We recently learned of a previously concealed tranche of documents likely to shed new light on the past decade of American political controversies. This potentially earth-shaking information is known as “Prohibited Access.”
It was only recently discovered that the FBI’s information system, called Sentinel, had a level of access previously unknown to anyone outside the Bureau and known only to a select few inside. In essence, this was a concealed cache used to hide documents the FBI wanted hidden from discovery.
There is one part of the Sentinel system that is devoted to classified and confidential information, termed “Restricted Access.”
It turns out there is a higher, more secretive level called “Prohibited Access.” To any outside observer or investigator, it would appear that there was no record of Prohibited Access information, even though the existence of Restricted Access documents would be shown.
Accordingly, when prosecutors like John Durham or investigators such as Congressman James Comer were investigating various potential misdeeds, they would not have learned of the existence of documents relevant to their investigation that were kept in Prohibited Access.
Although it remains unclear, there is reasonable suspicion that even FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz was not aware of this document cache. Alternatively, Horowitz may have known about it but also may have agreed to keep its existence secret, a dismaying possibility for one charged with enlightening Congress and the public.
Logic tells us that, broadly, there could be only two related purposes for this concealed tranche because it prevents those investigating the FBI or its favored parties from even knowing about the existence of the documents; such suggests concealment of information inculpatory to the senior levels of the FBI and/or its favored politicians, as well as exculpatory information about the targets of its biased investigations.
If, by way of a wild hypothetical example, James Comey and Andrew McCabe broke laws to make an innocent Donald Trump appear guilty of “Russian Collusion,” they would not wish a trail of their ugly misconduct to see the light of day, nor reveal proof of Trump’s innocence.
For instance, in June 2016, London-based FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta interviewed ex-British spy Christopher Steele, who was composing the infamous Steele Dossier, commissioned through cutouts by the Clinton campaign. Steele told Gaeta that the Clinton campaign was funding his work. Gaeta relayed that to the New York FBI office and was told by his contact that the information would go to the FBI Headquarters in the person of the Deputy Administrative Director, who, in turn, works closely with James Comey.
Around that same time, July 5, 2016, Comey was part of an Oval Office group that CIA Director John Brennan confidentially briefed about the Clinton campaign’s pursuit of a phony “Russian Collusion” narrative to take attention off Clinton’s corruption of the DNC to the detriment of rival Senator Bernie Sanders. Later, Brennan sent a formal referral from the CIA to the FBI, revealing the potentially criminal nature of the program, a referral not subject to the confidentiality of executive privilege.
Despite having inferred the defamatory nature of the hoax, Comey’s FBI, without truthfully disclosing these partisan origins, applied for and received from the FISA court four authorizations to wiretap and otherwise surveil the entire Trump campaign, as justified by the hoked-up Russian agency of lowly Trump advisor Carter Page.
Yet, when Inspector General Horowitz later asked Comey about his potentially guilty knowledge that “Russian Collusion” was a canard created by Hillary Clinton, specifically pointing to the CIA referral, Comey reportedly said it “didn’t ring a bell.” But would documents in Prohibited Access show that Comey was making a false denial of guilty knowledge, a criminal act compounding prior FBI FISA crimes?
In another political cesspool, Comey had insinuated the Bureau into Ukrainian corruption investigations—seemingly to protect Joe Biden from charges of corruption related to his son, Hunter Biden, who was widely seen as the VP’s potential bagman.
After Joe Biden famously forced the firing of the honest Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Hunter’s clients—Burisma Holdings and its executives, Mikola Zlochevsky and Igor Kolomoisky, the investigations were then reassigned to the new National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and taken away from the Prosecutor General’s office. Ultimately, NABU settled the cases without criminal charges and imposed only a small monetary fine. It has not been widely disseminated that NABU was steered by an FBI agent whom Comey placed on the NABU board.
Accordingly, when Trump later made his infamous phone call to President Zelensky asking for an investigation of Biden-centric corruption, instead of supporting the investigation and opposing Trump’s impeachment, it appears that the FBI withheld knowledge of both its and Biden’s involvement in condoning blatant corruption. Prohibited Access documents may reveal the FBI’s participation in framing Trump, in essence, acting as dirty cops protecting Biden.
Later, as the U.S. funded Ukraine’s war effort against Russia, billions in aid continued to go unaccounted for—undermining Ukraine’s defense.
Did the FBI’s complicity serve to keep a Biden-corrupted Ukraine weak, and is evidence of that contained in Prohibited Access?
Couldn’t similar questions be asked about the FBI’s role in spiking the Hunter Biden laptop story, the Seth Rich murder, and the setup of Trump in various attempts to smear him with planted Russian collusion evidence?
Later, after Trump’s election, Comey and his team spied and reported on Trump, who was Comey’s boss. Are there documents in Prohibited Access that can be interpreted to show that Comey and his team may have conspired to set up Trump for a criminal prosecution?
Trump, as Commander-in-Chief under the Constitution, had a right to know directly about all counterintelligence investigations, of which “Russiagate,” also known as “Crossfire Hurricane,” was one. Would internal documents show that Comey and his team were willfully concealing their activities from Trump, which in turn can be viewed as an obstruction of that investigation?
At various times in 2016 and 2017, there appeared to be efforts by unknown sources to entrap Trump aides in the hopes of buttressing a phony “Russian Collusion” narrative. We know that Comey’s FBI agents tricked General Flynn and George Papadopoulos into arguably, but weakly so, false statements. But largely unpublicized were also two years of activity of shadowy agents, many acting outside the United States, who tried to lure Trump team members into appearing to be part of Russian operations. Prohibited Access should shed light on what are likely slimy Comey initiatives designed to harm Trump.
In light of these few examples, questions arise regarding the completeness of the disclosures made by Comey, McCabe, and others to Inspector General Horowitz and Special Counsel Durham regarding their separate investigations. Would Prohibited Access documents shed light on these seemingly ugly, perhaps criminal, episodes?
We assert that, following “Bidengate,” our legacy media should be sufficiently shamed into demanding answers to these questions and pursuing these appalling possibilities.
At the very least, the DOJ and Congress should vigorously investigate what might be a sinister program to undermine our most sensitive law enforcement procedures to favor one political party and damage its opposition, weakening along the way our foreign allies and strengthening our enemies. We should all remain vigilant and demand disclosures of corruption documented in Prohibited Access.
John D. O’Connor is a former federal prosecutor and the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. O’Connor is the author of the books Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism and The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened.