Donald Trump Reacts To Ex-FBI Lawyer’s Guilty Plea: ‘They Spied On My Campaign And They Got Caught’
During a Friday press briefing, Donald Trump responded to the news that former FBI agent Kevin Clinesmith would plead guilty to falsifying an email used in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application process to conduct surveillance on the 2016 campaign, Breitbart reported.
“That’s just the beginning I would imagine,” he said.
Trump called Clinesmith a “corrupt attorney” who worked for former FBI Director James Comey’s “very corrupt FBI.”
“Terrible thing. The fact is they spied on my campaign and they got caught.”
Per NBC News, Clinesmith is set to plead guilty to one count of making a false statement. The charge stems from his alteration of an email used to secure a renewal of a warrant approving surveillance of ex-Trump official Carter Page.
Clinesmith’s lawyer, Jonathan Shur, addressed his client’s actions and planned guilty plea.
“Kevin deeply regrets having altered the email. It was never his intent to mislead the court or his colleagues, as he believed the information he relayed was accurate, but Kevin understands what he did was wrong and accepts responsibility.”
As reported by CNN, the court documents outlining the charge against Clinesmith do not reference a broader FBI conspiracy against Trump. The records allegedly show that one FBI official raised concern over whether Page was a CIA source and sought proof from Clinesmith to back up his downplaying of the connection. The FBI agent then allegedly doctored the message that claimed the former Trump campaign official was a CIA source.
The plea is part of an investigation headed by Connecticut U.S. attorney John Durham, who is examining the origins of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation for possible misconduct. The inquiry comes after Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 476-page report on the probe, which revealed numerous instances of misconduct in the FISA process. A subsequent examination of the process as a whole found multiple mistakes in other inquiries.
Attorney General William Barr, a close ally of Trump, said the development is a sign that Durham’s investigation is “moving along at the proper pace.”
Last December, Barr claimed that the FBI’s probe continued even after a lack of evidence confirming its initial suspicions.
“There has to be some basis before we use these very potent powers in our core first amendment activity. And here, I felt this was very flimsy.”
As The Inquisitr reported, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows previously said the evidence he had seen from Durham’s probe suggested that indictments were forthcoming. However, he stopped short of going into detail on the documents he purportedly saw.
