Did the FBI Plant a Mole in Trump’s Presidential Campaign?

Posted by Mary Chastain Friday, May 11, 2018 at 3:00pm

Also, why is the FBI being so difficult with information?

In The Wall Street Journal, Kimberley Strassel penned an op-ed that suggests the FBI may have placed a mole within then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign since the department will not reveal its top-secret source.

And when did the FBI become so secretive? A former FBI agent wrote in the WSJ that in his time, Congress wouldn’t ever need to request a subpoena to retrieve information from the bureau.

The FBI Source

She wrote:

Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that

Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was “wholly appropriate,” “completely within the scope” of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.”

Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.

House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down—accusing the House of “extortion” and delivering a speech in which he claimed that “declining to open the FBI’s files to review” is a constitutional “duty.” Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall.

And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments—that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in “loss of human lives.”

Strassel described Rosenstein’s response as desperation and more than likely the reveal will make the FBI “very uncomfortable.” Strassel continued:

Thanks to the Washington Post’s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe.

When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency.

Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.

This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting. It would also be a major escalation from the electronic surveillance we already knew about, which was bad enough.

Obama political appointees rampantly “unmasked” Trump campaign officials to monitor their conversations, while the FBI played dirty with its surveillance warrant against Carter Page, failing to tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that its supporting information came from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Now we find it may have also been rolling out human intelligence, John Le Carré style, to infiltrate the Trump campaign.

It’s very possible that this “source” is someone who already had a place in the campaign and the FBI merely chose the person.

However, the DOJ has also said that revealing the name could possibly “damage international relationships.” Strassel wrote that means the person “may be overseas, have ties to foreign intelligence, or both.”

Yes, it’s possible another foreigner is part of this puzzle. I mean, everyone is all uppity about Russia interfering in our election, but remember an Australian diplomat “reported the Papadopoulos conversation,” former British spy Christoper Steele authored the dossier, and a former British diplomat told Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) about said dossier.

FOREIGNERS EVERYWHERE.

If the FBI actually planted someone in the campaign, that deserves an investigation like the Russia-Trump collusion.

It’s an intrusion into a presidential campaign and, in my opinion, no better than a foreign government doing the same thing. Actually, it sickens me more to think of our agencies doing it.

The DOJ claims the FBI triggered its investigation into possible collusion after it received a tip in July 2016 about an over talkative George Papadopoulos.

We still need these answers: When did the FBI receive that infamous Steele dossier? When did the FBI receive the Papadopoulos information?

We also need to know when this “source” started because if the person came into play before the Papadopoulos information the FBI “was spying on the Trump campaign before that moment,” which means that the department “had been spurred to act on the basis of something other than a junior campaign aide’s loose lips.”

FBI’s Secretive Behavior

Let’s also look at the hostile behavior from the FBI and DOJ. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed about it from retired FBI special agent Thomas Baker on the same day as Strassel’s piece.

Baker cannot believe the department’s “shocking disrespect for Congress” because during his 33 years at the FBI, “lawmakers’ requests for information got prompt responses.” Baker wrote (emphasis mine):

Former Directors William Webster (1978-87) and Louis Freeh (1993-2001) insisted that the FBI respond promptly to any congressional request. In those days a congressional committee didn’t need a subpoena to get information from the FBI.

Yes, we were particularly responsive to the appropriations committees, which are key to the bureau’s funding. But my colleagues and I shared a general sense that responding to congressional requests was the right thing to do.

The bureau’s leaders often reminded us of Congress’s legitimate oversight role.

This was particularly true of the so-called Gang of Eight, which was created by statute to ensure the existence of a secure vehicle through which congressional leaders could be briefed on the most sensitive counterintelligence or terrorism investigations.

This Gang of Eight is not the same Gang of Eight formed in 2013 who wrote an immigration bill.

No, this Gang of Eight includes eight senators who receive briefings on classified information.

This is why Baker cannot believe that the FBI and DOJ have guarded information so closely or that former FBI Director James Comey didn’t tell Congress about the investigation on Trump.

THIS IS WHY CONGRESS HAS THE GANG OF EIGHT.

Baker said not using this group of senators “is inexplicable” because they EXIST FOR THIS VERY REASON.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/about-that-fbi-source-1525992611

Rupert M also owns Trumps favorite TV News station, Fox News (State TV)... LOL

Like everything in this sordid affair, i try to look at what motivates the writer:

Who actually owns the Wall Street Journal?

A: The Wall Street Journal is owned by media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who purchased the company for $5 billion in 2007 through his company, News Corporation. The sale ended the 105-year-long ownership of the Wall Street Journal by the Bancroft family. Murdoch, one of the world’s most powerful media tycoons, founded Fox Broadcasting in 1986. As of 2015, the Murdoch family controls a media empire consisting of 120 newspapers in five countries, multimedia company 21st Century Fox and book publisher HarperCollins. Founded in 1889, the Wall Street Journal has long dominated American business publishing and was the country's first national newspaper.

Phone-Hacking Scandalv

Not long after News Corp purchased the Wall Street Journal, news broke that journalists at British newspapers owned by Murdoch were tapping phone lines to get the inside scoop for their stories. While Murdoch says he had no direct involvement, the scandal forced the closure of the News of the World, Britain’s top-selling newspaper and led to criminal charges against many senior journalists. As a result, Murdoch dropped his bid to purchase the BSkyB satellite network.

Most members of the Bancroft family said they would not have sold the company to Murdoch had they known of the conduct of his employees in the phone-hacking scandal.

Even before news broke of the scandal, many members of the family showed concern over Murdoch's journalistic practices and attempted to put an independent panel in place to safeguard the paper's ethics.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/111215/who-actually-owns-wall-street-journal.asp#ixzz5FGaiGqsA