The Illustrated Spygate Scandal - Part XXX
The first political coup in American history
See Part I to start at the beginning.
March 1, 2018
Devin Nunes sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions that pulled no punches. The FISA applications used to spy on Carter Page may have violated multiple criminal statutes.
Criminal. Statutes.
Not policy violations. Not procedural errors. Crimes.
“If DOJ and FBI officials signed off on FISA applications knowing that the evidence was insufficient or that the procedures were not properly followed,” Nunes wrote, “they may be prosecuted for any number of criminal statutes.”
He listed them: 18 U.S.C. § 242 (deprivation of rights under color of law). 18 U.S.C. § 1505 (obstruction of justice). 18 U.S.C. § 1515b (misleading conduct). 18 U.S.C. § 1621 (perjury). 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (false statements).
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was formally asking the Attorney General to investigate whether senior FBI and DOJ officials had committed federal crimes.
This wasn’t oversight anymore. This was a criminal referral.
Sessions would later recuse himself from anything Russia-related, leaving Rod Rosenstein in charge. Rosenstein, who’d signed one of the FISA applications in question. Rosenstein, who had every incentive to bury any investigation that might implicate himself.
The letter went nowhere. But it established for the record that congressional investigators believed crimes had been committed.
And someone would have to answer for them.
March 2, 2018
The deadline came and went. Devin Nunes had given former Obama administration officials until March 2nd to respond to his ten questions about the dossier.
The questions were pointed, specific, and designed to force answers that would reveal the coordination that Nunes suspected lay beneath the surface:
When did you first learn of the Steele dossier?
Who provided it to you?
Did you know who funded it?
Did you brief members of Congress about it?
Did you coordinate with other agencies about it?
The responses, when they came, were exercises in evasion. Carefully lawyered non-answers that parsed every word to avoid perjury while revealing nothing of substance.
John Brennan’s lawyers claimed attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. James Clapper’s response was similarly guarded. Susan Rice declined to answer on advice of counsel. Samantha Power’s attorneys said she couldn’t recall specific briefings or dates.
“They’re all hiding behind lawyers,” one committee investigator said. “Which tells you everything. With nothing to hide, they’d just answer the questions.”
But the evasions were telling in themselves. Former Obama officials weren’t denying coordination. They weren’t denying knowledge of the dossier’s political origins. They were simply refusing to answer, which in Washington is often as good as a confession.
March 5, 2018
Admiral Mike Rogers dropped a quiet bombshell. In a classified letter to Chairman Nunes, the NSA Director directly contradicted John Brennan’s repeated claims that the Steele dossier was “not in any way” used as the basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment.
Rogers’ letter was clinical in its precision. A two-page summary of the dossier—described as “the Christopher Steele information”—was “added” as an “appendix to the ICA draft,” he wrote. And consideration of that appendix was “part of the overall ICA review/approval process.”
In other words: Brennan had lied. Under oath. Multiple times.
