Keep an eye on the FBI or CIA spy inside the Trump campaign – By Robert Willmann

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Bubbling up in the last several days is a story separate from but perhaps more highly charged and incriminating than the surveillance of Carter Page through a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant that followed Page into the Donald Trump campaign for president.  A U.S. citizen who had been an informant for the FBI and CIA may have been acting as an informant gathering information from inside and around the Trump campaign for one or both of them.

Even though everybody and their dog want to get a mole inside the campaign of a political opponent, this appears to be action by one or more governmental agencies to spy on a political campaign through an inside source, a/k/a HUMINT. 

Although Carter Page may have been also acting as a knowing informant, he was at least and maybe was no more than a "walking wiretap" under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during his interactions with the Trump campaign.  A clue in the 18 January 2018 memo of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence which was declassified by order of the president on 2 February 2018 said that the FISA probable cause order on Carter Page "was not under Title 7" of FISA.  It was under Title 1, which is the most expansive authorization under that law [1].

This issue of an informant who was being handled by one or more government agencies has received wide media coverage, from the Wall Street Journal [2], to talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

This new misconduct is being explored by U.S. Representative Devin Nunes (Repub., California, 22nd District), who is chairman of the House Intel Committee and is actually trying to do his job.  He was first elected to Congress in 2002 [3].

[1]  Summary of Title 1 of FISA from the House Intel Committee–

https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/fisa_title_i_summary.pdf

[2]  A story in the Wall Street Journal on the alleged informant–

http://www.wsj.com/articles/about-that-fbi-source-1525992611

[3]  A video of an interview with Congressman Nunes on 7 May 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=169&v=qub6z4f9_HQ

UPDATE:  A meeting was held this past Thursday, 10 May 2018, attended by chairman Nunes and committee member Trey Gowdy, which was described in a statement by the House Intel Committee–

"We had a productive discussion today with officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Justice, and FBI in which we raised questions related to information requested from the Intelligence Community. The officials committed to holding further discussions of these matters, and we look forward to continuing our dialogue next week [this week of 13 May] to satisfy the Committee’s request."

http://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=886

 

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