The article, headlined “Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation,” comes ahead of the release of a report by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General on the FBI’s handling of the investigations on Hillary Clinton and the Trump campaign, and appears intended as damage control and to set the narrative ahead of its release.
The article relies heavily on spin in an attempt to paint the picture of a responsible FBI which kept the investigation secret so as not to undermine the election process.
But despite the Times’ spin, it inadvertently reveals some key information.
One of those is the admission that no public evidence exists of collusion. For over 1 1/2 years, the New York Times, alongside numerous other publications, have pushed the narrative that Trump colluded with the Kremlin to win the elections.
As The Epoch Times has consistently pointed out, there exists no evidence of collusion. On the contrary, officials involved in the investigation, such as former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper, have both publicly, as well as under oath before Congress, stated their investigation showed no evidence of collusion.
“A year and a half later, no public evidence has surfaced connecting Mr. Trump’s advisers to the hacking or linking Mr. Trump himself to the Russian government’s disruptive efforts,” The Times reported in the May 16 article.
Another major revelation in the article is that the FBI agents involved in the investigation used national security letters to spy on the Trump campaign.
The FISA warrant was not obtained until October 2016. The revelation that the FBI used national security letters to spy on the Trump campaign, potentially as early as July 2016, raises serious concerns.
The official who signed off on the initial FISA warrant was Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who was simultaneously kept in the loop on the secret FBI investigation.
Yates also attended a secret meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in January 2017 with then-President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey, and National Security Adviser Susan Rice. An email Rice wrote to herself detailing the meeting reveals they discussed limiting incoming President Trump’s access to certain classified information.
In a letter sent to Rice on Feb. 12, 2018, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Lindsey Graham (R-S.C), asked Rice to answer a number of questions about that email.
“In addition, despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed “by the book,” substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book.’”
Texts between the lead FBI agent on the Trump case, Peter Strzok, and council to then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, have also revealed the White House’s involvement in the FBI investigation.
At the time of the meeting in the Oval Office, the FBI’s investigation was the only open investigation into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 elections. Earlier that month, on Jan. 6, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had released the joint intelligence agency report that did not include any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.
Soon after the meeting, after Trump was sworn into office, the FBI investigation became the focal point of the resistance movement against Trump. Selective leaks as well as false reporting—an overwhelming amount of press reporting alleging Trump had colluded with Russia—was used to confuse the public as well as stir up resentment and anger. Along with this, key Democratic politicians and spokespeople began suggesting the impeachment of Trump on those grounds.
Court documents filed by the House Intelligence Committee in November last year also revealed that Fusion GPS made payments to a select number of journalists who were covering Russia-related matters.
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