[Peace-discuss] Ray McGovern - Moon-Strzok No More, Lisa Page Spills the Beans

[David Johnson]

Moon-Strzok No More, Lisa Page Spills the Beans

July 23, 2018 .  

The meaning of a crucial text message between two FBI officials appears to
have been finally explained, and it's not good news for the Russia-gate
faithful, as Ray McGovern explains. 

By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News

 
<https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Ray-Headshot-cropped.
jpeg>
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Ray-Headshot-cropped-1
50x150.jpegFormer FBI attorney Lisa Page has reportedly told a joint
committee of the House of Representatives that when FBI counterintelligence
official Peter Strzok texted her on May 19, 2017 saying there was "no big
there there," he meant there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump
campaign and Russia. 

It was clearly a bad-luck day for Strzok, when on Friday the 13th this month
Page gave her explanation of the text to the House Judiciary and
Oversight/Government Reform Committees and in effect threw her lover,
Strzok, under the bus.

Strzok's apparent admission to Page about there being "no big there there"
was
<http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/397902-opinion-one-fbi-text-message-in-rus
sia-probe-should-alarm-every-american> reported on Friday by John Solomon in
The Hill based on multiple sources who he said were present during Page's
closed door interview. 

Strzok's text did not come out of the blue. For the previous ten months he
and his FBI subordinates had been trying every-which-way to ferret out some
"there" - preferably a big "there" - but had failed miserably. It is
appearing more and more likely that there was nothing left for them to do
but to make it up out of whole cloth, with the baton then passed to special
counsel Robert Mueller.

The "no there there" text came just two days after former FBI Director James
Comey succeeded in getting his friend Mueller appointed to investigate the
alleged collusion that Strzok was all but certain wasn't there. 

 <https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pstrzok-400x267.jpg>
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pstrzok-400x267.jpg

Strzok during his public testimony earlier this month.

Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of Consortium News whom Solomon
described to me last year as his model for journalistic courage and
professionalism, was already able to discern as early as March 2017 the
outlines of what is now Deep State-gate, and, typically, was the first to
dare
<https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/04/the-politics-behind-russia-gate/>
report on its implications. 

Parry's article, written two and a half months before Strzok texted the
self-incriminating comment to Page on there being "no big there there," is a
case study in professional journalism. His very first sentence entirely
anticipated Strzok's text: "The hysteria over 'Russia-gate' continues to
grow . but at its core there may be no there there."(Emphasis added.) 

As for "witch-hunts," Bob and others at Consortiumnews.com, who didn't
succumb to the virulent HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus, and refused to
slurp the Kool-Aid offered at the deep Deep State trough, have come close to
being burned at the stake - virtually. Typically, Bob stuck to his guns: he
ran an organ (now vestigial in most Establishment publications) that sifted
through and digested actual evidence and expelled drivel out the other end.

Those of us following the example set by Bob Parry are still taking a lot of
incoming fire - including from folks on formerly serious - even progressive
- websites. Nor do we expect a cease-fire now, even with Page's statement
(about which, ten days after her interview, the Establishment media keep a
timorous silence). Far too much is at stake.

As Mark Twain put it, "It is easier to fool people than to convince them
that they have been fooled." And, as we have seen over the past couple of
years, that goes in spades for "Russia-gate." For many of us who have looked
into it objectively and written about it dispassionately, we are aware, that
on this issue, we are looked upon as being in sync with President Donald
Trump.

Blind hatred for the man seems to thwart any acknowledgment that he could
ever be right about something-anything. This brings considerable
awkwardness. Chalk it up to the price of pursuing the truth, no matter what
bedfellows you end up with.

Courage at The Hill 

 
<https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/lisa-page-peter-strzo
k-testimony-718-getty-640x480.jpg>
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/lisa-page-peter-strzok
-testimony-718-getty-640x480.jpg

Page: Coughs up the meaning of 'there.'

Solomon's article merits a careful read, in toto. Here are the most germane
paragraphs:

"It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day [May
19, 2017] was debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise
through the ranks to the level of an assistant director (AD) or join
Mueller's special counsel team. [Page has since left the FBI.] 

"'Who gives a f*ck, one more AD [Assistant Director] like [redacted] or
whoever?'" Strzok wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently
suggesting what would be a more attractive role: 'An investigation leading
to impeachment?' .

"A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence:
'You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd
be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern
there's no big there there.'

"So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative - as well
as Rosenstein's decision to appoint Mueller - apparently knew all along that
the evidence was going to lead to 'nothing' and, yet, they proceeded because
they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment."

Solomon adds: "How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly
affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in
the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are
under investigation for a crime the agents don't think occurred, but the
investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired
from your job. Is that an FBI you can live with?"

The Timing

As noted, Strzok's text was written two days after Mueller was appointed on
May 17, 2016. The day before, on May 16, The New York Times published a
story that Comey leaked to it through an intermediary that was expressly
designed (as Comey
<https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/politics/james-comey-testimony-donald-trump/
index.html> admitted in Congressional testimony three weeks later) to lead
to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate collusion between
the Trump campaign and Russia. Hmmmmm.

Had Strzok forgotten to tell his boss that after ten months of his best
investigative efforts - legal and other-he could find no "there there"?

Comey's leak, by the way, was about alleged pressure from Trump on Comey to
go easy on Gen. Michael Flynn for lying at an impromptu interrogation led by
- you guessed it - the ubiquitous, indispensable Peter Strzok.

In any event, the operation worked like a charm - at least at first. And -
absent revelation of the Strzok-Page texts - it might well have continued to
succeed. After Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named Mueller, one of
Comey's best buddies, to be special counsel, Mueller, in turn, picked Strzok
to lead the Russia-gate team, until the summer, when the Department of
Justice Inspector General was given the Strzok-Page texts and refused to sit
on them.

A Timeline

Here's a timeline, which might be helpful:

2017

May 16: Comey leak to NY Times to get a special counsel appointed

May 17: Special counsel appointed - namely, Robert Mueller.

May 19: Strzok confides to girlfriend Page, "No big there there."

July: Mueller appoints Strzok lead FBI Agent on collusion investigation.

August: Mueller removes Strzok after learning of his anti-Trump texts to
Page.

Dec. 12: DOJ IG releases some, but by no means all, relevant Strzok-Page
texts to Congress and the media, which first
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/politics/mueller-removed-top-fbi-agen
t-over-possible-anti-trump-texts.html> reports on Strzok's removal in
August. 

2018

June 14: DOJ IG Report Published.

June 15; Strzok escorted out of FBI Headquarters.

June 21: Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces Strzok has lost his
security clearances.

July 12: Strzok testifies to House committees. Solomon reports he refused to
answer question about the "there there" text.

July 13: Lisa Page interviewed by same committees. Answers the question. 

Earlier: Bob Parry in Action

 
<https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Robert-Parry-e1532321
856117.jpg>
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Robert-Parry-e15323218
56117.jpg

Journalist Robert Parry

On December 12, 2017, as soon as first news broke of the Strzok-Page texts,
Bob Parry and I compared notes by phone. We agreed that this was quite big
and that, clearly, Russia-gate had begun to morph into something like
FBI-gate. It was rare for Bob to call me before he wrote; in retrospect, it
seemed to have been merely a sanity check.

The
<https://consortiumnews.com/2017/12/13/the-foundering-russia-gate-scandal/>
piece Bob posted early the following morning was typical Bob. Many of those
who click on the link will be surprised that, last December, he already had
pieced together most of the story. Sadly, it turned out to be Bob's last
substantive piece before he fell seriously ill. Earlier last year he had
successfully
<https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/04/the-mystery-of-the-russia-gate-puppie
s/> shot down other Russia-gate-related canards on which he found
Establishment media sorely lacking - "Facebook-gate," for example.

Remarkably, it has taken another half-year for Congress and the media to
address - haltingly - the significance of Deep State-gate - however easy it
has become to dissect the plot, and identify the main plotters. With Bob
having prepared the way with his Dec.13 article, I
<https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/11/the-fbi-hand-behind-russia-gate/%C2%A
0> followed up a few weeks later with "The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate," in
the process winning no friends among those still suffering from the highly
resistant HWHW virus.

VIPS

Parry also deserves credit for his recognition and appreciation of the
unique expertise and analytical integrity among Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and giving us a secure, well respected
<https://consortiumnews.com/vips-memos/> home at Consortium News.

It is almost exactly a year since Bob took a whole lot of flak for
<https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evid
ence/%C2%A0> publishing what quickly became VIPS' most controversial, and at
the same time perhaps most important, Memorandum For the President; namely,
"Intelligence Veterans Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence."

Critics have landed no serious blows on the key judgments of that
Memorandum, which rely largely on the type of forensic evidence that Comey
failed to ensure was done by his FBI because the Bureau never seized the DNC
server. Still more forensic evidence has become available over recent months
soon to be revealed on Consortium News, confirming our conclusions.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical
Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was a CIA analyst for 27
years and, in retirement, co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity.

 

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