As first reported by Catherine Herridge at CBS News, Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson have sent a letter to Attorney General Barr requesting,
.. all records relating to the FBI’s interview of Miles Taylor including all 302s and notes, to better understand his role in the Flynn investigation.
From the Nov. 20, 2020 letter from Sen. Grassley and Sen. Johnson to AG Barr
Taylor revealed his identity as the “Anonymous” source inside the Trump Administration that penned the October 2018 NY Times Op-Ed, “I am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” and went on to publish a November 2019 book entitled “A Warning” using the same pseudonym. In his book he discusses supposed firsthand knowledge of working with Trump and his administration, which he described as chaotic and disorganized. Taylor finally revealed his true identity in October 2020 and was subsequently shown to have greatly exaggerated his position as a “Senior Trump administration official” and his access to the President and his senior staff.
In their letter to AG Barr, Grassley and Johnson stated that Miles Taylor’s name appears on the witness list for the Flynn portion of the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation known as “Crossfire Razor”. The letter goes on to state,
The FBI document appears to list meetings that Taylor had with … the Flynn Intel Group in October 2016 … witness interview of Miles Taylor, mentioned in the FARA documents, indicted Flynn Intel Group’s involvement with a late 2016 Turkey-related briefing.
From the Nov. 20, 2020 letter from Sen. Grassley and Sen. Johnson to AG Barr
The letter also includes several pages of heavily redacted information previously provided to the Senate committees. Grassley and Johnson go on to request further declassification of the documents.
We believe that further declassification is appropriate at this time because … there is a strong public interest in knowing and understanding what really transpired … these factors outweigh the need to further
From the Nov. 20, 2020 letter from Sen. Grassley and Sen. Johnson to AG Barr
protect the information contained in the classified records
Presumably, Grassley and Johnson have seen the unredacted documents in classified briefings, but are unable to share the contents with the public until they are declassified. But they seem to be signaling Taylor’s participation and acts in the Flynn investigation are cause for concern.
The letter ends by requesting all records and FBI 302s related to the FBI’s interview of Miles Taylor be provided.
However there’s a key detail that seems to have been overlooked in Catherine Herridge’s reporting and that is the involvement of former CIA Director James Woolsey and the way the FBI handled accusations made by him against Flynn.
[b]ased on Miles Taylor interview + open source reporting, considering an interview of former CIA Director James Woolsey [REDACTED].
From the Nov. 20, 2020 letter from Sen. Grassley and Sen. Johnson to AG Barr
This means the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team was taking information from FBI interviews of Miles Taylor as well as “open source reporting” of media interviews of former CIA Director James Woolsey and using it as a predicate to open or continue investigating Flynn for putative Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations related to Turkey.
Presumably, the redacted portion references interviews where Woolsey made a wild-eyed claim that he had a meeting with Flynn and representatives from Turkey to plot to kidnap a political rival of Turkey’s President Erdoğan named Fethullah Gülen who currently resides in Pennsylvania.
What’s so odd is the FBI never seemed to bother to interview the former head of the CIA who claimed to be an eyewitness to such a brazen kidnapping plot. They simply relied on media interviews he had done instead. There were no executive privilege hurdles to jump over. Everyone involved in this alleged meeting was a private citizen. So, it would have required minimal effort to arrange an FBI interview with him and he was already speaking publicly about the allegations.
The documents attached to the Grassley/Johnson letter to AG Barr mention Ekim Alptekin who was allegedly discussing hiring Flynn to carry out the kidnapping plot. Alptekin recently gave an interview to Tracy Beanz where he discussed Woolsey’s cockamamie story and sheds some light on the FBI’s failure to interview the former CIA Director.
The most likely reason the FBI did not bother to interview Woolsey was because his story was so blatantly absurd and easily debunked that they knew he would either have to recant his story or possibly face charges for lying to the federal investigators if he were interviewed.
TWP reached out to Alptekin for comment on today’s developments and he responded by saying,
Legal counsel believes that it is likely the FBI knew Woolsey was lying and didn’t want him under oath because the [FBI Form] 302 would become our biggest exculpatory weapon. But if the FBI knew Woolsey was lying then why did they leverage his public statements internally to deepen the investigation? And if the FBI did not know he was lying, why did they not interview him despite the allegations he made?
Ekim Alptekin in response to TWP questions about the Grassley & Johnson letter to AG Barr
TWP will continue to follow this story and report new information concerning Taylor or Woolsey’s role in the set-up and framing of Gen. Flynn.
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