A Justice Department intelligence veteran, employed by the FBI, unveiled a stinging indictment of how one of the country’s top law enforcement agencies manipulates evidence garnered from wiretaps, which many times can be rogue and illegally conducted by contractors hired by the bureau.
These revelations echo allegations waged by President Donald Trump, despite the counter claims of FBI Director James Comey, that Trump Tower was wiretapped in the fall of 2016. Comey is expected Monday to testify on Capitol Hill regarding whether Trump’s wiretapping claims are legitimate based on whether a warrant was issued to conduct such surveillance. Comey is reportedly irate and could savage Trump for implicating the FBI in illegal activity. But a FBI insider’s admissions further damage Comey’s credibility regardless of how and what he testifies about on The Hill. According to the insider, it is alleged the FBI ignores privacy and civil rights protections of Americans as a rule, not as an exception and could have played a role in eavesdropping on Trump, either legally or illegally.
“What Comey says is somewhat immaterial because we have the capability to listen to anyone’s phones without a warrant,” the FBI insider said. “If Comey says there was never a warrant for a wiretap, that doesn’t mean there was no eavesdropping.
“Does the NSA need a warrant to listen to your calls? No. Neither do we. I can hire a government contractor to wiretap your phone. There is no warrant and seldom even a trace. Let’s stop acting like little innocent lambs. This is routine in case someone is accused of illegal wiretapping. We just say, ‘Oh we can’t find a warrant and the FBI never directly tapped the phone’ and Congress goes away.”
The insider said the FBI can mask such outside payments to telecommunications experts by disbursing cash to Cooperating Individuals, or “CIs” who are discreetly rewarded for providing intelligence to agents in exchange for money.
Comey is largely considered more partisan hack than honest Boy Scout. Whether or not he attacks Trump to create a smokescreen on what is happening under his FBI tutelage, FBI insiders say they routinely skirt federal laws to enhance criminal cases including active wiretaps. Comey has a much larger issue to tackle beyond Trump’s claims: Systemic corruption on his watch.
“We did what we had to do sometimes to make a case,” the FBI insider told True Pundit. “We picked a phone call up on a wire (tap) where the target placed a delivery dinner order on the telephone. We called the restaurant back and posed as the subject and changed his order to be extra spicy soaked in an inch of Tabasco sauce to make him intentionally nauseous. He was supposed to make a series of deliveries that night in a crowded night club and we didn’t know how to cover the entire club because there are hundreds of people in the place. Our thinking was with the suspect ill in his apartment he would be forced to call the group one by one and draw them to his residence. We would then have their numbers trapped on the DNR (dialed-number recorder) and could easily ID these players through their cell phone companies and surveillance.”
This was a high profile case in New York City with national headlines. The stakes were high and agents were told to do what they could to glean gems from an otherwise boring wiretap case. The intelligence asset said the strategy worked perfectly. The Tabasco case went to trial. The DOJ never divulged the hot sauce tactic. Until now in fact, only Intel insiders knew the legendary hot sauce tactic.
Additionally, the Tabasco-infused suspect became so ill agents grew concerned they might have overdone it. Many of the phone calls the suspect placed to accomplices were from his bathroom where he was experiencing extreme discomfort. At one point, he contemplated dialing 911 for an ambulance.
The insider and one of the federal pranksters recalled: “This poor guy was moaning on the phone and we were cracking up. We followed him later that night and he could barely walk. The chef overdid the hot sauce. It went bad.”
The problem: Although enterprising, such tampering is completely illegal. But that doesn’t stop the FBI from employing such trickery. Variations of the technique have likewise been employed by the FBI, including intercepting a food delivery person to place illegal listening devices in a suspect’s residence. Or severing a suspect’s internet connection with wire cutters then showing up dressed as cable repairmen, after conveniently intercepting the suspect’s call on an active wiretap to the cable company for help. Agents dispatched posing as cable employees gain illegal access to a suspect’s residence and wire their home with listening devices.
“There are many techniques and others I’m not going to get into,” the intelligence insider said.
This is far from the depiction of how FBI heroes, clad in blue windbreakers, swoop in and neatly tie up cases in a pretty bow on television and in Hollywood productions. Reality is much different. The FBI makes its living telling lies. Agents lie to criminal suspects to spark trick confessions. Agents tell outright lies to judges to secure search warrants and to wiretap phones. Agents, backed by the Justice Department, offer fake deals to secure plea bargains and never deliver on the promises. Agents set up elaborate stings, built on lies and deception to entrap clueless dupes into believing they could be domestic terrorists. They end up in jail while the FBI gets faux publicity for keeping Americans safe.
Expect similar law enforcement theater and slight of hand from Comey on Monday when he divulges his alleged investigation into President Trump’s make-believe ties to Russia and why his understudies wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election. Or if Comey claims they didn’t wiretap his offices. Either way, Comey is not to be believed.
Remember the Hillary Clinton investigation and his ensuing contradictory testimony. Expect more lawyer speak and little truth.
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