The
FISA memo was released.
The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page.
Andrew McCabe confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information.
The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials, but excluded from the FISA applications.
DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to DOJ information about Steele's bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president.
The FBI and Justice Department mounted a monthslong effort to keep the information outlined in the memo out of the House Intelligence Committee's hands. Only the threat of contempt charges and other forms of pressure forced the FBI and Justice to give up the material.
Once Intelligence Committee leaders and staff compiled some of that information into the memo, the FBI and Justice Department, supported by Capitol Hill Democrats, mounted a ferocious campaign of opposition, saying release of the memo would endanger national security and the rule of law.
But Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes never wavered in his determination to make the information available to the public. President Trump agreed, and, as required by House rules, gave his approval for release.
Finally, the memo released today does not represent the sum total of what House investigators have learned in their review of the FBI and Justice Department Trump-Russia investigation. That means the fight over the memo could be replayed in the future when the Intelligence Committee decides to release more information.
Full copy of the FISA memo
here.
10 comments:
One bit of "more information" forward to which I look enthusiastically is the upcoming Schiff memo that he's so desperate to release that he's railing at Nunes for being so unfair as demand it go through the same release channels as did the just released memo.
The Schiff memo, as I understand it, has been released by the Intel Committee to the full House for vote on release.
It'll be interesting to bounce the tone and the included facts of the two memos off each other.
Eric Hines
I am delighted by the idea of all of this coming out, but so far it looks like it's apt to derail prosecutions rather than lead to fresh ones. It might curtail some careers, though.
I'm happy to see prosecutions derailed, even prosecutions of those of whom I disapprove and those of whose guilt I'm satisfied. At this point, I can't be sure those prosecutions wouldn't similarly be tainted.
We need to clean the FBI and DoJ houses from top through middle management, including a complete removal of Mueller, his team, and that pseudo-investigation, and start anew on investigations for prosecution. I'm also interested in (but not sold on) a new special counsel to investigate the possibility of criminal involvement of personnel from the Trump campaign team with Russian personnel, with that investigation of carefully circumscribed scope and duration, and with the clearly stated understanding that collusion, while perhaps politically unsavory, is not a crime. Mueller's pseudo-investigation, after all, is fatally tainted, regardless of its outcome.
Eric Hines
I don't know about Mueller -- he seems clear at least of this. But his star witness in any attempt to build an 'obstruction' case, James Comey, signed these FISA requests three times. And his boss and only superior officer, Rosenstein, signed one of them. So did McCabe, who was involved in the investigations too.
That's a lot of direct ties.
Mueller has shown his own taint in a number of ways. In no particular order:
He vetted, or approved the vetting, of Strzok, and he hired, or approved the hiring, of Stzrok (spelling in all cases dubious). He knew of Strzok's miscreancies from the jump; he only fired the man/threw him under the bus when those misbehaviors became public.
Mueller has been steadily and with careful timing leaking, or approving the leaking, bits and pieces of his investigation; universally, leaks that cast Trump or his administration or his campaign team in a negative light.
Mueller's whole investigation is built on a foundational lie, as the just released memo makes clear. His star witness is the dossier; Comey was just the willing and dishonest tool for pursuing it.
(Regarding Comey, I'm still trying to figure out his motive for whitewashing Clinton and then trashing her. It's hard to believe that he's such an attention whore that that's all he was after. Or he is such a coward that he backed away, at the moment of truth, from pulling the trigger on recommending indictment and then tried to do an NBA payback foul call and trashed her campaign in the end game.)
Eric Hines
The whole affair is such a steaming pile--and it all points right back to the Clinton Campaign and the Obama Administration.
They were behaving like the shits they are, nobody should be surprised, and I only hope that there are prosecutions over this. Not just Sztrohk and Page, but the judge who approved it, Preistap, the Ohrs, Rosenstein, Yates, McCabe, Lynch, Schiff, Pelosi, McCain, Clinton and Obama.
I've had trouble figuring Comey out as well. If one is inclined to be charitable then possibly he did have pure motives but exercised very poor judgement. I've started to think that possibly his hand was forced. Lynch really should have made the no charges announcement but once her tarmac tete-a-tete with Bill was reported she had to pass the buck. Comey went with what he had worked on but his speech was really intended as supporting material. It's been widely rumored that the NY locals all but blackmailed Comey into the second announcement by threatening to turn what they found on Weiner's laptop over to the media. In both cases he was forced to make statements he really didn't want to, and it showed.
Allahpundit has a different take on the memo. He points out that it's unclear exactly what role the dossier played. Was it just important in getting the FBI to start looking into things (as "sought" implies), or was it important in actually getting the warrant? He also points out that the memo seems to imply the investigation began before the FBI began investigating Page, which undercuts the "fruit of the poison tree" argument.
After reading the memo, part of point 5 is troubling: "The Strzok/Lisa Page texts also reflect extensive discussions about the investigation, orchestrating leaks to the media, and include a meeting with Deputy Director McCabe to discuss an 'insurance' policy against President Trump's election."
They orchestrated leaks and met with MacCabe about an 'insurance' policy? Also, having Strzok on both the Clinton and Trump investigations is a problem.
Regarding Allahpundit's take, the memo actually does not say the Mueller investigation began before the investigation of Page, just that an investigation began before that.
There are some things in the memo that just aren't clear. It doesn't look good for Comey, Strzok, or MacCabe, though.
For what it's worth, Trey Gowdy is backing the Mueller investigation and says the memo doesn't do anything to discredit it.
A commenter on a Richard Fernandez post points out another aspect of the memo and surrounding discussions (the second [] is in the original).
(excerpt) “Just step back for a moment,” Nunes explained [on FoxNews' Special Report]. “This is not trying to go after some terrorist. This is about — they opened, the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016. That’s what happened.”
He continued: “And then they got a warrant on someone in the Trump campaign using opposition research paid for by the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign. That’s what this is about. And it’s wrong and it should never be done.” (end excerpt)
...
The significance of the warrant against Carter Page, was made October 21st, 2016, under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. [Meaning the surveillance application was specifically stating, to the court, the U.S. individual was likely an actual agent of a foreign government, ie. “a spy.”] (by sundance, Conservative Tree House) And renewed every 90 day period three times.
Why is it significant?
(1) as explained, designating Carter Page as foreign agent (spy), intelligence committee can spy on ANYBODY in contact with Page, even after he’s no longer part of the Trump team;
(2) the FISA warrant continued well into the first year of Trump presidency. Let both points sink in for a bit.
(The link to sundance's Conservative Tree House is in the cited comment.)
Eric Hines
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