Exonerated

by Dan Bongino

  Rule thirteen of FISA regulations states: “If the government discovers that a submission to the Court contained a misstatement or omission of material fact, the government, in writing, must immediately inform the Judge to whom the submission was made.”31

  Because of the redactions in the three FISA renewals, we don’t know all of the adjustments that were made. But if, in late spring 2017, Rosenstein and his crew failed to update the document with exculpatory evidence, then they violated the Woods Procedures, which are integrated into the FISA application requirement.

  There were any number of reasons the DOJ and the FBI would want to continue playing fast and loose with the FISA applications. Chief among them is the idea that this was a gamble—that the investigation would be able to produce proof of collusion by pressuring suspects like Papadopoulos, Flynn, Manafort, and longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone to turn over evidence to the witch hunters. Second, Rosenstein (and Comey and Mueller) needed to double down on the previous filing to avoid getting caught in violating the Woods Procedures. Third, as loyal members of the entrenched establishment class, they wanted to destabilize the Trump administration and keep it on the defensive. And fourth, they needed to hide the parallel construction scheme they were conducting. It’s now clear that CIA director John Brennan was abusing his intelligence powers in order to spy on the Trump team, and he pushed for the FBI to open a formal probe into the Trump team because he had no power to do so himself. The CIA largely stays away from domestic spying except under exceptional circumstances. But the FBI has no such restrictions. By hiding the likely origins of his information on Trump (some of which was clearly Steele’s), Brennan led lawmakers and the FBI to believe that the Steele and Simpson information was being corroborated when, in fact, it was simply being repeated.

  Keeping the damning Russiagate shadow in place tainted Trump’s election victory and took a toll on his political capital. Russiagate and all the investigation leaks also provided great talking points for damaging Republicans in a critical midterm election—in which electing enough representatives and Senators to impeach the president and remove him from office on the false collusion charges—would be key. And so Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller, his hero and brother in arms, special counsel so he could continue inflicting damage. As I explain later, Rosenstein even expanded the scope of the investigation to let Mueller run wild.

  When Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel, he issued a May 17, 2017, “Appointment of Special Counsel” scope memo authorizing the new hire to investigate “any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Donald Trump and (2) any matters that arose or may arise directly from that investigation.” Three months later, on August 2, he issued a second scope memo, which provided “a more specific description” of the special counsel’s authority and revealed detailed allegations against…well, that’s the problem. More than half the memo has been redacted, but we now know, due to the release of the Mueller report, that Rosenstein expanded Mueller’s investigation to include “allegations that three Trump campaign officials—Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and George Papadopoulos ‘committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.’”32 These claims are made only in Simpson and Steele’s dossier information. What the heck was Mueller doing investigating an information stream from discredited sources whom, no later than January 2017, the FBI knew to be illegitimate? He was covering Rosenstein’s behind because Rosenstein had signed one of the FISA warrant renewals based on the dirty information, and there was still hope they could salvage the garbage allegations from garbage sources.

  Rosenstein has other skeletons in his closet, too. He was the prosecuting United States attorney in the 2015 case involving TENEX, a company involved in the sale of uranium to Russia. And sources have told me he was less than aggressive in looking for links between APCO Worldwide, a lobbyist firm that worked for both TENEX and the Clinton Foundation. APCO denies that those accounts intersected. But it’s curious that examining spurious Trump-Russia intersections merits a multimillion-dollar, 600-plus-day investigation, while Clinton involvement in uranium sales to a noted geopolitical foe merits nothing more than dismissive whispers of “conspiracy theory” by the liberal media.

  ROBERT MUELLER

  As I mentioned earlier, so much of what spurred Russiagate was the weaponization of our intelligence and law enforcement community to investigate poor judgment or bad optics—basically the appearance of connections that might look suspicious on the outside but evaporate on closer inspection. Yet nobody seems to have given a damn about optics when it came to the team of investigators that Special Counsel Robert Mueller called in to get the goods on Trump.

  I believe part of that has to do with Mueller’s aura. As the former FBI director, he has the impressive, no-nonsense image of the ultimate G-man. He’s the second-longest-serving director (2001 to 2013) in FBI history, after J. Edgar Hoover, and has a reputation as a straight shooter, a law-and-order guy who worked for George W. Bush and Obama. So it sure seemed that Rosenstein had brought in the ultimate company man to give the appearance that the FBI and the DOJ were beyond reproach.

  But his hires all came with tremendous baggage that anyone with an internet connection could’ve uncovered. While the mainstream media hailed some of the special counsel’s hires as members of a prosecutorial dream team, they conveniently overlooked—or even gushed about—dubious connections.

  Jeannie Rhee worked at Mueller’s previous law firm, WilmerHale. Her previous clients not only included the Clinton Foundation, but she also represented former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in a lawsuit seeking access to her private emails. It’s no wonder she donated $5,400 to Clinton in 2015 and 2016.

  Andrew Weissmann was Mueller’s mad-dog lieutenant, notorious for his ethical lapses, poor attitude, and take-no-prisoners prosecutions—like with the team that investigated the Enron Corporation collapse and earned over thirty convictions. But these cases were often brutal affairs, and even when Weissmann won—getting a conviction for Enron auditor Arthur Andersen—he often lost, like when the Supreme Court overturned that high-profile verdict.

  Weissmann has also drawn heat for a fan letter he wrote to acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she instructed the Justice Department not to defend President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from several nations with pronounced terrorism problems. Trump fired her, but Weissmann sent Yates a sycophantic note for defying the president: “I am so proud and in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respect.”33 Making matters worse, Mueller left Weissmann in charge of hiring the members of the special counsel team, virtually ensuring a brigade of anti-Trump hostiles.

  With clear-cut Obama and Clinton loyalists on the team, the optics should have been a concern. As it turns out, they were more a dream team for chaos than law and order. The case against Roger Stone remains untried. But so far, except for Manafort, the legal wins these top prosecutors have obtained amount to one big yawn. And those wins certainly have nothing to do with colluding with Russians.

  Mueller, alleged law-and-order icon that he is, appears to have been in lockstep with Rosenstein. As such, he was the key man in carrying out the investigation’s objectives and fulfilling the mission detailed in the scope memo and the cryptic addition to the scope memo. So even though he has been a silent character, the tightest-lipped poker player at the table, we’ll be focusing on Mueller a lot. His motives began with the impression that he was going to save the country. But that evidently changed when he realized he had become the FBI’s partner in slime. He had to save both the FBI’s reputation and his own—not to mention Rosenstein’s and everyone else’s who had gotten suckered into a federally funded witch hunt.

  1John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan), “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki
rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???” Twitter, July 16, 2018, 8:52 a.m., https://twitter.com/johnbrennan/status/1018885971104985093?lang=en.

  2Lee Smith, “How CIA Director John Brennan Targeted James Comey,” Tablet, February 9, 2018, https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/255020/how-cia-director-john-brennan-targeted-james-comey.

  3Luke Harding, Stephanie Kirchgaessner, and Nick Hopkins, “British Spies Were First to Spot Trump Team’s Links with Russia,” The Guardian, April 13, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia.

  4Paul Wood, “Trump ‘Compromising’ Claims: How and Why Did We Get Here?” BBC, January 12, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38589427.

  5Steve Benen, “CIA Warned Lawmakers about Russia’s Pro-Trump Efforts Last Summer,” The Rachel Maddow Show, April 7, 2017, http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cia-warned-lawmakers-about-russias-pro-trump-efforts-last-summer.

  6Mark Mazzetti and Carl Hulse, “Inquiry by C.I.A. Affirms It Spied on Senate Panel,”

  7The New York Times, July 31, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/world/senate-intelligence-commitee-cia-interrogation-report.html.

  8Lee Moran, “James Clapper: Donald Trump May Be a Russian Asset ‘Whether Witting or Unwitting,’” HuffPost, February 20, 2019, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/james-clapper-donald-trump-russian-asset_n_5c6d1b63e4b0f40774ca4015.

  9Glenn Kessler, “James Clapper’s ‘Least Untruthful’ Statement to the Senate,” The Washington Post, June 12, 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/james-clappers-least-untruthful-statement-to-the-senate/2013/06/11/e50677a8-d2d8-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_blog.html?utm_term=.40ba0c636edd.

  10Mollie Reilly, “James Clapper: I Gave ‘Least Untruthful’ Answer Possible On NSA Surveillance,” Huffington Post, June 11, 2013, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/james-clapper-nsa-surveillance_n_3424620.

  11Jonathan Easley, “GOP Report: Clapper Told CNN Host About Trump Dossier in 2017,” The Hill, April 27, 2018, https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/385278-gop-report-clapper-told-cnn-host-about-trump-dossier-in-2017.

  12James Clapper on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, July 18, 2018, http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1807/18/acd.01.html.

  13Nathan Layne and Jonathan Landay, “Manafort Had $10 Million Loan from Russian Oligarch: Court Filing,” Reuters, June 27, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-manafort/manafort-had-10-million-loan-from-russian-oligarch-court-filing-idUSKBN1JN2YF.

  14Rowan Scarborough, “Hillary Clinton, Glenn Simpson Anti-Trump Conspiracy Investigation Deepens,” Associated Press, https://www.apnews.com/e89664dca31b75d1aadb69bba3ddc39c.

  15Jeff Carlson, “Why Would Fusion GPS’s Simpson Invoke the First Amendment?” Epoch Times, October 19, 2018, https://www.theepochtimes.com/why-is-glenn-simpson-invoking-the-first-amendment_2694938.html.

  16Christopher Steele, “The Steele Dossier” as published by BuzzFeed under the title “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia,” January 10, 2017, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia#.xw7n2vrB

  17Mark Maremont, “Key Claims in Trump Dossier Said to Come from Head of Russian-American Business Group,” The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/key-claims-in-trump-dossier-came-from-head-of-russian-american-business-group-source-1485253804.

  18George Papadopoulos, Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump, hardcover ed. (New York: Diversion Books, 2019), 114.

  19Ibid., 125.

  20Gillum and Boburg, “‘Journalism for Rent.’”

  21“McCabe Says He Ordered the Obstruction of Justice Probe of President Trump,” CBS News. February 14, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andrew-mccabe-says-he-ordered-the-obstruction-of-justice-case-of-president-trump-60-minutes/?fbclid=IwAR2vb9zaK1Lnw_9QIFsKNSLrdI1AaDiskANBWFMS39qdB_3_1DkOQovVjog.

  22Robert Mueller and Patrick Leahy, “Written Questions of Senator Leahy to Honorable Robert Mueller III,” June 6, 2002, https://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/fbi082903.pdf.

  23Chris Reeves, “DOJ Documents Show Carter Page Helped FBI Catch Russian Spies,” Townhall, February 5, 2018, https://townhall.com/tipsheet/chrisreeves/2018/02/05/doj-documents-show-carter-page-helped-fbi-catch-russian-spies-n2444651.

  24Paul Sperry, “Exclusive: FBI Kept from U.S. Spy Court Russian View of Carter Page As ‘an Idiot,’’’ Real Clear Investigations, May 5, 2018, https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/09/05/fbi_kept_from_fisa_court_russian_view_of_page_as_idiot.html.

  25Sperry, “FBI Hid from FISA Court Russian View Carter Page Was an ‘Idiot,’” Real Clear Investigations, September 6, 2018, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2018/09/06/fbi_hid_from_fisa_court_russian_view_carter_page_was_an_039idiot039_452540.html.

  26“In Re Carter W. Page, a U.S. Person,” FISA Surveillance Court Orders and Applications, FBI, October, 2016, https://vault.fbi.gov/d1-release/d1-release/view.

  27Ibid., 16.

  28WSJ Editorial Board “The Flynn Entrapment,” The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-flynn-entrapment-11544658915.

  29“Rosenstein on Comey Memo: ‘I Wrote It. I Believe It. I Stand By It,’” Fox News, May 19, 2017, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rosenstein-on-comey-memo-i-wrote-it-i-believe-it-i-stand-by-it.

  30Andrew G. McCabe, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2019), 234.

  31United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, “Rules of Procedure,” November 1, 2010, https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/FISC Rules of Procedure.pdf.

  32Rod J. Rosenstein, “Scope of Investigation and Definition of Authority,” Department of Justice, August 2, 2017, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4429989-Rod-Rosenstein-memo-outlining-scope-of-Mueller.html.

  33Easley, “Mueller Lieutenant Sent Email Saying He Was Proud of Sally Yates,” The Hill, December 5, 2017, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/363422-mueller-lieutenant-sent-email-saying-he-was-proud-of-sally-yates.

  CHAPTER 3

  Plan A: Ad-Libbing Adversaries

  The war to take down Trump before and after the election wasn’t a conspiracy with a single puppet master pulling all of the strings. It evolved out of a confluence of events: a cabal of power-crazed Democrats; foreign intelligence operations; efforts by the Russians to sow disinformation; and, most critically, a dangerous kind of Washington-based groupthink that infected the mainstream media with heavily politicized misinformation. Eventually, these elements solidified into a dirty game of information laundering and a plot to fabricate the appearance of Russian collusion—a conspiracy to fake a conspiracy, really. But there was never a single wizard of Washington, a sinister Mr. Big, calling all the shots.

  So forget it; this was not a Hollywood movie plot with a cigar-smoking shadowy figure orchestrating every nuanced media hit, every FBI leak, every indictment. That’s the same kind of thinking that created the unfounded paranoia about Trump. As the results of the special counsel’s absurd $35 million investigation prove, Trump isn’t in Putin’s pocket. He wasn’t plotting with Russians to steal an election. He didn’t try to put together a network of bad actors to commit what would have amounted to treason. No, it’s the Obama administration that had access to that kind of stuff—seventeen intelligence agencies, in fact, all capable of running various spec
ial ops. Obama headed a government with literally thousands of intelligence and law enforcement experts trained in surveillance, data collection, and counterintelligence. Trump? He had a small private security team and a now-disgraced lawyer named Michael Cohen, a guy who Trump and the rest of the world now know had delusions of grandeur and big legal problems. Those were Trump’s guys when it came to navigating any nefarious activity. End of story. Trump was too damn busy running a presidential campaign as a rookie candidate to carry out some elaborate pie-in-the-sky Russian collusion plot. And judging by his crowds and poll numbers, he didn’t need to. (It is not widely known, but Patrick Caddell, the late pollster who masterminded Jimmy Carter’s and Ross Perot’s campaigns, predicted Trump would win based on a series of polls he had conducted in 2016. As America headed to the polls, Caddell ran into media mogul Rupert Murdoch at Fox News and told him that Trump would win, thanks to an electorate utterly disgusted with the privileged ruling elite.)

  And while Glenn Simpson concocted the plug-and-play strategy to weaponize “information” and feed it to the FBI, he did not single-handedly move all the central players of Russiagate into position like some evil-genius chess master. Believe me, I would love to say that’s the case—because what a story that would be. But easy explanations are typically the hallmarks of ridiculous conspiracy theories, and what actually happened is complicated but understandable.

  So what I call Plan A wasn’t really a plan at first. It took time to gestate. The real conspiracy—the plot to tar Trump—emerged out of chaos: out of the muck from the swamp that Washington had become; out of an Obama administration accustomed to weaponizing its substantial intelligence powers to target its political opponents; out of a media atmosphere entirely incapable of honestly reporting on the Obama administration; and, finally, out of a city divided by partisan politics, by the endless quest for power and influence, and by a stunning lack of accountability when it comes to the abuse of power. The end of the Obama administration was an ugly time in America. The Republican-controlled Senate had essentially stripped the president of his power, acting to check his liberal agenda. The country was at a political impasse.