Former FBI agent Clint Watts says law enforcement officials were trying to protect Donald Trump by asking an informant to examine claims that his campaign had been infiltrated by Russian spies.
You know, I actually hadn’t thought of it in that light, that their natural instinct would be that Trump knows nothing, that Russian is trying to do its damage. We have been so conditioned to Trump acting as if he had a whole bunch to hide, it truly does shine a light on Trump’s guilty conscience. Every time he hears anything about it, we can expect a rage tweet and something about Hillary and Obama. Especially Obama, because it means that he’ll have been caught through the hard-work of agents that worked for the FBI while Obama was president.
Trump, of course, continues to claim the FBI set out to implicate him in the investigation — but Watts explained to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” why the president’s reaction to the informant was so telling.
“It’s the cornerstone of every investigation,” Watts said. “Imagine you’re an FBI (agent) and you receive a report from the Australian ambassador. They may know the Russians have taken something, and it’s related to one of the presidential candidates. You would immediately say, ‘Okay, I want to assess this.’”
Wattts specialized in cyber-security and he guaranteed that the first reaction would be to protect the candidate from true Russian ties that would be made unawares.
“Think back to ’16. You’re saying, ‘Wait a second, maybe they’re trying tO infiltrate this campaign. Candidate Trump isn’t even aware of it, which seems could even be the case today. You would then go to a confidential informant and say, ‘Hey, you’ve had contact with this person. Could you go and assess and ask questions about whether they have any knowledge of this information and, most importantly, how do they know this?’”
Soooo, it would appear that the FBI had a longtime confidential informant within the Trump business world, probably one with Russian contacts, which makes one go hmmmm.
Felix Sater, a Soviet-born real estate developer with alleged mob ties, fits the description Watts listed for an FBI informant about as well as anyone could.
The Russian-American convicted felon effectively worked as a spy for the U.S. as an asset for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and he also worked as an intelligence source for the FBI for more than a decade — and still operates as an informant, according to law enforcement sources.
Trump being dumber than a bag of bricks, cannot even be bothered to learn the difference between an “informant” versus an “undercover agent.” He believes the FBI had an “undercover agent” – which is an FBI employee (dah). Jesus Christ in the thriller section at the library, has Trump not even read a Tom Clancy book at some point? And that the president of the United States knows so little about what is actually happening, demonstrates over and over why he is way out of his league right now, and right as he’s rid himself of the “adults” who would be “minders.”
Sater worked on Trump’s behalf, not the FBI, in Moscow since 2004, so he would have been a natural fit as an informant given his history with the FBI and his ties to both the GOP candidate and Russia.
After the election, Sater allegedly took part in a back-channel scheme with Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen to ease sanctions against Russia, and helped deliver a secret plan to settle the conflict with Ukraine to then-national security adviser Michael Flynn. One would think that a guy who had been previously caught by the FBI in some sort of scheme, would realize there was no possible way to keep his status as a C.I. unless he went on to “help” establish this backchannel. Otherwise, a confidential informant would have every reason on Earth to stay away from Michael Cohen, who rarely goes to lunch without already having committed a felony that day. So, that really does make one wonder. Did Mueller have a 100% trusted C.I. so high in the Trump world that he’s known “all” along?
Take nothing of the fact that so much has been revealed only as of late, Mueller may have known in the first six weeks. When one shoots at the king, you damn well have to hit him. “Knowing” all that happened through Sater, and “proving” without any doubt at all, none, to any Republican anywhere, is far different, and might be why we see Mueller moving so deliberately (it’s not “slow” to have a year-long investigation), and why each thing that seems to come out, we’re assured that Mueller “already knew.”
Hmmmm.
