Leading presidential candidates routinely receive intelligence briefings for national security reasons—and as a precaution against nefarious foreign actors.
But in a reverse spying scheme, nefarious FBI officials used an August 2016 intelligence briefing to spy on then-candidate Donald Trump.
According to newly declassified documents, federal agents, led by former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, hijacked the briefing to secretly gather information on Trump.
The documents, declassified by newly-appointed Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, included an outline used by senior FBI agents to conduct the briefing, as well as emails about the ambush.
One of the emails from Strzok indicated that he planned to use future briefings with the Trump campaign to secretly increase intelligence-gathering efforts.
The August 2016 briefing was presented as a normal event, but it was part of the FBI’s notorious Crossfire Hurricane spying operation.
The corrupt investigators also sought dirt on former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, both of whom were top Trump advisers.
They later opened their own investigation on Flynn and ensnared him in a perjury trap by claiming he lied about potential violations of the antiquated Logan Act.
The documents were released Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. The two, respectively, chair the Senate Finance Committee, and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The GOP committee chairs had inquired about the security briefing abuse in April 2019, as well as “a number of unauthorized leaks of highly sensitive information regarding intelligence efforts related to President Trump’s election and administration.”
Strzok worked for former FBI Director Robert Mueller during his eighteen-month special counsel probe beginning in May 2017, but he was fired for anti-Trump texts with his married lover Lisa Page, an FBI senior attorney.
FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith also was involved in the corrupt security briefing.
Clinesmith—later revealed to have posted shocking anti-Trump messages on his social media accounts—was ultimately fired for falsifying an email that was used to help secure a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
The document further implicates FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka, who spun his observations of Trump and Trump’s staff when he proposed issues involving Russia.
