‘TRUMP WAS RIGHT’
FBI texts reveal an investigation out of control
Newly uncovered text messages show that FBI employees were privately baffled as to why investigations into Donald Trump’s campaign were continuing without any evidence of wrongdoing. In one case, an agent wrote “Trump was right” about things being dragged out.
“Trump was right,” an FBI employee declared shortly after the then-president-elect suggested officials had delayed a White House transition briefing on Russian meddling in the 2016 election because they needed time “to build a case.”
The bombshell admission is contained in a text-message exchange that took place on Jan. 5, 2017, and was among several that lawyers for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said were turned over to them late Thursday night.
During the conversation on the FBI’s Lync messaging system, unidentified workers discussed a briefing that day of then-President Barack Obama, according to the court filing.
“What’s the word on how O’s briefing went,” one asked.
“Dont know but people here are scrambling for info to support certain things and its a mad house,” another wrote.
The next message was a oneword response, “jesus,” followed by an apparent reference to a Trump tweet from two days earlier.
“trump was right. still not put together….why do we do this to ourselves. what is wrong with these people,” an FBI employee wrote.
In his Jan. 3, 2017, tweet, Trump wrote, “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!”
The identities of the FBI employees involved in the conversation are blacked out in the DC federal court filing, and it was not clear how many took part or what their roles were at the bureau.
But five days later, court papers say, the “same employees” had another text-message exchange in which one revealed how “we all went and purchased professional liability insurance.”
“all the analysts too?” another asked.
“yep,” was the reply. Another message added, “all the folks at the Agency as well.”
“that really, really sucks,” was the response.
A later message said, “yea .... the whole thing is pretty ugly .... we shall see how things pan out.”
Flynn’s lawyers included the conversations in a filing to support dismissal of the case against the retired Army general, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“This evidence shows outrageous, deliberate misconduct by FBI and [the Justice Department] — playing games with the life of a national hero,” Flynn’s lawyers wrote.
In another court filing Friday, the Justice Department — which in May moved to drop its prosecution of Flynn — filed an internal FBI report in which an agent who worked on the case said “there was a ‘get Trump’ attitude by some members” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team.
Agent William Barnett described an “upside down” environment “with attorneys drafting search warrants and getting agents to simply act as affiants,” a legal term for people who swear to the contents of affidavits, according to the report, which summarizes an interview conducted Sept. 17.
Barnett told his interviewers that “incidents involving Trump were taken in the most negative manner, or in some cases misinterpreted,” according to the report, known as a “302.”
In addition, he said that when it came to the top-ranking members of Mueller’s team, there appeared to be “the conviction there was ‘something criminal there’ and a competition as to which attorney was going to find it.”
“Barnett still did not see any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government,” the report says.
“Barnett was willing to follow any instructions being given by the deputy director as long as it was not a violation of the law.”
He also said “some individuals” on Mueller’s team “assumed Flynn was lying to cover up collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
“Barnett believed Flynn lied in
his interview to save his job, as that was the most plausible explanation and there was no evidence to contradict it,” the report says.
“Barnett believed the prosecution of Flynn by Mueller’s office was used as a means to ‘get Trump.’ ”
Despite the agreement between Flynn’s lawyers and the Justice Department to drop the case against him, presiding Judge Emmet Sullivan has refused to dismiss it and instead appointed former Brooklyn federal Judge John Gleeson to offer advice as a “friend of the court.”
That move prompted a challenge by Flynn, who scored a split, 2-1 victory from a DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel in June, only to have it reversed by the entire court in an 8-2 vote in August.
In a court filing earlier this month, Gleeson said he believed the Justice Department’s decision to drop Flynn’s case “rests on pure pretext” and “reflects a corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system.”
Sullivan has scheduled oral arguments on the matter for Tuesday morning, hours before the first debate between Trump and Joe Biden.