Posted on August 16, 2020 by John Hinderaker in Media Bias, Obama-Lynch Justice Department, Russia investigation
About Kevin Clinesmith
So far we have said nothing about Kevin Clinesmith’s guilty plea, which illustrates the fact that these days, the news is impossible to keep up with. Clinesmith, as you probably remember, was an FBI lawyer, an assistant general counsel assigned to the Bureau’s National Security and Cyber Law branch in Washington. In that capacity, he supported FBI investigations, including Crossfire Hurricane. Clinesmith was instrumental in submitting some, at least, of the fraudulent FISA applications to spy on Carter Page.
Of all of the Obama administration loyalists who contributed to the Russia collusion hoax, Clinesmith is the one most obviously guilty of a felony: he altered an email he received from the CIA to say that Carter Page was NOT a CIA source, when in fact the email said Page WAS a CIA source, and submitted that fake document to the federal court in order to obtain a FISA warrant. That is worth five years in prison and, of course, the end of his legal career. Clinesmith’s guilty plea is significant, in part, because he may be willing to implicate others who are higher in the DOJ chain of command. More about that later.
Andy McCarthy and Mollie Hemingway have written insightfully about Clinesmith’s plea, and I commend their analyses to you.
Andy, as usual, focuses on legal issues. He explains Clinesmith’s felony clearly:
As I describe above, in the actual email, the CIA liaison said:
My recollection is that [Page] was or is . . . [digraph] but the [documents] will explain the details.
Clinesmith altered it (as I now highlight in bold italics) to say:
My recollection is that [Page] was or is … [digraph] and not a source but the [documents] will explain the details.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/08/about-kevin-clinesmith-2.php
