I know we’ve been waiting a long time for the Department of Justice’s inspector general on the alleged FISA abuses that occurred under the Obama administration. It was supposed to be released this summer. Now, it’s due out in early September. The contents might not send anyone from the Obama DOJ to jail, but it will reaffirm what we have been saying for quite some time: that the FBI was allegedly spying on Trump officials, that the meddling of the most concern was really coming from the J. Edgar Hoover Building, and that the Trump dossier was known to be biased, mostly unverified, but also cited as credible evidence in the securing of a spy warrant against Carter Page, Trump’s former foreign policy adviser. The sitting president used the DOJ to place the presidential campaign of the opposing party under surveillance. That’s pretty deep state-ish right there.
Based on the report on Russian collusion by ex-Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Trump dossier pretty much debunked. There is no evidence that the Kremlin and the Trump team colluded during the 2016 election. There was no blackmail campaign. Was this an intentional Russian misinformation campaign aimed at driving some—cough*Democrats cough*–insane? Maybe. Attorney General William Barr is looking into the origins of this circus. The FBI did not verify the dossier either. That’s evident in the glaring inaccuracies in the Trump dossier, which was compiled by former MI6 spook Christopher Steele. And by glaring, I mean—could’ve been easily verified by a simple Google search. The State Department knew the dossier was biased political propaganda as well; Steele told them. He also told the FBI. Steele’s political opposition research project was funded by the Clinton campaign, who had contracted Fusion GPS to lead the effort. Fusion subsequently hired Steele to compile this document. Oh, and members of British intelligence were also highly skeptical of this document.
And yet, cited reportedly three times as credible evidence in renewing a FISA warrant against Page, who had worked with the State Department, CIA, and FBI for years. It’s not out there to suggest that a lot of dirty laundry is about to be revealed. And FBI Director Chris Wray might want to keep that hidden, according to former White House Chief of Staff and New Hampshire Governor John Sununu (via Washington Examiner):
"I think they should see it all because frankly there’s nothing there of substance that applies to any real intelligence process. It was all a fabricated set of intelligence relationships that were being used to entrap, if you will, the Trump administration," Sununu said on Fox News.
Sununu said he believes the American public will see "a great deal" of the report, which is expected to be released as early as September, though he warned Wray might try to hide some of its findings.
"The only person over there that I think is going to try and prevent that is Christopher Wray who I think has really been co-opted by the FBI bureaucracy," Sununu said.
Republicans have criticized Wray, who was nominated to lead the FBI by President Trump, because of the FBI's resistance to certain document requests and also because he disputed Attorney General William Barr's use of the word "spying" to describe the government surveillance of Trump's 2016 campaign. Barr has praised Wray amid the criticism.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he expects the report to be “ugly and damning.” We’ll see. The FBI’s alleged bad behavior also goes beyond Page and Trump. They were warned that a key document that was used to investigate Paul Manafort was fake. They ignored it.