Every day in courtrooms across this country, intent is proven through words, actions, or some combination of both. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has testified that he could not establish that political bias motivated those at the heart of the FBI’s operation dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane,” the investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign. The records of both Crossfire Hurricane and the Mueller investigation show, however, that the only logical inference to be drawn from the series of contrasting treatments of different targets, glaring omissions, false court submissions, and mysterious failures is that there was political bias at the top of the FBI.
That bias motivated key decisions in a way that violates all our notions of fundamental fairness, a shocking corruption of our law enforcement and counterintelligence processes.
The first piece of evidence of political bias lies in the disparate treatment during two of the most important investigations in FBI history. The first was “Midyear Exam,” which investigated whether Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, or anyone in her circle violated laws protecting the handling of classified national security material. The second was “Crossfire Hurricane,” which likewise implicated a presidential candidate and national security. The two cases originated very differently.
Midyear Exam began several months after the New York Times reported in March 2015 that Hillary Clinton conducted official government business not through government communications channels but on a previously secret private server. Horowitz’s subsequent review found that the FBI showed a “preference for consent over compulsory process to obtain evidence” when investigating Clinton.
Crossfire Hurricane began in nearly the opposite manner.
The mysterious Joseph Mifsud reportedly told George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, that Russia had “dirt” on Clinton. At the time, media reports speculated that Russia or China might have intercepted Clinton’s emails and possibly had the 30,000 emails her team deleted before they could be reviewed by the FBI.
Papadopoulos’s recounting of this rumor to an Australian diplomat at a bar was, supposedly, the foundation for opening a counterintelligence operation that would eventually include FISA warrants and confidential human sources all against Trump’s campaign and new administration. Yet this same rumor was already being discussed publicly.
Why, then, was the discussion of it by Papadopoulos at a bar sufficiently grave to form the basis of an extraordinary, and probably historically unprecedented, intrusion into the opposition party’s campaign for the presidency? The clear inference to be drawn in the glaring contrast in the treatment of two similarly situated targets is that of political animus — favoring Clinton over Trump.
The disparate investigative tactics between the two are nowhere starker than in the use of FISA warrants to surveil the Trump campaign through Carter Page, another foreign policy adviser to then-candidate Trump.
FBI official William Priestap opened Crossfire Hurricane at the end of July 2016. Days later, according to Horowitz, the FBI first notified the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, the branch that handles FISA warrants, that they were seeking a FISA warrant on Carter Page. The ink opening the investigation was barely dry — nothing of investigative significance had yet happened — and still, the FBI sought FISA surveillance, typically designed to surveil foreign terrorists and spies, of a Naval Academy graduate who was a member of the Trump presidential campaign.
This surveillance allows investigators to capture not only the historic electronic communications of the target, Page, but also those of persons with whom he had communicated. Since he was a member of the Trump campaign, investigators must have known that FISA warrants would give them access to high-level Trump campaign officials’ communications.
Contrast this early request for a FISA warrant against the softer approach taken toward investigating Clinton. This extraordinary difference in treatment leads to the inescapable conclusion that the team in charge of these investigations, which was the same in both matters, held a bias favoring Clinton over Trump and acted accordingly in their investigative decision-making.
During Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI used multiple confidential human sources (the FBI’s term for informants) to record conversations with Page, Papadopoulos, and another campaign official covertly. These recordings, according to Horowitz, did not result in incriminating information against any of them or any member of the Trump campaign. In fact, information illustrating that there was no conspiracy involving the campaign and Russia was elucidated.
This tactical use of informants against the opposition political party stands, once again, in contrast to the tactics used by the FBI in investigating the conduct of Clinton and her staff. Midyear Exam lasted approximately one year. But never, in all that time, did any FBI agent obtain covert recordings of anyone involved in the use of Clinton’s unsecured private server for the transmission and maintenance of national security information.
Nonetheless, Crossfire Hurricane remained open, though no evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy was found. Enter the Steele dossier. In what must surely be a historic irony, Clinton and others hired a foreign national, Christopher Steele, to dig up dirt on Trump. Steele supposedly obtained what we now know to be thoroughly debunked allegations detailing a “well-developed conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians” from Russian sources.
The Crossfire Hurricane team made haste back to the Department of Justice and the FISA Court. Discussions at the FBI began on Sept. 19, 2016, regarding whether the Steele reporting was sufficient to go back to DOJ and request a FISA on Page. A formal request for a FISA warrant was sent to DOJ just days later. At no time did the FBI tell DOJ attorneys drafting the FISA application that covert recordings of Page and Papadopoulos existed and that both men specifically denied the kind of Russian conspiracy or connections between themselves, the campaign, and Russia that Steele reported.
Finally, the FBI failed to disclose that Clinton was the source of funds for the Steele dossier.
Despite the gravity of seeking a warrant against an American citizen working for the opposition party, the FBI further requested that the application be expedited on Sept. 30, just five short weeks before the election. Why would the FBI fail to disclose to the Justice Department, and subsequently to the FISA Court, all of that exculpatory information that tended to discredit Steele’s dossier?
It is not credible to attribute these omissions to mere mistakes. Rather, these glaring omissions highlight the animus against Trump’s campaign that seems to have motivated the Crossfire Hurricane team.
All of which brings us to the mysterious failures of the man touted by the establishment wings of both parties as an unassailable investigative virtuoso, Robert Mueller. James Comey, in another act that shows his own political bias, leaked to the media information about Crossfire Hurricane in retaliation for being fired just so a special counsel would be appointed.
In May 2017, when he was fired, Comey surely knew after months of FISA recordings from Page that neither Page nor anyone with whom he communicated was conspiring with or was an agent of Russia. He also must have known his own team had discredited the dossier at the heart of the Page FISA warrant. He also had to know of the utter lack of incriminating evidence in the covert recordings and his and Peter Strzok’s secret intelligence gathering briefings.
Why, then, did Comey feel the need to force the appointment of a special counsel to investigate allegations? If presented with these facts, a jury would surely find his intent was either political animus or petty revenge. Either one is a disgrace.
How did Mueller likewise miss the glaring errors and misconduct in his investigation that the inspector general found so easily? We know from Horowitz that, after the election of Trump, the FBI moved quickly to try and shore up the Steele dossier. In November and December 2016, they contacted Steele’s sources, who denied and contradicted his claims that there was a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Thus, Mueller the virtuoso investigator failed to discover in a two-year, multimillion-dollar investigation that the sum total of Trump-Russia conspiracy allegations only ever existed in the Steele dossier, which was wholly discredited before Trump even took the oath of office.
Mueller had access to the entire Crossfire Hurricane team; its covert recordings of Page, Papadopoulos, and the other campaign official; Strzok’s and Comey’s notes on their secret intelligence-gathering briefings; and the Steele dossier funding source and verification failures. Still, he persisted.
Political animus against Trump is the only verdict that speaks the truth.
Francey Hakes (@FranceyHakes) is a former state and federal prosecutor who previously worked in the Department of Justice and practiced in front of the FISA Court. She is now a child protection and national security consultant.
