Tom ## Board Owner 08/12/20 (Tue) Z 18:22:09 ID: e92aa7 (84) No. 237933
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https://justthenews.com/government/congress/exclusive-democrat-whistleblower-told-fbi-schiff-approved-leaking-classified
Exclusive: Democrat whistleblower told FBI that Schiff okayed leaking classified intel to hurt Trump(Justthenews.com)
FBI Director Kash Patel releases bombshell documents to Congress showing how agents traced classified leaks to sources but DOJ didn't act.
A career intelligence officer who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for more than a decade repeatedly warned the FBI beginning in 2017 that then-Rep. Adam Schiff had approved leaking classified information to smear then-President Donald Trump over the now-debunked Russiagate scandal, according to bombshell FBI memos that Director Kash Patel has turned over to Congress.
The FBI 302 interview reports obtained by Just the News state the intelligence staffer — a Democrat by party affiliation who described himself as a friend to both Schiff, now a California senator, and former Republican House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes — considered the classified leaking to be "unethical," "illegal," and “treasonous,” but was told not to worry about it because Schiff believed he would be spared prosecution under the Constitution's speech and debate clause.
No publicly-disclosed opinion from the Attorney General or the Solicitor General can be found making that determination as a matter of law.
But officials told Just the News that DOJ officials showed little interest in pursuing Schiff when the allegations were brought to them years ago, citing the very same excuse the lawmaker had offered.
In his most recent interview with the bureau in 2023, the whistleblower, whose name is redacted, told agents from the FBI's St. Louis office that he personally attended a meeting at which Schiff authorized leaking classified information.
"When working in this capacity, [redacted staffer's name] was called to an all-staff meeting by SCHIFF," the interview report said. "In this meeting, SCHIFF stated the group would leak classified information which was derogatory to President of the United States DONALD J. TRUMP. SCHIFF stated the information would be used to indict President TRUMP.”
The whistleblower told investigators that he "stated this would be illegal and, upon hearing his concerns, unnamed members of the meeting reassured that they would not be caught leaking classified information," the 2023 interview report stated.
The staffer made similar claims to agents in the FBI's Washington field office as early as 2017, shortly after Trump took office for his first term.
You can read the FBI interview reports here:
Democratic HPSCI Staffer - FBI Interview Notes
The day after this story published, Schiff provided Just the News with a comment.
“Kash Patel’s latest smear against Senator Schiff is absolutely and categorically false, and is just the latest in a series of defamatory attacks from the President and his allies meant to distract from their plummeting poll numbers and the Epstein files scandal," Schiff told Just the News. "These baseless smears are based on allegations that were found to be not reliable, not credible, and unsubstantiated from a disgruntled former staffer who was fired by the House Intelligence Committee for cause in early 2017, including for harassment and potentially compromising activity on official travel for the Committee."
Schiff added: "Even Trump’s own Justice Department and an independent inspector general found this individual to not be credible, have 'little support for their contentions' and was of 'unknown reliability,' and concluded that his accusations against Members of Congress and congressional staff 'were not ultimately substantiated'."
The alleged leaks fall outside the statute of limitations for prosecution on most legal theories, but the revelations nevertheless come at a sensitive time for Schiff, who recently was referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution for potential mortgage fraud, based on a story first written by Just the News.
Officials also said some of the DOJ officials who declined to prosecute a rash of classified leaks during the Russiagate affair remain employed in positions of power, a matter that may be of interest to lawmakers in Congress.
"For years, certain officials used their positions to selectively leak classified information to shape political narratives," Patel told Just the News on Monday. "It was all done with one purpose: to weaponize intelligence and law enforcement for political gain.
"Those abuses eroded public trust in our institutions," he added. "The FBI will now lead the charge, with our partners at DOJ, and Congress will have the chance to uncover how political power may have been weaponized and to restore accountability," he said.
Schiff, who previously served as the ranking member and then chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) before ascending to the Senate, pushed false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion for many years, and touted British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier — even reading multiple baseless claims from it into the congressional record in March 2017.
The whistle-blower began approaching the FBI that same year.
In one meeting, the Democratic HPSCI staffer told the FBI that retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn — Trump’s first national security adviser — was to be a specific focus of the committee as part of a broader effort to target Trump. The whistleblower also specifically pointed to Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., as a likely source of classified leaks, the memos state.
Punishment for duty to law instead of party loyalty
The Democratic staffer also allegedly told a former Republican colleague on the committee that he was terminated because Schiff's staff did not believe he had adequate "party loyalty" after he raised concerns about the leaks strategy, the FBI memos show.
The whistleblower was interviewed twice in 2017 and at least four times over six years about the alleged Schiff leaks, but Justice Department prosecutors declined to move forward, according to the memos, part of a large production of documents Patel sent to the House Judiciary Committee that identified several classified leak schemes carried out by senior government officials over the last decade.
The memos are mostly FBI 302 interview reports, which as explained by one criminal defense law firm, allow an FBI agent to draft a memo—in paragraph form—of what the witness said. It can be one-page long or twenty-pages long, depending on the length of the interview.
The memo section of a 302 is the key part. This is a combination of what the agent was able to write down during the interview and his recollection. It may list the questions and the answers or simply be a narrative of what the witness said. The witness generally doesn’t see the 302 or get a chance to correct any mistakes he thinks are in it before it is finalized.
Whistleblower: Schiff promised CIA appointment if Hillary won
The Democratic whistleblower told the FBI in a December 2017 interview at his home that “the HPSCI work environment started to change around August 2016 as the U.S. presidential election approached.” He said that, during a September 2016 staff meeting, other Democratic staffers revealed they had provided “on background” information to journalists about “their impressions of Russian activity surrounding the upcoming election.”
The Democratic staffer told FBI agents during an August 2017 interview at the Bullfeathers restaurant in the nation’s capital that he was told by various HPSCI staffers in the October 2016 timeframe that if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the November 2016 election, Schiff would be offered the position of CIA director. The staffer told the FBI in December 2017 that “the mood within HPSCI was indescribable” after Trump's win, and that Schiff “was particularly upset, as he believed he would have been appointed as the Director of CIA” had Clinton won the election.
The whistleblower told the FBI in December 2017 that “the HPSCI minority viewed the [2016] election and its aftermath as a constitutional crisis” and that by February 2017, “all hell broke loose.”
He told the FBI in August 2017 that “Schiff believed Russia hijacked the election, and the United States was in the middle of a constitutional crisis. Classified information began leaking to the media. The Democratic minority leadership of HPSCI was aware of the leaks but was under the impression that leaking the information was one way to topple the administration and fix the constitutional crisis.”
The Democratic whistleblower provided details to the FBI in August 2017 about a February 13, 2017 HPSCI staff meeting where the HPSCI staff director and general counsel “advised the minority staff that he wanted to drive the ‘Russian involvement’ issue into a Joint Inquiry ‘similar to the 9/11 Commission.’ He instructed the staff to use any resources they had developed within the Intelligence Community to gather facts. … He wanted to make the information public and use the media to compel public opinion to bring about the Joint Inquiry.”
The Democratic staffer told the FBI in December 2017 that he believed that “this was an explicit request to gather classified information for public disclosure.”
He also told the FBI in December 2017 that a yet-redacted person had approached a HPSCI staffer and directed him “to reach out to his contacts at” a redacted place “in order to collect information on MICHAEL FLYNN’s contact with Russia.”
The staffer had told the FBI in August 2017 that, when another redacted staffer was asked about the Flynn information request, they “opined everything is directed at Trump and trying to get him impeached. Flynn just happened to be the issue of the day.”
The Democratic whistleblower also told the FBI in December 2017 that “a particular leak” from the summer of 2017 had caused him “to confront HPSCI on the issue.” He said that “a particularly sensitive document” was “viewed by a small contingent of staff, as well as SCHIFF and Representative ERIC SWALWELL” and that “within 24 hours, the information appeared in the news almost verbatim.”
The staffer told the FBI that it was “suspected that SWALWELL played a role in the leak and noted that SWALWELL previously had been warned to be careful because he had a reputation for leaking classified information.”
The whistleblower had told the FBI in August 2017 that the sensitive document was read by HPSCI staffers and by members of Congress in late June or early July 2017, and that its contents immediately leaked to the press. The staffer told the bureau that the general counsel for a redacted intelligence agency then “read them the riot act about disclosure.”
The Democratic staffer purportedly told the FBI in a May 2023 discussion at the Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel that he “had several conversations with two unnamed FBI agents related to the matter and was eventually invited to attend a mock grand jury with the United States Department of Justice.”
But the staffer told the bureau that he “was eventually informed that the issue would not be investigated further by the DOJ, as Congressmen have immunity to all speech and actions made on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.” No copy of any such legal opinion issued under color of law has been made public.
The whistleblower told the bureau that he “did not believe that the activity he witnessed would be protected by this legal provision.”
Party loyalty takes precedence over oath to protect and defend Constitution
The FBI interview reports indicate that an FBI agent had spoken with a Republican staffer “who described the sudden firing of a minority staffer.” The GOP staffer told the FBI agent that the Democratic staffer had told him that he “was suddenly fired due to a perceived lack of party loyalty.”
The Republican staffer told the FBI agent that the Democratic staffer had told him that there was allegedly “a systematic process through which leaks were effected” and that “he had been fired because there was an expectation of leaking, and he refused to participate.”
The GOP staffer further told the FBI that the Democratic staffer said that “this was not a one-time thing” but rather that “under the system established by” Schiff’s staff director, “notes would be run up to the ranking member, ADAM SCHIFF, after which a decision was made as to who would leak the information.”
Watchdog said DOJ took some investigative action based on Democratic staffer’s allegations
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a December 2024 report — A Review of the Department of Justice’s Issuance of Compulsory Process to Obtain Records of Members of Congress, Congressional Staffers, and Members of the News Media — which detailed some of the actions the Justice Department took in response to the Democratic staffer’s allegations to the FBI.
The staffer — referred to as “Committee Witness” in the DOJ watchdog report — “voluntarily told the FBI that the Committee Witness suspected that two Democratic Members of Congress (Member 1 and Member 2) and a number of Democratic staffers could be leaking classified information on the same general subject matter as the classified information at issue in the Washington Post 2 leak,” Horowitz’s report recounted.
Horowitz’s report said that “compulsory process” carried out by the Justice Department “relied on the Committee Witness’s statements to the FBI.”
The DOJ watchdog said that prosecutors for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the nation’s capital then “conducted a probing interview of the Committee Witness and determined that the Committee Witness had little support for their contentions that certain individuals could be leaking classified information and may not have been credible.” The DOJ allegedly noted that the “Committee Witness” was of “unknown Reliability” when it put together “its search warrant applications for the Apple and Google accounts of the Senior Committee Staffer.”
Horowitz said that the FBI and the federal prosecutors “ultimately determined that the Senior Committee Staffer likely did not leak the classified information to the reporters and the investigation was closed without any charges being filed.”
Schiff's long history of promoting baseless Trump-Russia collusion claims
After promoting the Steele dossier in 2017, Schiff engaged in a battle with then-Rep. Nunes in 2018 about the use of the anti-Trump dossier.
The Republican majority released their FISA memo in early February 2018, finding that Steele’s anti-Trump dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Page; former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA court without the Steele dossier information; the political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials but excluded from the FISA applications; and DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to the DOJ information about Steele’s bias, with Steele telling Ohr that he was desperate that Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not becoming president.
Schiff and the Democratic minority released their late February 2018 rebuttal memo wrongly contending that “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the FISA process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”
“In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government,” the Democrats wrongly contended. They also said the Justice Department “met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA’s probable cause requirement.”
Schiff baselessly claimed in August 2018 that “I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight.” Schiff then claimed again in April 2019 that “I’ve been very clear over the past year, year and a half, that there is ample evidence of collusion in plain sight.”
Robert Mueller’s special counsel report in March 2019 “did not establish” any criminal collusion between Trump and Russia, and Horowitz soon vindicated Nunes and showed Schiff was wrong.
Horowitz then uncovered huge flaws with the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation in a December 2019 report, finding at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Horowitz also criticized the “central and essential” role of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in the FBI’s politicized FISA surveillance. Steele had been hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was being paid by Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias. Horowitz found the FBI had also concealed exculpatory information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
The DOJ watchdog also said Steele’s alleged main source – Igor Danchenko – “contradicted the allegations of a ‘well-developed conspiracy’ in” Steele’s dossier.
Ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith admitted to Durham in August 2020 that he falsified a document during the bureau’s efforts to renew FISA surveillance authority against Carter Page, fraudulently editing a CIA email in 2017 to state that Page was “not a source” for the agency.
Ahead of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter, Schiff attempted to shoot down the October 2020 New York Post stories on Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings in China and Ukraine by falsely claiming on CNN that “we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.”
Schiff tweeted in September 2020 that the investigation was “political from the start” and sent Horowitz a letter requesting the watchdog open an investigation on Durham. He also criticized Attorney General William Barr’s elevation of Durham from federal prosecutor to special counsel, slamming it as “politically motivated.”
Durham’s 2023 report concluded that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” The special counsel assessed that “the FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.”
Schiff is mentioned by name three times in the 2023 Durham report, including that a university researcher who refused to investigate Trump-Russia allegations felt threatened by a Schiff staffer.
Durham’s report said two researchers, likely from Georgia Tech, were on Capitol Hill in a November 2018 meeting with HPSCI staff regarding a pending cyber security federal research contract.
During the meeting, HPSCI staffers cut off the presentation to show researchers a news article about “Trump, Russia, and Alfa Bank.” Schiff’s staff told the researcher they needed the university’s “help with the matter,” according to the Durham report.
The researcher “responded by saying that it would be inappropriate for a public university to do that.” A staffer from the office of Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., also allegedly said that “we are now in charge” while a HPSCI staffer “said that their boss [Schiff] would soon take over leadership of HPSCI.” The researcher “took the comment as a mild threat.”
After the release of the Durham report, the House of Representatives formally censured Schiff in 2023 because he “spread false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia” and “perpetuated false allegations from the Steele Dossier accusing numerous Trump associates of colluding with Russia into the Congressional Record.”
President Joe Biden pardoned Schiff on his last full day in office in January this year, but only in reference to Schiff’s role on the select committee which investigated the Capitol riot.
“In certain cases, some have even been threatened with criminal prosecutions, including General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, and the members and staff of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” Biden said. “These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”
Schiff claimed that he wished Biden had not pardoned him.
“I continue to think it was unwise and unnecessary and that it sets a bad precedent," Schiff said, adding that “I understand why the president, President Biden, did it. It’s a response to completely improper threats by Trump to prosecute people for no reason except that he thinks they’re political opponents or he thinks they’re effective or whatever reason, so, you know, the origin of all this is the threats, the improper threats by Trump, but nevertheless, I don’t think that should’ve been the response.”