Background Briefing: September 13, 2020

 

The Person at the Eye of the Storm Heading up the “Crossfire Hurricane” Counterintelligence Investigation Into Trump/Russia Ties

We begin with the person at the eye of the storm who headed up “Crossfire Hurricane”, the counterintelligence investigation into Trump after he fired the head of the FBI James Comey. Peter Strzok, the former Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence and a 22 year veteran of the FBI who served as one of the original case agents for the Russian couple who inspired the TV series “The Americans” and also investigated Wikileaks, the 9/11 hijacking and Hillary Clinton’s private email server, joins us.  He was selected to head the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and worked with Robert Mueller as leader of the FBI’s efforts in creating the Special Counsel’s Office. The author of the new book, just out, Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump, he is perhaps the person most vilified by the president having been singled out for a constant stream of vitriolic abuse and he joins us to discuss why it is that the two former heads of America’s intelligence, the DNI’s James Clapper who said Putin is Trump’s case officer, and Republican Senator Dan Coats who is convinced Putin has a hold over Trump, suspect that our president is compromised by the Russians. We explore the long history of Trump’s involvement with Russian organized crime and Putin’s oligarchs who were prominent during the 2016 campaign and appear to have rescued Trump from his many brushes with financial ruin, evidence of which is apparently in Trump’s tax records that he has strenuously fought to keep secret.

 

Growing Resistance Inside Barr’s DOJ

Then with the sudden resignation of the deputy head of the Justice Department’s investigation into the investigations into the 2016 presidential campaign, who is reported to have quit because of political pressure from Barr to release the report before the election, we speak with a former United States Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, Harry Litman. The Executive Producer and Host of the “Talking Feds” podcast and a legal affairs columnist at The Los Angeles Times, he joins us to discuss how much Barr has turned the DOJ into Trump’s private law firm and the growing resistance inside the DOJ against the political witch hunt Barr is pursuing to manufacture a scenario to support his claim that Trump’s campaign was spied upon in order to justify Trump’s promise that the greatest scandal in history is about to be exposed.