Former top FBI agent: Russiagate perpetrators could face 'subversion' or racketeering prosecution

Former FBI agent and Navy SEAL Jonathan Gilliam says prosecutors may be able to build a criminal subversion or racketeering case against government officials who carried out the Russiagate scandal.

"I think also what we have to start looking at is things like subversion," Gilliam said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "You know, subversion, like treason and insurrection...these are all criminal actions that there's law for."

Just the News reported Thursday that newly declassified memos show federal prosecutors gathered evidence from James Comey's top lieutenants that the former director authorized the leak of classified information to reporters just before the 2016 election, but they declined to bring criminal charges.

The bombshell revelations involving ex-FBI general counsel James Baker and ex-Comey chief of staff James Rybicki were memorialized in documents that FBI Director Kash Patel discovered earlier this year, but the passages were originally redacted by the Justice Department in versions sent to Congress earlier this month.

Attorney General Pam Bondi intervened and eliminated the redactions, dispatching new versions of the memos this week to the House and Senate Judiciary committees, officials told Just the News.

"When you look at those types of crimes...okay, maybe they leaked this information, but was their motive and intent to subvert the government of the United States, or a standing president, or a president that was coming into office?" Gilliam said. "If that's the case, then the statute of limitations goes out the door."

Subversion is defined in federal statutes as activities aimed at undermining a government or political system.

Gilliam said he thought it was important for the FBI to also consider a racketeering case that multiple government officials conspired together to abuse intelligence and law enforcement powers.

"I believe it's important for them to go forward on a RICO case, because they link all of these individuals, and they can show whether the statute of limitations for those particular crimes have gone," Gilliam said. "Let's say they've passed, but they can show that two or more people were involved in these crimes for the purpose of furthering their criminal enterprise. That's a RICO charge."

Comey previously denied during congressional testimony that he had ever been a source in news articles related to the FBI’s investigations into Trump and Clinton and further denied that he had ever approved of anyone else at the FBI being such a source.

He has long denied any wrongdoing and insisted he has been politically attacked because he stood up to Trump.

Congressman Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said the new developments about Comey have "overwhelming significance."

"I have to talk to an attorney about what the definition of treason is, but at the very least it's collusion," Burchett said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "I think a felony was committed. I think that the cover-up is, in this case, maybe even worse than the crime, because you got to ask yourself, whatever, what else were they covering up?"