Was President Trump Told About the FBI Investigation of Him?

In my previous blog article, I told how FBI Director James Comey wrote in his autobiography A Higher Loyalty that he assured President Donald Trump twice -- on January 6 and March 30, 2017 -- that the FBI was not investigating him.

On May 3, 2017, Comey appeared at a Congressional hearing (not mentioned in the book) and declared publicly:

... we [the FBI] don't confirm the existence of investigations except in unusual circumstances.

We don't talk about closed -- we don't talk about investigations that don't result in criminal charges unless there is a compelling public interest. And so those principles should still govern. We also whenever humanly possible avoid any action that might have an impact on an election. I still believe that to be true and an incredibly important guiding principle. It's one that I labored under here. 

.... those principles still exist; they're incredibly important. The current investigation with respect to Russia [and the Trump campaign] -- we have confirmed it [the existence of the investigation].

The Department of Justice has authorized me to confirm that it [the investigation] exists. We're not going to say another word about it until we're done. Then I hope, in league with the Department of Justice, we'll figure out if it doesn't result in charges, what if anything will we say about it, and we'll be guided by the same principles. ...

We're conducting an investigation to understand whether there was any coordination between the Russian efforts and anybody associated with the Trump campaign.

Six days later, on May 9, Trump fired Comey.  On May 12, Trump tweeted:

James Comey better hope there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press.

I think that, to some extent, Trump had in mind the two conversations on January 6 and March 30 when Comey denied any FBI investigation of Trump. I think also that, by May 9, Trump had been told that the FBI indeed had investigated Trump. In other words, Trump fired Comey because Trump had learned that Comey had lied to him twice. If necessary, Trump would reveal those two lies to the public.

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For the sake of argument, let's suppose that the FBI Counterintelligence had been investigating Trump  personally since 2012 and that Comey knew that fact in 2017 when he assured Trump that there was no FBI investigation of Trump personally.  

Future historians might write that Comey's lies to Trump were unethical. In the future, such lies -- the FBI Director denying an FBI investigation falsely to the President -- might be characterized as "pulling a James Comey".

This consideration might motivate Comey to communicate publicly, for the historical record, that he never had denied to Trump that the FBI ever had investigated to him. However, Trump's tweet now inhibited Comey from ever claiming he never had uttered such a denial to Trump. 

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Of course, the considerations in the above section are based on the supposition that FBI Counterintelligence was investigating Trump since 2012.

That supposition might be false. Perhaps the FBI really had investigated only a few members of Trump's campaign staff -- Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort -- but never had investigated Trump himself.

If so, then Comey had acted ethically. Comey had assured Trump truthfully that the FBI was not investigating him.

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Although an FBI Counterintelligence investigation of Trump should have been known only to a handful of FBI officials, the FBI's 2016 investigation of Hilary Clinton's e-mails -- the so-called Midyear Exam investigation -- created a situation where that secret might have spread. Comey's book describes the Midyear Exam team as follows:

To handle the [Clinton e-mails] case, the FBI's Counterintelligence Division brought together a group of about twenty experts — made up of agents, analysts, and support personnel. As the division normally did, they gave the case an obscure code name: Midyear Exam.

The group I regularly dealt with about Midyear ranged from the senior-most FBI executives to the supervisory agent and analyst supervising the case together day-to-day, and included lawyers from three different levels in the general counsel's office. I frequently referred to this collection of twelve people as "the Midyear team." I meet with the "line-level" agents, analysts, and support folks except to periodically thank them for their hard work.

Over the next eighteen months, I relied on the twelve-member Midyear team to help me make decisions on the case — though the ultimate decisions would be mine. Some members moved in and out as a few senior executives retired, but the group remained a collection of very bright people with strong personalities ....

(Ibid, page 167, emphasis added)

In other words, about 20 officials -- assembled by FBI Counterintelligence -- were examining Clinton's e-mails, and another 12 officials -- assembled by Comey himself -- were dealing with legal and other issues. In sum, more than 30 FBI officials were involved in the Midyear Exam investigation that was conducted by the FBI Counterintelligence Division for about 18 months.

During those 18 months, many of those 30+ participants surely remarked in conversations among themselves that it was not fair to investigate all of Democrat candidate Clinton's e-mails whereas Republican candidate Trump was not being investigated at all. In response to such remarks, the truth was told that Trump was being investigated too. Various details were told.

During those 18 months, many more FBI officials learned that FBI Counterintelligence had been investigating Trump for many years. 

Perhaps one such FBI official decided in early May 2017 to inform President Trump that FBI Counterintelligence had been investigating him for many years -- and that Comey knew it.

Comey's Denials of an FBI Investigation of Trump

James Comey -- in his autobiography A Higher Loyalty -- tells about two occasions -- on January 6 and March 30, 2017 -- when he as the FBI Director denied to Donald Trump that the FBI was investigating him.

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On January 6, 2017, two weeks before Trump was inaugurated, Comey came into Trump Tower to participate -- along with the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA and the Director of the NSA -- in a briefing of President-Elect Trump about the recently published joint US Intelligence assessment about alleged Russian meddling in the USA's 2016 Presidential Election. The assessment was titled Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution and was being released to the public on that same day, January 6.  However, the publication had a secret annex that comprised the Steel Dossier. 

After the four Directors briefed Trump about the assessment, FBI Director Comey remained alone in the room with Trump and spent five minutes telling him about the secret annex. 

I then began to summarize the allegation in the dossier that he had been with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel in 2013 and that the Russians had filmed the episode. ... Before I finished, Trump interrupted sharply, with a dismissive tone. H was eager to protest that the allegations weren't true.

I explained that I wasn't saying the FBI believed the allegations. We simply thought it was important that he know they were out there and being widely circulated. ....

He again strongly denied the allegations, asking -- rhetorically, I assumed -- whether he seemed like a guy who needed the services of prostitutes.

He then began discussing cases where women had accused him of sexual assault, a subject I had not raised. He mentioned a number of women, and seemed to have memorized their allegations. As he began to grow more defensive and the conversation teetered toward disaster, on instinct, I pulled the tool from my bag: "We are not investigating you, sir." That seemed to quiet him.

My job done, the conversation ended, we shook hands and I left the conference room.

(A Higher Loyalty, pages 224-225, emphasis added)

The tool that Comey pulled from his bag was a deception. Comey intended for Trump to misunderstand that the FBI was not investigating Trump about the alleged Russian meddling in the election. However, Comey intended that later he always would be able to say that he had assured Trump only that the FBI was not investigating Trump about being with prostitutes in Moscow.

Comey's autobiography brags a lot about his own superb ethics.

Suppose that the FBI actually was investigating Trump about Russian meddling in US elections. Since Comey was a superbly ethical official, it would be unethical if he assured President-Elect Trump falsely that there was no such FBI investigation. 

However, Comey could assure Trump that there was no FBI investigation of Trump for being with prostitutes in Moscow. Comey told Trump ethically that there was no FBI investigation about Trump and prostitutes. If Trump misunderstood Comey's assurance, then that was Trump's own fault.

That deception was the tool that Comey took out of his bag and used against Trump on that January 6..

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On the previous day, January 5, Comey had discussed with the FBI's general counsel, James Baker, what Comey intended to tell President-Elect Trump on January 6. Comey and Baker were concerned that telling Trump about the prostitutes allegation might be interpreted by Trump -- and later by historians -- as a subtle blackmail. In other words, the FBI had information about Trump being with prostitutes in Moscow, and so Trump better not cause any trouble for the FBI, which could leak that information to the public and so cause trouble for Trump. Comey and Baker called such subtle blackmail "pulling a J. Edgar Hoover", and they did not want to be ever accused of such an unethical act.

The bit about "pulling a J. Edgar Hoover" made me keen to have some tool in my bag to reassure the new president. I needed to be prepared to say something, if possible, that would take the temperature down. After extensive discussion with my team, I decided I could assure the president-elect that the FBI was not currently investigating him. This was literally true. We did not have a counterintelligence case file open on him. We really didn't care if he had cavorted with hookers in Moscow, so long as the Russians weren't trying to coerce him in some way.

The FBI's general counsel, Jim Baker, argued powerfully that such an assurance, although true, could be misleadingly narrow: the president-elect's other conduct was, or surely would be, within the scope of an investigation looking at whether his campaign had coordinated with Russia. There was also the concern that the FBI might then be obligated to tell President Trump if we did open an investigation of him.

I saw the logic of this [Baker's] position, but I also saw the bigger danger of the new president, who was known to be impulsive, going to war against the FBI. And I was determined to do all I could, appropriately, to work successfully with the new president. So I rejected Jim Baker's thoughtful advice and headed to Trump Tower with "we are not investigating you" in my back pocket.

(Ibid, pages 216-217; emphasis added)

When we read the above passage, we should not assume that FBI General Counsel Baker knew whether FBI Counterintelligence was conducting an investigation of Trump. Baker is a lawyer who provides legal advice ; he is not involved in the management of the FBI's counterintelligence investigations. Baker knew it was not his business to even ask Comey whether there was such an investigation. Baker knew only what Comey decided to tell him about that. 

It's likely that Baker assumed -- and Comey perceived that Baker assumed -- that there was no such investigation. Comey said nothing to contradict such an assumption. 

In this situation, exactly what did Baker advise Comey to do when Comey met with Trump on the following day? From the above passage, I infer that Baker advised Comey to refrain from telling Trump anything at all about the Dossier. Perhaps Baker thought that the Dossier should not have been included as a secret annex to the joint assessment.

So, when "rejected Jim Baker's thoughtful advice" by insisting that, on the following day, he would tell Trump about the Dossier -- in particular, about the prostitutes allegation. Comey insisted on doing so, because he had "a tool in his bag" -- the deception of Trump. Comey intended to trick Trump into thinking falsely that there was no counterintelligence investigation about Trump colluding with Russian Intelligence. Comey's "tool in the bag" was that he would tell Trump misleadingly only that there was no investigation specifically about Trump being with prostitutes in Moscow.

Comey -- in particular FBI Counterintelligence -- did not care about the prostitutes in Moscow, so long as the Russians weren't trying to coerce Trump in some way. In other words, Comey and FBI Counterintelligence indeed did care about the prostitutes in Moscow, but it was literally true that an FBI counter-intelligence investigation had not begun yet, specifically about Trump and those prostitutes.

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On March 30, 2017, Comey denied to Trump a second time that the FBI was investigating him. In the previous week, Comey had confirmed publicly that the FBI was investigating "possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign" (ibid, page 258, emphasis added). For that reason, Trump phoned Comey on March 30 to clarify whether Trump himself was being investigated.

I also explained [to Trump] that we [the FBI] had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those congressional leader that we were not personally investigating President Trump.

He repeatedly told me, "We need to get that fact out."

I did not tell the president, mostly because I knew he wouldn't want to hear it, that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most important that it would create a duty to correct that statement should that status change.

(Ibid, pages 258-259; emphasis added)

Since FBI Counterintelligence indeed had been investigating Trump for several years, Comey indeed was reluctant to make public statements that the FBI "did not have an open case" on him. FBI Counterintelligence was "not personally investigating President Trump" when the FBI briefed congressional leaders in March 2017.

What are Comey's weasel words in the above passage?

* Personally

* An open case

* A number of reasons.

* Most important.

Of course, FBI Counterintelligence had been investigating Trump for many years, but the case was not "open" right at the moment when the FBI was briefing the congressional leaders. There were a number of reasons for not making a public statement -- one of which was that FBI Counterintelligence indeed had been investigating Trump for many years.  

In his autobiography, superbly ethical Comey is deceiving his readers, just as he deceived Trump on January 6 and March 30, 2017.

When the Republican Party takes control of Congress in January 2023, a top priority should be to determine and to reveal when FBI Counterintelligence began its investigation of Donald Trump. That investigation began no later than 2012 -- perhaps already in the mid-1990s.

CIA Director Morrell's Briefing of Senator Reid About Trump in 2012

On August 27, 2016, Senator Harry Reid wrote to FBI Director James Comey a public letter that included the following sentence:

The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to mount and has led Michael Morrell, the former Acting Central Intelligence Director, to call Trump an “unwitting agent” of Russia and the Kremlin.

As the Senate Majority Leader, Reid was a member of the so-called Gang of Eight -- the Congressional leaders who were supposed to receive special briefings about Intelligence issues. 

Morell served as the Acting CIA Director during two periods:

1) July 1, 2011 to September 6, 2011

2) November 9, 2012 to March 8, 2013

It's most likely that Morrell briefed Reid about Trump during the 2012-2013 period, when Trump initially raised a stink about President Barack Obama's birth certificate.

..., Trump "became a virtual spokesperson for the 'birther' movement. The strategy worked: when Trump flirted with running for president in 2011, his popularity was concentrated among the sizable share of Republicans who thought that President Obama was foreign born or a Muslim or both."

In 2010, at the urging of Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, the National Enquirer began promoting a potential Trump presidential campaign, and with Cohen's involvement, the tabloid began questioning Obama's birthplace and citizenship.

In March 2011, during an interview on Good Morning America, Donald Trump said he was seriously considering running for president, that he was a "little" skeptical of Obama's citizenship, and that someone who shares this view should not be so quickly dismissed as an "idiot" (as Trump considers the term "birther" to be "derogatory"). ....

Later [in late March 2011], Trump appeared on The View repeating several times that "I want him [Obama] to show his birth certificate." He speculated that "there [was] something on that birth certificate that [Obama] doesn't like" ....

In an NBC TV interview broadcast on April 7, 2011, Trump said he would not let go of the issue, because he was not satisfied that Obama had proved his citizenship.

After Obama released his long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, Trump said "I am really honored and I am really proud, that I was able to do something that nobody else could do."

On October 24, 2012, Trump offered to donate five million dollars to the charity of Obama's choice in return for the publication of his college and passport applications before October 31, 2012.

When Morrell became the Acting CIA Director in July 2011, the birth-certificate issue already had died down, because Obama had released the long-form certificate a couple months earlier, in April 2011. 

When Morell became the Acting CIA Director again in early November 2012, the birth-certificate issue had come back to life recently, in late October 2012, when Trump had offered the $5 million. Therefore, I will assume that Morrell briefed Reid about Trump during November 2012.

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So, during November 2012, Morrell officially told Reid that the CIA assessed Trump to be "an 'unwitting agent' of Russia and the Kremlin" (according to Reid's letter in August 2016). 

What was the CIA's basis for such an assessment? I doubt that the basis was merely some FBI assessment that the CIA had been told about. Morrell would not brief Reid about an FBI assessment.

I think that, rather, Morrell's briefing of Reid about Trump was based largely on a CIA source -- Oleg Smolenkov, an assistant to Yuri Ushakov, who in November 2012 was the Deputy Chief of the Government Staff of the Russian Federation.

In this situation, it's likely that the CIA had asked Smolenkov about Trump in 2011 or 2012 and that Smolenkov subsequently had reported to the CIA that Trump was an "unwitting agent of Russia and the Kremlin". Then that information was included in Morrell's briefing of Reid in November 2012.

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In November 2012, the FBI Director was Robert Mueller. At that time, Comey was not even in the US Government; he was working for Bridgewater Associates, an investment-management firm. Comey did not become the FBI Director until September 2013.

Therefore, when Reid wrote his public letter to Comey in August 2016, he well might have refrained from mentioning whatever Mueller might have briefed him about Trump in November 2012. Perhaps Mueller had briefed Reid about Trump, or perhaps he had not done so.

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The FBI had its own source about Trump -- former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, who had immigrated to the USA and then had begun to brief FBI Counterintelligence in 1994. At some unknown point in time, Shvets began to report that the KGB had initiated a program to "compromise" Trump in about 1987. 

If the KGB indeed did initiate such a program, then Shvets himself was not involved in it. Shvets collected intelligence about Washington DC, whereas Trump lived in New York City. However, it is possible that Shvets did learn about a KGB program to compromise Trump.

If so, then Shvets probably would not have included such hearsay information about Trump during his initial FBI debriefings. Rather, it's much more likely that Shvets's memories about the Trump program were brought to the surface during 2011-2012, when Trump raised a stink about Obama's birth certificate. Only then did Shvets begin to tell FBI Counterintelligence his sketchy memories about a KGB program to compromise Trump. Of course, I am just speculating about this particular sequence of events.

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By late 2012, both the CIA and FBI suspected that Trump was at least an "unwitting agent" of Russian Intelligence.

I myself do not agree with any such suspicion that Russian Intelligence had any program to compromise Trump or that he ever was compromised -- or that he ever colluded with Russian Intelligence.

Senator Reid's Letters to FBI Director Comey

This letter clarifies my previous blog article, titled The FBI's Leaks About Its Investigation of Trump, where I wrote:

The official story is that the FBI indeed was investigating [President Donald] Trump for good reason, but was keeping its investigation very secret. The culprit who revealed the FBI investigation to the public was Senator Harry Reid. He did so on October 30, nine days before the election.

The situation seems to be that Reid -- because he was the Senate leader -- had been briefed about the FBI investigation of Trump, but Reid was supposed to keep that investigation secret from the public. However, Reid was so angry at [FBI Director James] Comey for recently re-opening the investigation of Hillary Clinton's e-mails that Reid revealed to the public the FBI investigation of Trump.

However, I wonder whether Comey really wanted Reid to keep the FBI investigation of Trump secret. Perhaps Comey expected and even wanted Reid to reveal the FBI investigation right after the briefing.

Now that I have reviewed Reid's letter, I recognize that I was wrong to write that Reid had "revealed the FBI investigation to the public". Rather, Reid's letter indicated only that Comey possessed "explosive information". The letter's essential text (emphasis added):

Dear Director Comey:

Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another. I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law.

The double standard established by your actions is clear.

In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.

By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible.

Moreover, in tarring Secretary Clinton with thin innuendo, you overruled longstanding tradition and the explicit guidance of your own Department. You rushed to take this step eleven days before a presidential election, despite the fact that for all you know, the information you possess could be entirely duplicative of the information you already examined which exonerated Secretary Clinton.

As you know, a memo authored by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on March 10, 2016, makes clear that all Justice Department employees, including you, are subject to the Hatch Act. The memo defines the political activity prohibited under the Hatch Act as “activity directed towards the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.”

The clear double-standard established by your actions strongly suggests that your highly selective approach to publicizing information, along with your timing, was intended for the success or failure of a partisan candidate or political group.

Please keep in mind that I have been a supporter of yours in the past. When Republicans filibustered your nomination and delayed your confirmation longer than any previous nominee to your position, I led the fight to get you confirmed because I believed you to be a principled public servant.

With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong.

Sincerely,

Senator Harry Reid

Reid's letter does not state explicitly that the FBI was conducting an investigation of Trump.

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Two months earlier, on August 27, 2016, Reid had written a previous letter to Comey, which said (emphasis added):

Dear Director Comey:

I have recently become concerned that the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results. The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to mount and has led Michael Morrell, the former Acting Central Intelligence Director, to call Trump an “unwitting agent” of Russia and the Kremlin. The prospect of a hostile government actively seeking to undermine our free and fair elections represents one of the gravest threats to our democracy since the Cold War and it is critical for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use every resource available to investigate this matter thoroughly and in a timely fashion. The American people deserve to have a full understanding of the facts from a completed investigation before they vote this November.

As you know, Russia’s intent to influence the outcome of our presidential election has been well-documented by numerous news organizations. For example, it has been reported that your agency is currently investigating the cyber theft of thousands of documents from several Democratic organizations, including, but not limited to, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Already, a consensus of national security experts publicly concluded that actors of the Russian government carried out these cyber attacks.

It is of vital public interest to understand the chain of custody of these illegally obtained documents from the time they were stolen to the time of public dissemination, including any evidence of complicit intermediaries between the Russian government, those who leaked the material and any United States citizen.

For example, it has come to my attention that last week, video evidence came to light of an individual with long ties to Donald Trump and his top campaign aides claiming to be in communication with WikiLeaks, the organization that posted online the 20,000 DNC documents illegally obtained by Russia. The prospect of individuals tied to Trump, Wikileaks and the Russian government coordinating to influence our election raises concerns of the utmost gravity and merits full examination.

Further, there have been a series of disturbing reports suggesting other methods Russia is using to influence the Trump campaign and manipulate it as a vehicle for advancing the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin. For example, questions have been raised about whether a Trump advisor who has been highly critical of U.S. and European economic sanctions on Russia, and who has conflicts of interest due to investments in Russian energy conglomerate Gazprom, met with high-ranking sanctioned individuals while in Moscow in July of 2016, well after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee. (The same individual recently broke precedent by giving a speech critical of U.S. policy while in Moscow.) Any such meetings should be investigated and made a part of the public record. Indeed, the recent staff changes within the Trump campaign have made clear that the Trump campaign has employed a number of individuals with significant and disturbing ties to Russia and the Kremlin.

The foregoing - and more - has led me to believe that this matter should be fully investigated and the investigation made public.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

HARRY REID
Democratic Leader

In this letter too, Reid does not reveal that the FBI was investigating Trump. On the contrary, the letter suggested only that the FBI should investigate Trump.

The FBI's Leaks About Its Investigation of Trump

In an earlier blog article, titled Yuri Shvets and FBI Counterintelligence, I argued that former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, having immigrated to the USA, began to provide information to FBI Counterintelligence in 1994. Eventually Shvets claimed that the KGB had begun a secret operation in about 1987 to recruit Donald Trump as an agent.

I assume that, based on Shvet's claims, FBI Counterintelligence began already in the 1990s to investigate Trump. I speculate further that this investigation was boosted in 2012, when Trump raised a stink about President Barack Obama's birth certificate. Perhaps FBI Counterintelligence suspected that Trump was doing so as part of a Russian Intelligence effort to meddle in the USA's elections.

I speculate further that this investigation was boosted again in mid-2015, when Trump declared his candidacy for the Presidency. I speculate further that FBI Director James Comey reassigned FBI officer Michael Gaeta to the US Embassy in Rome, Italy, in order to collect in Europe information about Trump. Although Gaeta supposedly was working for the FBI Legate at that Embassy, he really was working for and reporting to FBI Counterintelligence.

The FBI kept this investigation extremely secret. The main reason that if Trump or Russian Intelligence became aware of the investigation, then the FBI's collection of information might be frustrated.

As the election race continued through the year 2016, however, another consideration grew within the FBI leadership. Although the investigation should remain very secret, the public -- in particular, elite opinion-makers -- should be warned subtly that Trump might be a secret agent for Russian Intelligence.

In this blog article here, I speculate about how the FBI leadership leaked such warnings about Trump. I cannot provide convincing evidence. I hope I can provide some ideas, however, about how such leaks might have been done.

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According to the official story, told in the Horowitz report, Christopher Steele delivered his Dossier reports to FBI official Michael Gaeta for the first time on July 5, 2016. The first delivered report was Number 80. I think that Steele already had delivered 79 reports, which have kept secret from the public to the present.

Steele formally worked for the company Fusion GPS and delivered his reports primarily to that company. He numbered his reports sequentially as he delivered them to that client. However (I speculate), he delivered them also to Gaeta, who forwarded them directly to FBI Counterintelligence. This arrangement was very secret. Not even Gaeta's supposed boss, the FBI Legate at the USA's Rome Embassy, was aware that Gaeta was collecting information in Europe about Trump from Steele and from other sources and was sending it directly to FBI Counterintelligence.

In this arrangement, FBI Counterintelligence was able to suggest to Steele (i.e. to Fusion GPS) particular subjects to research. Eventually, as the FBI prepared its FISA applications against Trump, Steele was tasked subtly to provide information quickly that might be necessary to justify the application.

Also in this arrangement, as the FBI leadership decided to warn the public subtly about Trump, Steele and Fusion GPS could be encouraged to leak insinuations about Trump to journalists. Supposedly, Gaeta forbad Steele to do such leaking and ultimately punished Steele by firing him from his position as a paid secret informant. However, there might be much more to that story. For example, perhaps Steele had been encouraged to leak, but he eventually did so in a blatant manner that angered Gaeta.

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On March 17, 2017, James Wolfe, the Director of Security for the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), provided to journalist Ali Watkins (his former lover) the entire FISA warrant targeting Carter Page. Wolfe was caught in October 2017 and eventually was charged -- but only for lying to investigators. Wolfe pled guilty to that lesser charge and never was charged for leaking the FISA warrant -- a top secret document. Wolfe was sentenced to only two months in jail.

Why was Wolfe not charged for leaking the FISA warrant that targeted Page?  Blogger Sundance has speculated that Wolfe had leaked the FISA warrant at the behest of some top members of the SSCI.

.... lawyers for Mr. Wolfe have sent letters to every Senator who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. ... The lawyers for Wolfe are putting the senators on notice they might be called as defense witnesses.  ....

Remember, Wolfe isn’t charged with the leaks, he’s charged with lying to the FBI. His lawyers inferring that Senators might be called to rebut the allegations, seems to imply that Senators might have authorized the content of those allegations; or, put simply, Senators might have authorized or instructed Wolfe to make the leaks to the media. [emphasis added]

I had been persuaded by Sundance's speculation, but recently I myself have begun to speculate along a different line. I wonder whether Wolfe leaked the FISA warrant not at the behest of some SSCI members -- but rather at the behest of FBI Director Comey.

Comey devoted a lot of thought and effort to his leaking techniques, managing to escape legal punishment even if he were caught. 

By leaking the FISA warrant through the SSCI's Director of Security, Comey created an illusion that the FBI had nothing to do with the leak. The apparent culprit was the SSCI, which is not even in the Executive Branch.

Also, as long as Comey was the FBI Director, the FBI never was able to catch Wolfe. Only after Comey was fired from the FBI in May 2017 did the FBI catch Wolfe in October 2017. Then, even after Wolfe was caught, he was not charged with leaking the FIsA warrant, because he threatened to reveal that he had done so at the behest of FBI Director Comey.

That is my speculation, which I cannot prove.

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Long before Wolfe leaked the FISA warrant to Watkins in March 2017, someone leaked general information about the FISA warrant to another journalist, Louise Mensch, the British owner of the website Heat Street, revealed on November 7, 2016, (the day before the election) that the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant targeting Trump.

Ali Watkins, born in 1991, is 20 years younger than Louise Mensch, born in 1971, but I wonder whether Wolfe ever had a romantic relationship likewise with Mensch.

James Wolfe and FISA Leak Recipient Ali Watkins

FISA Leak recipient Louise Mensch

There might be a pattern here. Part of the pattern might be that Wolfe was told to leak by Comey, who firmly believed that Trump was an agent of influence, controlled by Russian Intelligence. Comey wanted to warn the public subtly that Trump was being investigated formally by the FBI on suspicion of colluding with Russian Intelligence.. 

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(The following three paragraphs are incorrect, but I am leaving them here for discussion. I have published a correction in my following blog article, Senator Reid's Letters to FBI Director Comey.) 

The official story is that the FBI indeed was investigating Trump for good reason, but was keeping its investigation very secret. The culprit who revealed the FBI investigation to the public was Senator Harry Reid. He did so on October 30, nine days before the election. 

The situation seems to be that Reid -- because he was the Senate leader -- had been briefed about the FBI investigation of Trump, but Reid was supposed to keep that investigation secret from the public. However, Reid was so angry at Comey for recently re-opening the investigation of Hillary Clinton's e-mails that Reid revealed to the public the FBI investigation of Trump. 

However, I wonder whether Comey really wanted Reid to keep the FBI investigation of Trump secret. Perhaps Comey expected and even wanted Reid to reveal the FBI investigation right after the briefing.

Leaks of Classified Information Before and During Trump