Ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith expected to plead guilty in Durham investigation
A former lawyer with the FBI plans to plead guilty Friday to falsifying a key document related to surveillance against a onetime Trump campaign associate as part of a deal with U.S. Attorney John Durham. Kevin Clinesmith, who worked on both the Hillary Clinton emails investigation and the Trump-Russia inquiry, will admit that he falsified a document during the bureau’s targeting of Carter Page, according to multiple reports. Clinesmith, 38, claimed in early 2017 that Page was not a source for the CIA when he actually was — a falsehood used to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act renewal against Page. Attorney General William Barr had hinted at a “development” in Durham’s investigation during a Fox News interview on Thursday night. Clinesmith’s lawyer did not immediately return the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
Clinesmith is not directly named in DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report, but it is clear he is the "Office of General Counsel attorney" who had been acting in response to a question by an FBI agent that was part of the team investigating the Trump campaign. "Supervisory Special Agent 2," who swore to an affidavit for all three FISA renewals against Page in 2017, told Horowitz's investigators that on the third renewal he wanted "a definitive answer to whether Page had ever been a source for another U.S. government agency before he signed the final renewal application." While in contact with what was reportedly the CIA's liaison, Clinesmith was reminded that in August 2016, predating the first Page warrant application in October 2016, the other agency informed the FBI that Page "did, in fact, have a prior relationship with that other agency."
An email from the other government agency's liaison was sent to Clinesmith, who then "altered the liaison's email by inserting the words 'not a source' into it, thus making it appear that the liaison had said that Page was 'not a source' for the other agency" and sent it to "Supervisory Special Agent 2," Horowitz found. "Relying upon this altered email, SSA 2 signed the third renewal application that again failed to disclose Page's past relationship with the other agency," the inspector general wrote. In a section on "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the Page FISA, Horowitz said the FBI left out that Page had been approved as an "operational contact" for the CIA from 2008 to 2013 and that Page "had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application." Horowitz also found this other agency gave Page a "positive assessment," which was not included in the FISA warrant applications. The initial FISA application and three renewals targeting Page required the approval of top members of the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, but they were also handled by lower-level officials. The initial warrant application was approved in October 2016, and renewals came at three-month intervals in January, April, and June 2017. Page, who has denied being an agent for Russia, was never charged with a crime as part of Mueller's investigation, which failed to establish any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Clinesmith was an attorney with the FBI’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch. He worked under former FBI General Counsel James Baker and former Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson. He also worked on the Clinton emails investigation and the Trump-Russia investigation. He was present in the FBI's meeting in Chicago with Trump 2016 campaign adviser George Papadopoulos in February 2017, Papadopoulos told lawmakers. An Australian diplomat's tip about Papadopoulos telling him that he had been told the Russians had damaging information about Clinton is what officials say prompted the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, dubbed "Crossfire Hurricane," in late July 2016. Barr and Durham are have disputed the legitimacy of the investigation’s launch.
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