the FBI had learned of extensive inconsistencies in Danchenko’s claims and the content of the Steele report, and even after the FBI became aware of Danchenko’s history as a Russian spy, they nonetheless persisted in trying to keep him “open” as a CHS.
Durham explains the dumbfounding behavior of FBI leadership in the face of this information, noting that instead of closing Danchenko or subjecting him to heightened risk controls like lie detector tests (as recommended by the VMU):
management supported continued payments to him, requiring FBI Headquarters approval, of sizable amounts of money and insisted that Danchenko was very valuable to the FBI's counterintelligence program. Interviews conducted by the Office revealed, however, that the Assistant Directors for Counterintelligence in WFO and FBI Headquarters, as well as the FBI's Executive Assistant Director for National Security, made clear that they were not even able to accurately describe the value or contributions of Danchenko that would justify keeping him open, much less making hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to him.”
While Danchenko was, as I suggested in part 1, likely retained because of his unreliability, I’m going to survey other individuals below whom, it seems, the FBI engaged to rationalize surveilling the Trump Campaign. Some of these individuals are confirmed as CHSs by Durham while others are not. However, as Durham points out, the FBI continued to use Steele as a source even after he was closed as a CHS, so “official” CHS status is ultimately irrelevant, except perhaps for payments issuing directly from the FBI.
It's not clear that these individuals necessarily knowingly involved themselves in any complex conspiracy. Rather, it seems more likely that they were encouraged to attach themselves to the Trump campaign (and are likely encouraged to attach themselves to all sorts of ventures), with the unspoken understanding being that there was a possibility they would be surveilled.
Paul Manafort
Since Durham doesn’t cover the Manafort investigation, I’ll only make a few observations about it in passing.
First, Manafort’s backstory shares similarities with Danchenko’s, which I discussed in part 1.
The FBI had been investigating Manafort for criminal activities in connection with his lobbying efforts in Russia-backed Ukraine at least since 2014, and had interviewed him in connection therewith multiple times. Suspiciously, journalists later discovered that the FBI had accumulated enough evidence to indict Manafort in 2014 over $40M in fraud, but chose not to. Further, during this same period, Manafort had been working with Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, to lobby Ukraine.
Then, in January of 2016, after Trump’s nomination had become almost a foregone conclusion, the FBI opened a money laundering investigation into Manafort. [76] Manafort would go on to join the Trump campaign in March of 2016. While there’s no direct evidence that the Manafort investigation was opened to target Trump, as we’ll see, Manafort is the first of multiple FBI-connected individuals to join or attempt to join Trump’s campaign around March of 2016.
George Papadopoulos
The infamous Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump Campaign was catalyzed by a July 26, 2016 message from “Australian diplomats” (including Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer) to the U.S. Embassy stating that the diplomats had attended a meeting with George Papadopoulos in early May of 2016, during which Papadopoulos allegedly made suspicious statements about connections between Trump and Russia. [52] Solely on the basis of these vague statements, the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation on July 31, 2016. [8]
In March of 2016, Papadopoulos volunteered his services and was named a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. At the time, Papadopoulos was a 29-year-old energy consultant with opaque qualifications related to projects in the “Eastern Mediterranean”, and was working at the London Center of International Law Practice. [205]
Papadopoulos was friends with an unidentified “diplomat from another country” in London who introduced Papadopoulos to an Australian diplomat on May 6, 2016. [51] Papadopoulos met again with the Australian diplomat and Downer on May 10, 2016, purportedly because the diplomat and Downer were interested in Papadopoulos’s “role in the Trump campaign.” [51]
Two months later, Downer and the diplomat sent their urgent message to the FBI about the nature of that conversation, which claimed Papadopoulos had indicated that Russia could assist Trump by releasing damaging information on Clinton. [51]
When interviewed by the Durham team, Downer disputed the characterization from this cable and said that Papadopoulos only said that the Russians have information. [51] This is consistent with other individuals surveilled throughout the Operation: most, like Trump, assumed that someone, either the DOJ or Russia, would release the 33k emails that vanished from Clinton’s email server, and never indicated foreknowledge of the DNC or Podesta email hacks. Notably, nobody ever released the 33k emails.
It's difficult to say why Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign, but the timing, his connection to the Australian diplomats, and his connection to a certain “CHS-2”, a “longtime acquaintance of Papadopoulos”, suggests that he was ripe for surveillance farming [223]. His convenient connection to CHS-2 allowed the FBI to make 23 separate recordings in the presence of Papadopoulos. Imagine how difficult that would’ve been had he not been a “longtime acquaintance” with a CHS at the age of 29.
Carter Page
Carter Page is an interesting character. Defining himself as an “energy consultant” like so many of these foreign policy advisors, Page was also named foreign policy advisor to Trump’s campaign in March, 2016. [46] Because of his contacts with the Russian energy industry, he was a known quantity to the FBI and had been interviewed multiple times since 2009. In 2015, the FBI considered using him as a friendly witness in connection with the prosecution of Russian intelligent officers, because the intelligence officers had attempted to recruit Page. [46]
Page wasn’t just a friend of the FBI, however. He was also an “operational contact” for another agency Durham denotes as “OGA” (Other Government Agency), and which seems to be the CIA. [186] In short, he was a trusted asset of both the FBI and CIA.
Despite being a friend of the FBI, the FBI’s New York field office opened a “counterintelligence investigation” into Page in April of 2016, shortly after his appointment to the Trump campaign. [47] The media might suggest that this was independent of the Trump investigation, but there’s evidence this isn’t the case.
The field office’s alleged reasoning for opening the investigation was that it was concerned about “Russians reaching out to Page” [47] and that Page was someone they “needed to watch.” [103]
Wow, so the FBI can open investigations into you if they’re concerned a Russian might reach out to you. Good to know! Given the foreign policy duties of a President, is it reasonable to assume then that the FBI investigates every Presidential campaign?
FBI emails would describe this investigation as a “top priority” for FBI Director James Comey. [47] Yet the field office agent who opened the investigation retrospectively described it as a “waste of money.” [103] In other words, the investigation didn’t seem necessary, but for some mysterious reason top level management was uncharacteristically interested in it.
What’s important to understand here is that the FBI was already investigating the Trump campaign prior to the Australian diplomats making any statements to the FBI about what Papadopoulos told them.
Following the Australian cables and opening of Crossfire, the Page investigation was transferred to the Crossfire Hurricane team around July 31, after which the FBI set about enlisting various CHSs (especially unreliable ones) to surreptitiously record Page in public. [191] Like Papadopoulos, Page already knew the CHSs used to surveil him. [191]
Page would go on to make multiple exculpatory statements on these recordings about his and the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia, stating for example that although he had tried to reach out to Paul Manafort, the two had never interacted. [193]
At some point after this recording, and despite Page’s exculpatory statements, the FBI attempted to secure a FISA warrant on Page, which was denied by the FBI’s attorneys. [100] Keep in mind that at this point, most of the Crossfire Hurricane team had not yet seen the Steele Reports (including allegations that Page was colluding with Manafort and sanctioned Russian officials), which were sitting with another FBI office for reasons we’ll explore in Part 2.02.
Although it’s likely the conspirators in the DOJ knew the reports were coming, they couldn’t include the false Steele information in the FISA application because the reports were not officially in their possession. Thus, the initial FISA application would’ve had zero inculpatory information about Page. And yet the FBI was so eager to get a surveillance warrant on someone within Trump’s campaign that they tried drafting a deficient warrant. This and Page’s relationships with CHSs, the FBI, and CIA suggest that Page was being used to farm surveillance on the Trump campaign.
Once the Crossfire Hurricane team received official access to the Steele Reports in September, 2016 implicating Carter Page, they began drafting an updated FISA warrant application that would be granted in October, and which would become infamous because of its numerous legal deficiencies. [203]
Other reasons to suspect that Page was being used to farm surveillance by a Machine conspiracy will be covered in depth in the section below on compartmentalization and willful omission.
Page’s CHS Acquaintance
The FBI used Page not just for warrant farming but also for recording conversations with informants, an investigation tactic that typically does not require court authorization. The principal CHS (“Page CHS”) used in connection with Page surveillance was particularly suspicious and unreliable because of his/her past, and because of his/her statements made in connection with the Page surveillance.
Despite being “a long-term counterintelligence source who the FBI had paid a substantial amount of money over many years”, the FBI had closed Page CHS in 2011 “for cause” because he/she had displayed “aggressiveness toward handling Agents as a result of what he/she perceived as not enough compensation”, and exhibited “questionable allegiance to the [intelligence] targets with which [Page CHS] maintained contact.” [191] Sounds like a reliable source!
The series of events leading up to Page CHS’s engagement, and even Durham’s own treatment of the events, raise suspicions. On May 3, 2016, Page CHS sent an email to a Trump policy director requesting to be hired because he/she “believed it was important to see Trump elected.” [192] So many CHSs really wanted to join Trump’s campaign in early 2016!
Then on July 12, one month before the FBI approached Page CHS, Page CHS “[i]nterestingly” met Page in a “different country.” [195] Durham observes in this context that Steele report 2016/094 implicating Page in Russia collusion was dated July 19, 2016. [195]
The FBI finally approached Page CHS about George Papadopoulos, whereupon Page CHS offered information about Page because of the July 12 meeting. [191]
Thus, prior to the FBI approaching Page CHS to surveil Page, Page CHS had already solicited the Trump campaign and met with Page.
When Durham asked Page CHS about the solicitous May 3 email he/she sent to the Trump campaign, he/she initially responded that Page had told him/her to send it. When Durham reminded Page CHS that he/she had claimed to have met Page for the first time on July 12, Page CHS ”said he/she probably sent it because he/she thought he/she could be helpful to the campaign regarding a particular country (which was not Russia).” [195] Thanks for the helpful reminder, Durham!
One might wonder whether Durham looked into evidence of other connections between Page and Page CHS given this slip-up and suspicious timeline. The Durham report is silent on this question.
Also troubling was Page CHS’s claim, in direct conflict with the transcript of the conversation with Page he/she recorded, that Page had admitted to meeting Igor Sechin, his putative illegal Russian collusion partner form the Steele Report. [206] This false statement would inform the Page FISA warrant. Durham explains that there is no evidence the FBI ever listened to the recording to corroborate Page CHS’s claim:
If, in fact, the Crossfire Hurricane investigators listened to the recording, they either missed [the absence of Page’s admission] or elected not to make it known to the OI lawyers with whom they were working on the Page FISA applications. 1244 In either event, [Page CHS’s] misstatement of an important fact was significant in that information provided to the FBI by [Page CHS], again according to Case Agent-I, regarding his conversations with Page was used in all four of the Page FISA applications.[207]
This is consistent with the FBI’s pattern of willful omission and avoidance of inconvenient information discussed in the next section.
Strategies and explanations for Cog compliance
The reasons for the FBI’s unequal treatment of the campaigns and participation in the surveillance farming operation are likely multifarious. While Durham tends to only focus upon “confirmation bias” and “recklessness” or “negligence”, there is evidence that far more factors are at play.
For this part 2.01, we’ll consider the following factors:
Managerial meddling and pressure imposed by conspiratorial or collusive FBI leadership
Compartmentalization of, and willful withholding of material information from, cogs.