FBI Recruits Journalists and Attorneys as Informants
Trump’s anti-deep state warriors don’t seem to mind
FBI director Kash Patel is setting in motion his own orgy of firings at the Bureau, a purge focused on people involved in the January 6 and Russiagate investigations. But when it comes to actual changes in policy that could weaken the grip of what he calls the “Deep State,” America’s top gumshoe has been silent.
Nowhere is that more evident than in how the FBI uses its informants, or confidential human sources, in fed parlance. The Bureau continues to rely upon its vast informant network, including attorneys who squeal on their own clients and members of the news media who collude with the FBI. Now, sources say, such practices will continue, bolstering the very “fake news” that Trump decries along with threats to attorney-client privilege, which the president has also lamented.
It is not publicly known how many members of the news media and lawyers are FBI informants, with one source telling me it totals in the few hundreds each year. Whereas details about traditional informants like drug dealers occasionally end up in court records, media and attorney sources don’t testify, as another source, a former FBI informant handler, explained to me.
Here’s how the Justice Department defines a confidential human source (CHS):
“Any individual believed to be providing useful and credible information to the FBI for any authorized information collection activity, and from whom the FBI expects or intends to obtain additional useful and credible information in the future, and whose identity, information or relationship with the FBI warrants confidential handling.”
The recruitment of CHS’s requires approval, but members of the news media and attorneys require special approval, sometimes as high as the Attorney General. The definition of a “Privileged or Media Source,” according to the Attorney General Guidelines Regarding the Use of FBI Confidential Human Sources, is a CHS “who is under the obligation of a legal privilege of confidentiality or affiliated with the media.” The FBI itself makes precious few mentions of the practice publicly. A heavily redacted copy of its CHS policy manual says only that special legal consultation is required for “the operation of a Privileged CHS…”
A leaked copy of the same FBI manual, in one section classified “SECRET,” mentions “Using as a CHS an attorney, a clergyman, a physician, or a member of the news media licensed in the United States in his or her professional capacity” as one of several “sensitive circumstances.” In the case of doctors, lawyers and even clergy, the confidentiality that they often enjoy under the law (e.g. attorney-client privilege) has a loophole for situations in which the informant’s information would be “contributing” to the solution of a “serious crime” — whatever that means.
If this all sounds hypothetical, it isn’t. One of Donald Trump’s attorneys in 2020 was a key informant in the case against him for retention of classified documents at his home in Mar-A-Lago, as my editor reported at the time. That Trump suddenly has nothing to say about increasing restrictions or oversight of these practices is an irony that’s impossible to miss.
It’s extremely rare to see details about these types of informants. As the FBI informant handler explained to me, journalists or attorneys have good reason to never admit to collusion. Criminal informants, on the other hand, frequently expose themselves by bragging about their crimes. Or they can be coerced to testify publicly for special consideration.
“Using privileged sources is a different dynamic, as these sources have a vested self-interest in keeping the relationship secret forever,” the informant handler told me.
One of the only cases known to the public involved the award-winning national security reporter Chris Isham who in the 1990s divulged information — including about one of his own sources — to the FBI. In 2011, when Isham was CBS’s Washington Bureau Chief, Utah lawyer Jesse Trentadue while reviewing court records related to the Oklahoma City Bombing came across a classified FBI memo identifying Isham as a CHS.
The FBI memo, dated 1996, recounted how informant number “NY 29000-SI-DT,” identified as “a senior official employed by ABC News” (and later by the press as Isham) told the FBI that “a source within the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service advised that the Oklahoma City bombing was sponsored by the Iraqi Special Services…”
After multiple interviews with the FBI, Isham told the Bureau that his source was former CIA Counter-Terrorism Chief Vincent Cannistraro, who himself heard the rumor from a general in the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service. Isham had not asked Cannistraro’s permission to divulge the information to the Bureau, with Cannistraro later expressing surprise that he had done so.
According to the FBI memo, Isham “had provided accurate and reliable information in the past,” without elaborating further.
The major media quickly circled the wagons around the star reporter, issuing headlines like these:
“CBS News Bureau chief denies being FBI informant” (Reuters).
“CBS Executive Denies He Was FBI Informant” (New York Times).
“CBS’s Isham: ‘I was no FBI informant’” (Politico).
The attempt by these outlets to stamp out the scandal was amazingly heavy handed. “The truth is that Mr. Isham is in the information-gathering-and-trading business,” Business Insider said of the incident. “To get, you gotta give. That’s how it works in the real world.”
The story quickly disappeared after the major media show of solidarity castigating anyone who thinks it’s creepy that a national security reporter is outing sources to the FBI. Today it might have been called “disinformation.”
Another instance that Trentadue, the Utah lawyer, came across, was in some ways even creepier. A separate FBI memo dated 1996 describes how the Bureau “was contacted by a confidential source who works for a news agency and was advised that ABC news was going to air an expose in the next few days concerning the OKC [Oklahoma City] bombing.” While Isham’s tip might at least have been of interest to the FBI for public safety reasons, this tip was just about keeping the Bureau apprised of an embarrassing news story that was about to air. Per the memo:
“ABC will be interviewing a rescue worker who is going to state that ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] had stored a large amount of explosives in the MURRAH BUILDING, which contributed to the explosion. The rescue worker is also going to advise that evidence of these explosives was found by rescue workers and this particular rescue worker had contacted the FBI with this information and was told by the FBI to keep quiet. This rescue worker is currently upset because nothing has been done with this information and he feels the FBI has attempted to cover up the information.”
I don’t think the FBI should be allowed to use informants to get ahead of embarrassing news stories. But maybe that’s just How It Works In The Real World, as our friends at Business Insider put it.
Given the Trump camp’s complaints about politicization of the FBI, and their (unfounded) claims that FBI informants and operatives were responsible for January 6, the use of such “privileged” sources seems the very practice that Patel should try to at least rein in. That is, if he is serious about the war on the so-called “Deep State.” Patel has given no indication that he would do so.
FBI informants were something both Trump and Republicans in congress loved to hate during the Biden administration. A months-long showdown between congressional Republicans and the FBI culminated in a subpoena that forced the Bureau to cough up information about a CHS who had alleged a bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden. As it later turned out, the allegation was false and the CHS was indicted for lying about it. (If you’re noticing a theme here about CHS tips being questionable, this is another reason that informant practices should be reformed.)
Despite frequent references by Congress of the term “confidential human informant” last year, right up through December, Congress hasn’t once mentioned the term during a hearing since Trump’s inauguration, according to a review of congressional transcripts.
So when Trump fulminates about the fake news media, he isn’t talking about the ones furnishing his FBI with information.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
Are you trying to tell us something Klip? 👀
Klippenstein ye wield a wicked shovel 😁 Don't stop diggin!!