In two weeks, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz will release his long awaited report on FISA abuse.  This report deals primarily with the application process and renewals involving the FISA warrant to spy on former Trump campaign advisor, Carter Page.

This report was originally expected to be completed last Spring, but an interesting thing happened along the way.

Attorney General William Barr announced that US Attorney John Durham would look into the beginnings of the investigation into the Trump campaign and its alleged collusion with Russia to win the 2016 election.

The reason Barr appointed Durham was that he was not satisfied with the answers he was receiving from the FBI and DOJ to the questions he had about the investigation.

A couple months later it was reported that Christopher Steele, whose “work” played a prominent role in obtaining the FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page, reached out to IG Horowitz and indicated he would be available for an interview.

He made it clear that he did not want to meet with Durham.  Why?  Because Durham is a prosecutor, whereas Horowitz is not.  I think this is where some people get a little confused about Horowitz’ role in all this, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Steele met with the Horowitz team in late June, and it was this additional information that forced Horowitz to investigate further.  I can pretty much guarantee that this interview raised a lot more questions.

So, now that this report is to be released on December 9th, two days before Horowitz is to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, what should we expect?

Well, the New York Times put out an article late Friday trying to downplay the report.  Now I will get back to the difference between Durham and Horowitz.

Horowitz is simply a watchdog over a huge institution.  His role is not to prosecute.  As such, he is unable to subpoena witnesses.  The only people he has the power to demand to interview are existing employees at the DOJ and FBI.  He can request an interview of people outside of these departments, but only employees are required to meet with him.

So, keep this in mind.  He likely has not interviewed James Comey and Andrew McCabe regarding the FISA abuse, because his investigation started after both were fired.

However, since both have been named in the report, they are given the opportunity to read the sections that deal with them specifically, but they must sign a non-disclosure agreement.  They are then allowed to respond to those sections, and Horowitz at his discretion can include their responses or not, and can also reply.

Keep in mind that nobody is allowed to read the full report.

Therefore, you have to take the New York Times article with a big grain of salt.  Yes, they have their sources, but I can pretty much guarantee that none of read the entire report.

Now, US Attorney John Durham on the other hand, since he has indeed opened a criminal investigation, can subpoena anyone he likes to testify in front of a grand jury.  That grand jury then has the power to hand down indictments.

We already know that, with this particular report, Horowitz has referred an attorney Kevin Clinesmith to the DOJ for potential prosecution for altering evidence used in the application to extend the FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page.

Sundance over at Conservative Treehouse speculates that Clinesmith may have actually altered an email sent to him by Carter Page the day before the FISA warrant on Page was renewed for the third time.

The Times article characterizes Clinesmith as a low level attorney.  He was far from it.  He worked under disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok, interviewed George Papadopolous, and was originally on the Mueller Special Counsel team.

However, Clinesmith was another DOJ employee who expressed his bias against President Trump through tweets.  One particular tweet said “vive le resistance.”

As a result, he was kicked off the Mueller team in early 2018 when Horowitz presented Mueller with those tweets.  When Horowitz completed his draft report, Clinesmith left the FBI.

Also leaving the DOJ around the same time was DOJ National Security Division attorney Tashina Gauhar.  Gauhar had the responsibility of assembling the FISA warrant applications.

The Times article goes on to suggest that the Horowitz will conclude that the FISA application process in regard to Page was simply sloppy, that some information that should’ve been included wasn’t and some that was, shouldn’t have been, blah blah blah.

This minimizes the seriousness of the FISA warrant.  FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  It is used primarily for surveillance of potential foreign terrorists.

To obtain a FISA warrant to spy on an American citizen, it must be demonstrated that there is very strong evidence the person is working for a foreign government.

The evidence presented to the FISA court must be extremely compelling, because the application is done in secret, and the individual in question has no legal representation.

Given that Carter Page had actually assisted the FBI, just months before, in a case involving Russian agents, and was actually a witness against those Russians would suggest that the FBI would need very substantial evidence that he was a now working as a Russian agent.

The evidence presented was the Steele Dossier, which has been virtually debunked completely.

Supposedly written by former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the dossier provided information that Page was supposedly working for the Russians.

The Times article, and many liberal journalists have downplayed the dossier and its importance in obtaining the warrant on Page.

However, based upon the memo produced by Devin Nunes, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, when the GOP was still in the majority, the dossier played a significant role.

With all this in mind, because of the Times article, and followup by other liberal media outlets, many Trump supporters are in an uproar that the IG report is going to be a dud.

Many are hoping that the report refers Comey, McCabe, Strzok and others to the DOJ for prosecution.

I don’t believe this will be the case.  However, I do believe they are already under investigation by John Durham.  In fact, I am 99% certain this is the case.

A couple months ago, it was reported that Durham had expanded his timeline to not only look into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, but all the way through the time period up to when Mueller was named Special Counsel.  That would be mid-May 2017.

In other words, he is investigating EVERYTHING from late 2015 to May 2017.  Who was the FBI director at the time?  James Comey.  And his deputy?  Andrew McCabe.  Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and the entire team at the top of the FBI were still working at the time until Trump fired Comey in early May 2017.

As time went on, may top FBI brass resigned or were fired, starting with Comey.  Then it was Michael Kortan (FBI director of public relations), McCabe, James Baker (Chief FBI Counsel), James Rybicki (Comey’s chief of staff), Lisa Page, and more recently, Kevin Clinesmith.

Horowitz’ report is expected to be detailed and long.  It has been reported that it may be around 1,000 pages.

A report that long is not written if it was going to be nothing but good news for the FBI and DOJ.  I expect the report to be quite damning.

Horowitz will then testify and those who don’t read the report will learn more about what is inside.  If you only listen to news outlets for information, you will only get spin, so either read the report or watch the testimony on December 11.

Then, hopefully, John Durham will let us know his current thoughts on what he’s investigating.

I’ll leave you with a couple nuggets being reported about Durham recently.  First, he either already has been, or is scheduling a THIRD trip to Italy to speak with Italian government officials.

George Papadopolous (GP) believes that former CIA director John Brennan enlisted the Italians and Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud to get the ball rolling by planting info with GP that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.

GP, in a subsequent meeting with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer in Spring 2016, mentioned this information.  Downer then reported this to the FBI a couple months later, and in July 2016, Peter Strzok opens the investigation into the Trump campaign dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane.”

The second nugget is this… Durham has been interviewing employees at the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA).  It was the ONA that paid informant Stefan Halper to also “spy” on members of the Trump campaign, including General Michael Flynn, GP and Carter Page.

Halper had contact with all three at one point or another.

Halper was reportedly paid as much as $1 million to conduct some reports for the ONA, but there are no records of his actual work.  Halper had been a long time asset for the FBI and CIA going back to the Reagan administration.

Durham has clearly picked up the scent.  Therefore, I anticipate some sort of statement from AG Barr and/or Durham some time after Horowitz testifies.

Then, let the games begin!