Shame the FBI or Abuses Will Escalate

If the FBI can selectively leak portions of the affidavit agents used to justify the search of Mar-a-Lago, then why should it be allowed to conceal the rest of the affidavit?

I have been unable to locate any condemnation by the FBI of the leaks to the New York Times of the “highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government,” in connection with the Mar-a-Lago raid. That’s strange because only a day earlier the Justice Department told a federal judge that releasing the names of these witnesses would, “jeopardize the integrity of this national security investigation.” The silence is deafening.

On Monday, the Department of Justice filed an opposition to the release of the affidavit the FBI used to justify its “panty raid” on Mar-a-Lago.“Disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit supporting probable cause would, by contrast, cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation,” the government argued. “As the Court is aware from its review of the affidavit, it contains, among other critically important and detailed investigative facts: highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government.”

The very next day, within 24 hours, the Times published an article exposing “Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, the White House counsel and his deputy under President Donald J. Trump,” as the very witnesses whose identity the Department of Justice said it wanted to protect. If this were a real investigation, the target would now be warned to be careful talking to these two witnesses.

The source for the Times article? “Three people familiar with the matter.” It’s conceivable that at the very moment a Justice Department lawyer wrote the warning to the court about revealing witness identities, three of the involved FBI agents were doing just that.

Of course, there will be no condemnation of the leaks of the identity of these witnesses because it’s part of the FBI’s public relations campaign and election interference strategy. In spite of the FBI constantly seeking secrecy to protect its “sources and methods,” it’s more than happy to leak its sources as one of its very dirty methods.

If all of this seems vaguely familiar, it’s probably because of the many developing parallels between the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago panty raid and its Russian collusion hoax perpetrated to obtain a FISA warrant. Then, as now, the FBI leaked supposedly secret details of its investigation to mount a politically inspired public relations campaign against Trump. The election-year leaks accusing Trump campaign figure Carter Page of being a Russian spy became so flagrant that Page wrote an open letter to the FBI demanding an opportunity to clear his name. He wrote,

I am writing to request the FBI’s prompt end of the reported inquiry regarding my personal trip to Russia in July 2016—an investigation which has been widely mentioned in the media . . . Although I have not been contacted by any member of your team in recent months, I would eagerly await their call to discuss any final questions they might possibly have in the interest of helping them put these outrageous allegations to rest while allowing each of us to shift our attention to relevant matters.

In the case of the Carter Page FISA warrants, the FBI fought a vigorous battle to protect the supporting affidavits from public view. No wonder. While it claimed then that it was merely protecting “sources and methods,” it turned out that its sources included the debunked Steele dossier procured by Hillary Clinton and its “methods” included lying to the FISA court to get...

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