From Margot Cleveland’s article

__Anons has anyone done a deep dive into Priestap and his history, I did early on and his wiki page was very short on history. Seems like a ghost that just showed up one day, so was he another CIA asset on loan to FBI and is that why he supervised Strzok? Remember Priestap was aware of Peter and Pages and didn't out them? Seems like Page was a patsy for both of them. Anyway if any digs been done let me know, otherwise it might be something of interest.

8. Bill Priestap Pinkie-Promised To Keep Steele’s File Clean

To Keep Steele’s File Clean

In obtaining the FISA surveillance orders on Page, the FBI swore that Steele was reliable. One of the many problems with the handling of the Page FISA applications the IG found was that Steele’s CHS file omitted information agents had gathered in late 2016 when they spoke with individuals “who previously had professional contacts with Steele or had knowledge of his work.”

These individuals reported that Steele “[d]emonstrates lack of self-awareness, poor judgment,” “pursued people with political risk but no intelligence value,” “didn’t always exercise great judgment,” and it was “not clear what he would have done to validate” his reporting.

The IG report noted that none of these negative assessments was “memorialized in Steele’s Delta file and therefore not considered in a validation review conducted by the FBI’s Validation Management Unit.”

Now we know one possible reason for that omission: FBI Counterintelligence Division Assistant Director Bill “Priestap told the OIG that he recalled that he may have made a commitment to Steele’s former employer not to document the former’s employer’s views on Steele as a condition for obtaining the information.”

That’s quite a promise when agents must rely on the official file to accurately swear out a surveillance application!

https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/16/9-key-points-from-newly-declassified-report-details-on-fisa-abuse/#.XphZCwgf45Q.twitter

Question: When did it become accepted governmental and health-care policy to sacrifice – and possibly destroy — the economic, mental, and physical well-being of the 99% to maybe protect and save the 1%

Answer: March of 2020.

Reason: Unchallenged and unyielding Groupthink

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “Groupthink” as: “A pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.”

With that definition in mind, to instantly install draconian, liberty-robbing, totalitarian-hinting “lockdowns,” wouldn’t one rely on “self-deception,” “forced manufacture of consent,” and unquestioned “conformity to group values and ethics?”

-While President Trump is not an infectious disease expert, he is still a human being. As such, he is susceptible to being spun or stampeded into rushed, flawed, or even completely wrong decisions from time to time. Especially regarding a crisis as volatile as this.

-Weeks ago, I spoke with a highly accomplished infectious disease doctor about this issue. A doctor who not only felt the virus had already spread to millions of Americans, but that the “lockdown” policy was causing more harm than good.

-This doctor then posed a critically important question for those who shut down our nation. That question being: Is COVID-19 less or more lethal than the Hong Kong (H3N2) pandemic of 1968 which infected tens of millions of Americans, hospitalized hundreds of thousands, and killed approximately 100,000 out of a population of then 200 million?

-A pandemic this doctor states, which not only mirrored COVID-19 in terms of it being “highly contagious,” but with the vast majority of fatalities also being those 65 or older with pre-existing conditions. A pandemic that worldwide, killed upwards of 4 million people.

-The doctor I spoke with felt certain the “experts” of today would not be able to answer that question as there has been very little progress made in the field since 1968.

Now, with every “expert” on the planet studying COVID-19 24/7, the most honest answers we get are: “We don’t know yet,” and “We’re still studying it

-They are “still studying it,” but knew enough to lockdown the nation and destroy thousands of small businesses and tens of millions of jobs.

-Something that was not done during the administration of President (and World War II five-star General and hero) Dwight D. Eisenhower during the Asian flu pandemic of 1957 which infected millions of Americans and killed approximately 116,000. And something with was not done during the administration of President Barack Obama when the Swine flu pandemic hit in 2009 – 2010 and infected 61 million Americans, hospitalized 300,000, and killed upwards of 18,000. Many of them children and young people. A Swine flu pandemic also infected 1.5 billion worldwide and killed upwards of 700,000…

-Not surprisingly in the “Age of Trump,” politics has infected this infectious disease. More liberals seem to be in favor of the “lockdowns” with more conservatives in favor of re-opening the nation for business

-At least with regard to the politics infecting the COVID-19 crisis, conservatives find themselves in a weak or even untenable position. For the last number of years and decades, liberals and the far-left have come to dominate the media, academia, science, medicine, and entertainment. Not only in the United States, but in much of the world.

-As such, their “Groupthink” on the subject of COVID-19 controls the message, dictates the “solutions” and labels anyone daring to question it or them, “suspect.”

-And yet, from day one, we could see that President Trump’s instincts were telling him to question and even fight this “Groupthink.” He was right to do so then and he is even more right to do so now.

President Trump does have exceptionally good instincts. He just needs to go back to trusting them so he can free our nation from this draconian groupthink lockdown

Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official and an author.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/04/17/trumps-instincts-were-right-from-day-one/