Legislative Blog
J.B. Williams, J.D.
Carter Page FISA
A Blog about Durham Report
A Bit of Background
The following backgrounds help summarize the author's views on both the general topic: Other and more specifically Durham Report as it relates to that topic.
Brief Summary of Other
Topics here may be related to legal matters but not innately legal. For instance, discussing grocery plastic bags versus cotton cloth bags. The item itself is not legal but many city governments have placed it into legislation.
Summary of Durham Report
The Durham report is the attempt to review what occurred during Crossfire Hurricane. It shows major fails on the part of the FBI to remain non-political and significantly harms their reputation. It makes Watergate look like child's play, even if taken in a light most favorable to the FBI.
Blog Summary
Not only did the FISA contain 17 significant errors, it relied on information Crossfire Hurricane officially received only days earlier. The Reports had been received some 3 weeks prior to the Australian diplomats information by the FBI with the knowledge that it was paid for by the DNC and/or Clinton campaign. It had been mentioned/discussed with higher ranking members of the Crossfire Hurricane team prior to the teams official receipt. Yet suddenly it was being relied upon as if it were factually true and had been verified in some manner.
Carter Page FISA
Published: 2023-08-03
Carter Page FISA application
'Omissions of material facts were the most prevalent and among the most serious problems with the Page applications' stated by the FISC. There were at least 17 significant errors or omissions, and so many basic and fundamental errors. And the OIG Review found that FBI personnel 'did not give appropriate attention to facts that cut against probably cause.' Several Crossfire Hurricane investigators believed Page was not acting as an agent of Russia and was not a threat to national security. Despite this, Crossfire Hurricane renewed the Page surveillance three times.
In notes of Director McCabe, the FISA on Page would have been authorized without the Steele Reports. In fact a FISA was drafted prior to receipt of the first of the Steele reports and was determined to lack sufficient probably cause. Yet a Case Agent recognized reliance on the unvetted Steele Reports could be problematic, even admitting in communications that the British Intelligence Services didn't want to deal with Steele. In an October 12, 2016 meeting, Agent Page made notes that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Evans had a lot of questions concerning the reliability and bias of the Steele Reports, concerned because Fusion GPS was hired to do opposition research, unaware of Steele's sub-source and their possible sub-sources, FISA is a bad idea from a policy perspective, and hacked email talks about Steele talking to the FBI. Furthermore, there were concerns that he was hired by Clinton campaign or the DNC. Instead of addressing these concerns, Crossfire Hurricane worked to 'ram this through.' Lower level agents in the New York office thought the Crossfire Hurricane investigative team must have uncovered additional information linking Page to Russia. They thought they were being excluded from additional information and the decision-making process. They did not know that Page had previously been a source for another government agency.
Throughout the investigation Priestap would order field offices to open cases on particular targets associated with the Trump campaign and the offices would push back due to insufficient predicates.
In early 2017 the FBI did not possess any intelligence showing anyone associated with the Trump campaign was in contact with any Russian intelligence officers during the campaign. In fact, the FBI knew the New York Times article published in February 2017 was not true. It stated that 4 unnamed current and former US intelligence officials claimed the Trump campaign was in contact with Russian intelligence. Even Strzok, who was thoroughly involved in Crossfire Hurricane, refuted all 3 of the allegations.
- The FBI had not seen any evidence of any individuals affiliated with the Trump team in contact with Russian intelligence officers. He characterized this allegation as misleading and inaccurate as written. He noted that there had been some individuals in contact with Russians, both governmental and non-governmental, but none of these individuals had an affiliation with Russian intelligence. He also noted previous contact between Carter Page and a Russian intelligence officer, but this contact did not occur during Page's association with the Trump campaign.
- The FBI had no information in its holdings, nor had it received any such information from other members of the Intelligence Community, that Paul Manafort had been a party to a call with any Russian government official. Strzok noted that the Intelligence Community had not provided the FBI with any such information even though the FBI had advised certain agencies of its interest in anything they might hold or collect regarding Manafort.
- Regarding the allegation that the NSA initially captured these communications between Trump campaign officials and Trump associates and the Russians, Strzok repeated that if such communications had been collected by the NSA, the FBI was not aware of that fact.
In 2018 the Russians had access to sensitive US government information from years earlier that would have allowed them to identify Steele's sub-sources. Steele's sub-sources could have been compromised by Russia prior to the time of the first Steele report. A review team briefed Counterintelligence and Cyber executive management regarding their findings via a conference call. A no more written memorandums action was advised for the Crossfire Hurricane team after it. Priestap and others advised the team to be careful about writing anything related to Steele because it was under intense scrutiny. Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence met with the review team on Crossfire Hurricane 2 weeks later and directed them 'not to document any recommendations, context, or analysis' in the memorandums they were preparing. These instructions concerned the team because that was what analyst did. The team instead toned down their conclusions because they felt they needed to provide context to the team's findings. The FBI OCG attorney at that meeting was shocked, and as a result, he no longer participated in the review. The OIG review found that while Steele was known to the Russian's prior to the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the further the investigation of Crossfire Hurricane moved, and they gathered more information, it tended to undermine or weaken the FISA assertions, but they did not reassess the information supporting their probable cause.
The Steel Dossier - General
Eventually the FBI attempted to investigate and analyze the Steele Reports but was not able to confirm or corroborate any of the substantive allegations contained in the reports. Danchenko was responsible for 80% of the intel and 50% of the analysis contained in the reports. During interviews with Danchenko he was unable to provide any corroborating evidence to support any of the allegations, and described his interactions with sub-sources as 'rumor and speculation'. During FBI interviews, significant parts of what Danchenko said were inconsistent with what was in the Reports. These inconsistencies were not stated in the Page FISA applications. And the FISA applications repeatedly stated that the sub-source for the Steel Dossier resided in Russia, but Danchenko resided in Washington D.C. and had for many years. None of this was brought to the Court's attention. Even with the inconsistencies, the FBI decided to engage Danchenko in March 2017 and began making financial payments to him for information. None of the information corroborated the Steele Reports.
Interestingly enough, if there were not enough red flags around Danchenko as a source already, the FBI knew in January 2017 (if not sooner) that Danchenko had been a subject of FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011. (What brought about the counterintelligence investigation was Danchencko approaching someone whom he believed would be part of the Obama administration and saying he had access to people willing to pay for classified information. Danchenkco had contact with the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers. The investigation was only closed because the FBI 'mistakeningly' believed he had left the U.S.) None of this information was provided to the FISC (FISA court), and may have affected the reliability and trustworthiness of the sub-source for the Steele Dossier. The FBI did not even consider what this meant in using Danchencko as a source, even though Danchenko admitted to making up a significant majority of the information provided for the Steele Reports. The FBI did not resolve any issue as to whether the information being provided was wholly, or in partially, Russia disinformation.
Danchenko maintained a relationship with Charles Dolan. Dolan was a public relations professional that held multiple positions and roles in the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party. The entirety of the Russian hotel sex scandal information came from Dolan not from Danchenko. Dolan interacted with the hotel staff in Russia during a trip to Moscow in connection with a business conference. Dolan was the source for the circumstances surrounding the resignation of Paul Manafort from the Trump campaign. When the Office interviewed Dolan he admitted he fabricated the information regarding Manafort. And the Office found Dolan had received information that was strikingly familiar to other items in the Steele Reports. Perhaps making him the source of more of the information that Danchenko to Steele, whom then provided it to the FBI. Dolan even maintained a business relationship with Olga Galkina, who was a childhood friend of Danchenko. Making it possible that Dolan fed information to Galkina, whom in turn provided it to Danchenko; or that Glakina provided information to Dolan whom provided it to Danchenko. Galkina admitted to providing Dolan with information that was in the Steele Reports.
Crossfire Hurricane was aware of Dolan and his connections to Danchenko and the Steel Reports. Yet they did not interview Dolan as a possible source of information regarding Trump. (The very fact that he had/has roles within the Democratic Party and it's convention speak volumes to how trustworthy information provided by him should be viewed. This is especially true in light of the Clinton Plan intelligence information.) The Office's interview of Dolan show he acknowledged that emails between himself and Danchenko in August 2016 mirror information he provided to Danchenko relating to Paul Manafort's resignation. Dolan also admitted he fabricated the information. While Danchenko and Galkina suggested Dolan had other information related to the Steele Reports, the Office was not able to substantiate this. (Perhaps the key here is to use someone from a political party as a sub-source for the sub-source. They can make up what ever they like to tell the sub-source and since they do not 'believe' they are telling an official for investigative purposes the information it cannot be viewed as trying to influence an election. Then the original sub-source reports this information the source but does not disclose his source of information. The source reports all of this to the FBI whom takes it all at face value because it mimics their personal beliefs. And in the end even if it is unraveled, there will be no proof of purposeful lies and, in fact, it can be left vague because if you have enough parties involved no one has much information directly. I mean Galkina could very well have been peddling Russian disinformation to Dolan, who pushed it to Danchenko. Danchenko might not have been willing to state it as true coming from Galkina but from Dolan it was fine. Danchenko tells Steele, and it is reported to the FBI as truth.)
Danchenko had another alleged source in Sergei Millian. Millian was the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce president in New York City and a public Trump supporter. But the Office showed that Danchenko never spoke with Millian, and merely fabricated that information he attributed to Millian. Danchenko did say he never met Millian but had received an anonymous call from someone who he claimed was Millian. In fact the Steele Reports claim it was an anonymous call that Danchenko said believed was Millian based upon listening to a YouTube video of Millian. But Crossfire Hurricane didn't even gather telephone records for Danchenko or Milliam in an attempt to confirm the call was made. This seems like basic investigative technique to either help substantiate or discredit a claim. From a personal standpoint, this either means they were ensuring willful ignorance by failing to do what was a first step in investigating or they are truly horrid at their jobs. Either way, it seems to me that these individuals should not keep their jobs.
Some background on Steele: in 2010 Steele provided information to the FBI on a range of subjects; in 2013 the FBI formally opened Steele as an FBI CHS; Steele was closed as an FBI source in November 2016 for disclosing his status as a CHS while providing information to the media and working with Fusion GPS. 'Nevertheless, the FBI - using Department official Bruce Ohr as a conduit - continued to receive information from Steele despite his closure as a CHS.'
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