Junior very clearly intended to collude. He said so in an email. Eager to get Russian govt dirt on Hillary. However, the dirt didn't materialize . . . so he dodged a bullet on that one. But, in response to his willingness to collude, I'll repeat the comment made by FBI Director Wray during his Senate confirmation hearings:
"To the members of this committee: Any threat or effort to interfere with our election, from any nation state or non-state actor, is the kind of thing the FBI would want to know."
In other words, if a campaign is approached with such an offer from a foreign government . . . no, you do NOT lick your chops over the thought of receiving the dirt in question. You report it to the FBI. Maybe they'll send along an agent (under cover), maybe wearing a wire, to the meeting where the dirt is supposed to be delivered. Slam, bam . . . we just nailed the bad guys. Maybe can charge them, try them, convict them, toss them in jail. If they have diplomatic immunity, kick them out of the country. That's how you send the message that we take such interference very seriously.
Craig, you do NOT sign away your First Amendment rights when you accept a security clearance--with CIA or with anyone else. But even after resigning, retiring, etc, you are still under the same rules when it comes to unauthorized disclosure of classified information--which, we're all briefed, is a fairly serious crime. And leakers have been convicted. Brennan lost his clearance not because he revealed classified information (he would have been charged if that had been the case), but because Trump didn't like some of the things he was saying.
I referred to the two FBI agents as love birds because they were . . . exchanging foolish emails about the campaign, obviously not liking Trump. But neither they nor anyone else leaked the existence of the investigation into possible collusion with Russia. If they had, it would have been a political bombshell of nuclear proportions. And the so-called "deep state" people--at CIA in particular--understand how to orchestrate a coup. They know very well that it's much easier to keep a candidate from being elected in the first place than it is to remove him after he's been elected. Especially within our system . . . where there's no precedent for successfully removing an elected president. (Nixon resigned.)
No speculation whatsoever about Page. We have his own testimony before Congress in which he relates how upset he was when the FBI knocked on his door to question him about his contacts with Russian spies. We have the transcripts from the bugs in the Russian office, in which the Russians discussed Page. Can't get a whole lot more rock solid than that.
I'm not commenting on nca's comments. I'm commenting on what I know to be accurate, from the record. Remember when the Republicans on the House Intel Committee submitted their memo questioning the legitimacy of the FISA warrant on Page? Feel free to read that memo . . . and tell me if they EVER bothered mentioning that the FBI had a file on Page's contacts with Russian intelligence going back years before there was a Trump campaign and before he'd been named a foreign policy adviser. Both FBI Director Wray and Director of National Intelligence Coats--BOTH APPOINTED BY TRUMP--complained to the White House that the Republican memo on the FISA warrant contained "material omissions of fact" . . . like the fact that the FBI knew about Page long before Steele ever went to work on his dossier.
