James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, and Michael Flynn testify before the House Intelligence Committee in 2014. (Credit: CSpan screenshot)
“As the Trump DOJ attempts to sift through exactly what the Obama administration was pulling during the 2016 US election, Attorney General William Barr and his team of investigators are pursuing the following information, according to RealClear Investigations‘ Paul Sperry.
- Agendas for former CIA chief John Brennan’s secret interagency task force meetings on alleged Trump-Russia collusion in the spring, summer and fall of 2016, which he sent in envelopes to FBI Director James Comey, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
- A series of papers that task force, known as the “fusion cell,” drafted for the White House.
- A classified August 2016 document Brennan hand-delivered in a sealed envelope to Obama containing information from someone Brennan described as “a critical informant close to Putin.” The informant is believed to have beeen a Russian source recycled from a largely debunked dossier compiled by ex-British agent Christopher Steele for the Hillary Clinton campaign.
- An email exchange from December 2016 between Brennan and Comey in which Brennan is said to have argued for using the Steele dossier in early drafts of the task force’s January 2017 intelligence assessment, which spread the narrative that Vladimir Putin personally ordered a hacking operation to harm Hillary Clinton’s election chances against Donald Trump.
- All drafts of the Russia intelligence assessment, or ICA, along with classified footnotes revealing the sourcing behind it.
- Confidential source reports, known as FD-1023s, summarizing briefings between FBI agents and the informants and assets they jointly handled with the CIA, including Christopher Steele, Felix Sater, Azra Turk, and ex-Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, who apparently lured Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page overseas, where he secretly tape-recorded them.
- Transcripts of conversations Halper recorded prior to July 31, 2016, in which Papadopoulos allegedly “denies any illegal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia,” according to Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.
- Copies of all FBI, CIA and State Department records related to Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese professor whose statements regarding Papadopoulos allegedly triggered the original Russia-collusion probe.
- Diplomatic cables between Australia and the U.S. that mention former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer’s tip to the FBI that Papadopoulos allegedly bragged about Mifsud telling him the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.
- Queries former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice and U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power made to the NSA between January 2016 and January 2017 to unmask the identities of Trump figures caught up in upstream collections, or intercepts, of foreign nationals — including logs that remain under lock and key at an Obama Foundation storage site outside Chicago.
- An Obama “interagency memorandum of understanding” signed by the FBI and CIA enabling outside contractors — including possibly Clinton campaign contractor Fusion GPS — to gain “improper access” (per a court opinion) to raw FISA data from November 2015 to April 2016.
- Classified notes from late spring 2016 of Comey briefing White House officials on “the [Carter] Page information.”
- At least four previously undisclosed, sealed Comey memos memorializing his conversations with Trump that are said to document the investigative steps taken by the FBI, as well as the codename and true name of a “confidential human source” — and evidence obtained from this source, including the identification of at least one Trump target.
- Allegedly rejected FISA applications for warrants to spy on Page filed in June and July of 2016.
- FISA applications to monitor Papadopoulos, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in 2016 — in addition to all versions of the Page applications that were approved from October 2016 to June 2017, along with supporting materials.
- All summaries of interviews the FBI conducted with Steele in 2016, known as FD-302s, as well as the unredacted 302 reports of the FBI’s dozen interviews with Justice official Bruce Ohr, who provided back-channel briefings from Steele after the FBI terminated him in November 2016.
- FBI 302 reports summarizing 2016 meetings with Russian oligarch (and FBI informant) Oleg Deripaska, who reportedly scoffed at the idea that Trump colluded with Moscow when agents visited him in New York.
- FBI 302s of agents’ Feb. 10, 2017, interview with Mifsud during which the Mueller Report says Mifsud lied to agents.