It
may be true that President
Trump illegally
conspired with Russia and was so good at covering it up he’s
managed to outwit our best intel and media minds who've searched
for irrefutable evidence for two years. (We still await special
counsel Robert
Mueller’s
findings.)
But
there’s a growing appearance of alleged wrongdoing equally as
insidious, if not more so, because it implies widespread misuse of
America’s intelligence and law enforcement apparatus.
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Here
are eight signs pointing to a counterintelligence operation
deployed against Trump for political reasons.
Code
name The
operation reportedly had at least one code name that
was leaked to
The New York Times: “Crossfire Hurricane.” Wiretap
fever Secret
surveillance was conducted on no fewer than seven Trump associates:
chief strategist Stephen Bannon; lawyer Michael Cohen; national
security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; adviser and
son-in-law Jared
Kushner;
campaign chairman Paul
Manafort;
and campaign foreign policy advisers Carter Page and George
Papadopoulos. The
FBI reportedly
applied for a
secret warrant in June 2016 to monitor Manafort, Page, Papadopoulos
and Flynn. If true, it means the FBI targeted Flynn six months
before his much-debated conversation with Russia’s ambassador,
Sergey Kislyak. The
FBI applied four times to wiretap Page after he became a Trump
campaign adviser starting in July 2016. Page’s office is
connected to Trump Tower and he reports
having spent “many
hours in Trump Tower.”
CNN
reported that Manafort was wiretapped before and after the election
“including during a period when Manafort was known to talk to
President Trump.” Manafort reportedly has a residence in Trump
Tower. --- MORE
FROM SHARYL ATTKISSON
Facts
continue supporting Trump's decision to fire James Comey
Legal
patchwork does little to keep foreign interests out of American
politics
--- Electronic
surveillance was used to listen
in on
three Trump transition officials in Trump Tower — Flynn, Bannon
and Kushner — as they met in an official capacity with the United
Arab Emirates’ crown prince. The
FBI also reportedly wiretapped Flynn’s
phone conversation with Kislyak on Dec. 31, 2016, as part of
“routine surveillance” of Kislyak. NBC
recently reported that
Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, was wiretapped. NBC
later corrected the
story, saying Cohen was the subject of a “pen register” used to
monitor phone numbers and, possibly, internet communications. National
security letters
Another
controversial tool reportedly used by the FBI to obtain phone
records and other documents in the investigation were national
security letters, which bypass judicial approval. Improper
use of such letters has been an ongoing theme at the
FBI. Reviews by
the Department of Justice’s Inspector
General found
widespread misuse under Mueller — who was then FBI director —
and said officials failed to report instances of abuses as
required. Unmasking “Unmasking”
— identifying protected names of Americans captured by government
surveillance — was frequently deployed by at least four top Obama
officials who have subsequently spoken out against President
Trump: James
Clapper,
former Director of National Intelligence; Samantha
Power,
former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Susan Rice, former
national security adviser; Sally
Yates,
former deputy attorney general.
Names
of Americans caught communicating with monitored foreign targets
must be “masked,” or hidden within government agencies, so the
names cannot be misused or shared. However,
it’s been revealed that Power made
near-daily unmasking
requests in 2016.
Prior
to that revelation, Clapper claimed ignorance. When asked if he
knew of unmasking requests by any ambassador, including Power, he
testified: “I don't know. Maybe it's ringing a vague bell but I'm
not — I could not answer with any confidence.”
Rice
admitted to asking for unmasked names of U.S. citizens in
intelligence reports after initially claiming no knowledge of any
such thing. Clapper
also admitted
to requesting
the unmasking of “Mr. Trump, his associates or any members of
Congress.” Clapper and Yates admitted they
also personally reviewed unmasked
documents and shared unmasked material with other officials. Changing
the rules
On
Dec. 15, 2016 — the same day the government listened in on Trump
officials at Trump Tower — Rice reportedly unmasked the names of
Bannon, Kushner and Flynn. And Clapper made a new rule allowing the
National Security Agency to widely disseminate surveillance
material within the government without the normal privacy
protections. Media
strategy Former
CIA Director John
Brennan and
Clapper, two of the most integral intel officials in this ongoing
controversy, have joined national news organizations where they
have regular opportunities to shape the news narrative —
including on the very issues under investigation. Clapper
reportedly secretly leaked salacious political opposition research
against Trump to CNN in fall 2017 and later was hired as a CNN
political analyst. In February, Brennan was hired
as a paid analyst for
MSNBC. Leaks
There’s
been a steady and apparently orchestrated campaign of leaks —
some true, some false, but nearly all of them damaging to President
Trump’s interests. A
few of the notable leaks include word that Flynn was wiretapped,
the anti-Trump “Steele dossier” of political opposition
research, then-FBI Director James
Comey briefing
Trump on it, private Comey conversations with Trump, Comey’s
memos recording those conversations and criticizing Trump, the
subpoena of Trump’s personal bank records (which proved false)
and Flynn planning to testify against Trump (which also proved to
be false). Friends,
informants and snoops The
FBI reportedly used
one-time CIA operative Stefan Halper in 2016 as an informant to spy
on Trump officials. Another
player is Comey friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law
professor, who leaked Comey’s memos against Trump to The New York
Times after Comey was fired. We later learned that Richman
actually worked
for the FBI under
a status called “Special Government Employee.”
The
FBI used former reporter Glenn Simpson, his political opposition
research firm Fusion GPS, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele to
compile allegations against Trump, largely from Russian sources,
which were distributed to the press and used as part of wiretap
applications.
These
eight features of a counterintelligence operation are only the
pieces we know. It can be assumed there’s much we don’t yet
know. And it may help explain why there’s so much material that
the Department of Justice hasn’t easily handed over to
congressional investigators. Sharyl
Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson)
is an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist, author of The
New York Times bestsellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,”
and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program, “Full
Measure.”
TAGS GEORGE
PAPADOPOULOS,
SAMANTHA
POWER,
ROBERT
MUELLER,
JAMES
CLAPPER,
JARED
KUSHNER,
PAUL
MANAFORT,
JOHN
BRENNAN,
DONALD
TRUMP,
SALLY
YATES,
JAMES
COMEY,
SHARYL
ATTKISSON,
RUSSIAN
INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 UNITED STATES ELECTIONS,
TRUMP–RUSSIA
DOSSIER
