FBI beginning to lose?

Is the Federal Bureau of Investigation going to lose its fight with Donald Trump? Yesterday the FBI admitted that they, or part of their Trump Raid team, took documents subject to attorney-client privilege. Also yesterday, a ranking FBI official, facing scrutiny over his role in managing news and squelching investigations, resigned – very abruptly. Do we detect dissension in the ranks?

The FBI admits they might have violated attorney-client privilege

Recall that Judge Aileen Cannon, on Saturday (August 27), acted on a motion by Trump for appointment of a special master to examine documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Florida home. (A special master is a “vice-judge” acting on the court’s behalf in a dispute.) She put the government on notice that she was likely to appoint a special master. Then she scheduled a hearing for Thursday (September 1) on whether to make the special master appointment. As part of that notice, she ordered the government to file a response to the motion.

The government did file a response.

In it the government admitted something they probably would have preferred not to. Namely that many of the documents the FBI took in the August 8 raid were subject to attorney-client privilege.

Although the government will provide the Court more detail in its forthcoming supplemental filing, the government notes that, before the Court issued its Preliminary Order, and in accordance with the judicially authorized search warrant’s provisions, the Privilege Review Team (as described in paragraphs 81-84 of the search warrant affidavit) identified a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information, completed its review of those materials, and is in the process of following the procedures set forth in paragraph 84 of the search warrant affidavit to address potential privilege disputes, if any.

What are these teams?

Paragraph 81 defines two teams involved in the Raid. The Case Team consists of every agent involved in the investigation. The Privilege Review Team has the job of determining whether any documents fall under attorney-client privilege. And if they do (or might):

[A] Privilege Review Team attorney may do any of the following: (a) apply ex parte to the court for a determination whether or not the documents contain attorney-client privileged material; (b) defer seeking court intervention and continue to keep the documents inaccessible to law-enforcement personnel assigned to the investigation; or (c) disclose the documents to the potential privilege holder, request the privilege holder to state whether the potential privilege holder asserts attorney-client privilege as to any documents, including requesting a particularized privilege log, and seek a ruling from the court regarding any attorney-client privilege claims as to which the Privilege Review Team and the privilege-holder cannot reach agreement.

Ex parte refers to any court action involving one party only, whether or not that party is involved in a dispute with another. In this case, under option (a) above, an attorney might ask a court, without reference to Trump or anyone else, to determine whether the documents contain material subject to attorney-client privilege, and if so, which ones.

National security risk? Really?

The problem for the FBI is that they carelessly seized many things (including Trump’s diplomatic passport!) they had no authority to seize. We don’t know what option (among (a) (b) and (c)) the Privilege Review Team chose. We do know the Justice Department must file, under seal, a detailed list of what they took and from where.

This last part of the filing makes little sense:

Additionally, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) are currently facilitating a classification review of materials recovered pursuant to the search. As the Director of National Intelligence advised Congress, ODNI is also leading an intelligence community assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of these materials.

That sounds all very well, except for one thing: Trump had his standing executive order that he could declassify anything. Furthermore, all the materials involve the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged collusion between then-Candidate Trump and the Russians. By now only the most dedicated anti-Trump partisan believes that Donald Trump was a Russian or other foreign asset. So to whom does the disclosure of these materials pose a risk? Most likely, to the members of the “intelligence community” who ginned up that false tale.

Tim Thibault, FBI

One of these members is Tim Thibault, former Washington Field Office Assistant Special-agent-in-charge. Days before the FBI got its warrant to search Trump’s home, Mr. Thibault drew a high-level assignment at FBI Headquarters.

Tim Thibault has compromised himself heavily in what seems to be a “personal mission” to “get” Donald Trump. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) mentions his name in connection with the suppression of information about “Hunter Biden’s Laptop.” That laptop contains more than off-color pictures of Hunter Biden and/or certain fetching young women. It also contains evidence that Hunte Biden was laundering money for himself and for his father, the President. Even if one thinks some of the American people are prudes, convincing evidence of the acceptance of bribes from foreign powers should convince any voter to vote against the person involved. Witnesses told Senator Grassley that Tim Thibault gave the order not to investigate that evidence.

More than that, Mr. Thibault’s name turns up in connection with FBI supervisors pressuring agents to designate many of their cases as “domestic violence extremism” (DVE) that didn’t merit that designation even if one accepts the definition. DVE is a convenient label, and refers to a narrative the American political left has pushed often in recent years. Simply put, the left accuses the right of wanting a dictatorial government. They also suggest their opponents are willing to make that happen as it often does in Latin America.

When you haven’t enough criminals, create them

But by any reasonable standard, such things have not happened from the right. So Tim Thibault, on his own or under orders, sought to relabel certain cases as showing a desire to hurt not only one or two persons but the entire body politic. Witnesses said Thibault and Jill Sanborn, an Assistant Director level official for National Security, were trying to “pad the number” of such cases to fit the White House narrative. (Jill Sanborn is already out of the Bureau.)

Worst of all, Tim Thibault was involved in the push for the Trump Raid. In fact, the Case Team consisted of agents from the Washington Field Office- Thibault’s old office. Furthermore, much of the information to justify the Trump raid came from “a left-aligned organization.” And Mr. Thibault didn’t tell his superiors that interesting fact.

Yesterday, the FBI fired Tim Thibault. Two “headquarters types” hustled him out of the building, though that could actually be standard procedure for high-profile departures. One can assume that, after Senator Grassley and also Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) kept mentioning his name, the FBI had to get rid of him.

Jay Bratt and his connection to the FBI

The government’s filing turned up another name, thus showing that sometimes the most obscure details can still be significant. The two officials who signed the Monday filing are:

• Juan Antonio Gonzalez, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and
• Jay Bratt, Chief of Counterintelligence and Export Control for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Of course the local United States Attorney would sign any filing. But Jay Bratt has given money to the Democratic National Committee. He has been actively coordinating the document handling investigation with Alan Kohler, his counterpart in the FBI. Mr. Kohler has a history of working with Stefan Halper – who spied on the Trump campaign in 2016. Halper tried to get George Papadopoulos, who worked for Trump at the time, to admit that Trump was colluding with Russians. That, of course, turned up nothing. But Kohler further worked with another Crossfire Hurricane figure.

You won’t hear about this in the legacy press

The Mainstream Media will not report this. Instead, most of them, along with certain leftist celebrities, will cry, “But January 6!” (They include Rob Reiner, who portrayed Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, Michael Stivic, in TV’s All in the Family.) But we now know the FBI has been trying to relabel cases to make the political right sound dangerous. So how important can January 6 be? If it’s as important at the left says, why does the FBI try to show a follow-on that doesn’t exist? And now at least one man at the heart of pushing that narrative, is out of the Bureau. Could somebody think that ushering Tim Thibault out would stop Congress from calling him to the green table? (Someone thinks that of Anthony S. Fauci, by the way.)

Midterms are coming up, in about seventy days. Maybe the only way to stop these shenanigans, is with your vote.