On Monday’s episode of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” Klavan talks about the upcoming inspector general (IG) report about the FISA abuse in the Trump-Russia probe. Video and partial transcript below:
The IG report is coming out. Now, this is the interesting thing, because this entire impeachment charade has been to mask the malfeasance — I have now used the word “malfeasance” twice in one show, which is a record, I think — of the Obama administration. The scandal-free Obama administration, which spied on Donald Trump.
So now there’s a story that has come out, CNN broke the story and it was in The Wall Street Journal as well, and remember — Kimberley Strassel came on, from The Wall Street Journal, and told us not to think that this IG report is going to be a big deal. It’s supposed to come out in full on December 9, and she said, [paraphrasing] “don’t think it’s going to be a big deal. It is the Durham report from the DOJ that’s the big deal.”
But here’s from The Wall Street Journal:
The Justice Department’s inspector general is expected to conclude there was a proper legal basis for the government’s application to monitor a former Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser. …
This is Carter Page —
… [B]ut that errors and lapses in judgment were made during the process, according to people familiar with the matter.
The usual sources —
Among the findings identified in the report is that an FBI lawyer altered an email related to the surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, people familiar with the matter said Friday. The conduct didn’t change the watchdog’s overall conclusion.
So in other words, they’re saying the IG is going to say, “No, it was right to monitor Carter Page, but somebody tinkered with the FISA warrant, with the information on the FISA warrant.”
Now, first of all, there’s so much about this that needs to be unpacked, the fact that it broke on CNN, [which] now has Andrew McCabe — he’s a CNN commentator. They’ve got all these FBI commentators of the former general counsel, I’m getting this from Andrew McCarthy at National Review. James Baker is a frequent CNN guest, so these are the people spinning the IG report, before it comes out, hoping to make it … as unimportant as they possibly can.
This is a Deep State enterprise, to make it seem that the FBI did nothing wrong. But first of all, the first thing you should remember is that Rod Rosenstein — this is back in June of last year — he was before the House Judiciary Committee doing an oversight of the FBI, and Matt Gaetz had him on the ropes, and he was saying, [paraphrasing] “When you signed these FISA reports, did you even read them? Did anybody brief you on them?”
But I want to play the second cut by Rod Rosenstein, where he’s trying to explain the process by which he approved of these FISA warrants. Listen to this:
ROSENSTEIN: We sit down with a team of attorneys from the Department of Justice, all of whom review that, provide a briefing for us about what’s in it, and sir I’ve reviewed that one in some detail, and I can tell you, sir, that the information that’s public about that doesn’t match with my understanding of the one that I signed.
So in other words, he was told what was in the FISA warrant — he was briefed on it by guys like Peter Strzok and all the other FBI characters, and he signed off on it. Then it came in and he said, “Wait, that’s not what you told me was in this report,” and obviously what we’re talking about is the fact that they used this Steele dossier, paid for by the Clinton campaign, as evidence that they should be able to to spy on Donald Trump.
Now, what they’re talking about — and this is something that Adam Schiff does all the time, you’ve heard him do it before — he keeps saying that Trump denies it was Russian interference in the election. That’s not the case. He keeps saying that when Trump says there was Ukrainian interference in the election, that means he’s denying that there was Russian interference in the election. That’s not the case. There can both be Russian interference and Ukrainian interference, and according to Politico, the Democrats were working with the Ukrainians to get dirt on Donald Trump or to get things that were helpful to Hillary Clinton.
So none of this is what Trump is saying. You know, all that Trump is saying, “I didn’t do it. I’m not with the Russians. I’m not working with the Russians,” which turned out, as we know from the Mueller report, turns out to be absolutely true. That’s why Trump is saying, let’s have a trial. …
Of course, he wants a trial in the Senate. He’ll waltz back into the White House if there’s a trial in the Senate.
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