by WorldTribune Staff, June 4, 2023
The Deep State goes much deeper than Special Counsel John Durham went in his final report on the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, a report said.
Specifically, how much of a factor in the investigation was the fact that Peter Strzok, in his adulterous infatuation with Lisa Page, went to great lengths to impress her by escalating the probe into the man, Donald Trump, she so loathed, Jack Cashill asked in a June 2 analysis for American Greatness.
Congress needs to expand the investigation into this avenue, Cashill wrote.
In 2016, while their affair was kept on the down low by the bureau, the 35-year-old Page served as an advisor to then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The 45-year-old Strzok, despite the affair, was promoted later that year to deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
On March 3, 2016, Page texted Strzok: “God trump is a loathsome human.” In this series of texts, as in most, it is Page who initiates the Trump bashing and Strzok who plays along to curry her favor. Page, in particular, has little use for any Republican. “Would he be a worse president than cruz?” she asks. Responds Strzok, “Trump? Yes, I think so.”
Strzok did not hesitate to use the influence he had gained. In leading the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, Strzok was the one who changed the description of Clinton’s mischief from “grossly negligent,” which could have led to criminal charges, to “extremely careless,” which did not.
“As readily as Page expressed her disgust with that ‘enormous douche’ Donald Trump, she gushed about Hillary,” Cashill noted.
Strzok delivered what Page wanted to hear, texting on July 25, 2016, the opening day of the Democratic National Convention: “And hey. Congrats on a woman nominated for President in a major party.”
But, Page could not conceal her unease, texting: “She just has to win now. I’m not going to lie, I got a flash of nervousness yesterday about trump.”
On July 26, 2016, Page texted Strzok: “Have we opened on him yet?” She linked to an article from the leftist blog Talking Points Memo titled “Trump & Putin. Yes, It’s Really a Thing.”
The article by editor Josh Marshall repackaged the D.C. gossip about Trump’s “deep financial dependence on Russian money” and “conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests.” Strzok responded to Page: “This article highlights the thing I mentioned to you earlier.” He promised to send it to his boss, Bill Priestap.
The same day, according to Durham’s report, Hillary Clinton “approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.” Within days, a CIA analyst received intelligence about this plot and promptly forwarded it to CIA Director John Brennan.
On July 28, FBI headquarters received for the first time “information from Australia regarding comments reportedly made in a tavern on May 6, 2016 by George Papadopoulos, an unpaid foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign.”
On July 31, Strzok “authored and approved” a full investigation. He did this, according to Durham, “without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information.” Strzok and crew impishly called the investigation “Crossfire Hurricane” after a lyric in the Rolling Stones song, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
Strzok did not text Page about this breakthrough until late on the night of July 30. They had apparently talked by phone before then. “Damn this feels momentous,” he wrote. “Because this matters. The other one [the Hillary Clinton investigation] did, too, but that was to ensure we didn’t F something up. This matters because this MATTERS.”
Durham reported that neither the Obama White House nor the FBI had any interest in exposing Clinton: “The FBI never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information.”
The White House did not have to give Strzok orders to ignore the Clinton Plan. He had motives of his own. “[Trump’s] not going to become president, right? Right?!” Page texted anxiously on Aug. 8, 2016. “No. No, he’s not,” Strzok responded. “We’ll stop it.”
For the next month, the lovers exchanged little useful information because, as Strzok explained: “So just make a rule, no texts of a discoverable nature.” Page did, however, continue to share her contempt for Trump, and Strzok expanded the scope of contempt to include Trump’s supporters. “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart,” he texted on August 26. “I could SMELL the Trump support.”
On Oct. 19, the final debate between Hillary and Trump, Strzok provided a running update to Lisa Page, texting: “Oh hot damn, HRC is throwing down saying Trump in bed with Russia.”
Two days after the debate, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved the surveillance of Carter Page. With that application approved, the Obama Administration officially put Trump “in bed with Russia.” For the next three years, “Trump & Putin” was indeed “really a thing,” at least for the media.
“At every step of the way — from soft-pedaling the Hillary server scandal, to opening Crossfire Hurricane, to meeting the Australians in London, to receiving the Clinton Plan, to ramming through the FISA application — Strzok suppressed his doubts and advanced the conspiracy against Trump. Although he had other motives for doing so, impressing his lover seems to have been high among them,” Cashill noted.
“The House Judiciary Committee this month will have a chance to probe this and other lines of inquiry with former special counsel John Durham as it regards his investigation of the apocryphal Trump-Russia connection. Although a useful guide, the Durham report never got beyond the shallow end of the deep state,” Cashill wrote. “Both Page and Strzok were in a position to shape outcomes.”
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Inside the FBI: Was adultery and Lisa Page’s loathing of Trump a decisive factor? added by Editor Two on
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