FBI classified leak inquiries into false Russiagate stories failed to hold anyone accountable

The FBI launched more than half a dozen wide-ranging investigations into leaks to the media as numerous legacy outlets deployed the classified information to push false claims of Trump-Russia collusion, but the bureau failed to hold anyone accountable for the classified leaking, a Just the News investigation shows.

The newly-declassified FBI memos detail a host of failed or botched classified leaks inquiries, with revelations from at least seven leak inquiries contained within the bombshell documents first obtained and now released by Just the News. The FBI concluded that numerous news stories which contributed to the false Russiagate narrative contained illegally leaked classified intelligence, but bureau investigators repeatedly failed — perhaps willingly — to definitively identify the leakers.

The problems that FBI investigators said they faced included large pools of potential leakers within the federal government sometimes numbering in the dozens or into the hundreds due to the wide dissemination of the intelligence, uncooperative Justice Department partners, restrictions on the use of data from the spy agencies which were victims of the leaks, investigations being launched only many months after the leaks occurred, congressional staffers invoking speech or debate privilege to stymie inquiries, DOJ declining to pursue prosecutions, and more.

Comey manipulated The New York Times into carrying water

Despite the failures of all of these FBI leak investigations, Just the News revealed this week that FBI agents did force a stunning admission that ex-FBI Director James Comey used a special conduit to the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times in his bid to polish his image and push for a special prosecutor to take down Trump.

Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman admitted to agents that he routinely communicated on behalf of Comey, his longtime friend, with Times reporter Michael Schmidt, whose work was among the newspaper's 2018 Pulitzer-winning stories on the Russiagate saga. The goal, Richman told the FBI, was "to correct stories critical” of Comey and the FBI and to “shape future press coverage.”

Richman insisted he did not believe he had confirmed or provided classified intelligence to reporters but said he could not be 100 percent certain, the memos state, noting he could only make his leak denial “with a discount.” The revelations about Comey and Richman were revealed as part of an FBI classified leak investigation dubbed Arctic Haze, according to the declassified memos obtained by Just the News on Tuesday. The inquiry did not result in any prosecutions, although significant details about the investigation remain redacted.

In a separate investigation, a career intelligence officer who worked for Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) for more than a decade repeatedly warned the FBI beginning in 2017 that then-Rep. and now-Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, had approved leaking classified information to smear Trump over the now-debunked Russiagate scandal, according to FBI memos first obtained by Just the News on Monday.

The FBI interview notes stated that the intelligence staffer — a Democrat by party affiliation who described himself as a friend to Schiff and former Republican House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes — considered the classified leaking to be "unethical," "illegal" and “treasonous,” but was told not to worry about it because Schiff believed he would be spared prosecution under the Constitution's speech and debate clause. Schiff has denied the allegations.

Leak inquiries all came up short

Just the News can reveal the Democratic whistleblower’s witness testimony was contained within a broader FBI investigation dubbed Genetic Christmas, which looked into leaks of classified information to the media.

These numerous other FBI leak inquiries — Genetic Christmas, along with ones dubbed Sirens Lure, Foggy Falls, Riding Hood, Echos Fate, and Tropic Vortex — all also came up short in finding the source of classified leaks or prosecuting anyone for leaking.

You can read all of these FBI memos here:

FBI Memos - Classified Leak Investigations - Declassified

• Genetic Christmas

The FBI’s failed Genetic Christmas classified leaks investigation focused on an NBC News article written by three reporters — William Arkin, Ken Dilanian, and Cynthia McFadden — which was published in mid-December 2016 and was titled, “U.S. Officials: Putin Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack.” The inquiry would come up short in part due to the dozens of people who could have been the source of the leak.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently harshly criticized this specific leak to NBC News, arguing it fed a false narrative that the intelligence community had already reached a conclusion on Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s intentions during the 2016 election when the Intelligence Community Assessment had not yet been completed.

“Deep State officials in the IC begin leaking blatantly false intelligence to the Washington Post, as proven by the unpublished PDB and previous IC products, claiming that Russia used ‘cyber means’ to influence ‘the outcome of the election.’ … Another leak to the Washington Post falsely alleges that the CIA ‘concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened’ in the election to help President Trump,” the Gabbard-led Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed last month.

ODNI added: “At this point, there is no official IC assessment that contains that conclusion. … IC officials again leak to the media, this time claiming [to NBC News] that IC officials believe ‘with a high level of confidence’ that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in the ‘U.S. Election Hack’.”

The declassified FBI launch document for this media leak investigation was dated late October 2017 and said the FBI’s Washington field office launched the inquiry based on redacted information from late July 2017 detailing the unauthorized leaking of classified information to NBC News in mid-December 2016.

The FBI’s request to close the investigation in late February 2020 showed the Washington field office had concluded that “all logical investigative techniques have been exhausted.”

The memo said that “34 interviews were conducted, which yielded no investigative leads to date” and that “the subject pool interviews revealed the list of people who had access to the GENETIC CHRISTMAS information was much larger than estimated.”

“Investigators conducted open source searches of any tangential news articles either by the same publication or written by the same reporters during the 2016 election cycle for additional leads. The case agent wrote a timeline of events attempting to encompass all relevant activity of involved actors in an effort to connect people and events with the alleged disclosure,” the FBI memo said. “Due to the voluminous reporting on Russia and Russian intelligence activities during the 2016 U.S. election cycle, it is difficult to parse out the articles from sheer speculation versus legitimate source reporting with various news outlets covering the same topic.”

The bureau memo claimed that “no leads were identified to pursue further investigation” and that “because there is no way to adequately narrow down the subject pool, additional investigative techniques will not be effective.” The memo said that “there is insufficient evidence to pursue a search warrant on any individuals in the subject pool” and that “a decision was made not to pursue a media subpoena at this time.”

The FBI memo also noted that the classified leak occurred in mid-December 2016 but that the crime report was not signed until late August 2017, with the bureau memo stating that “because the disclosure was not reported until well after its release, the investigation was hampered.”

The memo concluded that “based on the investigative activity conducted and the futility of future investigative steps, WFO recommends closing captioned case.”

Just the News reported last week that President Barack Obama made public statements as early as mid-December 2016 indicating that he was endorsing a predetermined CIA view (which was leaked to the media) about Vladimir Putin allegedly wanting Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose in 2016. Despite Obama’s public pronouncements, the intelligence community assessment had not even been completed at the time and was still being debated and drafted.

• Sirens Lure

The FBI’s unsuccessful Sirens Lure classified inquiry focused on three Washington Post stories. The bureau would say its investigation failed due to nearly two hundred possible leak sources, a House staffer looking to block further investigation, and more.

The first Post story in question was by four reporters — Matt Zapotosky, Sari Horwitz, Devlin Barrett, and Adam Entous — from late May 2017 titled, "Jared Kushner Now a Focus in Russia Investigation.” The second was an article by three reporters — Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous, and Greg Miller — from late May 2017 titled, "Russian Ambassador Told Moscow that Kushner Wanted Secret Communications Channel with Kremlin.” The third was a piece by four reporters — David Filipov, Amy Brittain, Rosalind Helderman, and Tom Hamburger — from early June 2017 titled, "Explanations for Kushner's Meeting with Head of Kremlin-linked Bank Don't Match Up.”

The bureau launch memo dated mid-August 2017 said that the FBI’s Washington field office had opened a “full investigation” based on redacted information from late June 2017 from DOJ’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section which relayed the “unauthorized disclosure” of “classified information in a total of eight Washington Post articles published between April and June 2017.” Sirens Lure dealt with three specific Post articles.

The memo said the FBI field office “was advised to open this investigation as a Sensitive Investigative Matter to accomplish DOJ's directive to make an assessment of this case.”

“The purpose of this communication is to recommend closing the captioned full investigation regarding unauthorized public disclosures of classified USG information related to Russia’s interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” the declassified FBI memo said. “The classified information was contained in seven news articles published by Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN between May and July 2017.”

The memo said the FBI’s Washington field office “believes all logical investigative techniques have been exhausted” and wanted to close the case. The FBI memo listed “investigative challenges” and “obstacles” faced during the investigation, including the “Broad Scope of Dissemination,” “Restrictions on Use of Victim Agency Data,” “Timeliness,” “Lack of Insight into Methods of Transmitting Classified Information,” and “Speech or Debate Privilege.”

The field office said that it “initially identified over 192 individuals in the subject pool” who could have potentially leaked the information, including people in the “FBI, DOJ, “[Redacted], [Redacted], [Redacted], United States Congress ‘Gang of Eight’, members and staffers of SSCI and HPSCI, and White House officials.” The “expansive” subject pool “included persons across the Intelligence Community and within Congress,” and the FBI said that “this number certainly undercounts the actual number of persons who had access to the classified information given how widely the information had been disseminated to the FBI, [Redacted], the White House, and to Congress.”

The FBI noted that “some of the disclosures occurred shortly after a ‘Read Room’ was established … for members and staffers” of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees “to review the classified information, which was released in the aforementioned publications.”

The memo noted that “a former HPSCI staffer contacted the FBI and reported that a former HPSCI Staff Director, a main person of interest (POI), directed HPSCI staffers to leak classified information in 2017.”

The FBI’s Washington field office “interviewed the POI for over three hours” in mid-May 2020, and “the POI freely admitted to contact with the media as part of his job responsibilities and denied leaking any classified information.” The FBI investigative team eventually concluded that “it was unlikely the POI was the source of the unauthorized disclosures.”

The FBI memo states that further efforts to follow this particular line of inquiry were soon stymied by a House Intelligence Committee lawyer.

“After interviewing the POI, WFO attempted to speak with another former staffer from HPSCI, but HPSCI counsel intervened and objected to any interview in a criminal investigation without further information from WFO based on Speech or Debate privileges,” the FBI memo stated. “Further investigative efforts involving former or current Congress members or staffers would have certainly required advanced coordination and waivers through their legal counsel due to the Speech or Debate privilege. This coordination process would require disclosing details of the investigation in advance and legal counsel participation in interviews. The investigative team assessed a waiver was not likely and ultimately decided not to seek interviews of these persons.”

The FBI memo continued: “At this point, the only remaining logical steps are to (i) conduct interviews of the remaining 192 persons in the subject pool as well as clearance holders who had contact with the reporters and might have had access to the classified information, as well as the other clearance holders who had contact with the reporters during the period but who were not confirmed to be part of the subject pool or (ii) go overt and seek access to Speech or Debate-privileged material such as documents or emails showing access to or discussions of the classified information.”

The bureau memo said the investigative team “assesses that House counsel is unlikely to provide this information voluntarily and that it is likely protected by the Speech or Debate Clause. Given that the team has not developed any other data or theories to narrow the subject pool, WFO requests closure of the case.”

• Foggy Falls

The FBI’s Foggy Falls classified inquiry focused on a Washington Post article by three reporters — Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett, and Adam Entous — from mid-April 2017 titled, "FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor former Trump adviser Carter Page.” The bureau would say the investigation would fail in part due to a lack of responsiveness from the Justice Department.

The FBI’s launch memo from early May 2017 cited the aforementioned story, which it said “contained specific, classified statements from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application targeting Carter Page.”

The FBI’s closing letterhead memo from mid-April 2020 made it clear that the leak inquiry was not successful, but provided more details about the investigation and about how the DOJ seemed lackadaisical about assisting.

The bureau pointed to dueling FISA memos released by Republicans and Democrats — led by Nunes and Schiff — from the House Intelligence Committee in March 2018.

Nunes and the GOP majority released their FISA memo in early 2018, finding that Steele’s anti-Trump dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Page; former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA court without the Steele dossier information; the political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials but excluded from the FISA applications; and DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to the DOJ information about Steele’s bias, with Steele telling Ohr that he was desperate that Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not becoming president.

Schiff and the Democratic minority released their own early 2018 rebuttal memo wrongly contending that “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the FISA process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”

“In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government,” the Democrats wrongly contended. They also said the Justice Department “met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA’s probable cause requirement.”

The FBI’s newly-declassified memo said that, following the declassification of these FISA memos, the FBI’s Washington field office “sent a memorandum requesting a written opinion” from the DOJ’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the nation’s capital “regarding the viability of prosecution and willingness of” the two DOJ elements “to prosecute.” But the two key DOJ offices “never provided a written response” to the FBI field office.

The FBI also pointed to Trump declassifying a redacted version of the Carter Page FISA application and its three renewals in July 2018.

DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz later uncovered huge flaws with the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation in a December 2019 report, finding at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants targeting Carter Page. Horowitz also criticized the “central and essential” role of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in the FBI’s politicized FISA surveillance. Steele had been hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was being paid by Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias. Horowitz found the FBI had also concealed exculpatory information from the FISA court.

The DOJ watchdog also said Steele’s alleged main source “contradicted the allegations of a ‘well-developed conspiracy’ in” Steele’s dossier.

The FBI’s newly-declassified memo said that, based on the declassification of the Page FISA by Trump, the FBI’s Washington field office again “sent a memorandum requesting a written opinion” from the DOJ’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. “regarding the viability of prosecution and willingness of” the two DOJ offices “to prosecute this matter given all classified material which served as basis for leak has been declassified by the President.” Once again, the two DOJ elements “never provided a written response” to the FBI field office.

Because the DOJ’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and the federal prosecutor’s office in the nation’s capital never provided written responses to the FBI requests in March 2018 and July 2018 “and only provided a verbal instruction to keep the FF [Foggy Falls] investigation open,” the FBI’s Washington field office “placed the FF investigation into Pending Inactive status” in late January 2019.

Over a year later, in early March 2020, the DOJ’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. provided the FBI field office with a “recommendation to close the FBI FF investigation.”

• Riding Hood

The bureau’s Riding Hood investigation included a main focus on a Buzzfeed News article from early April 2017 written by Ali Watkins and titled, “A Former Trump Adviser Met With A Russian Spy.” The FBI speculated that the classified information in that article may have informed a mid-April 2017 story by the Washington Post written by three reporters — Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett, and Adam Entous — and titled, "FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor former Trump adviser Carter Page.”

The FBI’s inquiry would obtain a conviction related to false statements to investigators, but not specifically for leaking classified information.

The FBI launch memo dated mid-October 2017 said that, in June 2017, an agent at the FBI’s Washington field office was contacted by a unit chief at FBI headquarters who “reported that a previously maintained liaison contact with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) contacted him about possible media leak activity involving a U.S. Government employee and a local Washington, D.C. reporter.”

The reporter was Watkins, and the government employee was James Wolfe, the now-former Director of Security for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) who had served in the role for nearly three decades, who was soon discovered during the course of the FBI inquiry to be a secret source for Watkins. He was eventually charged with lying to the FBI, but not with leaking classified information.

The declassified FBI memo said a CBP official told the FBI that he had “conducted basic checks on Watkins in CBP databases and information systems” and that Watkins “had ‘suspicious’ travel.” The CBP official said he had met with Watkins and that she “proceeded to admit she was carrying on a sexual affair with … Wolfe, who was married.”

The FBI said that “during the course of the FOGGY FALLS investigation, Wolfe was identified as possibly having access to the FBI Carter Page FISA application and first renewal” and that “during the timeframe Wolfe possibly had access, he was in constant contact with Watkins.”

Watkins “published an article in BuzzFeed News which unmasked Page as ‘Male 1’ in the … Southern District of New York Complaint for Evgency Buryakov, Igor Sporyshev, and Victor Podobnyy” on April 3, 2017, and “it was the FBI’s theory that Watkins' article could have assisted Ellen Nakashima’s Washington Post April 11, 2017 article, which was the predication for the FOGGY FALLS investigation.”

A redacted section of the FBI memo was followed by a sentence fragment noting that “the FBI was unable to definitively prove that fact; therefore, Wolfe was not charged with mishandling classified information.” The FBI memo also said that “the RIDING HOOD investigation was unable to identify if Wolfe had provided Nakashima with any information related to the FBI Page FISA application and first renewal.”

The FBI’s Washington field office “proved Wolfe provided false statements to the FBI concerning whether he had provided unclassified SSCI ‘Committee Sensitive’ information to Watkins and three additional reporters,” however, the memo said, and “by his guilty plea, Wolfe admitted to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Watkins and three additional reporters.”

The memo said the FBI field office also “proved on October 16, 2017, and again on October 24, 2017, Wolfe provided a particular reporter with SSCI ‘Committee Sensitive’ information concerning Carter Page who had been subpoenaed to testify before the SSCI.” The field office “corroborated the case predication by confirming Wolfe’s contact with Watkins as her source on some SSCI matters.”

The Justice Department later noted that Wolfe pled guilty in October 2018 “to one count of making a false statement” while the DOJ “moved to dismiss two remaining false statements counts at sentencing” due to a plea agreement.

Then-U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson sentenced Wolfe in December 2018 to just “two months in prison for making a false statement to the FBI during the course of an investigation into the unlawful disclosure of classified national security information.”

• Echos Fate

The bureau’s Echos Fate classified leaks inquiry focused on two Washington Post stories. The first one mentioned by the FBI was a mid-January 2017 story by David Ignatius originally titled “Four burning questions on Russia” which was renamed “Why did Obama dawdle on Russia’s hacking?” The second was by three reporters — Greg Miller, Adam Entous, and Ellen Nakashima — published in early February 2017 and titled, “Officials Say Flynn Discussed Sanctions.” The FBI would fail to identify the source of these leaks aimed at Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn.

The FBI’s launch document was dated mid-May 2017 and said the investigation was “predicated upon specific and articulable facts related in a referral from FBIHQ indicating classified FBI material had been provided to a member of the media by an unknown subject (UNSUB).”

The bureau memo said that in early May 2017 the FBI’s Baltimore office received a referral from FBI headquarters requesting the opening of a media leak investigation based on information contained in the Post story written by Ignatius.

The declassified FBI documents included an email from Bill Priestap — then the Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division from January 24, 2017. Priestap’s email strongly suggested that the leaked classified information had been proposed to be included in the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) and had been disseminated to PDB staff.

The leaked classified information was also briefed by since-fired FBI Director James Comey to then-President Barack Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, according to the email from Priestap.

The FBI had been plotting how to potentially prosecute Flynn related to his December 2016 call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, including potentially under the Logan Act. The FBI had unearthed nothing derogatory on Flynn. Flynn’s communications with Kislyak were leaked to the media in early 2017. Republicans have alleged since 2017 that Obama-era officials improperly unmasked associates of Trump’s presidential campaign during the Russia collusion investigation.

The declassified FBI memo recommending the closure of the investigation — dated early December 2020 — detailed how the inquiry came up short.

The memo said that, beyond the initial predication based on the Post story by Ignatius, a “subsequent Crimes Report was submitted based on information contained” in the Post article by Miller, Entous, and Nakashima.

The memo noted that the “referenced disclosures of classified information” were also “reflected” in “additional articles” including: an article in the Wall Street Journal written by three reporters — Carol Lee, Devlin Barrett, and Shane Harris — titled “U.S. Eyes Michael Flynn’s Links to Russia” and published in late January 2017; a CNN story written by Evan Perez and Jim Sciutto titled “U.S. Investigating Flynn Calls with Russian Diplomat” and also published in late January 2017; and a New York Times piece written by Matthew Rosenberg and Matt Apuzzo titled  “Flynn is Said to Have Talked to Russians about Sanctions before Trump took Office” and published in early February 2017.

The FBI’s closure memo showed that the bureau eventually gave up on trying to find the source of the classified leaks.

“All logical investigative activity has been exhaust[ed]... Based on the totality of information collected over the course of [the] [inv]estigation, it was deemed ECHOS FATE does not pose a threat to national security and the investigation is being closed,” the bureau said. “Should FBI Washington Field Office receive subsequent reporting related to ECHOS FATE posing a threat to national security, FBI Washington Field Office will reopen the captioned investigation at that time.”

• Tropic Vortex

The Justice Department’s Tropic Vortex classified leaks investigation initially focused on an unspecified October 2016 article by the New York Times as well as an early March 2017 article by the Times written by reporters Schmidt and Michael Shear and titled, “Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claims.” It is possible that the "October 2016 NYT Article" in question was a piece published on Halloween that year written by journalists Eric Lichtblau and Steven Lee Myers and titled, “Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link to Russia.”

No prosecutions would result from this leak inquiry either.

The FBI memo said that in late March 2017, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente directed then-Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead an investigation based on a criminal referral from” a redacted source “regarding an unauthorized public disclosure of U.S. Government classified information.”

The memo said that such investigations are typically conducted by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division with oversight from DOJ's National Security Division, but that “at least one of the subjects of the investigation is a former senior FBI official who previously worked in NSD,” and so, “to avoid a potential conflict of interest or an appearance thereof,” Boente assigned the investigation to Durham and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service instead of NSD and the FBI.

The memo said that by late December 2017, Durham and USPIS “completed their investigation and provided a memorandum with their conclusions and recommendations to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.” But that was not the end of it.

The FBI’s launch memo for a further media leak investigation is dated mid-January 2019 and indicates that the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division “received a draft memorandum” from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the nation’s capital regarding the aforementioned Durham-led investigation. The federal prosecutor “indicated the investigation may contain information relevant to other FBI investigations of unauthorized public disclosures, including, but not limited to” Echos Fate, Foggy Falls, Genetic Christmas, and Sirens Lure.

In response, a redacted official directed the FBI’s Washington field office “to open a full investigation for the purposes of reviewing the investigation and/or incorporating any information relevant to these other investigations.”

The FBI field office issued a case closure memo in late February 2020 indicating that the investigation had ended with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the nation’s capital declining to prosecute, but with the memo providing further details about the failed investigation.

The memo said the Durham-led portion of the inquiry had been based on a “criminal referral” which had focused on the October 2016 article in the Times. Durham and USPIS “completed their investigation” in mid-December 2018, and the “Durham Memo” sent to then-Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker “recommended NO prosecution [Redacted].”

The FBI’s Washington field office then picked up the investigation the next year.

“On April 8, 2019, WFO completed a review of the USPIS Investigation and USA Durham Memo, noted significant findings therefrom… and provided them to the attorneys, agents, and professional staff assigned to TROPIC VORTEX, ECHOS FATE, FOGGY FALLS, GENETIC CHRISTMAS, and SIRENS LURE,” the FBI memo said.

The FBI field office “did identify one additional investigative lead” during their inquiry.

The memo cited an early March 2017 tweet from Trump where he said, “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” The memo noted that, the next day, the Times published its aforementioned article on Comey asking DOJ to reject Trump’s allegation.

“The March 2017 NYT Article reported a USG official indicated Comey asked the DOJ to publicly reject the assertions in President Trump's tweets, but the DOJ had not released any such statement. The tweets and article occurred shortly after the initiation of the USPIS Investigation,” the FBI memo said. “During interviews for the USPIS Investigation, multiple DOJ and FBI officials were asked about their discussions, actions, and responses to the tweets and article. Although these officials provided opinions on the identity of the USG official in this article, the USPIS Investigation did not determine who it was.”

Durham: "No evidence of collusion"

Ultimately, the FBI memo indicated that, in late January 2020, the federal prosecutors in Washington D.C. “issued a prosecutorial declination decision for TROPIC VORTEX.”

Durham was later made special counsel, and his 2023 report concluded that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” The special counsel assessed that “the FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.”