The IG Report & the Art of Wordsmithing

Episode 28 Show Notes- The IG Report & the Art of Wordsmithing

Episode Description

As the Democrats push forward with the Articles of Impeachment, the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, has released his report on the abuses within the FISA program. The IG lays out some stunning evidence of the abuses within the FBI. And while the IG believes political bias did not play a role, Professor Giordano lays out several criminal statutes that were violated, and those who abused their power must be held to account. It’s time Democrats stop with the impeachment hoax and provide real oversight to prevent these abuses from occurring again.

P.A.S. Report Listeners Get 10% Off at Design It Yourself Gift Baskets! Use Code: PAS

*PA Strategies, LLC. earns a small commission when you make a purchase through any affiliate links on this website and within this post.

Intro

Welcome everyone to another episode of The PAS Report Weekly Roundup Podcast. This is your host Nick Giordano.

As the Democrats continue to push forward with the Articles of Impeachment, the Inspector general has finally released his report concerning the abuses into the FISA program.

The Democrats are currently writing their Articles of Impeachment, but they don’t need to because I already summarized them in a Facebook post.

1) We don’t like the President

2) The President shouldn’t have won in 2016, and we don’t like the results of that election since he defeated Hillary

3) We really don’t like the President

4) The President doesn’t do what the establishment wants

5) We really, really don’t like the President

6) He called the DNC public relations wing (aka the Media) fake news, and he is mean to people

7) We really, really, really don’t like the President

8)World leaders don’t like the President because he pushes back on foreign leaders to do what’s in the interests of the United States

9) He doesn’t kowtow to the bureaucracy

10) Did we mention we don’t like the President

For this episode, I will go through the report and explain the findings with more depth and analysis then the advocacy news media, who continue to protect those who abused their power in order to bring down the President.

As always, if you want to see the show notes go to thepasreport.com. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

The Inspector General’s Report

The Inspector-General has released his report, and while some are saying “see there were no political biases” and the conspiracy theory of this being a witch hunt has been disproven, they definitely did not read the report. This report was scathing to the FBI, and the FBI has lost an enormous amount of public trust. The damage done to the institution cannot be repaired until those who engaged in these activities are brought to justice.

In this episode, I want to read and highlight some of the major points in the findings. The report opens up by talking about how the investigation was limited in scope.

“However, because the activities of other agencies are outside our jurisdiction, we did not seek to obtain records from them that the FBI never received or reviewed, except for a limited amount of State Department records relating to Steele; we also did not seek to assess any actions other agencies may have taken. Additionally, our review did not independently seek to determine whether corroboration existed for the Steele election reporting; rather, our review was focused on information that was available to the FBI concerning Steele’s reports prior to and during the pendency of the Carter Page FISA authority.”

“Our role in this review was not to second-guess discretionary judgments by Department personnel about whether to open an investigation, or specific judgment calls made during the course of an investigation, where those decisions complied with or were authorized by Department rules, policies, or procedures. We do not criticize particular decisions merely because we might have recommended a different investigative strategy or tactic based on the facts learned during our investigation.”

I want you all to be aware that the opening of a criminal investigation sets the standards much higher, so the FBI decided to open a Counter-Intelligence Investigation where the threshold is much lower. This is something that should be highlighted. If the FBI had reason to believe that members of the Trump campaign were colluding with a foreign government, why didn’t they open a criminal investigation?

According to the Inspector General, there are no legal requirements before opening a Counter-Intelligence Investigation, and one may be opened based upon “any allegation or information.” The report says the allegation should be based on “an activity constituting a federal crime or a threat to the national security has or may have occurred, is or may be occurring, or will or may occur and the investigation may obtain information relating to the activity or the involvement or role of an individual, group, or organization in such activity.”

The fact that U.S. citizens can be investigated on any allegation or information is disturbing and Congress needs to take immediate steps to remove this power from the feds. Based on the current standard, I accuse Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and all the Democrat Presidential candidates of really colluding with China. Can we now start an investigation into them? I made the accusation. Is this the standard we really want to layout?

Oh wait, isn’t there an allegation of corruption against Joe Biden and a foreign government. Certainly, have more evidence of corruption under Biden. I wonder if the FBI has begun a Counterintelligence investigation into Biden? I won’t hold my breath.

Assistant Director of the FBI, Bill Priestap said that when they received the allegation, they were obligated to investigate it. He goes on to say “he considered whether the FBI should conduct defensive briefings for the Trump campaign but ultimately decided that providing such briefings created the risk that ‘if someone on the campaign was engaged with the Russians, he/she would very likely change his/her tactics and/or otherwise seek to cover-up his/her activities, thereby preventing us from finding the truth.”

I find the word defensive briefings to be interesting. Why would they be considered “defensive” briefings? Was this Priestap trying to cover himself in case word came out, they could always fall back on they gave the Trump campaign a head’s up on Russia. Ultimately he decided against this.

This makes no sense. If you are so concerned that people within the President’s campaign are working with the Russians, why wouldn’t you tell the person running for office? They could have asked the President to implant an FBI agent within the campaign. What do you think then-candidate Trump would have said- NO.? That in and of itself would have been a red flag.

The IG report goes on to say that Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were not the sole officials or the highest-level officials, and they did not ultimately make the decision to open Crossfire Hurricane. So, since they weren’t the decision-makers to open the investigation, Inspector Horowitz alludes that their text messages were irrelevant and so their biases had no impact.

He writes “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations.”

Seriously? They were providing information to the top officials that were used to open the investigation. How dumb do these people think we are?

An unnamed Supervisory Intelligence Analyst, working on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, stated, “it was obvious to him that the request for the research was politically motivated… [and] explained that he also was aware of the potential for political influences on the Steele reporting.”

The report states that the FBI, “fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure that all factual statements in a FISA application are “scrupulously accurate. We identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed.”

The Inspector General found significant inaccuracies and omissions including:

Omitting that Carter Page had a relationship with another U.S. government agency from 2008-2013 and assisted that agency in investigating Russian intelligence officers.

The FBI included a statement that Steele’s reporting had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings prior,” which was not really true, and he was viewed as a poor source in previous years.

Omitted information relevant to the reliability of Person 1 (a confidential source). Even Steele told the FBI that Person 1 was a “boaster” and an “egoist, and may engage in some embellishment,” and they never provided this information to the FISA Court. Are you freakin kidding me? This is Christopher Steele’s own source and he is warning the FBI to not really trust everything the person says. How was that not included in the FISA application?

The FBI asserted in the FISA application that the September 23^rd Yahoo News article was based on a different source than Christopher Steele, when in fact, Steele had told the FBI he gave the information to others including the State Department and news outlets.

Omitted George Papadopoulos’s statement to an FBI source that no one in the campaign had contact with or collaborated with Russia or any outside groups.

Omitted Page’s statement that he “literally never met” or “said one word to” Paul Manafort, while in the FISA application, the FBI stated that Carter Page was acting as an intermediary for Paul Manafort.

Omitted information from Carter Page that he never knew or met the Russian Agents in question.

Omitted the fact that Steele’s source made statements raising questions about his reliability and contradicting earlier statements.

Altered an email from another agency so the email stated that Page “was not a source” for the other agency when in fact he was. So here you have someone taking an official government document and altering it to deceive a court violating several laws including Title 8 U.S. Code 1324 and Title 18 U.S. Code 2071. This was no doubt willful, and intent is clear.

Omitted information from people who stated Christopher Steele “demonstrates a lack of self-awareness, poor judgment…pursued people with political risk but no intelligence value…didn’t always exercise great judgment, and it was not clear what he would have done to validate.”

Omitted information from Bruce Ohr that Steele was feeding information to the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS and Glen Simpson paid Steele to discuss his report with the media, and Steele was desperate not to allow then-candidate Trump to get elected.

Failed to update the FISA Court on the status of Steele, who was paying Steele, and the biases that existed.

Failed to correct assertions that Steele directly provided information to news outlets that were used to corroborate the FBI’s information that they obtained from Steele himself.

Omitted the finding that Steele never provided the FBI with any major intelligence prior to 2016, and that past intelligence Steele provided to FBI was only minimally corroborated meaning he was not a reliable source.

Omitted statement from Papadopoulos that no one in the campaign was involved in the DNC email hack.

Omitted information that Joseph Mifsud directly lied to the FBI by making it as if Papadopoulos provided information from Russia to a foreign agent.

Omitted information that Carter Page played no role in the Republican platform change for the Republican National Convention in 2016.

The IG Report states that none of these inaccuracies or omissions were brought to the attention of the FISA Court.

Sorry, but these are not inaccuracies or omissions. They are flat out lies and deception, and the IG should be ashamed of himself. I am so sick and tired of the wordsmithing these bureaucrats try to use. Imagine you use that same standard with children. I mean come on. So one day, I left out a bunch of blueberries for my four-year-old and he told me he ate all his blueberries. I was like wow, great job because he is not a fan of blueberries. Next thing you know, I go to the garbage and low and behold, what do I see? A bunch of blueberries.

But now if I go by the Inspector General’s verbiage, my kid simply omitted the fact that he threw them in the garbage.

The fact is the FBI leadership running this scam operation knowingly deceived and lied to the FISA court. This is illegal on several levels including Title 18 U.S. Code 1001 that states knowingly falsifying or concealing a material fact is a felony that may result in fines or imprisonment.

Amazing how I can point to actual criminal statutes. Those trying to impeach President Trump on the idea of Russian collusion and Ukraine cannot point to a single criminal statute, but I can.

Everything the bureaucracy and Congress have accused the President of, they themselves have engaged in. The IG Report consistently says the FBI failed to share relevant and appropriate information. Funny how the FBI only shared to share the information that would cast doubt on the whole Russian Collusion narrative.

That kind of verbiage is BS. The reality is the Senior Leadership flat out falsified information. The Senior Leadership lied and deliberately concealed information from the FISA Court. If any of you engaged in these types of practices, you would be in jail. Yet, for now, these individuals get away with it. It’s repulsive.

I want to be clear, this is no small matter. Criminal activity was engaged in. These individuals need to be prosecuted.

For those that say this debunks the conspiracy theories that have been out there, you have to be smoking crack to try and justify what the FBI did. These individuals couldn’t even get security clearances at this point.

On the SF-86 security questionnaire, they would be issue coded for deliberately omitting, concealing, or falsifying relevant information on any forms, or deliberately providing false or misleading information to any employers, investigators or security officials.

They wouldn’t even be able to get a position of public trust with the United States. When being interviewed in the SF-85 process, they would be asked have you ever provided any false information to disclose pertinent information to any authority with intent to deceive, mislead, or misrepresent information on a security questionnaire or in an examination or appointment.

The spin masters in the DNC public relations wing, aka the advocacy news media, are already trying to defend the bureaucracy. They are saying that this wasn’t the intention. They are parroting the talking point that political bias wasn’t involved. So, either the media and the Democrats parroting these lines are either knowingly deceiving the people, or they are just dumb. It’s really that simple.

To all those who are trying to defend the actions of the FBI, I ask you a simple question. If political bias wasn’t involved, isn’t that even worse? So that means the FBI abused their authority for no particular purpose. If they can do this to presidential candidates, what do they do to ordinary Americans?

Closing

I find it curious that Democrats decided to hold impeachment hearings the same day that the IG released his report. Why are Democrats trying to coverup the abuses of the bureaucracy? Why don’t they show any concern about what took place?

Is their hatred of the President so deep that they are willing to ignore one of the biggest scandals in my lifetime, and perhaps the history of the country?

We cannot let the bureaucracy go unchecked. We give the FBI, the NSA, the IRS and other government agencies, enormous power. They have the power to commit to justice, but they also have the power to destroy lives. This is why it is essential that they always act above board and we hold bureaucrats responsible for their failures.

When ideology gets injected in government agencies and departments, it’s time for Congress to step in and take power away from the bureaucracy. We need to prevent these abuses.

Sadly, Congress would rather waste enormous amounts of time and money weaponizing the impeachment process because they dislike the behavior of the President.

Ironically, imagine what could have been accomplished had the Democrats decided to ignore President Trump’s behavior, and actually work with him. This is the stupidity of the Democrats in Congress. They actually have a person in the office where every policy issue is negotiable.

The Democrat party has been held hostage by the leftists since day one, and it’s to their own detriment.

Donald Trump is unlike every other politician from the Republican and Democrat parties. He is not held to the same standards as an ordinary politician, and as he said during the debates, everything is negotiable, and his positions are just starting points.

President Trump cares about getting things done and wants to be able to say he solved the problems. He has an enormous ego, but so to does the Democrat House. They don’t want to push through compromise legislation like the USMCA because they don’t want the President to be able to declare a victory.

Not sure what they’re thinking. Do they believe it would be easier to negotiate with a President Pence or any other Republican President?

This is a sad week in American history. Hopefully, common sense prevails. Hopefully, the American people begin to wake up.

I believe the release of the Inspector General’s report is just the beginning. I am interested to see what more comes down the pike. I want to know what U.S. Attorney John Durham is up to. He has already come out and stated that he disagrees with some of the IG’s findings.

He came out with a statement that reads, “Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened. I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff,” Durham said. “However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.”

We will get to the bottom of this one way or another.

It is time the establishment, whether they be in Congress, the media, or the bureaucracy, stops looking at us as if we are the mere peasants. We deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. We are the ones with power if we would only exercise our power. We must reacquaint ourselves with the founding documents, and we must begin to correct the system.

It takes time and effort. It can be frustrating, but if we get more involved, we can return the country to a point where the politicians know who they serve, and the media recognizes they must be honest with their audience.

The left is making inroads with their agenda because they are the loudest voices in the room. We need to start pushing back and speaking up against these nefarious forces that seek power and control.

Own Your FREEDOM, Your HEALTH, Your WELLNESS

Peace of mind in a box - keep a Medical Emergency Kit in your medicine cabinet

Get 10% off your order Use code PAS at checkout

Now, we are about a week away from our big announcement so keep listening. Also, please remember to share this episode with family, friends, and any one you believe is hungry for a new message and wants to put an end to the status quo.

As always if there is a topic or issue you would like me to focus on, send an email to podcast@pasreport.com, and I am extremely grateful for all of the positive reviews. If you haven’t left a review yet, please take 30-seconds, and write one.

Thank you for joining us, stay safe, and I’ll be back next week.

The P.A.S. Report wants to hear from you. Send your feedback to podcast@pasreport.com. Please leave a 5-star rating and write a review on Apple Podcast.

Please share this episode with others & on social media.

P.A.S. Report Listeners Can Get Free Shipping and 35% Off Your Initial Order as a Preferred Customer! Use Code: PAS