What is the FBI trying to hide from Congress?

Byron York:
The struggle to uncover the FBI's conduct in the Trump-Russia probe has made some congressional investigators deeply suspicious of the bureau. But what do those investigators think the FBI actually did in its investigation of the Trump campaign, Russia, and the 2016 election?

First, they're convinced the FBI has something to hide. In the last 12 months, the bureau has, at various times, ignored, slow-walked, resisted, and downright stonewalled congressional requests, not to mention subpoenas, for information on the Trump-Russia investigation.

Each time the bureau hunkered down, suspicion grew on Capitol Hill. The FBI seemed particularly reluctant to reveal to Congress not what Russians did, or what people in the Trump circle did, but what the bureau itself did.

When did the investigation start? How did it start? What measures did the FBI, and its lawyers, and its informants employ? Getting facts out of the FBI has been a long and arduous task.

First to cause serious suspicion was the Trump dossier. Eyebrows were raised when investigators learned that the FBI, at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign, offered to hire a former British spy who was collecting allegations about Trump and Russia.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., pushed for information. Among other things, he learned that the former British spy, well-connected with the FBI, was paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. That apparently did not matter to the bureau.

Then Nunes and others wondered: What did the bureau do with the sensational allegations in the dossier? That gave birth to the so-called "FISA abuse" investigation, when Republicans looked into whether the FBI used unverified allegations from the Trump dossier in proceedings before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. It turned out the FBI did just that, to win a wiretap on Carter Page, who for a short time was a volunteer on candidate Trump's foreign policy advisory board.

Congressional investigators came away with the impression that the FBI was hiding something. It was.

Now, Congress is trying to get information about the informant(s) the FBI used in the Trump-Russia probe, and precisely what those informants did.

As part of that line of inquiry, investigators have discovered a number of times in which Trump figures were approached, sometimes by people with FBI connections, with offers of derogatory information on Clinton. Each incident was before the FBI says it began the Trump-Russia investigation, code name Crossfire Hurricane, on July 31, 2016.
...
Lawmakers would not be shocked that Roger Stone might lie to them. But they expect the FBI to be open and transparent with constitutionally-empowered oversight committees.

The bottom line is that some Republicans are wondering whether in the above instances, and perhaps others, someone actively tried to frame, or entrap, or set up, Trump figures. And those Republicans wonder whether the FBI knew about it or played some sort of role in it.
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The interactions of the FBI and its informants with the Trump campaign operatives looks very much like entrapment from the handling of Papadoupolos to the recently revealed meeting with Roger Stone It looks like a setup.  It also appears to me that the Trump Tower meeting with the Russian attorney looks like a set up by Fusion GPS which was working with the FBI to try to create the appearance of collusion.   From entrapment to Mueller's strong-arm tactics to try to get targets to "flip" the process looks tainted.

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