Kevin Clinesmith pleads guilty to altering email in Russia probe

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flag of FBI and USA painted on cracked wall

On Wednesday ex-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to one count of falsifying a government document. Clinesmith was the first person charged in U.S. Attorney John Durham’s Russian probe. He will be sentenced on Dec. 10. 

It is alleged that Clinesmith partially forged a government document in order to obtain a FISA warrant to justify the surveillance and wiretapping of Carter Page.

The forgery and other FISA abuses were revealed with the release of the December 2019 report prepared by the inspector general, Michael Horowitz.

Durham prosecutors are looking into the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation which led to the Robert Mueller Russia investigation.

Crossfire Hurricane

By August 2016, the FBI was officially investigating four individual cases in a high-level investigation known as “Crossfire Hurricane.” 

The investigation opened as a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) inquiry into whether associates of the Donald J.Trump Presidential campaign were working with the Russian government.