The Justice Department and its agency the Federal Bureau of Investigation are under the executive branch of the federal government and are run by political appointees. There is no way to maintain what is somewhat bizarrely referred to as a “Chinese wall” between Justice and the FBI and the executive branch of government. It is the executive branch of government. Keep those things in mind as you read Glenn Greenwald’s remarks at The Intercept on the reports that the FBI maintained an “informant” in the Trump campaign from its earliest days.
Did they have probable cause? A warrant? If so, why has that not emerged from the Mueller investigation? So much else has. Do they secure “informants” in every presidential campaign organization as a matter of course?
I disagree somewhat with Mr. Greenwald’s assertion that “THERE IS NOTHING inherently untoward, or even unusual, about the FBI using informants in an investigation”. I think if it’s not inherently unusual to use informants in the investigation of a political campaign, it should be.
IMO this looks very much like it meets the definition of a “seditious conspiracy” in 18 U.S. Code § 2384.
You know the answers to all the questions in your second paragraph.
It takes time, but this whole sordid tail is coming out. The IG report won’t be pretty either.
Stay tuned for a torrent of “end justifies the means” arguments.
Rather than answering the questions seriatim, let me respond this way. I think that what happened there was a combination of group-think and machinations by the political appointees. The challenge is how do we cope with that? There will always be political appointees. That’s what “political control” means. I think that the FBI needs to cultivate a culture of non-involvement in politics along the lines of the one that prevails in our military. That’s very difficult to do in a civilian organization.
If I had a free hand for reform, I’d reform the civil service code to allow summary dismissal for politicking on even the smell of evidence. That’s pretty draconian but I’m not sure how to accomplish it otherwise.
At this point, I really don’t believe anything until I see the evidence. There is much selective leaking and unverifiable claims by both sides that have a massive qui bono problem that I don’t trust anyone right now.
This is the same guy who stole information from Carter to give to reagan? Meh. Need to wait to see what really happened but sounds like the guy is a semi-retired professor who talked with a Popodopoulos (sp?) and Page when he heard they had been meeting with Russians. Guy has been on CIA payroll for years, I think. Not sure why this would be considered spying on the campaign, well at least not by reasonable people.
Query- Assume the Trump people had been having secret meetings with Russians? Should that have been ignored?
Steve
I thought I was in bizarro land reading the stories this weekend.
Consider Chuck Ross of Daily Caller had broken all the essentials of the story in March, was featured in realclearinvestigations yet no major media would credit him or the Daily Caller as the origin of this.
For weeks Rosenstein and other government officials had warned exposing the source would risk lives; Rosenberg said to investigate Mr Halper’s role was extortion; yet reading the New York Times and Washington Post stories it seems it was leaked by these very folks, and to save credibility did not name Mr Halper while giving such an exact description it left no doubt.
Then there was bizarre language used; like the FBI didn’t use an informant to go after Trump, they used one to protect him. Or FBI used informant to investigate Russian ties to campaign, not to spy as Trump claims.
That’s not to say Trump had a good week – the release of Congressional testimony seem to indicate Don Jr may (probably) talked to President Trump about the infamous meeting.
” I think if it’s not inherently unusual to use informants in the investigation of a political campaign, it should be.”
I agree. It should only happen in campaigns where one of the candidate publicly asks another foreign nation to spy on the other candidate.
““I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,†the Republican nominee said at a news conference in Florida. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.â€
Or maybe we just limit to campaigns that have more than 3 top advisors having secret meetings with foreign leaders to talk about the campaign. (The usually conservative comeback her is to claim that the Clinton campaign also met with Russians or someone. I don’t like Clinton either and would be perfectly happy to see her face consequences also.)
Steve