Now that we know FBI agents deceived the court to get the warrants to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the big question is: Was this the exception, or the rule?
Because FISA warrants are secret, no opposing counsel gets to contest the bureau's claims - so agents are supposed to scrupulously level with the court about any weaknesses in their applications.
In Page's case, they did the reverse - one lawyer even falsified info to conceal the fact that Page had a history of voluntarily reporting on Russians to the CIA. And, as Collyer noted, FBI lawyers and agents "Falsely represented" that the infamous - and uncorroborated - Christopher Steele dossier "Had been used in criminal proceedings." All four applications relied on Steele's "Reporting" in claiming Paul Manafort used Page as an intermediary with Russia - but didn't note that Page told people he'd never once spoken to Manafort.
As Inspector General Michael Horowitz told the Senate last week, it's a major mystery why the FBI even kept asking to renew the warrants, as "Agents [were] talking to one another about why Page is even a subject anymore," since they'd developed zero evidence that he was a foreign agent and plenty of info undercutting that claim, including evidence that Steele was profoundly unreliable.
To find out, Horowitz testified, he's doing an emergency audit of other FISA applications for both counterintelligence and anti-terror warrants.
Disgraced former FBI chief Jim Comey insists his people had no anti-Trump bias, or at least didn't act on it in this investigation.
The only alternative explanation - that the bureau on his watch took to routinely abusing its national-security powers - will make him look even worse.
https://nypost.com/2019/12/21/if-fbi-was-routinely-cutting-corners-on-fisa-warrants-comey-will-look-even-worse/
Because FISA warrants are secret, no opposing counsel gets to contest the bureau's claims - so agents are supposed to scrupulously level with the court about any weaknesses in their applications.
In Page's case, they did the reverse - one lawyer even falsified info to conceal the fact that Page had a history of voluntarily reporting on Russians to the CIA. And, as Collyer noted, FBI lawyers and agents "Falsely represented" that the infamous - and uncorroborated - Christopher Steele dossier "Had been used in criminal proceedings." All four applications relied on Steele's "Reporting" in claiming Paul Manafort used Page as an intermediary with Russia - but didn't note that Page told people he'd never once spoken to Manafort.
As Inspector General Michael Horowitz told the Senate last week, it's a major mystery why the FBI even kept asking to renew the warrants, as "Agents [were] talking to one another about why Page is even a subject anymore," since they'd developed zero evidence that he was a foreign agent and plenty of info undercutting that claim, including evidence that Steele was profoundly unreliable.
To find out, Horowitz testified, he's doing an emergency audit of other FISA applications for both counterintelligence and anti-terror warrants.
Disgraced former FBI chief Jim Comey insists his people had no anti-Trump bias, or at least didn't act on it in this investigation.
The only alternative explanation - that the bureau on his watch took to routinely abusing its national-security powers - will make him look even worse.
https://nypost.com/2019/12/21/if-fbi-was-routinely-cutting-corners-on-fisa-warrants-comey-will-look-even-worse/
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