Jennifer Boone, SSA3 and the Danchenko EC

After the Horowitz Report, Attorney General Barr percipiently asked the most important question about the Russiagate collusion hoax: what was the FBI’s rationale for continuing on with the Russiagate collusion investigation after the collapse of its predicate as a result of the interview of Igor Danchenko, Steele’s Primary Sub-Source? (I.e. the period between the Danchenko interview and the appointment of Mueller.) Barr said that Durham was examining FBI “irregularities, misstatements and omissions”, but unfortunately Durham did not do so, leaving this and related questions unanswered. (See my article here for a discussion of Barr’s December 2019 statement.) Today’s article will discuss a small but interesting new document pertaining to this critical and highly concealed period.

A few days ago, @walkafyre received several FOIA documents related to the Russiagate hoax, one of which was the pdf uploaded here. This FOIA production considered 139 pages, of which 134 pages were withheld. For each withheld page, a FOIA bureaucrat itemized reasons for withholding.

Only two documents were produced.

First was a highly redacted email from an SSA in Operations Branch II, Counterintelligence Division, to Jennifer Boone, then its Deputy Assistant Director. (The same level as Peter Strzok, then Deputy Assistant Director, Operations Branch I.) The email referred to two interviews, but the subjects of each interview was redacted.

The second non-withheld document was a lightly redacted four page FBI form 302 for a Feb 10, 2017 interview of George Papadopoulos, filed on February 17, 2017 (first page shown below). This 302 had been previously released in volume 4 of the Mueller files at FBI (link) and the new version is word for word identical. So, in itself, it adds nothing new.

This doesn’t seem very promising, but never under-estimate walkafyre.

First of all, the email referred to an interview “from 17 February 2017”. This matches the filing date of the included Papadopoulos 302, strongly indicating that the Papadopoulos 302 was the second attachment to the Feb 22, 2017 email to DAD Boone. As a corollary, the redaction was “Interview of [Typhoon] from 17 February 2017.” (Typhoon was the FBI codename for Papadopoulos.)

If you then look closely at the metadata for withheld pages (as walkafyre did), you will see that the only not withheld pages were page 19 (one page only) and pages 79-82 (four pages) - see red arrows below. These lengths correspond to the email (one page) and the Papadopoulos 302 (four pages). There are 57 withheld pages between the two documents. This matches the Bates numbering - there are 57 pages between B1318 (the covering email) and B1379-1382 (the second attachment).

57 pages. Hmmmm.

As it happens, we know of an interview report from this period that is exactly 57 pages long - the Danchenko EC! Is it possible that this highly redacted and seemingly unremarkable email proves that the Danchenko EC was sent to DAD Boone on February 22, 2017. It sure does.

In addition to length and date, walkafyre noticed a subtle detail that clinches the identification. On pages 43 and 61 of the production (see below), there were redactions due to NSD (DOJ). These correspond to pages 22 (=43-21) and 40 (=61-21) of the 57 page document. And, sure enough, on pages 22 and 40 of the Danchenko EC, there were references to the presence of an NSD official - see excerpts below.

The NSD official in attendance at the second and third days of the Danchenko interview was subsequently identified as Richard Scott of CECS, a deputy to David Lautman, then its chief.

Curiously, the FOIA production almost certainly contains a second copy of the Danchenko EC. Following the Papadopoulos 302 (pages 79-82 of the production), there are exactly 57 more pages: pages 83-139, with NSD redactions on pages 104 and 122 (i.e. relative pages 22 and 40.)

SSA3

The Horowitz Report described a re-organization of Crossfire Hurricane in January 2017. In the January-April 2017 period, Operations Branch II under DAD Boone was responsible for the Carter Page investigation (with Strzok’s Operations Branch I retaining responsibility for the Flynn and Papadopoulos investigations and the WFO White Collar Criminal Squad retaining Manafort.)

SSA3 (Horowitz alias) was the senior Crossfire agent reporting to Boone. It seems more or less certain that the SSA of the February 22, 2017 email (containing the Danchenko EC and Papadopoulos 302) was SSA3. We also know that SSA3 was designated as Bruce Ohr’s point of contact between January 2017 and April 2017 (until superseded in May 2017 by SSA4 and Case Agent 5 [Brock Domin].)

The takeaway: while public and congressional attention has overwhelmingly focused on Peter Strzok (and Joe Pientka even though he left Crossfire in January 2017), the senior FBI agents with carriage of the Danchenko information were almost certainly DAD Boone and SSA3 (who is perhaps Richard Mains, who retired in spring 2017) = neither of whom was ever interviewed by a congressional committee (though each was interviewed by Horowitz and Durham.)

Conclusion

Proving that SSA3 and DAD Boone received the Danchenko EC on February 22, 2017 is an important foothold.

Only two weeks later, Comey and FBI obtained DOJ approval for use of its March 8, 2017 Talking Points (see discussion here; original here in attachments) for briefing congressional leadership on the Russiagate investigation and to obtain unusual permission to announce the investigation to the public.

The Talking Points memorandum (which became public by accident) relied primarily on Steele dossier allegations and secondarily on the earliest reports of Papadopoulos’ encounter with the Australians, but failed to disclose Danchenko’s more or less completely exculpatory interview (or for that matter, exculpatory information on what Papadopoulos actually said.)

The lead author for the Talking Points memorandum was Lisa Page. It was arguably her most important role in the Crossfire affair, but one that Horowitz appears to have been unaware of when he assessed her contribution to have been negligible.

A couple of obvious questions:

• were DAD Boone and SSA3 (and also Auten) asked to approve the language of Lisa Pages’s inaccurate March 8 Talking Points memorandum?

• If so, what did they say?

• If not, why weren’t they asked?