Peter Navarro, former top adviser to President Trump, Sunday morning brought a ray of hope to those of us who have been dismayed at the output to date of the Durham special counsel probe: a slap on the wrist for Kevin Clinesmith, an officer of the court who lied to a federal judge in order to spy on an American citizen.  Speaking with Maria Bartiromo on her Sunday Morning Futures program on Fox News, he "guaranteed" at least three more prosecutions coming from the probe.  The video of the interview is embedded below.

The first question that automatically raises itself is, how would he know?  Shipwreckedcrew, a former federal prosecutor who writes at RedState, asks the same question:

My initial reaction was that Navarro occupied a position in the Trump Administration that wouldn't have afforded him access to this kind of "inside information" with regard to the status of a closely-held criminal investigation.  At the same time, however, his background and portfolio of responsibilities made him one of only a limited number of people who were part of the true inner circle of the Trump White House. (snip)

Bartiromo pressed Navarro on his prediction of three indictments from Durham, and his answer was a bit deflating.  He told her that his prediction was based on the reporting earlier this week by John Solomon with respect to the release of additional FBI internal documents on the activities of FBI informant Stefan Halper in the summer of 2016 to target individual Trump campaign members in order to locate one who might be working with the Russians to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton.

You can find the Solomon report here: "Once-secret FBI informant reports reveal wider-ranging operation to spy on Trump campaign."  It mainly focuses on the activities of FBI and CIA informant Stefan Halper, who energetically tried to "find 'anyone' inside GOP campaign tied to Russia who could be get dirt 'damaging' to Clinton, newly declassified memos reveal."  I am no expert on the law governing intelligence-gathering, but like SWC, I do not see any glaring illegalities in what Halper did.  What is far more troubling is that he acted at the behest of FBI people like Strzok and McCabe to find a crime in the Trump campaign, rather than to investigate a crime whose predicate had already been established — as FBI procedures justifiably demand.  A "fishing expedition" is the polite term for it, and the raw expression for this approach is Lavrenty Beria (Stalin's secret police head)'s infamous taunt: "Find me the man, and I'll find you the crime."

I am not sure if FBI agents opening up and pursuing an investigation without the necessary predicate is a crime.  It ought to be, for it invites the sort of totalitarian abuses that characterized Stalin's rule.

Here is the complete interview, just over five minutes:

Photo credit: YouTube screen grab.