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Paul Manafort:A FARA investigation for ties to Ukraine, not Russia.
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
On Aug. 10, 2016, they opened separate FARA cases on Page, Manafort and Papadopoulos, under code names assigned by the FBI. The Papadopoulos case, for instance, was code-named "Crossfire Typhoon.” Then on Aug. 16, they opened another FARA case on Flynn, under the code name, “Crossfire Razor.”
Documents indicate they strained to convert FARA cases into counterintelligence investigations. Even though the cases were predicated on possible FARA violations, the Electronic Communications stated that there was reason to believe that the Trump targets “may wittingly or unwittingly” be involved in activity on behalf of Russia, which may constitute a federal crime or threat to national security.
The targets are not specifically named as "agents of a foreign power” — the key language in the federal espionage statute (under 50 U.S.C.) making it a crime to knowingly aid or abet any person in sabotage or clandestine intelligence-gathering activities for a foreign power. Rather, the case files cite the “Foreign Agents Registration Act” statute, even though they state that the primary goal of the investigation was to determine whether the targets were “directed and controlled by and/or coordinated activities with the Russian Federation in a manner which is a threat to the national security.”
Rick Gates:A FARA investigation for ties to Ukraine, not Russia.
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
Mark Wauck, a former FBI attorney who worked counterintelligence cases for the bureau, told RealClearInvestigations that FARA served as a "smokescreen” to justify spying on the Trump campaign and its aides, under the “baseless theory" that they might be clandestine agents of Russia.
Former FBI assistant director of intelligence Kevin Brock is equally skeptical of the motives for opening the cases. He said there was not enough evidence to support the FARA allegations and justify them standing alone as criminal investigations.
“In a normal EC opening a FARA case, we should expect to see a list of reasons why the FBI believes individuals associated with a U.S. presidential campaign had been engaged by the Russian government to represent and advocate that government’s goals,” he said. “Try as we might to spot them, those reasons are not found anywhere in the document.”
Added Brock: “There was no attempt by Strzok to articulate any factors that address the elements of FARA. He couldn’t, because there are none."
While the FBI used FARA to justify the launch of the investigation, Mueller later wielded it to pressure targets. Phares, a Lebanese-born American scholar and commentator who advised the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney in 2012 and Trump in 2016, confirmed in a RealClearInvestigations interview last month that he, too, was targeted under FARA.
Carter Page:His FARA investigation was for ties to Russia, but resulted in no charges.
Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
Phares said he was interviewed by two Washington agents working for Mueller in 2017. “They were looking for FARA violations,” Phares said. “They couldn’t find anything about Russia, so they started asking me about Egypt,” he told RCI. “It’s laughable.”
Despite rummaging through his bank records, he said, they never filed any charges against him. Phares complained the FBI conducted a fishing expedition. He believes the FBI was also monitoring him during the 2016 campaign.
“But on different grounds,” he noted. “Not on the Russians, because I have no contacts [in] or ties to Russia, but on my work with Egypt.” Their real goal, he contended, was to spy on Trump and his campaign. Some legal experts say the predication for opening a probe of Phares appears thin.
“There is no logical basis for such an investigation,” said Wauck, who has been a persistent critic of the Trump/Russia probe.