slade's Link
I have the same concern. If people are willing to violate Prosecution and Lawyering 101 rules, what else have they done?
Tucker Carlson is a must see tonight.
Some folks are sending retainer checks to lawyers as we speak.
slade's Link
BK, I seen an article where Mueller asked for Flynn’s sentencing to be postponed. It was due to this memo, dossier etc. not really sure if it’s true or not.
Another article I seen was Gates trial lawyer quit the case. Stating this will never go to trial.
Do you think Flynns case be thrown out?
Memo shows FISA court was misled by Comey, McCabe, Yates, and Rosenstein. Will Rosenstein be fired? Will he have to recuse himself, in the least? @RealDonaldTrump may have to act.
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 2, 2018
Memo: No FISA warrant without Dossier. Which means no Russia collusion story without Dossier. Which means no Mueller special counsel without Dossier paid for by Clinton/DNC. Shut it down.
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 2, 2018
Memo: FBI authorized payment to Clinton campaign operative Steele. Obama DOJ funneled anti-@RealDondaldTrump info from Clinton campaign operatives to FBI through Bruce Ohr.
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 2, 2018
slade's Link
As impressive as the spinning is it pales beside the sheer hubris of posting multiple times under a false registration (about #38 or so) on the site owner's thread.
Not totally sure if that's hubris or pure stupidity......maybe both.....
Michael's Link
I'm reading a typical application for a FISA warrant includes dozens, if not hundreds of pieces of evidence for the courts to consider before granting the warrant. If that is the case, the dossier was only one part of the application. I'd like to review the rest of the evidence, if any, used in the application.
I sense we are only getting a cherry-picked part of the whole story, here.
Matt
Let's see the entire application for the warrant, not just Nunes cherry picked portion.
Matt
Not surprised you would be trying to spin this away from your beloved party and Dear Leaders FBI/DOJ: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
The latest attacks on the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests – no party’s, no president’s, only Putin’s. https://t.co/6dsbcBIla6
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) February 2, 2018
Me thinks thou protest too much.
"MEMO RELEASED: FBI Officials Knew Political Origins of Dossier, But Used It Anyway
by Kristina Wong, 2 Feb 2018
The House Intelligence Committee released its classified memo detailing alleged abuse by senior FBI and Justice Department officials on Friday, after the president approved its release.
Among the memo’s findings are:
The anti-Trump dossier funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee formed an “essential” part of the initial and all three renewal surveillance applications against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page;
The political origins of the dossier were “known to senior DOJ and FBI officials,” but those origins were not included in applications to obtain the warrant;
Also used to justify the surveillance warrants against Page was a news story supposedly corroborating the dossier, that was pushed by the dossier author Christopher Steele himself — yet the FISA application incorrectly says Steele did not provide the information in the article;
Perkins Coie — the law firm for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee hosted a meeting with Steele, Fusion GPS and media (this revelation makes it harder for the Clinton campaign and the DNC to deny they knew about the dossier, though Clinton and other top DNC officials at that time have denied knowing about it); Steele was “suspended and then terminated” as an FBI source, after the FBI learned that he made an authorized disclosure of his relationship with the FBI to liberal media magazine Mother Jones, and he lied to the FBI about his previous media contacts with Yahoo! and other outlets;
Steele — although portrayed as a “boy scout” by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson — had personal bias against candidate Donald Trump, telling senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr that he was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president”;
Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr assisted with the dossier, but the FBI or the DOJ did not disclose this connection in the application for the FISA warrant, even though Bruce Ohr worked “closely” with Deputy Attorney Generals Sally Yates and then Rod Rosenstein;
At the time that the FBI used the dossier to obtain the spy warrant on Page in October 2016, head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division Bill Priestap had assessed that the corroboration of the dossier was still in its “infancy,” and after Steele was terminated as a source, an FBI unit assessed his reporting as only “minimally corroborated”;
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe acknowledged to the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 that no warrant would have been sought without the dossier;
The FISA warrant also mentioned information related to another Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, even though there was no evidence of cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos;
The memo does not state what the information about Papadopoulos was, but said that information was the trigger to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation on Russian meddling and collusion in late July 2016 (he had told an Australian diplomat at a London bar that a Maltese professor connected to Russia had told him he had dirt on Clinton in the form of emails);
Peter Strzok, the No. 2 at the FBI’s counterintelligence division opened the bureau’s investigation on Russian meddling and collusion (text messages between him and fellow FBI official and lover Lisa Page show that he held an anti-Trump bias)."
The FBI didn't conduct their own investigation here, as is their normal practice. They relied on an unverified political party's opposition research piece, four times, to obtain a FISA warrant. Think about that. An unverified political hit piece was used to justify a surveillance against an american citizen, repeated 3x, which, according to Rosenstein's testimony, was essential to getting the warrant.
Do you honestly think this obviously unverified dossier is the only evidence the FBI had on Page? Furthermore, do you think the FISA Judges who granted the warrant, and subsequent renewals, didn't recognize the dossier was unverifiable?
The more I read about the FISA process, the more meaningless this Nunes memo becomes. Unless someone can prove the dossier was the ONLY evidence used to obtain the Page warrant, and that the FISA judges where complicit in illegally issuing the warrant and renewals, I don't see this memo changing much of anything.
Matt
"Do you honestly think this obviously unverified dossier is the only evidence the FBI had on Page? Furthermore, do you think the FISA Judges who granted the warrant, and subsequent renewals, didn't recognize the dossier was unverifiable? "
Yet the FBI went forward with the dossier anyway. That would seem to be proof positive that, 'Something is rotten in Denmark."
Or in this case, at the FBI.
I'm reading the typical application for a FISA warrant is 80 pages worth of information that attempts to justify the warrant being issued.
I suspect the dossier was just one piece of a long list of evidence provided by the FBI. I also suspect the FISA judges considered the unverified nature of the dossier in their decision, but felt there was still enough verified evidence to issue the warrant and renewals.
It seems to me the easiest way to find the truth would be to release the ENTIRE application, not just the cherry-picked portion that supports a certain narrative.
Matt
"I suspect the dossier was just one piece of a long list of evidence provided by the FBI. I also suspect the FISA judges considered the unverified nature of the dossier in their decision to issue the warrant and renewals, but felt there was still enough verified evidence to issue the warrant."
Doesn't matter!
If the FBI brought the dossier to the FISA court without acknowledging it was a compromised, politically oriented document bought and paid for by the DNC, then people at the FBI committed a crime when they did that.
Jail time!
Regardless, the inclusion of this stuff in a FISA warrant smacks of the same incompetence as we witnessed in the Bundy trial. It's either willful neglect of their duties, or it's political corruption. Seems like either one is grounds enough to be let go.
Exactly what crime was committed by the FBI for not disclosing who paid Steele for the dossier? Who paid for it has no bearing on the accuracy, or lack thereof, of the information contained within it. That's for the judges to decide, isn't it?
Perhaps BK can shed some light on the actual crimes committed.
Matt
I'll tell you whatever you want to hear in a dossier if you pay me enough. See how that works?
It's called 'Full Disclosure," and as bk noted, failing to disclose all relevant information is a crime.
-Trump brought a man into his campaign who was under active US Government surveillance because of suspicious contacts with known Russian intel agents and assets for years before being hired. -Deputy AG Rosenstein did not approve the initial warrant, only the (3rd) extension.
If not, then we're talking about not only a corrupt FBI, but also a corrupt and complicit FISA judge, or judges. At which point, who do we trust for the truth? Trump? Congress? Rush? Spike Bull?
I say release the entire FISA application for the Page warrant. Otherwise, we'll continue to just get bits and pieces that support a certain agenda.
Matt
What matters is not if the FISA judge accepted the dossier as evidence, but simply that the FBI presented it to him in the first place without noting it was a phony, politically oriented documemt paid for by the DNC!
That in itself is incredibly incriminating evidence that there people at the FBI who are corrupt and need to spend YEARS in a federal penitentiary.
You seem to be focused more on who paid for the dossier than the actual content of the dossier. You really should read it, then ask yourself if you would accept it as credible evidence if you were a FISA judge. I certainly wouldn't.
I'm saying no judge in his right mind would issue a warrant based solely on the dossier, unless he too was complicit in a crime.
Matt
Terry
On what information are you making that assessment, bk? The FBI says there are significant omissions of fact which I would assume is could be other information and intelligence that either builds on or corroborates the dossier. Saying the extensions are relied on the dossier seems like a stretch - these extensions require new information, do they not? And just because elements of the dossier may not have been verified, it doesn’t mean internal intelligence that corroborates other elements of the dossier are invalid, right?
Why are you choosing to ignore the point of my post?
It matters not what the judge decided.
It only matters that the FBI intentionally neglected to give the court full disclosure on what they knew!
Good grief!
That the dossier was used as evidence, foreknowledge in place by the FBI of false and misleading contents indicts the FBI. All other evidence, if any with such weight as the dossier may have held to the FISA judge, does not necessarily fast track a warrant. They obviously used the dossier to substantiate their request. Who is to say the judge was not politically biased also and signed off a multitude of times for the same warrant? Additional condemning evidence must be brought forth for each separate time you ask for a FISA warrant. That means the threshold of evidence to obtain one becomes greater with each attempt, which was granted. What and where is this greater evidence?The target here for the original FISA warrant has not been charged till this day and as reported after the memo release is assembling a team of lawyers for his "counter" strike citing his 4th.
Carter Paige is in for some bigtime $$$$$$$$$.
The Rock
I am going all in.
The FBI at this point is damaged goods. Probing for collusion since the 2016 Presidential election has produced nothing, and the Mueller investigation has gone far afield from the original purpose. The results, contrary to Adam Schiff and other bleating sheep on the mainstream media has been disappointing. What they have come up with so far as nothing more than process crimes of lying to the FBI. Gen. Flynns crimes were even called a “non-event” until FBI Agent Peter Strzok got involved.
Peter Strzok is the main feature of the entire probe. Changing words in an exoneration delivered by James Comey, being in charge of the investigations of Hillary Clinton, (not under Oath and not recorded in any way), Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills who blatantly lied over 200 times and were given immunity, Michael Flynn ( found to have lied to the FBI by entrapment) and overall the catalyst of the Russian probe into President Trump. It is amazing that he found any time for diddling his mistress and sending e mail to her.
It was Peter Strzok who interviewed Mills, Abedin, Clinton and Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary for management for the State Department that all claimed they could not recall the details of the acquisition of Clintons server, nor even how it was set up in a non classified location and used to send and receive highly classified information. All were given immunity by the FBI, led by Peter Strzok and the laptops destroyed.
And what to say about James Comey. Comey was a Clinton sycophant all the way back to his days as a U.S. Attorney. In 1997 the Clintons had made Sandey Berger the National Security Advisor, a representative to the 9/11 commission and has stolen classified information, but was let off with a $50,000 fine and to avoid any explanation of what had been taken. It is interesting to note that it was James Comey, serving as Deputy attorney general who let Sandy Berger, off with that small fine for stealing classified material from the National Archives and the cover up that followed..
It was James Comey when as U.S. Attorney James Comey closed the case of clemency for the Hasidic enclave called “New Square” that members had been accused of having four members convicted of fraud. Hillary visited the community and the case was summarily closed before the New York election that put her in place for her run for President as a public figure who have never lived in the state that made her a Senator.
Andrew McCabe is another member of the Clinton crime syndicate, working with Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Strzok’s mistress to foment the current insurrection. In March of 2017, McCabe was heard to say to other high ranking FBI agents “ first we fu*k Flynn, and then we fu*k Trump which garnered raucous applause from at least 16 top FBI Officials, as reported in True Pundit. These same FBI personnel are now using “burner disposable phones to stay ahead of the investigation that will be starting, a breach of federal law. Anyone who is found using one of the phones should be summarily dismissed as it is a violation of federal law. McCabe was scheduled to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee but was held back because of the finding of Bruce Ohr, who worked for McCabe meeting with FusionGPS, and his wife Nellie actually working for Fusion GPS.
Fusion GPS is the Hillary hired opposition research group that developed the phony dossier that started the Mueller probe into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. A probe which has been largely discredited and is basically a group looking for a crime that doesn’t exist. With the assistance of the media and politicians like Adam Schiff they continue to push the investigation into unrelated areas in search of a crime. Fake News CNN, has been totally discredited, and even Allyson Camerota saying the dossier has “mostly” been verified can’t change the fact that the only portion of the dossier that is true is that Carter Page traveled to Russia to give a speech. CNN partakes in “agit-prop” to do nothing more that to distribute falsehoods as news under cover of once being a reputable news source.
All of this and more has come out in bits and pieces because the DOJ IG has made it available, none of this information came willing from the DOJ or the FBI. It appears that those at the higher echelons consider themselves above the maw, and that the only oversight they need it that which they place upon themselves. They seem to forget that they work for the American people, and the integrity of the rank and file members of the DOJ and the FBI have suffered because of the lies, innuendos, and outright fabrications of the Obama-Hillary sycophants at the top.
So we have come to the point that we are at now. The convenient loss of five months of FBI emails that closely resembles the IRS-Lois Lerner debacle with tapes that were lost for two years. No one has determined whose e mails were “lost” . Was it only Strzok and Pages emails that disappeared, or how many other FBI agents have no way of retrieving information. Why did it take five months until one day after Mueller was named Special Council that the system mysteriously started working again.
Is it a coincidence that the “lost” emails cover the time of the Presidential transition, the firing of the Lying FBI Director James COmey and up until the appointment of a Special Council? There are many people that have answers to questions that many Americans are asking. Everyone from Lisa Page, who worked as the advisor to Andrew McCabe, the Deputy FBI director. The Inspector General needs to fully investigate along with the Congressional Committees just what the “secret Society” that is mentions in the Strzok emails means. There are even rumors that they met “off-site”. What were they planning and who were members of this “secret society”?
And how many of the missing texts can be used to prove that there are contingency plans to cause actual physical harm to the President. A high ranking FBI official has actually confirmed this. The Secret Service under the auspices of DHS needs to investigate this concern, and see how it ties int to the “secret society the Peter Strzok and Lisa page and probably others were discussing. It is time to fully drain the DOJ and FBI swamp, put people in jail and gives the premier law enforcement arm of our government back to the people
First, when you sign a document as an attorney, your signature is an affirmation that after a reasonable amount of investigation, the facts presented are true and correct. And even afterwards, should you find out they are not true and correct, you have a duty to correct.
Second, the hearing before a FISA judge is ex parte, meaning only one side is present. So, you're obligated to present both sides, and any exculpatory evidence, because you don't have an adversary at the adjacent table to challenge your claims.
Third, this was done to conduct a search of a person, which implicates the 4th Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Relying on unproven or false evidence to obtain a FISA warrant would suggest a violation of Page's civil rights.
Fourth, knowingly submitting a false statement to a judge is perjury. Yes, we all do make mistakes. This is different. There's a different standard for pleadings, but even so, this is a violation of the public trust, even if not a crime.
Under Colorado state law, you can be convicted of the crime of attempting to influence a public official by fraud and deceit. That has been used to convict for submitting an altered version of a prior court order in one case I know of, where an attorney's client did a cut and paste on a prior order. I represented the attorney because there were some serious attorney-client privilege issues that required he be protected. A quick search did not find a federal equivalent.
Fifth, if these people are so freaking dishonest to do this, you can bet your brand new F-350 pickup this is not the only time something like this was done. There are certain pleadings I file that place me, and my client, at risk of a fee award or worse should we be wrong. We don't file them unless we have a licensed professional willing to stake his reputation (not the attorney, but an expert in psychology, for example) that the allegations have a valid basis in fact. An ex parte FISA warrant, where you're not troubled with opposing counsel to keep you honest, that is based upon false or shoddy investigations, may be a violation of the law. I can't imagine it is not an ethical violation for any attorneys who had their fingerprints on this affidavit for FISA warrant.
Federal judges are notoriously serious people. This is a gross betrayal of the public trust.
If we have people in the executive branch filing knowingly deficient requests for FISA warrants, this is a constitutional crisis, whether there are criminal implications or not.
Thanks. Your professional legal opinion is always welcomed amongst the keyboard attorneys we have around her.
My question still remains.
The Nunes memo accuses the FBI of failure to fully disclose all the information about the dossier. Specifically, who paid for it. But it doesn't dispute anything contained in the dossier. Nor does it discredit any other evidence in the application for the warrant, or the subsequent renewals.
So, does that failure of disclosure make the original warrant and renewals illegal, or invalid?
Matt
There continue to be questions about the substance behind the pending release of the House Intelligence Committee memo. With that release in mind, today it is worthwhile remembering this is the beginning of exposing the corruption within the DOJ not the end...
For several years the U.S. justice department has maintained an attitude of non-accountability within its ranks. The Obama years elevated that attitude and provided multiple examples of a DOJ gone rogue.
A complicit media enables that attitude by engineering a false narrative the U.S. Justice Department was/is an independent fourth branch of government; unaccountable to congress and entirely separate from the executive branch.
The House Intelligence Memo is simply using the example of currently known FISA abuse to open the door and show the U.S. electorate how corrupt this unaccountable institution has become. Behind that door are very uncomfortable realities for all of those who constructed the weaponized agency; and also those who have benefited from it. (continued at link)
Article (worth reading) concludes:
There are going to be many more revelations as the investigations into the FBI and DOJ continue. Combine that understanding with the pending OIG Horowitz report, and we have only just begun to see how bad this is…
The key aspect to begin restoring a system when it has fallen into the clutches of corruption, is to remove their internal image of unaccountability. The DOJ and FBI are part of the Executive Branch and they are accountable to congressional oversight. We need to constantly remind people of that, and push back against this insufferable media-generated narrative of the DOJ being an independent fourth branch of government.
"I was wiretapped!" at the time brought heaps of scorn from many corners, here as well. They all now pretty much should apologize or just shut up and walk away.....
For the thousandts' time!
It doesn't matter a whit if the dossier was credible or not!
It only matters that the FBI brought the dossier to the FISA judge, presenting it as evidence, without letting him know it was totally a political document which was paid for by the DNC!
Why do you keep refusing to recognize that??????????
I'm familiar with a Denver case where the warrant was unverified, and a man was killed when the Denver PD went to the wrong home. He was awakened to people breaking down his door, grabbed a gun and a Denver cop shot and killed him in the dark. His family got several million dollars for that. Remember that case? Hispanic fellow, I think it happened around 2000.
I don't understand why you don't seem to care about ex parte presentations where the court is only told half the truth.
The search warrant was issued on the basis of a report that the guy had killed a pheasant illegally and had it in the car.
No pheasant is found, but during the search, they guy is asked about some dried green leaves. He tells the cop that it is alfalfa leaves.
Laboratory tests reveal that it is NOT alfalfa, but clover leaves.
He is charged with lying to LE during an investigation.
His attorney discovers that the original warrant was issued because his ex-wife reported the pheasant incident. It was discovered that she was vacationing in Cuba at the time she made the report, so had no way to have actually observed what was alleged and became the basis for the warrant. The cop that asked for the warrant knew this, but still used the perjured information to get the original warrant.
Will the charges stick?
Should the cop be charged?
Should the guy still have to pay alimony?
Is it safe for him to eat the brownies he got in the mail with a Cuba return address?
It will be interesting to see the minority memo. I think the question is whether the detail about the dossier being opposition research being left out is half of the truth or is it closer to 5% of the truth. Its impossible to say at this point how much the FISA warrant depended on the dossier as only one side of the story is being told now. There are elements about the memo that certainly look bad for the FBI/DOJ, but without the appropriate context and the full suite of information, it’s hard to say how bad it is.
I agree if the public could see the FISA application it would answer a lot of questions.
1. No, since the officer knowingly lied on the application, the evidence discovered as a result of the fraudulently obtained warrant is fruit of the poisonous tree. The case on this issue in law school was Wong Sun v. US. 2. He could but probably would be just fired. 3. This is where no fault divorce sucks. 4. Those brownies may be evidence of a federal crime, if they are laced with marijuana. So, he could report the crime, and get his revenge that way.
The Rock
Thanks, Kevin. That answers my question.
Kyle, I wasn't ignoring you. You just haven't made a point worth responding to. Nunes memo exposes a possible failure to disclose information about the dossier. It doesn't invalidate the warrant, or any of the information gathered under the warrant until another Judge says so. That's what I was getting at.
Have a great evening gents. I'm going to shift gears and decide where to park some stock profits before they all dwindle away. I notice Trump hasn't bragged about the raging markets this week.
Matt
Thanks for your advice, but I've been managing my own portfolio for 3 decades. I've developed a pretty good sense for when to take profits or let them ride. I personally think this correction still has legs, so I'm going bearish for a while.
Matt
We certainly agree on that. Thanks, again.
Matt
Matt
What can a fisa(fisc) judge accomplish by addressing the lawyers pleading for the warrant?
Will the judges likely be identified publicly?
Is it a correct assumption that the fisa (fisc)judges were appointed rather than elected?
Is their any chance the whole story will ever be released to a degree allowing the public to know if the judges acted appropriately with the information they were presented?
Thank you
God bless, steve
Based on what I’ve read, the FISA process is rigorous and not a check the box exercise and that judges tend to view FISA warrant applications with a fair bit of skepticism until convinced otherwise. If that is indeed the case, and if the dossier was basically “all they had” so to speak, I struggle to believe that a federal judge wouldn’t have known to a high degree the quality of the source upon which the application was based.
So certainly things look sloppy, but no one really knows how sloppy, or how nefarious (if at all). As for the broader Obama/Clinton conspiracy, I don’t see anything at all from the memo that implicates them. For the conspiracy narrative to hold any water, one would have to believe that officials appointed by a Republican president, including one confirmed by a Republican Senate, were part of a plot to bring down that same Republican president, and that they successfully hoodwinked FISA judges selected by the Republican-appointed chief justice of the United States. I don’t see that being the case.
The Rock
I know why hucksters and charlatans target left wingers. You're a bunch of suckers.
Good post. You've come to the same conclusions I have.
Matt
Incidentally, FISA courts originated in 1978.
If the FISA procedure was rigorous, there'd be more applications rejected than the numbers I'm reading. Around 1 of 200, or so..... Think about t his. 99.5% of the time, they get the go ahead for surveillance?
Here's Glenn Greenwald's take on the oversight:
According to The Guardian, "The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants".[37] Glenn Greenwald, who published details of the PRISM surveillance program, explained:
that this entire process is a fig leaf, "oversight" in name only. It offers no real safeguards. That's because no court monitors what the NSA is actually doing when it claims to comply with the court-approved procedures. Once the Fisa court puts its approval stamp on the NSA's procedures, there is no external judicial check on which targets end up being selected by the NSA analysts for eavesdropping. The only time individualized warrants are required is when the NSA is specifically targeting a US citizen or the communications are purely domestic. When it is time for the NSA to obtain Fisa court approval, the agency does not tell the court whose calls and emails it intends to intercept. It instead merely provides the general guidelines which it claims are used by its analysts to determine which individuals they can target, and the Fisa court judge then issues a simple order approving those guidelines. The court endorses a one-paragraph form order stating that the NSA's process "'contains all the required elements' and that the revised NSA, FBI and CIA minimization procedures submitted with the amendment 'are consistent with the requirements of [50 U.S.C. § 1881a(e)] and with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States'". As but one typical example, The Guardian has obtained an August 19, 2010, Fisa court approval from Judge John D. Bates which does nothing more than recite the statutory language in approving the NSA's guidelines.
Once the NSA has this court approval, it can then target anyone chosen by their analysts, and can even order telecoms and internet companies to turn over to them the emails, chats and calls of those they target. The Fisa court plays no role whatsoever in reviewing whether the procedures it approved are actually complied with when the NSA starts eavesdropping on calls and reading people's emails. The guidelines submitted by the NSA to the Fisa court demonstrate how much discretion the agency has in choosing who will be targeted. ... The only oversight for monitoring whether there is abuse comes from the executive branch itself: from the DOJ and Director of National Intelligence, which conduct "periodic reviews ... to evaluate the implementation of the procedure". At a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday afternoon, deputy attorney general James Cole testified that every 30 days, the Fisa court is merely given an "aggregate number" of database searches on US domestic phone records. ... The decisions about who has their emails and telephone calls intercepted by the NSA is made by the NSA itself, not by the Fisa court, except where the NSA itself concludes the person is a US citizen and/or the communication is exclusively domestic. But even in such cases, the NSA often ends up intercepting those communications of Americans without individualized warrants, and all of this is left to the discretion of the NSA analysts with no real judicial oversight.[39]
Back to my comments: I'm not sure what the actual FISA judge can do. I think the remedy is likely coming from another source. They can certainly ban anyone who is not considered credible from their courtroom. I've seen that done. They can also refer people for sanctions against their license.
Zeke, I know of no crime in the state or federal laws called collusion. But that word is frequently used, where I think conspiracy would be more appropriate, as in a conspiracy to circumvent campaign laws. A conspiracy is an agreement to break the law, coupled with some actions in furtherance of the conspiracy. You and, say, GG, could agree to rob a bank. But to prove a crime, something other than just agreement needs to happen, like GG going to the bank with a hidden camera and photographing the layout, for example.
I don't watch Hannity. I think he oversells his stories. But I do practice law, and have grave concerns about what the Obama administration was doing with the FBI and DOJ. It's funny, but I'm not hearing anyone on the left complaining about invasion of privacy.....or abuse of power.....
Look at what happened here. The Obama admin used the FISA court to start surveillance against a nobody in the Trump campain based on a political hit piece. But the FISA warrant allows the scope of the surveillance to spread to anyone he speaks to, their emails and phone calls. It shouldn't take too many iterations before the surveillance gets to Kevin Bacon.
It is ironic that the right is trying to discredit a FISA system they created while the left is defending it. Roles have certainly reversed in that regard.
Matt
BEG, Politicians are masters of the universe, speaking in complete novels and never saying a meaningful word. I say release EVERYTHING not classified. The result would be Washington would not have a enough diplomats to field a dart team, but bring it on.
The Rock
bad karma's Link
Yes, Wikipedia can be tweaked. But for information that has a link to the documents from which the opinion is based, it's a lot more reliable.
Kevin,
That's true. But didn't the Patriot Act expand on the FBI's authority to search and compile telephone, emails, financial records, etc...without a court order, for the purpose of "foreign intelligence information"? And isn't that the crux of what we are discussing, or at least a large part of it?
Matt
Matt
Matt
Oh this is going to be good! And there is enough of an indication the State dept was dirty as well so the investigation will include them- YES!
My predictions; 1) The rank and file FBI /DOJ employees will want everyone to know; its only the top brass thats corrupted. 2)there will be incontrovertible evidence that the FBI/ DOJ was weaponized to play politics. 3) The state dept will be nailed for the same playing politics....Clinton Foundation will be shut down.....but Hillary will skate since she ran the dirty tricks stuff through law firms.
4) new legislation will be enacted stating the feds can go after law firms and they can't hide behind client privilege if the evidence points to illegal act.
Not in Congress. Only 3 House and 0 Senate republicans voted nay. There were 62 House and 1 Senate democrats that voted nay. Overall it passed easily, which I thought was a shame.
Matt
[B]Flynn[/B] for lying to the FBI and it doesn't appear to be anything important
[B]Papa[/B] was a wanna be...heck he lied on his FB and Linked in pages to make himself look important. Well he fooled someone to get into the Trump circle if even for a short time. Bit player- nothing there
[B]Manafort[/B] now this guys picture pops up when you do a google search for 'swamp creatures'. He is as slimy as it gets. Connected to Trump for about 5 mo...and ever since they have been distancing themselves from him. Does he have anything connecting Trump to Russians? If so, I think it would have come out by now..but Manafort is dirty. Good article on him; [URL="http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-paul-manafort-and-why-is-he-at-the-center-of-the-trump-russia-probe-2017-3"]http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-paul-manafort-and-why-is-he-at-the-center-of-the-trump-russia-probe-2017-3[/URL]
Could Trump be trying to muddy the waters on any dirt Mueller has? Its possible...but right now it appears the State dept/ FBI/ DOJ played politics colluding against him....
Annony Mouse's Link
Applying Dan Rather’s “fake but accurate” standard of journalism, FBI Director Christopher Wray is fictionally quoted as follows:
“Making this memo public will almost certainly impede our ability to conduct clandestine activities operating outside any legal or judicial system on an international scale. …If we take away the people’s faith in this shadowy monolith exempt from any consequences, all that’s left is an extensive network of rogue, unelected intelligence officers carrying out extrajudicial missions…”
Moonbats like Adam Schiff screamed so loud to suppress the memo because like the media, the federal government’s permanent bureaucracy is a subsidiary of the Democrat Party.
(note: The Onion) ;o)
Has the FBI/DOJ objected to the release of the democrat version of the memo?
If not, that is proof that both FBI and DOJ are invested in this for political reasons only, not for protection of national interests.
I believe that the dems version of the memo should go through the same vetting process as the republican version and be released (barring actual harm to what should be kept secret).
What does make sense is that the FBI was used, at its highest levels, to be a political investigation arm of the Obama administration for the Hillary campaign. If the FBI can obtain a FISA search warrant, to tap every phone call, email, text, and those you communicate with, based upon an unverified political hit piece, the 4th Amendment means nothing.
Anyone not concerned about this is in the too stupid to live category.
The law does not allow the FBI to call an American an "agent of a foreign power" unless they can show the person "knowingly engages in clandestine intelligence gathering activities for or on behalf of a foreign power" AND the nature of their activity is criminalized.
https://twitter.com/Barnes_Law/status/959533952183631872
Has the FBI stated they "knew" Page was a Russian agent since 2013, or just suspected so? Your whole premise is based on the answer to that. I suspect some these type cases could take years to compile enough evidence for a indictment. No?
Also, aren't you assuming the dossier was the only piece of evidence used to obtain the warrant? Do we know that for fact?, Or did the FBI have 3 years worth of other evidence including the dossier.
Another thing. Has anyone actually disproven the information in the dossier? The focus seems to be on who paid for it, not on the accuracy of it. All I've read is that is was "unverified" at the time that it was submitted as evidence.
Matt
Until they get it back and all is right in their f`d up world, we are going to have to endure the bs.
Just imagine if Trump was president and did this same thing to Osama when he was running, the world would stop and heads would roll.
And in a FISA hearing, given that it's the most secretive court in the nation, you can't just walk in with unverified information to get a FISA warrant. It requires independent confirmation of the claims.
Also, my question remains about the voracity of the dossier. Even Nunes memo doesn't dispute the information in the dossier, it merely alleges failure to fully disclose.
Matt
Michael's Link
Also, wouldn’t the above standard suggest they had a lot on Page and the subsequent renewals also suggest that they were continuing to prove probable cause? Seems to me that all of the information left out of the memo might indeed show exactly that Page was knowingly engaging in clandestine intelligence gathering activities for or on behalf of a foreign power and that it was criminal, could it not?
With regards to the wiretapping and trying to influence the election, I don’t know how fast these things work. But the approval was obtained less than three weeks before the election. That doesn’t seem like much time to me to gather meaningful intelligence and, ultimately, make it public if your goal is to impact the election.
Just asking questions.
So a broad likely overreaching law is passed and judges sign away? Just “doing their job”
Thus, further degrading my opinion of our current political system of loading politically active judges. Not all but enough to push adgendas.
Remember, we're talking about an extremely high level of surveillance on a person, which except for this supposedly limited exception, is a clear 4th amendment violation. This is for prevention of the next big terrorist attack, not for some routine criminal activity.
And stop for a moment and think about this. This is the freaking FBI. IF they're investigating a paper crime, they'll have an army of agents checking sources, generating FD302 reports, getting documents, etc. That's not what was done here.
In a part of my practice, I can get ex parte orders. With a motion to restrict parenting time, I can get an order prohibiting a parent from seeing his/her child until a hearing within 14 days by alleging that the parent's contact with the child places the child at imminent risk of physical or emotional harm. I get the order automatically. But I'd better have a police report alleging serious harm, or a psychologist ready to testify before filing, or I'm risking a fee award against me or my client. I had that issue once, and refused to file because my client could not provide independent corroboration of the story. My client fired me because I would not file it. Three months later, there was a $13,000 fee award entered against him. (And no, he never called to apologize.)
BEG, if a new investigation uncovered facts warranting a FISA investigation, they would undoubtedly have disclosed them in the subsequent applications. IT would have been to their benefit to do so. I'll presume that smart career prosecutors will add things if the new information benefits their case. But that's not what happened here. And for Page, no, the standard is that they have to have PC that he is acting in a clandestine manner on behalf of a foreign entity AND the acts are criminal in nature to ask the FISA court to conduct surveillance. You don't get to use a FISA warrant to find probable cause. You get a FISA warrant after you have probable cause and you're using it to investigate/prevent criminal activity. (I'm using that term rather than terrorism because even financing terrorist activities would fit this.)
When you have government officials deceiving a federal disttrict judge, not once, but four times, to conduct partisan political activity, it's a serious problem. Reverse the parties and tell me whether you'd be okay with Trump having the FBI go do the same thing to, say, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and whatever other person they think might be a 2020 candidate. If you're honest with yourself, you'd have to say it's wrong in both cases.
I caught Hugh Hewitt on the tube this morning. He spent 2 years reviewing hundreds of FISA applications for 2 attorneys generals. He said the material omissions on the Page warrant certainly hurts the FBI's status with the FISA courts, but it won't change anything with respect to the special council investigation on Russian meddling.
So, the memo doesn't appear to be the bomb shell that the right sold it as. Nor was releasing it a national security risk as the left claimed. Nor does it vindicate Trump as he claims. Political vomitball as usual.
Matt
And I'm disappointed you can't, or won't, see that.
Certainly no offense intended.
Matt
Keep reaching, dips**t !
Sorry if I’m not totally following, bk. Without the entire application, how do you know that’s not what happened here?
Given the standard you laid out above, it would seem they had a lot more on Page than an unverified dossier. It would also seem that new information confirming the original suspicions and probable cause was obtained prior to each extension, or else three extensions wouldn’t have been granted. If the proper standards were followed, is this not true?
Michael's Link
I highly doubt the american people will ever see the FISA application. So we must rely on those who have seen it.
I think you meant to type " Far worse than Waterworld". And I agree, the memo is slightly worse than that awful movie.
House Intel Committee Responds to Democrat-Media Talking Points: HPSCI (PDF)
Again, I’ll be interested in seeing what the other side has to say. It still doesn’t explain withholding the source of the funding of the dossier, though I’ve read reports that the FISA court did know it was an opposition research piece. We’ll see...or maybe we won’t.
If there were other parts that were verified and corroborated either by intelligence or information gathered ahead of the initial application and as part of the subsequent follow ups, wouldn’t you expect it to be used in the filings?
I don’t see why parts being unverified would negate parts that were verified, if (that’s a big if cause none of us know what was part of the applications in their entirety) that were the case.
That's the dishonesty. They're in a hearing where there is no opposition and they concealed that the information presented to the court was not verified. The Court could not weigh the information because of what they were told and not told. How freaking hard is this? Lawyers don't get to deceive the court in contested hearings, much less ex parte hearings. They freaking cheated in the most secret court in the nation, on material facts. And you clowns are like "what's the big deal?" Good Grief.
At the same time, we have direct evidence (this FISA dossier scandal) that certain bad actors in the FBI and DOJ were actively working to swing the election for Hillary. And we have yet to hear from the IG !!
I guess it is hard for some of us. Hypothetically speaking, if I have a dossier that makes ten claims and four of them are verified and corroborated and enough that, on their own, they would be grounds for approving a warrant, how important is it to characterize the other six claims or the dossier as a whole? If it wasn’t revealed that the dossier was opposition research (again, the other side is saying this was known by the court) BUT that information wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the warrant application, then I don’t really see the big deal. Is it sloppy? Yeah. Scandalous of constitutional crisis? That seems like a stretch at this stage. I get that it’s an ex parte hearing, but again, if these omission of fact would not have changed the outcome, I don’t see the big deal. In other words, saying “information was omitted that wouldn’t have made one bit of difference in the approval of FISA warrant” doesn’t scream scandal to me, but that’s the engineer in me speaking.
Annony Mouse's Link
These were the elites of our establishment government who have for years played at and won at political chess.
Unfortunately for all of them, Trump won the election. He's playing checkers.
Without a free press, we are doomed as a nation.
Unfortunately, the majority of the press is currently self-imprisoned by their leftist ideologies.
God bless, Steve
The answers to those questions are pretty easy and straightforward. Again, usually the simplest explanation is the best.
HA/KS's Link
And yet, leftists are inventing multiple any wild and weird explanations of why what is simply stated in the memo does not show widespread corruption in the obama/clinton reginme.
God bless, Steve
Apparently, ethics are malleable to you depending on which side is ignoring them. At least be honest and admit it.
Everyone and their brother knows that parts of the dossier have not been (nor likely ever will be) verified...if it’s such a key part of the application package I have a hard time believing a Federal judge wouldn’t have understood the nature of the dossier. From everything I’ve read, the FISA court is far from a pushover and the process is rigorous.
If the court was indeed unaware of the nature of the dossier and who was behind it, I have no idea why that detail was left out and what the motivations behind that were and neither do you or anyone else beyond those people behind the scenes so to speak. It’s just conjecture at this stage. Which is why I’d like to see the whole package and hear the other side of the story.
I guess from my perspective, if they had enough inside intelligence and corroborating information that would have resulted in a warrant regardless of who was behind the memo, it doesn’t feel like a huge ethics violation.
slade's Link
Well, you're commenting on the legal ethics of failing to accurately disclose something to a federal judge in an ex parte hearing. Thank you for admitting that you're commenting about something you know nothing about.
McCabe testified that the dossier was an important part of the request for a FISA warrant. So, the whole basis of your argument is like "If the Patriots had won the superbowl, Tom Brady would have six championship rings."
Let me ask my question a different way. Is there anything the Dems can say in their memo that would diminish the significance of the Repubilcan memo?
What was that you were you saying about Comey, when he re-opened Hillary's e-mail investigation?
Is that better or worse than the repubs loving him when he re-opened the investigation during the last 2 weeks of the election but hating him now?
Well, I guess the FBI is above the law in most cases. But, it would set a good precedent...Trump could have someone write up a smear Dossier on his rival in 2020, and use his FBI to win!
The memo itself was said to be factually accurate by all parties. But opponents say it is missing other important facts that make the memo misleading as a whole. But if the facts of the memo as presented by House GOP intel committee remain true - we have Comey saying the memo was unverified, we have McCabe saying the warrant would not have been obtained without the dossier. We have learned that the dossier was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign to influence the election, and that Steel was a British spy using Russian sources. And the FISA evidence also included a Yahoo news story (also sourced from this same guy Steel) And that high ranking officials in the FBI and DOJ were meeting with Steel who made it clear he wanted to prevent Trump from becoming president, which was noted in FBI interview files.
It defies logic why the DOJ would use such garbage as evidence on an official FISA request (dossier plus yahoo news story from same source) unless they really needed it to try and obtain the warrant.... ie: could not have obtained the warrant without it. And KNOWING how biased and politically corrupt the dossier was ahead of time, it screams Watergate style attack on the political opposition for the DOJ to initiate wiretapping using such sources. That would be like Trump getting a FISA warrant to wiretap Ted Cruz using the National Enquirer story about his dad standing near Oswald in a photo!!
At least, that is where we are now. What dem statements in defense change any of the above?
Better yet, I'd like to see the actual FISA application, and subsequent info used for renewals. Probably not going to happen, unfortunately.
Matt
Theses organizations have fought tooth and nail to keep this from coming to light to the Congressional investigation. Only in light can the infection be cured.
It seems to me like there’s a bunch of the dossier that is salacious and unverifiable and, therefore, immaterial (like the golden shower piece). It also seems to me that there are likely parts of the dossier that were indeed corroborated by independent intelligence or evidence which ended up being critical in getting the FISA approval (based on the Dems assertion that the memo cherrypicked information, the FBI’s statement regarding omission of facts that made the memo inaccurate, and the fact that the warrant was approved in the first place). Don’t know which parts.
Like GG, I would love to see the applications.
And while we will likely never know what was said in these intercepts, I want a list of American's names that were unknowingly recorded during the Page FISA wiretapping. And the names of Americans un-masked by the prior Administration during foreign surveillance. Me thinks that a list heavy with Trump campaign members will show a politically based fishing expedition and the use of our intelligence services (willing or not) for political malfeasance.
Matt
Elsewhere, Nunes also mentioned that there have been over 100 leaks by Democrats from the committee since last summer and indicated that most seemed to be linked to Schiff who has been caught doing so.
No "Rush filter" when it came to Nunes comments today on his program.
Personally, I've heard enough from Nunes. I'd like to hear the other side of the story.
Matt
Via Town Hall:
Twice failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is finally admitting her campaign paid for the Russian dossier on Donald Trump, albeit by default, and is calling it typical “opposition research.”
During an interview with The Daily Show Wednesday night, Clinton argued the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials to win the presidential election and denied any wrong doing in hiring Fusion GPS and a foreign spy.
Not surprisingly, Clinton misrepresented the original hiring of Fusion GPS by a Republican donor. That donor was Peter Singer, who hired the firm on behalf of the Washington Free Beacon to do research on all of the GOP candidates during the primary, including Trump. Fusion GPS did not employ Christopher Steele, a British spy, to do any of this work. When the Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS after Trump won, Steele was hired and worked with Russian officials to come up the infamous and salacious dossier.
Keep in mind the Clinton campaign and DNC officials have denied paying for the dossier for nearly a year, but were forced into an admission after a subpoena from House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes revealed both entities had in fact employed Fusion GPS to create the dossier.
My guess is that they will welcome the Democratic memo if it adds context to the concerns they had about the Nunes memo.
I see the House intel committee just voted to release the minority memo. It’s in your hands now, Mr. President.
Matt
LOL. Priceless.
Matt
JTV, what’s Sara saying about the Dem memo?
And I asked before but maybe it was missed. BK, is there anything that the Dem memo could say that would diminish the significance of the Nunes’ memo?
While Democrats didn’t want you to see the Nunes memo, GOP votes for you to see theirs. Nunes memo was made as part of the staff examination of the evidence. The Democratic memo was made purely to spin from GOP memo. But GOP sitll voted for it showing more class than Democrats.
Via Daily Caller:
The House Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence voted unanimously Monday evening to release the Democratic FISA memo to the public, sending the document to the president to decide whether he wants to approve its release.
Republicans voted to declassify the Democratic memo, which reportedly weakens allegations made in the memo crafted by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. The committee’s unanimous vote sends the Democratic memo to the White House, giving President Donald Trump five days to decide if he wants to declassify and release it to the American public, Politico reported.
While Trump has the power to block the memo from being released, the White House said it would “entertain” the possibility of approving its release.
Schiff’s Latest Bizarre Claim: Russian Ads Promote 2nd Amendment “So We All Kill Each Other”
California Congressman Adam Schiff now says that Russian ads aimed at pushing Americans to kill each other…
The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms… and,as The Duran’s Alex Christoforou writes, according to California Congressman Adam Schiff, those pesky Russians are using bots to promote the second amendment with an ultimate goal of having Americans ‘kill each other.’
Once again, another brilliant plan hatched by Putin… good thing Schiff caught on to it and can now begin seizing American’s guns so as to thwart Russia’s evil plan.
On Thursday Democrat Schiff spoke to a crowd at the University of Pennsylvania, where the TDS – ‘Russia hysteria virus’ infected Schiff told the crowd Russian ads promoted the Second Amendment during the 2016 election “so we will kill each other.”
NTK Network reports…
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Thursday that Russia promoted content that supported the Second Amendment on social media during the 2016 election because they wanted Americans to kill one another.
“You had the content that was clearly anti-Hillary, and you had the content that was very pro-Trump. But even the bigger quantity of content that was being pushed through social media was just content designed to pit us against each other,” Schiff said while speaking at the University of Pennsylvania.
Which is false!
Facebook executive Colin Stretch told the US Senate Judiciary Committee in November that the total number of those illegitimate ads are a drop in the ocean — less than 0.004 percent of all content — or about 1 in 23,000 news feed items.
Russia didn’t flip the election.
And then Schiff exclaimed:
“They also trumpeted the Second Amendment. Apparently Russians are very big fans of our Second Amendment. They don’t particularly want a Second Amendment of their own, but they’re really glad that we have one.”
“The Russians would be thrilled if we were doing nothing but killing each other every day, and sadly we are.”
Mr. Schiff’s constant delusional comments are so irrelevant to most Americans – and so unbelievable to many – that it should be no surprise to anyone that The Democrats favorability is sliding and Trump’s is rising.
bad karma's Link
On the program I watched, Hugh said the material omissions made the FBI look very bad, but that it wouldn't change the course of the Russian meddling investigation at all. That's the point I was trying to make.
Did Hugh say something different in your link?
Matt
They could "say" Page was in contact with russians, but was any of that contact nefarious on Page's part? Were Russian overtures to Page ever accepted or acted upon by Page in an illegal manner?
The biggest points in the GOP memo are (1) would the warrant have been granted without the Steele dossier and yahoo news story? (2) was the judge told the source for both was a Clinton paid op-research package?
Further - once this merry little band of anti-Trump DOJ/FBI members (McCabe, Comey, Yates, Strzok, Ohr) established wiretapping of Page, who else in the Trump Campaign did they happen to "monitor" in the process? And how widely were these intercepts shared back to the original funding source, Clinton's Campaign team. THERE is your 21st century Watergate.
I would argue that those aren’t points in the GOP memo, but rather questions left unanswered by the memo.
GG, that’s more or less what he article said. The biggest takeaways I took from the article was the omission of fact was bad, but how bad depends who all was involved in the process to leave out the info. He made the point that the warrant may very well have been approved, but that it was a breach of trust. Also, made the point that it’s likely a bigger indictment of the staff that prepare and review these applications, and less of an indictment of the folks at the top (Comey, Rosenstein, etc) as they likely don’t review every single detail in these applications. The only way they are really implicated is if they discussed leaving this info out ahead of time. That said, he makes the point that there’s no excuse for not disclosing this info and that it will have ramifications with respect to the warrant process.
The FBI sought FISA warrants FOUR TIMES to spy on Carter Page.
The warrants on Page then gave the Deep State access to spy on all of the Trump campaign officials.
Now this… According to reports from 2016 Carter Page was previously working as an undercover informant for the FBI.
In 2013 Carter Page was working as an under-cover employee (UCE) of the FBI, helping them to build a case against “Evgeny Buryakov”. In March 2016 Carter Page remained their informant pre-trial. [Note – Pay attention to the names in the following citations]
Sources: ? In 2013 the U.S. Department of Justice, Southern District of New York, announced an indictment against a Russian Operative Evgeny Buryakov. LINK HERE In March of 2016 Buryakov pleaded GUILTY.
? In 2016 Reuters published an article, based on the ongoing court case, going into detail about court records. LINK HERE
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The FBI eavesdropped on meetings involving Russian intelligence personnel in New York City, including a suspected spy posing as a trade representative, by hiding recorders in binders containing supposedly confidential information about the energy sector, U.S. prosecutors said.
The hours of covert recordings from 2013 were disclosed in papers filed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday in the case of Evgeny Buryakov, a Russian citizen who U.S. prosecutors say posed as a banker while participating in a Cold War-style spy ring.
[…] According to prosecutors, in April 2012, Sporyshev met an undercover FBI employee posing as an analyst at a New York energy firm at an oil and gas industry conference.
? In April 2017, writing a story about Carter Page, and trying to enhance/affirm the Russian narrative, they outlined Page’s connections to the Trump campaign, the New York Times referenced Page’s prior connection to the operation. [Notice how the story is shaped] LINK HERE:
Russian intelligence operatives tried in 2013 to recruit an American businessman and eventual foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign who is now part of the F.B.I. investigation into Russia’s interference into the American election, according to federal court documents and a statement issued by the businessman.
The businessman, Carter Page, met with one of three Russians who were eventually charged with being undeclared officers with Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as the S.V.R. The F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Page in 2013 as part of an investigation into the spy ring, but decided that he had not known the man was a spy, and the bureau never accused Mr. Page of wrongdoing.
It is transparently clear that Carter Page was the Under-Cover Employee (UCE) of the FBI in the 2013 case.
Carter Page was working for the FBI.
slade's Link
I also noted that Hugh agreed with one of the other talking heads on the show when he stated the Nunes memo didn't "vindicate" anyone of allegations in the Russia investigation.
Matt
The Dems are claiming that is not true. So far the Dems say the FISA application noted the source was partisan but that does NOT refute the GOP claim that evidence was never identified as being funded by the Clinton campaign.
And what McCabe exactly said could be settled with transcripts, if the Dems would actually provide.
Comey sure showed his Clinton/Dem allegiance when he expressed outrage at a 4 page GOP memo but not a peep about the 10 page Dem memo. He is in this deep state scandal up to his 6ft 6" eyeballs!!
But would you agree that that this GOP memo does vindicate Trump's claims last year that he was being wiretapped?
Page was a member of Trump's campaign. The FISA warrant authorized surveillance on him. I'd say that pretty much explains any "wiretaps" that may have been found in Trump's hotel. The memo doesn't prove Obama ordered those wiretaps, or that the wiretaps were targeting at Trump, as he claimed.
Matt
McCabe has no statements connected to the use of the Yahoo News Story. With respect to the Yahoo News story, the memo says "2) The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News. The Page FISA application incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News—and several other outlets—in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed." The memo is pointing out that this is not corroborating evidence; running with this bit of information to the point of saying a warrant would not be granted is taking it a lot further than the memo does.
Also, McCabe did not say a warrant would not have been issued without the dossier, he is quoted as saying a warrant would not have been sought without the dossier (I will concede a warrant can't be issued if it is not sought, but he didn't say the warrant wouldn't have been issued). The memo says, "Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information." Again, what information led to the granting of the warrant and how important the dossier is in gaining the surveillance approval is still a question, particularly when the other side is saying McCabe's testimony is misrepresented.
So I'll stick to my assertion that those aren't points raised by the memo, they are questions that arise from the points raised in the memo that have yet to be answered.
As already established, the memo doesn't invalidate the warrant, or any of the information collected under it, until another judge says so. We also don't know what other information was used, other than the dossier, to obtain the warrant, or if some portions of the dossier were validated and therefore accepted as probable cause by the FISA courts.
Matt
Matt
A negative cannot be proven, thus the importance of "Innocent until proven guilty." in our justice system.
The memo does prove that there is a lot of reason to believe that the entire FBI/DOJ under obama/clinton were a crime cartel that is still deeply embedded and needs to be rooted out entirely if we are to save the republic.
Denials of this from the Bowsite leftists is further proof of just how insidious the leftists in our nation and our government have become.
Annony Mouse's Link
Having reviewed hundreds and hundreds of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications as the final stop between the FBI and the desks of Attorneys General William French Smith and Edwin Meese III, I read the Nunes memo as revealing one major fact that stands out above all other revelations: The FISA warrant for surveillance on Carter Page (and the three subsequent renewals of the warrant) omitted a material fact. While the FBI admitted that the information came from a politically motivated source, the bureau did not disclose that the source had been financed by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. That is a damning omission...
more at link
HA/KS's Link
Some of you are deliberately wearing blinders to support a personal agenda/crusade, but this whole thing is a massive scandal. It's like the OJ murders, where you think a tight glove makes him innocent.... while there is everything but a Heisman trophy found in the bushes!!
Hell, the petty Dems even stole "W" keys from the government computers because they were angry Bush won. Do you believe Bush really won that election?
For that matter, do you believe OJ killed Nicole and Ron?
Do I believe that Obama, Comey, Sessions, McCabe, Rosenstein, multiple Federal judges, and the rank-and-file members of the FBI are all "loyalists" willing to either break the law or turn a blind-eye towards criminal behavior in an effort to get HRC elected or to bring down Trump? No, I don't.
And for the record, yes to Watergate, Bush won, and OJ did it.
Me neither. I think some folks have been watching the Jason Bourne movies a little too much.
Matt
And the political bias of Steele is without question, since his work was funded by Clinton and he made those specific comments about stopping Trump actually recorded in FBI files. Yet his biased anti-Trump research was submitted as evidence for a wiretap warrant on Trump campaign members?? Would you dispute that??
And Comey, who leaked to the press in an effort to take down Trump, who signed the wiretap papers 3 times. And Sally Yates who signed the warrant papers once, do you think she holds no Trump animosity??? And McCabe... are you suggesting he did not work with a political agenda and retired with honor???
Federal Judges without Bias??? You mean like the liberal 9th circuit judges attempting to stop trumps immigration bans, or the liberal activist judges opposing Trump on their illegal sanctuary cities??
Nah, never happens. All that obvious political bias was just talk, and none of them took any real action to affect the election. If it does not fit, you must acquit!
Who do you think is doing the field work and providing all the input that goes into things like the FISA application? That work is not done by any of these executives -- it's done by the rank-and-file of the department.
Bias is important to understand. Do Page and Strzok look biased? Hard to argue against that. Does that mean they broke the law or were incapable of doing their job? Not necessarily. If they were so biased, why on Earth did they take the decision to announce they were reopening the Clinton investigation ahead of the email. Because, even if their personal biases pushed them in a different direction, it was the right thing to do.
Was Steele biased? Appears so. If Steele uncovered illegal activity conducted by Trump's team does his bias negate that? Absolutely not. His credibility needs to be questioned, but it doesn't change facts. If we were to ignore every piece of information that was born out of some sort of bias, this thread wouldn't exist as it is entirely based on a partisan memo by individuals who are biased. You guys act like bias exists only in one direction.
What reason did Comey have to want to bring down Trump when he signed off on surveillance? What was Sally Yates' reason? What, they just didn't like Trump and held some deep-seeded obligation to their old boss or a political luster that they saw fit to do whatever they could, up to and including breaking the law, to have him removed? Sure, whatever.
It's either some Polly Annish fantasy world...... or a hate for Trump (or the right) that anything justifies the means.... so they're OK with a "few bad apples" or people bending the rules..... as long as the outcome "is best for the country...." which I think the same FBI agents involved with handling both the Clinton investigation AND investigating/wiretapping Trump have been proven saying.... almost verbatim.
As I see it, all we have so far is someone at the FBI, or someone involved in the FISA application review process, failed to disclose who ultimately funded the dossier, instead they just called it "opposition research". And, it's been *alleged* portions of the dossier were unverified at the time it was used as evidence to obtain the warrant, and remains so.
The right has attempted to discredit every person involved, including many of their own appointed officials, in an effort to invalidate the warrant and the Russian meddling investigation. So far, nothing has changed with either of those.
And now we have our POTUS sitting on the minority rebuttal to the "memo" that he claims "totally vindicates" him, yet I haven't heard a single legal scholar even hint that anyone was been vindicated yet.
Let's see the minority memo, Mr. President.
Of course, you are not telling the truth. They either ran into your passenger, or your car. They did not run into you.
good grief.....
Acting based on political bias is. And the latest texts between Strzok and Page certainly suggest this.
And quit using nonsequiturs to say "that doesn't affect the validity of the dossier. It's disingenuous and you know it.
As I see it, all we have so far is someone at the FBI, or someone involved in the FISA application review process, failed to disclose who ultimately funded the dossier, instead they just called it "opposition research". And, it's been *alleged* portions of the dossier were unverified at the time it was used as evidence to obtain the warrant, and remains so.
4 someones. And no, it's not alleged, it's admitted in testimony by Comey. Get it right.
The right has attempted to discredit every person involved, including many of their own appointed officials, in an effort to invalidate the warrant and the Russian meddling investigation. So far, nothing has changed with either of those.
Worthless claim, since there is no one position of "The right." Trey Gowdy certainly has not. You're taking the Sean Hannitys of the world and trying to force everyone else to adopt their positions.
And now we have our POTUS sitting on the minority rebuttal to the "memo" that he claims "totally vindicates" him, yet I haven't heard a single legal scholar even hint that anyone was been vindicated yet.
And that has nothing to do with the evidence. It's his opinion. Nothing more.
Come on. I expected better of you.
God bless, Steve
Please don't misquote me. I said, it doesn't "prove, or disprove..." not "affect". I believe that to be a factual statement.
4 someones. And no, it's not alleged, it's admitted in testimony by Comey. Get it right..
Comey's testimony doesn't dismiss the entire dossier. He called portions of it "salacious and unverified". In fact, he refused to answer the question when asked if any of the criminal allegations in the dossier were verified. Re-read his testimony carefully.
Worthless claim, since there is no one position of "The right." Trey Gowdy certainly has not. You're taking the Sean Hannitys of the world and trying to force everyone else to adopt their positions.
My apologies for generalizing.
And that has nothing to do with the evidence. It's his opinion. Nothing more.
Obviously Trump's opinion has nothing to do with the evidence. I'll give you that.
Come on. I expected better of you.
Likewise.
Matt
And even funnier, when I was told that someone trusted Hugh Hewitt more than me, I later posted a Hewitt article quoting a federal judge who would have immediately invalidated the warrant upon hearing of this, it is blown off.
But that's okay, it's only the most invasive surveillance one can be subjected to, and after all, Page was helping the Trump campaign. So, it's not a big deal.
Implicating Obama. Haven't seen a single shred of evidence that connects Obama in anyway. Continuing to highlight the Obama administration is obviously a way to perpetuate the partisan conspiracy theory. Why not be more factually accurate and say "the Obama administration's obtaining and the Trump administration's extension (three times) of a FISA warrant?" No need to respond to that, I think we all know the answer.
Nobody has seen either the minority memo or the underlying FISA application and has no clue how important the dossier (on its own) was in obtaining the warrant. We have no idea what kind of intelligence and evidence was used to corroborate parts of the dossier.
I read the Hugh Hewitt piece, and responded to it. Again, my takeaways were using quotes directly from the article 1) it is a "damning omission" and "breach of trust" and looks bad for the FBI. 2) "The FISA court to which the application was made might well have issued the warrant even if it knew the provenance of the intelligence" 3) "That an omission of a material fact occurred in the warrant application does not indict former FBI director James B. Comey or any of the other reviewing or approving officials up to and including Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein." And yes, I read what the judge said in that article. I would also guess that all judges wouldn't have acted the same. I'd also imagine that in responding to the show cause order, the warrant might have been reissued. Hard to say at this stage.
Without the whole story, it seems to be a lot of conjecture on both sides at this stage. To that end, is there anything the Democratic memo can say that would diminish the significance of the Nunes memo, bk?
It also amazes me that some choose to use the above assumption to conclude that a suspicious warrant renders the entire Russian meddling investigation invalid.
And even funnier, when I accurately paraphrased what Hugh Hewitt said on the program I watched, I then get accused of "blowing off" a quote that Hugh included in a later article that I still haven't read, all because of a bruised ego.
Matt
How far would Obama/Clinton people go to advance their cause (the Obamacare lies, the Iran nuke deal, the private email servers, the Bengazzi lies about a Youtube video, John Kerry advising the Palestiaians against us, etc)
Where Obama only LOOKED like he was helping the Iranians sending plane loads of cash to them. When he was really just making us look soft to give them a false send of security!
In addition, on June 30 2016 they wrote anothet text explaining how they changed the wording in a Comey report from "President" (Obama at that time) to instead read just "another senior government official".
bigeasygator's Link
So, yeah, it could be a President wanting to get up-to-speed on an issue...or it could be a President wanting to influence and weaponize the investigative arm of the government. Occam's razor.
This doesn't mean a crime was committed. I think his biggest exposure is likely on obstruction of justice, but I think it all seems like a stretch with respect to actual crimes being committed.
With regards to the Strzok text regarding "potus wants to know everything," it's worth following up on that. Nowhere have I ever said none of these things ARE nothing. What I've said is my initial reaction to all of these scenarios is the theory that requires the fewest assumptions is usually the best - that doesn't mean it's always right. That is counter to a lot of folks here who are ready to indict with incomplete, ambiguous, and vague information.
The big question Here; Why didn't the FBI corroborate the Steele claims before going to FISA? It sure seems like their bias got in the way. Especially when they knew its originations were from Clinton....and didn't tell the court. Those 2 tidbits are pretty good indicators.
It was Comey himself in previous testimony so much as said it was 'Salicious and unverified'- or something to that effect. Total breaking of FBI procedure...can't blame the rank and file FBI on that...it rests solely with the upper brass. >>>---------------->
Then wiretapping a presidential candidates office......OMG, why even bother....whatever was said there will never see the light of day.....oh wait, unless that big mouth Adam Schiff character gets it then it will be front page headlines. I don't think that guy has every kept a secret in his life.....tells you his popularity is more important than his character.
1. The dossier was only narrowly used in the FISA application and that there was a host of additional information used in the four warrant applications.
2. The court was made aware that the dossier was a political hit piece aimed at discrediting the Trump campaign.
3. The Yahoo article wasn’t cited as corroborating info but instead to inform the court of Page's public denial of his suspected meetings in Moscow.
4. Parts of the dossier were indeed confirmed and corroborated by independent sources.
5. The dossier was not the reason for conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Page. That investigation was started nearly two months before the FBI was made aware of the dossier.
"...But, thanks to the Timeline of Treason, we can easily find the contradictions, fabrications, and propaganda woven throughout the Schiff document.
Don't believe the article, then check out Timeline of Treason for yourself.
Moscow is a city in Russia, Trump is the US President, Putin is the Russian President.....
"3. The Yahoo article wasn’t cited as corroborating info but instead to inform the court of Page's public denial of his suspected meetings in Moscow." I seem to remember the denials were of meetings in Prague, which the lack of entries on his passport seem to corroborate. And we're to believe anything Schiff says because he has a long history of being trustworthy?
Note: too many big words and not enough pictures for the likes of Paul Zeidan, indoctrinator extraordinary of Briarcliff Manor HS to understand.
