OPINION:
In 2017, Kash Patel and his boss, Rep. Devin Nunes, then chair of the House intelligence committee, launched an unprecedented challenge to the FBI’s 7th-floor hierarchy and to its ballyhooed counterintelligence division.
They wanted to see how the bureau had targeted the new president, Donald Trump, in its Russia collusion investigation. More particularly, they asked if the bureau was relying on a Democrat-financed gossipy unverified bundle of anti-Trump claims that had circulated through Washington as the goods that would vanquish the hated “Orange Man.”
The Nunes/Patel team read and double-checked and then issued a bombshell memo in January 2018. The FBI had in fact relied on the Christopher Steele dossier to obtain warrants for electronic surveillance against a Trump campaign person. The FBI asserted to judges that the allegations against Carter Page were golden. They were not.
Spring forward to Aug. 8 and another unprecedented event in the history of Mr. Trump and his nemesis, the FBI. FBI agents, led by the Washington field office and specifically authorized by Attorney General Merrick Garland, raided Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach home, including his hangout, “45 Office,” a storage room and Melania’s closets.
The objective was to collect top secret and other classified documents Mr. Trump took from the White House and kept at Mar-a-Lago. An FBI search warrant affidavit said the entire chain of events was illegal. It mentions Mr. Trump eight times.
There is only one other insider whose name appears in the otherwise heavily censored pages–––Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s trusted aide in 2019-20 and now part of his social media company.
“This same FBI has been investigating death threats made against me due to baseless political overreach by government gangsters and in their greed for political vengeance, have threatened my safety again,” Mr. Patel says.
Here is what the unnamed Washington field office agent told the judge:
“I am aware of an article published in Breitbart on May 5, 2022… which states that Kash Patel, who is described as a former top FPOTUS [former president of the United States] administration official, characterized as ‘misleading’ reports in other news organizations that [National Archives] had found classified materials among records that FPOTUS provided to [National Archives] from Mar-a-Lago. Patel alleged that such reports were misleading because FPOTUS had declassified the materials at issue.”
There it is. The FBI decided to leave Mr. Patel’s name an open secret, subjecting him to the immediate destructive Washington speculation grinder because he expressed an opinion that is the same as Trump legal team’s.
What message do you think the FBI is sending?
Peter Strzok says he knows.
Mr. Strzok headed the FBI’s Russia probe, known as Crossfire Hurricane, when the Nunes/Patel team in 2017 began pressing him and his upper echelon for access to highly classified documents. He is best remembered for the series of texts he exchanged with his then-lover, Lisa Page, the counsel for FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Mr. Strzok pledged to Ms. Page that the bureau would “stop” the Trump candidacy.
The Nunes-Patel January 2018 memo, declassified by Mr. Trump, brought scorn from the Washington press corps. But it has passed the test of time. The memo asserted the FBI abused its wiretap authority by misleading the courts. A subsequent 2019 Justice Department inspector general report confirmed this. Judges later made two of the four warrants invalid.
The Nunes-Patel memo said, “Our findings raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.”
For example, none of the FBI’s four warrant applications told judges that the Christopher Steele dossier was financed by Democrats including the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Mr. Strzok was so delighted to see his former bureau colleagues feature the Patel name that he all but convicted him in a tweet.
“Never great to see your un-redacted name in a search warrant affidavit,” he said.
“To borrow from Eric Hirschman, ‘I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life. Get a great F’ing criminal defense lawyer – you’re going to need it.’”
Mr. Strzok cited the famous quote from Trump impeachment attorney Hirschman in his testimony to the Jan. 6 House committee. He recounted how he gave blunt advice to lawyer John Eastman who sold the outgoing president on a convoluted strategy to overrun the 2020 election.
Asha Rangappa, another anti-Trump ex-FBI agent (a good number are on liberal cable news stations) openly wished for a conviction.
“Kash Patel going to jail could be the silver lining of this entire fiasco,” she tweeted.
To Patel supporters, the Mar-a-Lago raid is starting to take on the hallmarks of the original 2016-19 Russia probe. That investigation nailed some Trump people for not paying taxes. Its big fish, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, was later exonerated via new court filings. The FBI itself never thought he had lied to agents.
But in the Mar-a-Lago probe, there were in fact classified documents housed at Mr. Trump’s home. He is making a legal argument: He had the power, as U.S. government chief executive officer, to declassify them and take possession.
He is essentially doing his own “Russiagate” investigation as his separate civil lawsuit against dossier traffickers plays out in U.S. District Court.
It is the fiery Mr. Patel who has carried Mr. Trump’s stance to podcast/cable news airways.
And then the Justice Department released the search warrant affidavit, with the FBI highlighting his name, framed by thick lines of ominous black ink.
Mr. Patel refers to FBI agents as “gangsters” who are still trying to cover up “Russiagate.”
He calls the unmasking “another vicious attack from DoJ/FBI who intentionally jeopardized my safety by un-redacting my name in the most reviewed search warrant in the history of the United States,” he says.
- Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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