Massively illegal. Michael Susmann, the Clinton lawyer who worked for Perkins Coie, fed fake intel to the FBI and got the ball rolling on the Russia investigation. Susmann is now on trial for making false statements to the FBI as part of the Durham probe.
This is a massive ball of wax but here are just a few big highlights off the top of my head:
Trump campaign was spied on BEFORE Trump was elected as well as AFTER. That means during the race the intel agencies were snooping around in his emails/phone calls. Trump tower's phones were indeed tapped.
They also had access to the internet data in both Trump tower and THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE. They used this access to plant phony data connecting Trump to the Russian bank Alfa bank.
According to text messages between disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzock and FBI lawyer Lisa Page (they were having an affair) the white house wanted updates on the Russia investigation, implying it was ordered and monitored by Obama.
Strzock was also the FBI agent who headed up the Clinton email investigation (he even questioned Hillary himself) AND was the agent who entraped Michael Flynn. What a coincidence this guy is all over the key investigations...
Cater Page, an advisor to the Trump campaign, was the entry point for intel to spy on the campaign. Page had no ties to Russia or Russian intelligence.
Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general, signed off on a number of FISA warrants (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to spy on Carter Page and claims he didn't read the requests, he just signed them without realizing what they were. FISA is the secret government court that approves wire-tapping warrants, typically to spy on suspected terrorists and the like.
George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor to the campaign, was set up by John Brennan's CIA with regards to Russiagate. Basically a CIA asset told him "the Russians have Hillary's emails". He then told another CIA asset that he had heard a rumor the Russians had Hillary's lost emails. That was the invented pretext to push the investigation along.
Kevin Clinesmith, a lawyer for the FBI, altered an email saying that Carter Page had never previously been a source for the CIA. In reality, he had worked with the CIA before. This was done to secure FISA warrant. Clinesmith only got a slap on the wrist.
The infamous Steele dossier, a proven fake, was originally said to not be the major piece of evidence behind the Trump/Russia investigation, that it was only "one piece of a larger corpus of intelligence". That was complete bullshit and it was revealed the FISA warrants were applied for ONLY with the Steele dossier as the key evidence.
The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and claimed she had Hillary's lost emails actually spent their meeting talking about making it easier for Americans to adopt Russian children. She was also flown into the US specifically for that meeting on a special diplomatic visa that would have needed to be approved by Obama's state department. Just another intel asset sent in to try and fabricate evidence that Trump had ties to Russia.
So yes, this is the biggest scandal in American political history, larger than Watergate or the Pentagon Papers. Why aren't republicans doing anything about it? Because most of them are comfortable being controlled opposition for the democrats, letting them ruin everything and then going back to their constitutients to pump them for more donations to "fight back against these crazy liberals". It was a nice racket till Trump came along and broke all their toys.
Massively illegal. Michael Susmann, the Clinton lawyer who worked for Perkins Coie, fed fake intel to the FBI and got the ball rolling on the Russia investigation. Susmann is now on trial for making false statements to the FBI as part of the Durham probe.
This is a massive ball of wax but here are just a few big highlights off the top of my head:
Trump campaign was spied on BEFORE Trump was elected as well as AFTER. That means during the race the intel agencies were snooping around in his emails/phone calls. Trump tower's phones were indeed tapped.
They also had access to the internet data in both Trump tower and THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE. They used this access to plant phony data connecting Trump to the Russian bank Alfa bank.
According to text messages between disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzock and FBI lawyer Lisa Page (they were having an affair) the white house wanted updates on the Russia investigation, implying it was ordered and monitored by Obama.
Strzock was also the FBI agent who headed up the Clinton email investigation (he even questioned Hillary himself) AND was the agent who entraped Michael Flynn. What a coincidence this guy is all over the key investigations...
Cater Page, an advisor to the Trump campaign, was the entry point for intel to spy on the campaign. Page had no ties to Russia or Russian intelligence.
Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general, signed off on a number of FISA warrants (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to spy on Carter Page and claims he didn't read the requests, he just signed them without realizing what they were. FISA is the secret government court that approves wire-tapping warrants, typically to spy on suspected terrorists and the like.
George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor to the campaign, was set up by John Brennan's CIA with regards to Russiagate. Basically a CIA asset told him "the Russians have Hillary's emails". He then told another CIA asset that he had heard a rumor the Russians had Hillary's lost emails. That was the invented pretext to push the investigation along.
Kevin Clinesmith, a lawyer for the FBI, altered an email saying that Carter Page had never previously been a source for the CIA. In reality, he had worked with the CIA before. This was done to secure FISA warrant. Clinesmith only got a slap on the wrist.
The infamous Steele dossier, a proven fake, was originally said to not be the major piece of evidence behind the Trump/Russia investigation, that it was only "one piece of a larger corpus of intelligence". That was complete bullshit and it was revealed the FISA warrants were applied for ONLY with the Steele dossier as the key evidence.
So yes, this is the biggest scandal in American political history, larger than Watergate or the Pentagon Papers. Why aren't republicans doing anything about it? Because most of them are comfortable being controlled opposition for the democrats, letting them ruin everything and then going back to their constitutients to pump them for more donations to "fight back against these crazy liberals". It was a nice racket till Trump came along and broke all their toys.