On last Sunday, prior to the House Intelligence Committee vote to release the FISA memo, FBI Director Christopher Wray was brought in to the House of Representatives secure room location to review the memo for accuracy. After 90 minutes he responded that there were no errors, in fact, contained therein.
On Wednesday, realizing that the White House was going to release the memo over his objection, the FBI issued a terse two-paragraph message laying bare its worries about the document.
“With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” the statement said. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
Disingenuous? Inaccurate? Grave concerns about material omissions? HORSEHOCKEY!
The FBI & Justice Department had “stonewalled the House Oversight Committee for better than a year until they finally were forced to produce documents regarding the activities surrounding the FISA investigation under threat of subpoena and charges of Contempt of Congress.
After Chairman Nunes personally took FBI Director Christopher Wray to view the “Intel Memo” on Sunday night, and prior to the House Intel Committee vote to release the memo Monday evening, FBI Director Wray sent a Main Justice official and a “counterintelligence official” to view the content.
The two officials – one from the bureau’s counterintelligence division and the other from the legal division. These officials could not point to any factual inaccuracies. The top official within FBI Counter-Intelligence is still the same official who was present during the 2016/2017 “Trump Operation. His name is Bill Priestap.
On the trail to get this far, we have been introduced to a number of Department of Justice and FBI players. Names like FBI Agent Peter Strzok; his mistress FBI Attorney Lisa Page; their ideological comrade deposed Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe; FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker; DOJ-NSD head John P Carlin; along with DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr; and his wife, Fusion-GPS contract employee Nellie Ohr. Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby. These are a few of the names that have hit the headlines as a result of ongoing investigations into the politicization of the FBI and DOJ.
…. But there’s one name ALWAYS conspicuously absent, FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.
When you understand how central Bill Priestap is to the entire 2016/2017 ‘Russian Conspiracy Operation‘, the absence of his name, amid all others, creates a curiosity.
Bill Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation. He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss. If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know. That’s why Devin Nunes wanted to talk to him.
So there we have FBI Director James Comey telling congress on March 20th, 2017, that the reason he didn’t inform the statutory oversight “Gang of Eight” was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn’t do it.
Apparently, according to Comey, Bill Priestap carries a great deal of influence if he could get his boss to NOT perform a statutory obligation simply by recommending he doesn’t do it.
Then again, Comey’s blame-casting there is really called creating a “fall guy”. FBI Director James Comey is ducking responsibility in March 2017 by blaming FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap for not informing congress of the operation that began in July 2016. (9 months prior).
At that moment, that very specific moment during that March 20th hearing, anyone who watches these hearings closely could see Comey was creating his own exit from getting ensnared in the consequences from the wiretapping and surveillance operation of President Donald Trump. In essence, Bill Priestap is James Comey’s shield from liability.
But more curiously for current discussion, there has been NO MENTION of Bill Priestap in any of the media revelations, despite his centrality to all of it.
Bill Priestap would have needed to authorize Peter Strzok to engage with Christopher Steele over the “Russian Dosssier”.
Bill Priestap would have needed to approve of the underlying documents that were used for both FISA applications (June/July and Sept/Oct).
Bill Priestap would be the person to approve of paying, or reimbursing, Christopher Steele for the Russian Dossier used in their counterintelligence operation and subsequent FISA application.
Without Bill Priestap involved, approvals, etc. the entire Russian/Trump Counterintelligence operation just doesn’t happen. Heck, James Comey’s March testimony in that regard is also evidence of Priestap’s importance.
So we all can see that Bill Priestap is a central figure.
•FBI Director James Comey defers to him;
•FBI Special Agent in Counterintelligence Peter Strzok reports to him.
Yet there’s absolutely no mention of Bill Priestap in any of the explosive investigative story-lines in the entire two months this story was breaking headlines.
Why?
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