Congressional investigators have uncovered bombshell information that reveals coordination by the FBI and DOJ to push for faster approval of FISA warrants on Trump campaign member Carter Page.
Text messages between FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok reveal the difficulty in getting a warrant to spy on the Trump volunteer:
Sara Carter reports:
In one of the September 2016 text message chains, Strzok tells Lisa Page about an argument that occurred with former DOJ prosecutor David Laufman. Laufman, who was then chief of the DOJ’s National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, oversaw the probe into former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, as well as the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Was the resignation of the DOJ’s Laufman about the corruption and coordination he participated in?
Laufman left the DOJ earlier this year citing personal reasons for leaving his post, according to news reports.
In the text message, Strzok complains that Laufman told him the hold-up for the application “EDVA is/was the delay.” The EDVA is the Eastern District of Virginia, a court that had issued several FISAs in the early days of the investigation, congressional investigators said.
“Everything here—from the texts complaining about FISA delays to the exchanges indicating coordination, to the White House visitor logs—seems to match to a disturbing degree. At best, it’s a strange coincidence worth investigating further—but it’s likely much more,” a congressional investigator told this reporter. “Congress has to take this information seriously if we hope to restore Americans’ trust in our federal justice system.”
In March 2016 there was already tension brewing between the FBI and Laufman.
“I am getting aggravated at Laufman,” a March 2016 message from Strzok to Lisa Page said.
According to congressional investigators, the new communications suggest that conflict only got deeper in the following months.
In a Sept. 8, 2016 text message, Lisa Page told Strzok: “Oh, just make sure I understood where things were on the [redacted] paper, trying to talk to Axelrod [Matthew Axelrod, DOJ prosecutor] because he’s ‘so angry’ with how this came over to them. I told her not to put herself out too much if Matt wants to call and yell at Andy it’s fine.” Matthew Axelrod was the former top deputy to then acting attorney general Sally Yates. Yates was fired by Trump in January 2017 after she refused to enforce his executive travel ban order.
The reference to ‘Andy’ is former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired on March 16, by the Department of Justice at the request of the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). Only several days after the text was sent, White House visitor logs reveal that on Sept. 12, 2016, Axelrod met with President Obama at the White House.
The disturbing new details point to a possible connection and to coordination amongst intel agencies to go after Trump and his campaign.
