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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Here Are 5 Questions the FBI Refuses to Answer on Its Actions During 2016 Here Are 5 Questions the FBI Refuses to Answer on Its Actions During 2016 By Fred Lucas May 23, 2018 at 3:25pm At least 19 House Republicans are sponsoring a resolution calling for a special counsel to investigate the conduct of the Justice Department and FBI during the 2016 election campaign. For a year now, special counsel Robert Mueller and his team have investigated Russia’s meddling in the presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. The resolution calls for a second special counsel to look at how the Justice Department handled the probe of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, how the Russia investigation regarding President Donald Trump began, and potential abuse of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act. The 12-page measure, if approved, would be a “sense of Congress” resolution and would not bind the Justice Department. “In just the past few days, we learned that the DOJ, FBI, or both appear to have planted at least one person into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to infiltrate and surveil the campaign,” GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York said Tuesday at a Capitol Hill news conference. “This action alone reminds us of just how necessary this resolution is, as well as the appointment of a second special counsel.” The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General has completed a draft report on the FBI’s Clinton investigation and just announced it will do a separate review of the FBI’s apparent spying on the Trump campaign. But an inspector general does not have authority to subpoena and bring charges, as a special prosecutor would. Here are five unanswered questions about the actions of the Justice Department and FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign. 1. Was ‘Informant’ a Spy in Trump Campaign? Numerous media organizations reported in recent days that Stefan Halper, a professor at Cambridge University who served in three Republican administrations and has ties to the CIA and British intelligence, was a government informant who gathered information on the Trump campaign in 2016. Trump met Monday with Justice Department officials, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray. The White House backed the Justice Department’s decision to have the inspector general look into apparent spying on the Trump campaign, while also allowing White House chief of staff John Kelly to review classified information the department has resisted providing to Congress regarding the informant. The New York Times reported last week that a “government informant” collected information from Trump campaign officials in an operation called “Crossfire Hurricane.” The newspaper reported: The FBI obtained phone records and other documents using national security letters — a secret type of subpoena — officials said. And at least one government informant met several times with (Carter) Page and (George) Papadopoulos, current and former officials said. That has become a politically contentious point, with Mr. Trump’s allies questioning whether the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign or trying to entrap campaign officials. Papadopoulos, a former adviser for the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty last fall to lying to investigators. Page, also an adviser on the Trump campaign, was the subject of government surveillance in 2016. “If the FBI was running a confidential informant or a recruited asset against a presidential candidate, that would mark a significant departure from what is proper with regard to political targeting and the use of law enforcement,” Chris Farrell, a former Army counterintelligence officer who now directs investigations and research for Judicial Watch, told The Daily Signal. After Trump and Republicans in Congress raised questions abouts its reporting, the Times published a follow-up story that seemed to parse the terms “informant” and “spy.” A Times story over the weekend was headlined “FBI Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims.” The story asserted: “No evidence has emerged that the informant acted improperly … or that agents veered from the FBI’s investigative guidelines.” Nevertheless, such a move would be highly unusual during a presidential campaign, said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a former Justice Department lawyer. “Whether it’s a spy, informant, or an undercover agent, it is unprecedented for federal law enforcement to spy undercover against a political campaign,” von Spakovsky said. The Times’ weekend story described an encounter in summer 2016: Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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