Investigation suggests Comey tricked Trump

James Comey

Fired FBI Director James Comey likely was lying to President Trump while he was investigating him, according to a Real Clear Investigations report.

Paul Sperry explains that Comey refused to say publicly what he was telling the president in private – that the president was not a target of the investigation.

"That refusal ignited a chain of events that has consumed Washington for more than two years – including Comey’s firing by Trump, the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and ongoing claims that Trump obstructed justice," the report said.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz' soon coming report on the issue is expected in September, Real Clear Investigations said an answer already is emerging.

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"Sources tell Real Clear Investigations that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will soon file a report with evidence indicating that Comey was misleading the president. Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a target, the former director was secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president, while at times acting as an investigative agent."

The report cited two U.S. officials who have been briefed on the IG's investigation.

The probe is focusing on possible FBI misconduct in the investigation of allegations of Trump-Russia collusion.

The sources said Comey essentially was "running a covert operation against" the president, beginning with a private briefing for Trump just before the inauguration.

"They said Horowitz has examined high-level FBI text messages and other communications indicating Comey was actually conducting a 'counterintelligence assessment' of Trump during that January 2017 meeting in New York."

Comey even had a spy inside the White House who reported to the FBI on the president, the officials told Real Clear Investigations.

"One focus of Horowitz’s inquiry is the private Jan. 6, 2017, briefing Comey gave the president-elect in New York about material in the Democratic-commissioned dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Reports of that meeting were used days later by BuzzFeed, CNN and other outlets as a news hook for reporting on the dossier’s lascivious and unsubstantiated claims," the report said.

Comey, in his memoir, claimed he did not have a counterintelligence file open on the president "at least not in the 'literal' sense," the report said.

Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, said in the report: "They were hoping to surveil him incidentally, and they were trying to make a case on him. The real reason Comey did not want to repeat publicly the assurances he made to Trump privately is that these assurances were misleading. The FBI strung Trump along, telling him he was not a suspect while structuring the investigation in accordance with the reality that Trump was the main subject."

The investigation was launched despite the fact there was no probable, the report said.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who has investigated the origins of the Russia probe as chairman and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said it looks like Comey was among the officials attempting to defeat Trump and later overturn the results of the election.

"You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information" to anti-Trump media, Nunes said.

The report said: The officials familiar with Horowitz’s inquiry said his team has quizzed Comey about the circumstances surrounding a meeting he convened with Trump in Manhattan where the president-elect was first told of the Steele dossier material. The stated purpose was to brief the incoming president about political warfare tactics, known as “active measures,” that Russia allegedly used against the U.S. during the 2016 campaign.

The officials said the inspector general has reviewed high-level FBI text messages and other communications that indicate the agency may also have used the briefing to carry out out a covert "counterintelligence assessment" operation against Trump and his senior staff who attended the briefing that day at Trump Tower.

McCarthy said it looks like the FBI was probing Trump's campaign, hoping it could make a case against the newly elected president.

"That is why Comey told Trump only about the salacious allegation involving prostitutes in a Moscow hotel; he did not tell the president-elect either that the main thrust of the dossier was Trump’s purported espionage conspiracy with the Kremlin, nor that the FBI had gone to the [FISA court] to get surveillance warrants based on the dossier," McCarthy said.

"Make no mistake," McCarthy added, "the investigation was always about Donald Trump, from Day One."