The more we learn about the surrounding facts of the FBI raid on President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, the more the plot thickens.
As we previously reported, intel officials were leaking to Newsweek that the FBI was looking for documents including those related to the Russia collusion hoax. After journalist Paul Sperry tweeted about that about a week ago, he got booted from Twitter. But he then dropped a bombshell post on Gettr about the same counterintelligence unit that had been involved in the Russia collusion investigation (Crossfire Hurricane) against Trump now being involved in the raid, and that some of the agents involved were under criminal investigation by Special Counsel John Durham.
Sperry has now expanded on that Gettr post about it being the same unit that was involved in Crossfire Hurricane and the FBI raid.
Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain work ing in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.
In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.
Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”
If Auten is involved in any way with the Trump raid investigation, why would you involve him or any people who were already under disciplinary review in such a sensitive matter, particularly given the review was for Trump-related issues in the past? This raises all kinds of questions about why this same unit was involved in the raid and what their aims were — was it potentially retaliatory, if this is true? Or were they trying to grab back documents that could be problematic against them? And that’s why you shouldn’t have the same people involved.
Moreover, we reported how Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has identified whistleblower concerns about the politicization of the Hunter Biden laptop case and Auten’s name came up in that matter as well.
Fortunately, we have whistleblowers coming forward, but if they’re right, this shows how completely compromised the FBI is and how desperately it needs a complete house cleaning.