Thread: Who exactly leaked Trump Jr. emails story to The New York Times?

Who exactly leaked Trump Jr. emails story to The New York Times?


Trump Jr. tweeted a statement and emails clarifying his meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. (July 11, 2017)

By Luis Gomez Contact Reporter

Before the world saw them, The New York Times had knowledge of the exchange of emails that led Donald Trump Jr. to meet with a Russian lawyer promising damaging information about Hillary Clinton during last year’s campaign.

The story — which the paper broke Sunday and reverberated Tuesday when Trump Jr. himself published the emails on Twitter — leaned on five unnamed sources confirming the existence of those emails. At least two of those came from inside the White House.

Related: Will Trump Jr.-Russian 'opposition research' defense hold?

Speculation about the sources, especially if they are inside President Donald Trump’s close circle of advisers, added another element of drama to an already-frenzied political environment.

Follow
Jonathan Swan
✔@jonathanvswan

Rampant speculation among WH advisers about who leaked on Don Jr to NYT..evidence-free blame shooting in all directions...no trust in there
1:10 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  1,6241,624 Retweets
• 
  4,6054,605 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy


The emails create a huge problem for the president, who has insisted that his campaign did not collude with Russians to influence the election.

Related: 3 key exchanges in Donald Trump Jr.'s emails over Russian meeting

This has led many to wonder who within or close to the White House would leak such a damning scoop to The Times. Here are some potential suspects:

Corey Lewandowski

One-time Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski emerged as a possible source. He was running the campaign in June 2016, when Trump Jr. met with the Russian lawyer, and was fired less than two weeks after the meeting.

Though Lewandowski is not now a White House adviser, his possible knowledge of the meeting led some to believe he had an axe to grind. Was he one of those sources?

Follow
Mark Sumner @Devilstower

Replying to @Scout_Finch
Suspect #1: Corey Lewandowski who argued with both Trump Jr and Manafort and was fired shortly after this meeting. Proven ass with a grudge.
8:43 AM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  11 Retweet
• 
  33 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy


BuzzFeed News also quoted Trump adviser Roger Stone as saying on the record that he and Sam Numberg, another adviser, also suspected Lewandowski as one of the potential sources for The Times’ story.

“Donny was a vocal critic of Corey, he walked him towards the exits, and fits the broad definition of a White House adviser,” Stone told BuzzFeed News. “I’m not unbiased, but he’d be my choice.”

Jared Kushner

Trump adviser Jared Kushner also emerged as a possible source, according to BuzzFeed News and others reporting the search for those sources. After all, Kushner had knowledge of those emails and the meeting because he attended it along with one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Follow
Poll Cat @gato_danger

Replying to @RosieGray @fordm
Team Kushner is the only logical source
2:28 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  Retweets
• 
  11 like

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Follow
S.E.K. @knowshismasters

Replying to @langdaleca
Who do you think leaked emails? Couldn't have been Goldstone. That leaves Kushner and Manafort, right?
2:51 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  Retweets
• 
  11 like

Twitter Ads info and privacy


But what motivations would Kushner have to disclose that meeting? Such a leak would seemingly complicate things for Kushner, who is already under scrutiny for not previously disclosing his contacts with Russians when he sought security clearance.

Stephen Bannon

Trump adviser Steve Bannon does not appear to fit in the picture, but given his history of speaking anonymously to the press, it’s possible the former Breitbart chief could be the source.

A few theorized that the emails and the meeting implicated another top White House official believed to be a foe of Bannon: Kushner.

Follow
Kurt Bardella
✔@kurtbardella

Who's the leak? #bannon has the most to gain by weakening Kushner and the family dynamic - who benefits by taking out #trump - #pence does
4:28 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  33 Retweets
• 
  44 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Follow
Lou Plummer @CycleLou

Replying to @jonathanvswan
Since Jared ended up under that bus too, I'd say it was Bannon
1:13 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  3333 Retweets
• 
  336336 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy


Again, there’s very little to suggest Bannon could have spoken to The Times, but he is known as an infighter.

The Russians

Were the Russians mad that the U.S. didn’t lift its sanctions after the G20 summit meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin? Even if there was no suggestion of a Russian source at play in The Times story, the motive of retaliation would fit the action.

Follow
Karen M Bailey @Bailey2Karen

Replying to @JoyAnnReid
How about the Russians? Putin not happy at G20 meeting. No sanctions lifted. Leak Jr meeting to NYT in retaliation. Reminder of his power.
4:42 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  Retweets
• 
  22 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Follow
Diane Traenkle @Dtrenk

Replying to @tribelaw
I'm wondering if the Russians were involved in the leak so that it can be used as a threat if big D doesn't lift sanctions. More to come
4:29 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  33 Retweets
• 
  33 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy


And there is another possible Russian motive as well: the hope of bringing chaos to American politics with the leak.

Mike Pence

And one very big name has also emerged as a possible source: the vice president himself.

Conservative writer Allahpundit was willing to point to Pence. And that theory was promptly followed by a vote of confidence from political writer Josh Barro.

Follow
Allahpundit @allahpundit

Replies pointing the finger at Pence. C’mon. https://twitter.com/allahpundit/status/884873959874940928 …
1:39 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  Retweets
• 
  1313 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy

22h
Allahpundit @allahpundit

Replying to @jbarro
Why would Pence have those emails?

Follow
Josh Barro
✔@jbarro

Well, it was Manafort's idea to put Pence on the ticket to begin with. He marooned Trump in Indianapolis for the pitch.
1:43 PM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  11 Retweet
• 
  1414 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy


Pence is not known to speak to the press anonymously, and on Tuesday, the vice president distanced himself from the story and the controversy surrounding it.
View image on Twitter

Follow
NBC Politics
✔@NBCPolitics

Vice President Pence's Press Secretary Marc Lotter releases statement on Donald Trump Jr. meeting: "He was not aware of the meeting."
9:50 AM - 11 Jul 2017

• 
  
• 
  8686 Retweets
• 
  111111 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy


But of course Pence has the ultimate motivation — to be the 46th president if the 45th president is forced out.

So who else might have leaked information about the emails and the meeting Trump Jr. had with a Russian contact promising damaging information about Clinton? Share your theories with us.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...htmlstory.html

---

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.
Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com
Twitter: @RunGomez
Read The Conversation on Flipboard.

RELATED

Trump son, son-in-law met with Kremlin-linked lawyer, June 2016

Quite a conspiracy going there.....

Lewandowski: Heads Will Roll After Trump Jr. Leaks (VIDEO)

Carter Jul 14th, 2017 8:14 pm 86 Comments
Corey Lewandowski, President Trump’s former campaign manager, commented Wednesday that the leaker behind the coverage of Donald Trump Jr.’s Russian lawyer meetings will be fired.

As previously reported, on Saturday The New York Times published another hit piece on the Trump Campaign and a meeting with Russia.

On “Fox & Friends”, Lewandowski stated:

“Anybody, and I mean anybody who is not on the president’s agenda that works in this administration should absolutely be removed immediately . . .”

Beyond this, Lewandowski states early on that he was the campaign manager at the time and comments that, “if this was a meeting that had any information that would have been relevant to the campaign, or could have potentially impacted the outcome of the election, I would have been made aware of it, President Trump would have been made aware of it. Neither one of us know anything about the meeting, because it was a nothing meeting.”

Lewandowski added:

“I don’t know who the leaker is but let me tell you this, if it were up to me, and somebody was speaking to the media [and leaking information detrimental to Trump], I would fire them on the spot, and Donald Trump will do the same.”

The group that organized the meeting with Trump advisers and the Russian lawyers was the same Democratic group Fusion GPS that was behind the discredited Trump dossier, according to a report from Circa News.

Watch Corey Lewandowski speak with “Fox & Friends” about the matter below:

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017...r-leaks-video/

California congressman was lobbied by the same former Soviet military counterintelligence officer ...

California politics updates: A California connection to Trump son's Russia meeting

JULY 14, 2017, 1:23 P.M.
REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON

O.C. Rep. Rohrabacher was lobbied by the former Soviet military intelligence officer who attended Trump Jr. meeting

Sarah D. Wire

A former Soviet military counterintelligence officer who met with President Trump's son, son-in-law and campaign manager in June 2016 had previously lobbied Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) at least twice about U.S. relations with Russia.

News broke Friday that Rinat Akhmetshin, who received U.S. citizenship and became a Washington lobbyist after emigrating from Russia more than a decade ago, was also present at the Trump Tower meeting with campaign officials and Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The New York Times first reported the news about the meeting aimed at potential negative information about Hillary Clinton.

Several outlets have reported on Akhmetshin's past lobbying of Rohrabacher to help remove Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky’s name from a global anti-corruption law.

Magnitsky was a whistleblower who alleged that officials in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government stole $230 million. He died in prison under suspicious circumstances.

The Magnitsky Act banned officials alleged to be involved in his death from visiting the United States and from using U.S. banks. In response, Putin banned all adoptions of Russian children by U.S. parents. Akhmetshin lobbies for Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative, a group started by Veselnitskaya reportedly to lift the adoption ban.

Rohrabacher has long been known for encouraging improved relations with Russia, something that's made him an outlier in the Republican Party.

(Los Angeles Times)

He has said as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, he gathers information from a variety of sources and then weighs its accuracy.

He once described Akhmetshin to CNN as someone with "an ulterior motive" who is "involved with people who've got an agenda." He also said he could not rule it out that Akhmetshin was still connected to the Russian security services, something the former official has denied.

Rohrabacher defended the Trump campaign's meeting in a speech on the House floor Friday.

"If someone says to you that they want to give you information, there is nothing wrong with that," Rohrabacher said. "It is not illegal to receive information from someone, especially if you are engaged in an activity that's aimed at trying to secure understanding for policies that you plan to implement as a leader in the United States. Absolutely, there is nothing wrong."

Rohrabacher's opinions on normalizing relations with Russia have been known for decades, and several opponents have tried to make them a campaign issue without much luck.

His district backed Clinton for president in 2018, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and his opponents have attacked him over the news of his meetings with various people related to Russia or the Baltic states.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/esse...htmlstory.html

Originally Posted by Newmexican

Quite a conspiracy going there.....

Did Jared Kushner throw his brother-in-law Don Jnr under the bus? Or was it, the Russians, the FBI - or even his DAD?

• The disclosure that Donald Trump Jr met a Russian lawyer after an offer of official dirt on Hillary Clinton has electrified politics
• The biggest question hanging over it is who told the New York Times that the meeting had happened - and who leaked the incriminating emails
• Candidates include Jared Kushner, the FBI, the Russians, and a series of other possibilities

By Alana Goodman For Dailymail.com and Will Stewart In Moscow For Dailymail.com and Nikki Schwab, U.s. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com and Geoff Earle Deputy U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com
PUBLISHED: 15:18 EDT, 14 July 2017 | UPDATED: 10:27 EDT, 15 July 2017

• e-mail

127shares

682Viewcomments

It is the scandal which has electrified Washington, New York, and Russia, overshadowed the president's visit to France - and painted his eldest son as at very least a fool and at worst a knave.

The disclosure that Donald Trump Jr met a Russian lawyer after being offered incriminating information about Hillary Clinton is the most scandalous - and possibly most dangerous - yet to hit the White House.
But what is still unknown is who leaked the fact of the meeting and, even worse, the explosive emails between the president's son and the portly British Svengali who offered the dirt on Hillary.

So who started plunged a knife into Don Jr by starting Spygateski - and who has means, motive, AND opportunity?

WAS IT JARED KUSHNER?


+5
Family affair: The president's son-in-law is getting less flack for the Russia meeting than Don Jr - so could that mean he got it out there himself? He was grinning and relaxed at the Sun Valley, Idaho, get-together for billionaires. And family feuding is the Kushner way

THE MEANS: HE WAS SENT THE MEETING EMAIL

To be able to leak the fact of the meeting and the emails means firstly knowing about the meeting, and secondly having the emails.

Jared Kushner had both: he was at the meeting, and he was copied in on the emails setting it up.

What would point more powerfully towards the president's son-in-law is the timing of this.

The reason the meeting came onto any radars at all was because of Kushner's security clearance process.

Details of that were revealed Friday by Yahoo News - with the crucial detail that it was Kushner's lawyers who discovered the emails.

Although it is unclear exactly when they found them, Kushner updated his security disclosure form on June 21 as a result of the emails.

It emerged Friday that his legal team had told Trump's personal lawyer and the attorney for the Trump Organization three weeks ago about the existence of the emails.

That means he had been reminded recently of their existence and had them at hand.

THE MOTIVE: THE BEST DEFENSE IS ATTACK
Donald Trump Jr is family - so what on earth would make Jared Kushner leak the most damaging information yet to hit the White House?

The most plausible explanation is that the White House is a kill or be killed environment and that Jared's camp were calculating that the meeting would emerge in some form anyway - so better to get the focus on Donald Jr than on Kushner.

There is no doubt that if that was the intention, it has succeeded.

The very first headline, in the New York Times on Saturday 8 July, concentrated on Donald Trump Jr, setting the tone for a week of coverage.



He's taking the heat: Don Jr went on Hannity to explain himself; sources claim an operation in the West Win is protecting Jared

It was Don Jr, not Kushner, who featured in headlines and on Chyrons, and it was Don Jr who changed his explanation repeatedly, went on Fox News's Hannity show on Tuesday to claim he had told 'everything' only for the list of attendees to grow to include a Soviet spy by Friday.

And there are now claims of an operation to 'protect Jared' inside the White House.

'Who do you have to protect, You have to protect the guy who filled out the form saying I never took this meeting,' said an unnamed source.

The downside to the theory that it is Kushner is that the Trump family have in the past always been utterly united.

But Kushner's family is different: when Charles Kushner, Jared's father was under investigation for making illegal campaign contributions, his own brother-in-law co-operated with federal investigators.

In revenge, Charles Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and sent a tape of the encounter to Esther, the man's wife - and Charles's sister - to stop her testifying in an intra-family civil suit.

Charles went to prison for witness tampering.

Meanwhile Charles and Jared's uncle Murray are entirely estranged thanks to a 'Cain and Abel' feud which saw them donate to political rivals.

If there are two lessons for Jared, it's that loyalty inside family counts for nothing and that striking first is the best plan - and if that is true, it is now Don Jr paying the price.

THE OPPORTUNITY: IMMACULATE MEDIA CONNECTIONS
The recipients of the leaks so far have been the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NBC. Kushner is hardly short of links to all three.

Kushner, a former newspaper owner, has rarely spoken on camera but he is known to speak to journalists individually and to obsess about his press coverage to the extent that he has his own spokesman, Josh Raffel.

That spokesman had worked in the past for the immaculately connected Hiltzik PR agency in New York.

Jared is thought to have his own contacts among journalists and the extent of his obsession was hinted at by Politico on Friday: he was so irritated at television coverage he wanted two White House staffers devoted to complaining about the contents of cable news channels' kyrons.

So could he have crafted a deal with the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC to make sure they were nice to him?

ANALYSIS
Probably frontrunner for the leaks candidate; no smoking gun yet - but a grand deal with the media seems a conpsiracy theory too far.

WAS IT THE RUSSIANS?


+5


+5

Rich new cast of characters: Rob Goldstone (left) set up the meeting and Rinat Akhmetshin (right) was there. Could their ultimate bosses - probably the Kremlin - be behind the leak?

THE MEANS: OLIGARCH'S SON'S AIDE SET UP MEETINGS
The email trail started by Rob Goldstone would have been in the portly British PM's records - and he is employed by a would-be Russian pop star with deep ties to Putin.

All a Russian operative had to do was hand over first the fact of the meeting and then the emails, which were dripped out, with the New York Times disclosing the existence of the meeting on Saturday, and finally saying it had the emails on Tuesday, which prompted Don Jr to tweet them anyway.

Plenty of Russians knew about the meeting. Among them, we learned Friday, Rinat Akhmetshin.

THE MOTIVE
One motive for the Russians could be unhappiness at progress with the Trump administration.

Although Trump has sounded friendlier and met Putin, in reality sanctions are still in place and could get tougher thanks to laws being pushed by Republican Russia hawks.

The Russians may see this as a black op designed to get the White House to do its bidding - although if that is the case, it might have gone about it the wrong way.

The other possibility is that Russian interventions in foreign adversaries' affairs are often designed with one end: chaos.

In the chaos, Russia's interests are advanced, goes the theory.

That explanation has been offered for the alleged hacking of the 2016 election, with the view being that Putin did not want Trump to win so much as to discredit Hillary Clinton when she got into office.

Now with Trump in the White House, he is trying for the same, paralyzing the administration with this leak, and the possibility of more to come.

THE OPPORTUNITY
The way in which the story emerged raises some eyebrows.

For a group of shadowy figures, the Russians at the meeting have been surprisingly loquacious.

Indeed it only took from Saturday until Tuesday for NBC News to be sitting down exclusively with Natalia Veselnitskaya in their Moscow bureau.

One eyebrow-raising point is that their correspondent Keir Simmons must have been issued a visa to get into Moscow - and if he did not have a pre-existing one, they usually take days to be processed.

A second eyebrow might be raised by the way NBC News reported the presence of an 'unnamed man' on Friday morning, who was quickly revealed to be Rinat Akhmetshin.

Giving a source anonymity is standard journalistic practice to be able to get access to a story.

So could the lobbyist - who was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to get legal measures the Russians hate overturned - have been NBC's source?

ANALYSIS
Russians like causing chaos but this would seem to make it more, not less, likely that they get hit by sanctions.

WAS IT THE FBI?


+5
Served cold? James Comey's old agency might have been passed the means to epicly shiv its enemies- the Trumps and Jared Kushner, who pushed for him to be fired
o
THE MEANS: THEY INTERVIEWED JARED LATE IN JUNE
The FBI were told the fact that Kushner met the Russians on June 21 when he updated his SF-86 security clearance form to disclose that and many other meetings.

it is unclear whether he would have had to provide supporting documentation to them for the newly-disclosed meetings when updating the form.

But until Friday it had not been appreciated that this was followed on June 23 by the FBI interviewing Kushner.

That raises the significant possibility that the FBI were given - or demanded - the emails which revealed the meeting, putting in their hands the explosive information they contained.

THE MOTIVE: REVENGE STRIKE - OR CLEVER DETECTIVE WORK
The FBI has just been through the shattering firing of its director, James Comey, because of the Russia probe.

And the man who pushed for it inside the White House was Jared Kushner.

The role was first reported in May by the New York Times, which disclosed that others argued against sacking him

Comey was widely-reported to be popular inside the FBI and if agents were presented with a smoking gun which discredits not just Trump but Kushner particularly, then it would have been a powerful incentive to leak.



That went well: Jared argued to fire Comey, Bannon argued against - now Jared is the one being questioned by the Feds

But there could be a less personal and more professional explanation too: that the FBI decided to plant a strategic leak to flush out more details.

While they knew about the meeting once they got Kushner's form, they still didn't know a lot about it.

Thanks to the tsunami of revelations which have followed the disclosure, FBI agents now have a rich seam of people to investigate - and a lie to hold over Don Jr's head.

While failing to tell the truth to Sean Hannity is not a federal offense, Don Jr might be a more pliant and talkative witness now that the meeting is known.

And Russians who would be unlikely to co-operate with the FBI have given damaging evidence in public.

So could the FBI have advanced Robert Mueller's probe into alleged Trump-Russian collusion with a single explosive leak?

It is a highly-risky tactic for an agency already reeling from the Clinton server investigation, and the sacking of James Comey. But if it works, it would be worth it.

THE OPPORTUNITY: AGENCY HAS LEAKED BEFORE
Deep Throat was the deputy FBI director and James Comey told the Senate that he leaked as soon as he was out of office, so the FBI isn't exactly new to leaking.

The Times, Post and NBC all have reporters with deep connections to law enforcement.

What is simpler than an old-fashioned document drop?

One intriguing point is that after Don Jr published his emails, the New York Times did not publish their versions - which might have some more features on them to identify how they emerged; Don Jr's of course were simply printed from his inbox, scanned and tweeted.

The problem with blaming the FBI of course is that it is usually more interested in prosecuting in the law courts than in the court of public opinion.

ANALYSIS
Revenge is a dish best served cold - and the FBI may have in its ranks someone who remembers the words of Jim Malone to Eliot Ness in the Untouchables: 'He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.'

A strategic leak in the highest-profile investigation the agency has had since the Clinton probe seems like a huge risk for the FBI - but on the other hand, if it discovered evidence of collusion, it would be the biggest win in its history.

WHO ELSE COULD IT BE?


+5

Et tu dad? Could Trump himself have thrown his own son - who he called a 'good kid' under the bus?


Trump's White House is more like Game of Thrones than the West Wing.

The feuding camps are now lined up so that Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus are on the opposite side from Jared Kushner - at least for now.

All of them speak to reporters on and off the record regularly.



High-powered team: Trump's personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz is there to protect one man: the president

Outside are legal teams who have had access to the information.

One is representing President Trump alone. He could have decided to throw his son under the bus because so far this scandal does not implicate him directly.

Or one of his legal team could have made that calculation on his behalf - or equally the legal team could itself be compromised by a malicious leaker.

Also around inside the White House are long-time officials who may be honest whistleblowers or smear merchants - depending on the view of the person describing them.

Obama holdovers always get a mention when the White House is trying to find the source of leaks.

And there is the 'deep state' outside the White House, the shadowy spy community which the Trump camp claim is trying to bring them down.

And finally there is the possibility of a completely different figure - perhaps even the 400lb hacker in his mom's basement who Trump suggested might have hacked the DNC.

ANALYSIS

This story gets crazier by the day, so why not?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4mw6WNDae

Report: Lynch Tapped Manafort's Phone During Trump Jr. Meeting With Russian Lawyer


by ZeroPointNow
Jul 14, 2017 1:30 PM

According to a tweet by former Massachusetts Trump campaign official James Brower and first reported by independent journalist and author Jack Posobiec, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's phone was tapped by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch during the now infamous meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya - who was let into the United States under "extraordinary circumstances" by Obama's DOJ, headed by Lynch.

The meeting included Donald Trump Jr., Manafort, Jared Kushner, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Fusion GPS associate Rinat Akhmetshin - a Russian-American lobbyist who confirmed today that he was present during the June 2016 sit-down.

The meeting was arranged by another Fusion GPS associate, Rob Goldstone - in what is looking more and more like a deep-state setup to justify FISA wiretapping warrants. Of note, Veselnitskaya is publicly anti-Trump.

Fusion GPS, the firm behind the discredited 35 page Trump-Russia 'dossier,' was co-founded by Glenn Simpson, who abruptly canceled his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week in light of recent events linking the democrat opposition research firm to a second attempt to take down the Trumps.

Legal?
If Brower's tweet is proven correct and Paul Manafort's phone was being tapped during the meeting - it means Loretta Lynch's surveillance of Manafort, an American, was done without a FISA warrant - as the first FISA request by the Obama administration came in July, the same month as the meeting in Trump Tower.

This also calls into question the June 27th, 2016 "tarmac" meeting between Lynch and Bill Clinton, which would have come after the meeting at Trump Tower. Was Lynch reporting the results of the alleged surveillence to Clinton?

FISA Timeline
As radio host Mark Levin detailed in March (via Breitbart):
Drawing on sources including the New York Times and the Washington Post, Levin described the case against Obama so far, based on what is already publicly known. The following is an expanded version of that case, including events that Levin did not mention specifically but are important to the overall timeline.

1. June 2016: FISA request. The Obama administration files a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers. The request, uncharacteristically, is denied.
2. July: Russia joke. Wikileaks releases emails from the Democratic National Committee that show an effort to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from winning the presidential nomination. In a press conference, Donald Trump refers to Hillary Clinton’s own missing emails, joking: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” That remark becomes the basis for accusations by Clinton and the media that Trump invited further hacking.
3. October: Podesta emails. In October, Wikileaks releases the emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, rolling out batches every day until the election, creating new mini-scandals. The Clinton campaign blames Trump and the Russians.
4. October: FISA request. The Obama administration submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. No evidence is found — but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for national security reasons, Andrew McCarthy at National Review later notes. The Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.

Huge if true...


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...russian-lawyer