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Ex-FBI lawyer charged with felony, to plead guilty to altering evidence in Russia probe
Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was charged Friday with a felony and has agreed to plead guilty to altering a document in the Russia collusion probe, the first criminal case to be brought in the investigation of U.S. Attorney John Durham, according to officials and a court document.
Ahead of his plea, Clinesmith was charged in federal court in Washington D.C. with one count of making a false statement for altering information he had received from the CIA in June 2017 to hide the fact that Trump campaign official Carter Page was a source for the Agency.
The alteration caused the Justice Department to make a false representation to the FISA Court that approved surveillance of Page for nearly a year, the criminal information filed by Durham states.
Clinesmith "did willfully and knowingly make and use a false writing and document knowing the same to contain a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement and entry in a matter before the jurisdiction of the executive branch and judicial branch," the court filing said.
The alteration caused the Justice Department to make a false representation to the FISA Court that approved surveillance of Page for nearly a year, the criminal information filed by Durham states.
Ex-FBI lawyer charged with felony, to plead guilty to altering evidence in Russia probe
Kevin Clinesmith will admit he altered a document involving Carter Page's ties to the CIA.justthenews.com
"The bigger story here is that Clinesmith was working on the Mueller team until early 2018. So you have a situation here where an FBI employee was assigned to work on a Federal prosecutor’s staff after he had previously engaged in malfeasance to alter evidence and illegally obtain a FISA warrant in the matter he was investigating.
This is no trivial matter, folks.
I think this whole charade is going to be blown out of the water before Election Day."