U.S. Attorney John Durham's ongoing probe into potential
FBI and Justice
Department misconduct in the run-up to the 2016 election through the
spring of 2017 has transitioned into a full-fledged criminal
investigation, two sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News on
Thursday night.
One source added that DOJ Inspector General Michael
Horowitz's upcoming report on alleged FBI surveillance abuses against the Trump
campaign will shed light on why Durham's probe has become a criminal
inquiry. Horowitz announced on Thursday his report would be available to
the public soon, with "few" redactions.
The investigation's new status means Durham can subpoena
witnesses, file charges, and impanel fact-finding grand juries.
Fox News reported on Tuesday that Durham's probe had expanded
significantly based on new evidence uncovered during a recent trip to Rome with
Attorney General Bill Barr.
Barr reportedly told embassy officials in Italy that he
"needed a conference room to meet high-level Italian security agents where
he could be sure no one was listening in."
A source in the Italian Ministry of Justice told The
Daily Beast earlier this month that Barr and Durham were played a taped
deposition made by Joseph Mifsud, the professor who allegedly told
ex-Trump aide George Papadopoulos that the Russians had
"dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Mifsud reportedly was explaining to
investigators in the deposition why people would want to harm him, and why
he needed police protection.
Papadopoulos has suggested he was connected with Mifsud as part of
a setup orchestrated by intelligence agencies.
Sources told Fox News that Durham was "very
interested" to question former Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump critic who recently dismissed
the idea.
Former CIA Director John Brennan
The New York Times reported Thursday that Durham's criminal review has
prompted some CIA officials to obtain criminal legal counsel in
anticipation of being interviewed.
Brennan and Clapper were at the helm not only when Mifsud spoke to
Papadopoulos, but also when an unverified and largely discredited dossier, written by
British ex-spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign
and Democratic National Committee, was used to help justify a secret
surveillance warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page in the run-up to
the 2016 election. (The Times' reporting on Thursday, which overtly
framed Durham's probe as politically tainted without evidence, did not
mention the Steele dossier at all.)
The FBI apparently obscured the fact that the
Clinton campaign and DNC funded the dossier in its warrant application, telling
the secret court only that the dossier was prepared at the behest of an
unidentified presidential campaign.
Additionally, in its original FISA application and
subsequent renewals, the FBI told the FISA court it "did not believe"
Steele was the direct source for a Yahoo News article implicating Page in Russian collusion.
Instead, the FBI suggested to the secret court, the September 2016 article by
Michael Isikoff was independent corroboration of the dossier. But, London court
records showed that contrary to the FBI's assessments, Steele briefed Yahoo
News and other reporters in the fall of 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS.
It has further emerged that Steele had communications
with a State Department contact -- which were relayed to the FBI -- in
which Steele claimed the Russians were running a "technical/human
operation run out of Moscow targeting the election" and that "payments
to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami."
There is no Russian consulate in Miami, a fact the State
Department official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec,
emphasized in her notes. And, Steele had suggested his client was
"keen" to see his information come to light prior to Election Day.
Additionally, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was unable
to substantiate other key claims in the dossier, including that the Trump
campaign employed hackers in the United States, that there was a compromising
recording of the president in a hotel room, and that ex-Trump attorney Michael
Cohen flew to Prague to build a conspiracy with hackers. Cohen has denied ever
heading to Prague, and no public evidence has contradicted that claim.
Nevertheless, in responding to the expanded Durham probe,
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and House Intelligence
Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., followed the Times' framing and accused
the Trump administration of misconduct.
“These reports, if true, raise profound new concerns that
the Department of Justice under Attorney General William Barr has lost its
independence and become a vehicle for President Trump’s political
revenge," they said. “If the Department of Justice may be used as a tool
of political retribution, or to help the President with a political narrative
for the next election, the rule of law will suffer new and irreparable damage.”
Also on Thursday, top Republicans revealed never-before-seen texts from fired FBI agent
Peter Strzok, in which he apparently discussed systemic leaking at the bureau.
Fired FBI agent Peter Strzok
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson,
R-Wis., and Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed the
texts in a letter to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG)
requesting an update on whether the FBI's apparent leaks to the media were
being probed.
The senators pushed to know whether the ICIG was
looking into Strzok's email to FBI colleagues on April 13, 2017, when he wrote
that an unidentified "agency" might be the "source of some of
the leaks" to the media that he'd been seeing.
"I'm beginning to think the agency got info a lot
earlier than we thought and hasn't shared it completely with us," Strzok
wrote, according to documents that the senators included in their letter to
the ICIG. "Might explain all these weird/seemingly incorrect
leads all these media folks have. Would also highlight agency as a source of
some of the leaks."
The senators also asked why Strzok texted bureau
colleague Lisa Page on Dec. 15, 2016: "Think our sisters have
begun leaking like mad. Scorned and worried and political, they're kicking in
to overdrive."
"What are they worried about, and what are they
kicking into 'overdrive?' Johnson and Grassley wrote. "Who are the
'sisters,' and what does it mean to say that the 'sisters have [been] leaking
like mad'?"
In a June 6, 2017 email to Page, Strzok
mused, "Think there will be a crescendo of leaks/articles leading up
to Thurs."
And, a Dec. 13, 2016 text message apparently showed
Strzok trying to set up a Skype meeting with a reporter. "Text from
reporter: retrieving my password for Skype," he wrote.
Then, on April 6, 2017, Strzok wrote to senior FBI
leadership to complain about a New York Times article entitled, "C.I.A. Had Evidence of Russian Effort to Help Trump
Earlier Than Believed," claiming it painted the FBI in an unfavorable light
and got key facts wrong.
"Mike, below is inaccurate, favors the CIA at the
expense of the FBI in particular, and is at odds with what Apuzzo and Goldman
know," Strzok wrote. "Most importantly, it's at odds with the
D's [FBI Director's] recent public testimony that we've been looking at
links (which necessarily imply favoring Trump) since July '16."
Strzok specifically objected to the Times' reporting that
the CIA's briefings with lawmakers "indicate that intelligence officials
had evidence of Russia’s intentions to help Mr. Trump much earlier in the
presidential campaign than previously thought," and "reveal a
critical split last summer between the C.I.A. and counterparts at the F.B.I.,
where a number of senior officials continued to believe through last fall that Russia’s
cyberattacks were aimed primarily at disrupting America’s political system, and
not at getting Mr. Trump elected, according to interviews."
Horowitz, the DOJ watchdog, faulted the FBI last year for repeated violations of its media communications policy,
noting that agents had received gifts from reporters and leaked regularly and
brazenly -- even from phones at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Gregg
Re is a lawyer and editor based in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @gregg_re or email
him at gregory.re@foxnews.com
