Bombshell: The FBI Spied on Kash Patel
Matt Vespa
5–6 minutes
When Kash Patel was interviewing FBI officials about their overreach in the issuing of illegal spy warrants on Trump campaign officials, namely Carter Page, little did he know the bureau was also spying on him. The Justice Department Inspector General has a 100-page report detailing how the FBI collected his personal information while gagging Google and Apple from notifying Mr. Patel and anyone on their target list.
In 2022, Google was permitted to notify Patel, who was outraged. His record collection at the bureau spanned years. Since 2017, he was the subject of a counterintelligence operation while investigating the bureau’s operations into Mr. Page. The FBI kept renewing the information orders and a subpoena for over five years. As Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations, who penned this piece in the New York Post, noted, that means FBI Director Christopher Wray knew about this spy operation and signed off on its continued use. It’s yet another reason why he’s bolting from the J. Edgar Hoover Building in January (via NY Post):
According to a new government watchdog report, the FBI spied on its prospective new boss, Kash Patel.
Patel has promised to “clean house” at the Hoover Building, and hold all those who “abused their power” during the Russiagate “witch hunt” accountable.
[…]
According to a nearly 100-page report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, the FBI subpoenaed the records as part of an investigation it opened to find out whether congressional staffers leaked classified information about its Trump-Russia “collusion” case to the Washington Post and other media.
[…]
Working with career prosecutors at Justice, the FBI compelled Google and Apple to turn over the sensitive private information of subjects the FBI identified “between September 2017 and March 2018,” a period when Andrew McCabe was the acting FBI director. (Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was out of the loop, the report said, having recused himself from the Russia probe.)
The court orders gagged the service providers from notifying Patel and other customers of the intrusion.
As chief counsel, Patel had no idea that the subject of his investigation — the FBI — was collecting his data and increasing the visibility of witnesses he was communicating with, including whistleblowers.
At the time, Patel was demanding to see FBI documents and depose FBI witnesses to find out if the bureau had abused its power in obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on Trump aide Carter Page.
But Patel remained in the dark until 2022, when Google finally was cleared to send him a copy of the subpoena. Outraged, he told me at the time: “The FBI and DOJ subpoenaed my personal records while I caught them doing this to Page back in 2017.”
He said the McCabe FBI didn’t want anybody to find out that it “literally copied and pasted” Democrat opposition research, wholesale, into wiretap-warrant applications.
He added that he hoped those behind the abuses would be prosecuted by a future Trump administration: “They must be held accountable or they’ll only abuse their power again.”
The IG probe reveals that the FBI had renewed the subpoenas each year, snooping on congressional staffers for up to five years. That means McCabe’s successor, Christopher Wray, signed off on the continued collections.
Justice Department IG Michael Horowitz found the unprecedented surveillance created “at a minimum, the appearance of inappropriate interference” by the FBI in “legitimate oversight activity” by Congress. He warned that it could have a “chilling” effect on whistleblowers coming forward.
more
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/12/13/bombshell-the-fbi-spied-on-kash-patel-n2649048
