-buries-lede/
"At the height of the 2016 presidential race, the FBI collaborated with the CIA
to probe an American political campaign. They used foreign-intelligence
surveillance and informants.
That's your crossfire hurricane."--- Andrew McCarthy
******************************
Spinning a Crossfire Hurricane: The Times on the FBI's Trump Investigation
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
<https://www.nationalreview.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a rally at High Point
University in High Point, North Carolina, September 20, 2016. (Jonathan
Ernst/Reuters)The paper buries more than one lede.
If you're a fading Baby Boomer, you're faintly amused that the FBI code-named
its Trump-Russia investigation "Crossfire Hurricane." It's an homage to the
Rolling Stones golden oldie "Jumpin' Jack Flash" - which, come to think of it,
might just be a perfect handle for John Brennan, the former Obama CIA director
whose specter hovers over each critical juncture of the case.
The young'uns may not believe it, but back before it was known as "classic
rock," you couldn't just play your crossfire hurricane on Spotify. You had to
spin it. Fittingly, that is exactly what the New York Times has done in
Wednesday's blockbuster report
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
-fbi-mueller-investigation.
The quick take on the 4,100-word opus is that the Gray Lady "buried the lede."
Fair enough: You have to dig pretty deep to find that the FBI ran "at least one
government informant" against the Trump campaign - and to note that the Times
learned this because "current and former officials" leaked to reporters the same
classified information about which, just days ago, the Justice Department
shrieked "Extortion!"
<https://www.nationalreview.
eps/> when Congress asked about it.
But that's not even the most important of the buried ledes. What the Times story
makes explicit, with studious understatement, is that the Obama administration
used its counterintelligence powers to investigate the opposition party's
presidential campaign.
That is, there was no criminal predicate to justify an investigation of any
Trump-campaign official. So, the FBI did not open a criminal investigation.
Instead, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation and hoped that
evidence of crimes committed by Trump officials would emerge. But it is an abuse
of power to use counterintelligence powers, including spying and electronic
surveillance, to conduct what is actually a criminal investigation.
The Times barely mentions the word counterintelligence in its saga. That's not
an accident. The paper is crafting the media-Democrat narrative. Here is how
things are to be spun: The FBI was very public about the Clinton-emails
investigation, even making disclosures about it on the eve of the election. Yet
it kept the Trump-Russia investigation tightly under wraps, despite intelligence
showing that the Kremlin was sabotaging the election for Trump's benefit. This
effectively destroyed Clinton's candidacy and handed the presidency to Trump.
It's a gas, gas, gas!
It's also bunk. Just because the two FBI cases are both referred to as
"investigations" does not make them the same kind of thing.
The Clinton case was a criminal investigation that was predicated on a mountain
of incriminating evidence. Mrs. Clinton does have one legitimate beef against
the FBI: Then-director James Comey went public with some (but by no means all)
of the proof against her. It is not proper for law-enforcement officials to
publicize evidence from a criminal investigation unless formal charges are
brought.
In the scheme of things, though, this was a minor infraction. The scandal here
is that Mrs. Clinton was not charged. She likes to blame Comey for her defeat;
but she had a chance to win only because the Obama Justice Department and the
FBI tanked the case against her - in exactly the manner President Obama
encouraged them to do in public commentary
<https://www.nationalreview.
mas-decision/> .
By contrast, the Trump case is a counterintelligence investigation. Unlike
criminal cases, counterintelligence matters are classified. If agents had made
public disclosures about them, they would have been committing crimes and
violating solemn agreements with foreign intelligence services - agreements
without which those services would not share information that U.S.
national-security officials need in order to protect our country.
In the scheme of things, though, the problem is not that the FBI honored its
confidentiality obligations in the Trump case while violating them in the
Clinton case. The scandal is that the FBI, lacking the incriminating evidence
needed to justify opening a criminal investigation of the Trump campaign,
decided to open a counterintelligence investigation. With the blessing of the
Obama White House, they took the powers that enable our government to spy on
foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans - Americans who just
happened to be their political adversaries.
The Times averts its eyes from this point - although if a Republican
administration tried this sort of thing on a Democratic candidate, it would be
the only point.
Like the Justice Department and the FBI, the paper is banking on Russia to muddy
the waters. Obviously, Russia was trying to meddle in the election, mainly
through cyber-espionage - hacking. There would, then, have been nothing
inappropriate about the FBI's opening up a counterintelligence investigation
against Russia. Indeed, it would have been irresponsible not to do so. That's
what counterintelligence powers are for.
But opening up a counterintelligence investigation against Russia is not the
same thing as opening up a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump
campaign.
The media-Democrat complex has tried from the start to conflate these two
things. That explains the desperation to convince the public that Putin wanted
Trump to win. It explains the stress on contacts, no matter how slight, between
Trump campaign figures and Russians. They are trying to fill a gaping void they
hope you don't notice: Even if Putin did want Trump to win, and even if
Trump-campaign advisers did have contacts with Kremlin-tied figures, there is no
evidence of participation by the Trump campaign in Russia's espionage.
At the height of the 2016 presidential race, the FBI collaborated with the CIA
to probe an American political campaign.
That is the proof that would have been needed to justify investigating
Americans. Under federal law, to establish that an American is acting as an
agent of a foreign power, the government must show that the American is
purposefully engaging in clandestine activities on behalf of a foreign power,
and that it is probable that these activities violate federal criminal law. (See
FISA, Title 50, U.S. Code, Section 1801(b)(2)
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/
last six paragraphs of my Dec. 17 column
<https://www.nationalreview.
-steele-dossier-hillary-
But of course, if the FBI had had that kind of evidence, they would not have had
to open a counterintelligence investigation. They would not have had to use the
Clinton campaign's opposition research - the Steele dossier - to get FISA-court
warrants. They would instead have opened a criminal investigation, just as they
did on Clinton when there was evidence that she committed felonies.
To the contrary, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation in the
absence of any (a) incriminating evidence, or (b) evidence implicating the Trump
campaign in Russian espionage. At the height of the 2016 presidential race, the
FBI collaborated with the CIA to probe an American political campaign. They used
foreign-intelligence surveillance and informants.
That's your crossfire hurricane.
Terry Payne
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