Posted on 02/04/2018 7:27:43 AM PST by markomalley
Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) appears to be openly disclosing classified information to the news media–after weeks of complaining about Republican plans to disclose such information.
Per a report by CNN on Saturday, Schiff, the ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”) told multiple reporters on Friday that the central claim of the Nunes surveillance memo was “unfounded.”
The Nunes surveillance memo relies upon the following thesis: that FBI and DOJ officials within the Obama administration made substantial and material omissions–rising to the level of perhaps unlawful misrepresentations–in front of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISA Court”) in order to obtain a surveillance warrant on Donald Trump‘s former campaign volunteer, Carter Page. The memo itself spells out those alleged omissions and reads, in part:
Neither the initial [FISA] application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior and FBI officials.
But after the controversial memo was released on Friday, Schiff took multiple reporters by the hand and offered his insight into those allegations against high-level officials within the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) by dismissing them in whole.
Those insights cut to the heart of the Nunes memo’s claims. Namely, Schiff noted, via both a press release and comments to reporters, that the memo’s claims regarding Christopher Steele‘s political motivations were “not accurate.” Schiff’s press release reads, in part:
The Majority suggests that the FBI failed to alert the court as to Mr. Steele’s potential political motivations or the political motivations of those who hired him, but this is not accurate.
In comments to reporters, Schiff later said that Steele’s “likely political motivation” was made aware to the FISA Court–again, a direct contradiction of the Nunes surveillance memo’s allegations.
But in the performance of Schiff’s schtick–protecting the nation’s largely unaccountable intelligence agencies from any sort of oversight–Schiff may have released classified information himself.
Now, the initial press release, on its own, likely isn’t enough to rise to the level of releasing classified information. Schiff’s lengthy rebuttal more or less just says that Devin Nunes’ memo is wrong and is light on details. But his later comments to reporters–where he told reporters that Steele’s “likely political motivation” was revealed to the FISA Court–do appear to reveal distinct information, potentially classified information.
Recall: the Nunes memo was only released after President Donald Trump declassified the much-ballyhooed document. What Trump did not do, however, was de-classify the underlying FISA warrant application. It would appear that Schiff has revealed information from that underlying application by attempting to discredit the Nunes memo.
As with any controversy involving America’s secret court system–FISA–and classified information, generally, it’s hard to nail this down completely. Attorney Mark Zaid, who has handled multiple cases involving such information said, in comments to the Washington Examiner:
At first blush I would have some concerns about the details in this statement as to whether it crosses a classification line, but it is possible Rep. Schiff, having had access to the underlying classified information, knows these points are in unclassified paragraphs. So much of these back-and-forths about the memo are in a gray area on classification.
Grey is certainly the color of the day. Both for its uncertainty and the overwhelming sense of meh.
Recall again: The Nunes surveillance memo was widely trumpeted before its release by the #MAGA set and many congressional Republicans as damning evidence viz. alleged FISA abuses. Conversely, the FBI, as well as the DOJ and other members of the intelligence community warned the memo’s release would endanger national security. The Democratic Party fully embraced and echoed the concerns of the intelligence community, savaging the memo’s release as “dangerous,” and a violation of House rules–in addition to their Chicken Little-like cries about endangering national security.
In reality, none of the above claims were true. Republicans mislead about the memo’s significance–most of the information is public knowledge. While Democrats, the FBI, DOJ, and others in the intelligence community all-but outright lied as to the alleged dangerousness of the memo’s contents–no one has yet to offer any plausible reason America’s national security was endangered by it.
Democrats are quite loudly preparing their own counter-memo to the Nunes surveillance memo in order to dispute the claims contained in the original, but the tactics employed by some Democrats in attempting to bat down the Nunes memo’s significance are ironically looking like nothing more than a messier, aped version of exactly what Democrats have been accusing the memo’s boosters of doing for so long now: releasing (over) classified information.
Lock him up!!! Democrats always accuse Republicans of things Democrats have done. Hillary has done that for 30 years with help from enablers in the Democrat media.
The whole House memo thing smelled like a sting operation on leakers, so let the Ranking Dem take the hit.
Leaky Leahy Jr! Schiff is a threat to our national security by just sitting on the committee!
Schiff should definitely be investigated, under oath, by the Intelligence Committee - not the useless ethics committee. He has been a major leaker all along..
U.S.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
PERMANENT
SELECT
COMMITTEE
ON INTELLIGENCE
Charge and Response, Intelligence Committee
https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_fisa_memo_charge_and_response.pdf
Speaker Ryan has the authority to remove him from the committee, and for good cause.
That is where we need to direct our complaints, to Speaker Ryan.
This theory of Adam Schiff is only possibly viable if you believe using the Dossier in a FISA court was legit in the first place.
Can someone explain to me why, if Carter Page was under investigation since 2013, did they wait until the end of a campaign when Mr Page had not been active for months? Also why are they talking about something they have been investigating for 5 years with no proof?
Schiff is a weasel. He does things like this because he knows NO ONE will call him on it. Conservatives are dying to take down Schiff for what he did to Nunes(Ethics Complaint). Now Schiff has the same situation. He knows no one in any power will file charges. He is laughing his cross eyed self to the bank. Charge the little Prick.
...or Shift is LYING again. Seems to me Shift is on good ground here - he’s making a claim that would be classified if true, but since it is not true, it is not classified. For example, if you use your I-phone to take a picture in a museum of a mockup of a nuclear submarine’s interior, and then claim that you were really inside one when you took the picture, is that a crime?
At least that would be his ‘defense’ if ever brought up on charges.
So instead of firing Mueller and risking all that, just hire a new special prosecutor to investigate all these democrats for all their “process crimes”.
Also, this week, two senior Democrats — Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ranking minority member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Committee — released a joint statement that went further then what U.S. officials had publicly said about the matter.Schiff and Feinstein are just propaganda tools for the DNC and Deep State, their masters.“Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election,” they said. “At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election.” They added that “orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government.”
source - Yahoo News!
Michael Isikoff
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-s-intel-officials-probe-ties-between-trump-adviser-and-kremlin-175046002.html
Where is Sessions?
I thought he had leak investigations going
This is a blatant leak.
So where are you Jeff?
I can’t imagine what would have happened to me during my 30 year career working on classified projects if I had pulled 1/10th of what Hillary and members of Congress have done regarding sensitive information.
Upper tier rat. Therefor, immune.
Has Ryan figured out which side he is on yet?
I agree. Lock him up.
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