'Strong' Potential WH, CIA, FBI, and DOJ Collaboration on Trump-Russia Investigation
GOP congressional investigators announced Wednesday that the FBI, CIA, Justice Department, former Senate Democrat leadership and high-ranking Obama White House members may have coordinated together during the early days of the investigation into alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia, Fox News reported.
This revelation followed newly discovered text messages between FBI official Peter Stzok and Lisa Page which, according to investigators, “strongly suggest” an effort of coordination between these groups.
CIA director John Brennan, former Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough and former Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid were specifically mentioned in the report.
According to investigators, this would “contradict” public statements from the Obama administration that it was not involved in the investigation.
Further, congressional investigators told Fox News that the CIA and FBI are meant to be independent agencies and “coordination between political actors at the White House and investigators would be inappropriate.”
Docs suggest possible coordination between CIA, FBI, Obama WH and Dem officials early in @Rea;DonaldTrump-Russia probe. https://t.co/8OYP9E4u1o
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) March 28, 2018
A text from Page to Strzok from August 2016 appears to discuss concealing their activity from possible future scrutiny.
“Make sure you can lawfully protect what you sign. Just thinking about congress, foia, etc. You probably know better than me,” Page wrote.
FOIA refers to Freedom of Information Act which allows the public to request and view government documents.
Days later, Strzok texted Page: “Internal joint cyber cd intel piece for D, scenesetter for McDonough brief, Trainor (head of FBI cyber division) directed all cyber info be pulled. I’d let Bill and Jim hammer it out first, though it would be best for D to have it before the Wed WH session.”
The “D” in the text refers to former FBI Director James Comey, and “McDonough” refers to Denis McDonough, according to investigators.
“The investigators point out that two weeks after the Aug. 8 text from Strzok to Page, Brennan went to Capitol Hill to brief Reid. Two days later, on Aug. 27, Reid wrote a letter to Comey demanding an investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia,” The Epoch Times explains.
“Two days after that, The New York Times reported on the letter, thrusting an investigation that was still under wraps into the public spotlight.”
Investigators stated that the report in not conclusive, but needs to be looked into further.
“We are not making conclusions. What we are saying is that the timeline is concerning enough to warrant the appointment of an independent investigator to look at whether or not the Obama White House was involved (in the Trump-Russia investigation),” a GOP congressional source told Fox News.
“At some point, the amount of concerning information becomes enough for a special counsel to look into it.”
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