CNN: FBI Official Altered Document in Fake Russia Probe

Imagine how it must have pained CNN to report this: “FBI official under investigation after allegedly altering document in 2016 Russia probe.”

Who is the official? We don’t know. Nor does the CNN report makes clear the context, although, given the scope of the DOJ Inspector General’s investigation, obtaining the FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page is the obvious candidate.

An FBI official is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Presumably, that means the FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page.

The possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.

Well, yes. That is the point.

Horowitz turned over evidence on the allegedly altered document to John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed early this year by Attorney General William Barr to conduct a broad investigation of intelligence gathered for the Russia probe by the CIA and other agencies, including the FBI. The altered document is also at least one focus of Durham’s criminal probe.

…The alterations were significant enough to have shifted the document’s meaning and came up during a part of Horowitz’s FISA review where details were classified, according to the sources.

So someone at the FBI needs to go to jail. This sounds like a tough rap to beat.

Horowitz’s investigators conducted more than 100 witness interviews in their review. During one of interviews this year, they confronted the witness about the document. The witness admitted to the change, the sources said.

Sounds like a pretty easy criminal prosecution. There is no conceivable excuse for altering a document that is submitted to a panel of federal judges as the basis for obtaining a warrant to spy on an American.

Maybe this has been public for a while, but I haven’t seen it: CNN says that the IG’s report will be published on December 9, and Horowitz will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 11. I’m looking forward to it.

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