Meet Brian Auten, the Leftwing Ringer Cited for Russiagate Lapses in the IG Report Who Was Mystifyingly Asked to Evaluate the Hunter Biden Laptop as "Russian Disinformation"

 

Auten was a key figure in Crossfire Hurricane, the counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trump's potential ties to Russia. The Justice Department inspector general said in a December 2019 report that an FBI intelligence analyst who has since been identified as Auten "failed to advise" others at the FBI about inconsistencies in the Steele dossier, the controversial report the bureau used to investigate Trump. 

Auten's involvement in the Hunter Biden saga, which was not previously known, is likely to come under scrutiny because of his involvement in the Trump-Russia probe. Auten took part in the Hunter Biden matter even though he was seemingly referred to the FBI's disciplinary office for investigation because of the inspector general's findings. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in February 2020 that every FBI employee mentioned in the inspector general's report, which accused the FBI of "significant" abuses of the foreign surveillance process, was referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility for investigation. It is unclear whether Auten faced any discipline. 

Auten, an expert on Russia, pushed aggressively for surveillance warrants against Trump adviser Carter Page, according to the inspector general. He urged colleagues at the FBI in a Sept. 19, 2016, email to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Page based on information in the dossier. ... 

Auten also took part in several interviews in which the FBI withheld information that undercut the theory that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Auten and his colleagues failed to disclose that dossier author Christopher Steele, in an Oct. 3, 2016, interview, said that a purported source of his dossier was a "boaster or embellisher." 

Auten conducted a January 2017 interview with Steele's primary source, Igor Danchenko, in which Danchenko said aspects of the dossier appeared to be exaggerated or inaccurate. 

And yet all of this was treated as real "intelligence" suggesting Trump was an agent of Putin. 

Senator Grassley has said if the allegations he has received from whistleblowers about the FBI's efforts to falsely claim the Hunter Biden laptop was misinformation are true, the FBI and Department of Justice are "institutionally corrupted to their very core."

GO READ THE WHOLE THING.