Pro-Trumpers and conservatives generally were upset by the FBI’s aggressive raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has done nothing to assuage that anger. The Justice Department is fighting the release of the affidavit that led to the search warrant, which, to pour gas on the fire, was granted by a federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama.
But if that’s not enough, here’s more about the raid that will heat up pro-Trumpers even further.
Paul Sperry of Real Clear Investigations reported late last week that the FBI counterintelligence unit managing the case involving the raid is in Washington, and not Miami, as the public has been led to believe.
Moreover, according to Sperry, it’s the same unit that ran the 2016-2017 Russia “collusion” investigation of Trump, which was codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.” And they’re coming after Trump even as they are being pursued themselves.
“Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, [FBI agent] Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit,” Sperry reported.
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And they do so even though “they are under active investigation by both [Special Counsel John] Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility.”
Wait. It gets better. As Sperry reported:
“In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.”
“FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian ‘disinformation,’ an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.”
Additionally, “Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.”
Auten is an alleged expert on nuclear war. The records seized from Trump reportedly contained references to nuclear weapons codes.
Yet is it plausible coming from someone who sold the “collusion” hoax? One former FBI agent suggested no.
“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” Michael Biasello, a 27-year FBI veteran, told Sperry. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”
Yet there is still more.
Sperry noted that Jay Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department’s national security division, is a donor to the Democratic National Committee. He has been coordinating the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
Also involved in the probe is Alan Kohler, head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. Kohler’s previous work includes connections to Stefan Halper, a longtime FBI contractor who attempted to get Trump campaign officials to confess to the phony collusion claim, and Stephen Somma, who was a key agent in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that the IG asserted was “‘primarily responsible for some of the worst misconduct in the FISA warrant abuse scandal,” Sperry added.
Sperry also pointed out that another agent Timothy Thibault, who was previously on the case but reassigned just before the Mar-a-Lago raid, “worked with Auten to falsely discredit evidence of alleged money laundering and other activities against Hunter Biden and prevent agents from investigating them.”
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Bratt is closely tied to David Laufman, who served as the top counterintelligence official at the Justice Department before Bratt. Laufman, Sperry noted, endorsed “the wiretapping of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, which the Department of Justice inspector general determined was conducted under false pretenses involving doctored email, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and other malfeasance.”
Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor and Trump administration official, told Sperry, “Tragically, the same FBI characters that were involved in Russiagate are the same counter-intel guys running this ‘national security investigation’ against Trump.”
“It’s just insane.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Free Press.
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