 [HOT AIR] "The early accounts of the report suggest that it is likely to stoke the debate over the investigation without definitively resolving it, by offering both sides different conclusions they can point to as vindication for their rival worldviews," says the NYT of what its sources are telling them.
There is some anti-Trump bias in the mix of misconduct here, according to those sources. Allegedly that came from FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, whom the NYT identifies as the subject of the criminal investigation that John wrote about last night. Clinesmith supposedly altered an email written by an official at another agency, adding a factual assertion at the end to make it look like it had been written by the author. That altered email was then given to an FBI official to read before signing an affidavit that was part of the FISA submission against Carter Page. Clinesmith was also known to text things to friends like "viva la resistance" when asked if he planned to stay in government despite his disdain for Trump.
He’s resigned from the FBI and is now in a heap of legal trouble, as he should be. This solves the mystery, it seems, of why the Durham investigation is now a criminal probe. Maybe not the whole mystery ‐ Durham could be looking at other people ‐ but at a minimum Clinesmith has been pinched for altering the form.
The Times claims that Clinesmith was "low-level." What about the high-level Russiagate personnel: Comey, McCabe, and Peter Strzok? According to the sources, there’s no allegation made that their work was influenced by antipathy to Trump. I’ve never understood why, if they were out to wreck POTUS, they wouldn’t have leaked something damaging during the campaign to try to blow him up on Election Day, but oh well. The IG did apparently find "sloppy and unprofessional" work in parts of the FISA application, including "errors and omissions in documents" ("the renewal applications contained information that should have been left out, and vice versa"), but no abuse of power. As for the other core conspiracy suspicions about Russiagate, no dice: 
|
