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Push or no push, who knows how long Evans might have held up the Carter Page FISA warrant application? But Evans made a tactical error: He framed his concerns not as a matter of principle but of prudence. Evans might have stood his ground opposing the warrant application by pointing to how the bureau had withheld the fact that Steele was working, through cut-outs, for the Clinton campaign. He could have insisted that the Steele “reporting” was hopelessly tainted as a partisan political product for which the author had been paid. Instead, Evans characterized the issue as a “prudential question of risk vs. reward.”
The downside was obvious: Eavesdrop on an individual associated with a presidential campaign and Justice and the FBI risk appearing to be interfering with an election. Any possible upside was less clear: Thanks to press leaks, Carter Page knew he was being investigated, Evans noted. That meant Page would assume his lines were tapped and his emails scrutinized, making it unlikely he would communicate anything revealing or damaging by phone or computer. The risk, Evans argued, was not worth the dim prospect of any reward.
The upside/downside equation may have seemed like a reasonable way to approach a difficult problem, but it allowed the FBI to seize the moral high ground. Evans raised the “prudential question” with McCabe, who said he understood the risk but was duty bound not to “pull any punches.” They had to “let the chips fall where they may,” McCabe insisted.
Evans settled for a face-saving, if infamous, footnote to the FISA application. It made the claim that the FBI “speculates” Steele’s paymaster wanted material that could be used against the Trump campaign. Once the footnote was attached to the application, Evans stood down.
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https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/06/24/stu_evans_lonely_failed_quest_to_save_the_fbi_from_itself_124157.html