Clapper Subpoenaed in DOJ Probe of Obama-era Review of 2016 Russian Election Interference

Former intelligence chief is among more than a dozen Obama era officials ensnared in widening Florida-based investigation

James Clapper in 2016 (CNN)

President Obama’s former director of national intelligence James Clapper is one of more than a dozen former U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials who have recently received subpoenas in a fast accelerating but still puzzling Justice Department investigation into the handling of issues related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, a source familiar with aspects of the probe says.

The subpoenas specifically seek documents pertaining to a January 2017 U.S. intelligence assessment ordered by Obama that concluded that Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, hacked Democratic Party and Clinton campaign emails—and then dumped them into the public arena through Wikileaks—as part of a multi-faceted campaign approved by President Vladimir Putin to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.

The Justice investigation appears to have been triggered by a flurry of releases by Trump’s director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who last July contended there was “overwhelming evidence” that “President Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”

But the DOJ subpoenas do not identify what crime or crimes are being investigated, the source said. Nor do they explain why the subpoenas are being issued by Justice Department prosecutors in south Florida--a jurisdiction that has no obvious connection to the 2017 Russia intelligence assessment.

Retribution

Among legal analysts, the most widely accepted theory is that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s team, in an effort to placate the White House, is trying to craft indictments that will charge an ongoing conspiracy to deprive President Trump of his civil rights. The conspiracy is supposed to have begun in 2016 by ginning up bogus allegations about Trump’s ties to the Kremlin in 2016 and then continued into 2022 with the Biden Justice Department’s approval of a search for classified documents at his house in Mar-a-Lago.

By making it a conspiracy case, the prosecutors then get around the five year statute of limitations on any conduct relating to the 2017 assessment. And if they can bring the case in south Florida—by somehow making the argument that the Mar-a-Lago search, which was approved by a federal magistrate, involved a criminal act—they have a shot at getting the case before the Trump friendly judge, Aileen Cannon. Cannon sits in Ft. Pierce, Fla. which is part of the southern district of Florida overseen by the U.S. attorney in Miami, Jason Reding Quinones, a Trump appointee.

Waiting in the wings: Judge Aileen Cannon (Official portrait)

A second source who was a member of Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team said that so far there are no signs that Smith or his staff have gotten subpoenas—a presumably necessary step to make the case that there was a conspiracy that continued into 2022 and conceivably beyond.

“I expect that once the grand jury is seated in Ft. Pierce in January, we will get subpoenas then,” the source said.

But the prosecutors are already facing obstacles. Bloomberg News reported this week that Quinones, the U.S. attorney, fired two prosecutors who he had assigned to a special national security unit to conduct the Russian interference investigation after they reportedly refused to sign a statement disclosing who they had discussed the probe with—an apparent effort to identify leaks. He then told prosecutors in an all-staff meeting that “they’re expected to advance the cases they get assigned, suggesting there would be consequences for those who declined,” according to the Bloomberg report, citing several individuals familiar with the meeting.

Among those who have also received subpoenas, according to CBS News, are former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and former FBI counterintelligence agent Pete Strzok, who led the bureau’s initial investigation into Russia interference before being removed over anti-Trump text messages he exchanged with Page. Former senior CIA official Susan Miller, an author of the agency’s 2017 intelligence report on Russian meddling, has also been subpoenaed.

How Clapper fits into the Justice probe is unclear, including whether he is a target as an alleged co-conspirator or merely a potential fact witness against others. But Gabbard effectively put a target on his back last August when she declassified an email exchange between Clapper and then-National Security Agency director Mike Rogers that she asserted was “exposing” the DNI’s efforts to “suppress concerns” about the U.S. intelligence findings about Russian interference in order to produce a “manufactured and politicized” assessment harmful to Trump.

Expedited Report

In fact, the declassified emails show that in a December 22, 2016 message to Clapper, then-CIA director John Brennan and FBI director James Comey, Rogers did raise concerns about a “fast track” process that had not given his analysts sufficient time to review the underlying intelligence relating to Russia interference. The expedited process had been imposed because Obama had directed he wanted the Russian report completed before he left office in January.

But Rogers did not challenge the conclusions of the Russian interference report. “To be clear, I am not saying that we disagree substantively, but I do want to make sure that, when we are asked in the future whether we can absolutely stand behind the paper, that we don’t have any reason to hesitate because of the process,” Rogers wrote.

Clapper replied that evening: “Understand your concern. It is essential that we (CIA/NSA/FBI/ODNI) be on the same page and are all supportive of the report—in the highest tradition of ‘that’s OUR story, and we’re stickin’ to it.’ He then added: “more time is not negotiable” and “we may have to compromise on our ‘normal’ modalities, since we must do this on such a compressed schedule. This is one project that has to be a team sport.”

Clapper did not respond to a text message seeking comment on his subpoena.