Obama’s FBI Spied On Fox News Producer’s Call With George Papadopoulos According To New Texts
Senate Republicans just released some internal FBI messages from Peter Strzok and others that are not good for Barack Obama.
They provide more clues into Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation into the Trump campaign that eventually led to a special counsel.
The Justice Department declassified the records after Senators Ron Johnson (R., Wisc.) and Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) asked Attorney General William Barr to do so.
In one, Strzok hints he was aware former British spy Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) could be used to influence the media.
“Looking at the Yahoo article, I would definitely say at a minimum Steele’s reports should be viewed as intended to influence as well as to inform,” Strzok, who was fired from the FBI in August 2018, wrote on Sept. 23, 2016.
In another the texts show the FBI monitored a Fox News producer’s call with George Papadopoulos:
“I know you’re not point on this anymore, but [George Papadopoulos] got a call from the VP at Fox News yesterday, who advised that the government was conducting ‘checks’ on him a few months back,” an unidentified individual whose name is redacted in the report texted to Strzok on January 12, 2017.
“I haven’t listed to the exact audio, but I’m guess[ing] that’s the FARA checks that we did with DOJ on our 4 main guys; especially given the article that you pushed yesterday.”
From The Federalist:
New text messages released Thursday show FBI officials spied on a Fox News executive over the course of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation which targeted President Donald Trump as a secret Russian agent who illegally stole the election from Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The FBI surveilled and recorded a phone call between former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and an unnamed vice president at Fox News, according to a text message sent to fired former FBI official Peter Strzok just weeks before Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017.
Agents were targeting former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, codenamed “Crossfire Typhoon,” who later pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agents during the Russian collusion investigation.
The FBI used the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, as a legal pretext to investigate and spy on Papadopoulos, as well as former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and former Trump affiliate Carter Page.
BREAKING: Obama FBI spied on Fox News to get @RealDonaldTrump https://t.co/fARWNXlajY
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) December 18, 2020