[Cboldt]

One more thing. _Vachel timeline has the warrantless snooping starting after and depending on the Steele Dossier. I think the warrantless snooping predated the Steele Dossier by months, maybe a year.

I don't believe for a second that there was any effort to abide by 50 USC 1802 for warrantless surveillance. None of this material was ever intended to be submitted for any sort of prosecution, why leave any paper trail at all? See too, use of National Security Letters.

Back to the FISA framework ... if you are able to obtain the snooping without a warrant, I mean technically able, nobody demanding to see paperwork, etc., then why create any paperwork? I think the paperwork of FISA warrants came later, when the outcome of the election wasn't quite so certain, and there was a need to advance a damaging narrative against Trump.

[little jeremiah]

Hmm.... feeble intellect struggling to keep up...how did they figure they could take Trump out before election without any type of legal prosecution? Just accusations? Seems to me they would need paperwork with some patina of legality in order to take him out either before or after election. Just making up smack and announcing it via their handmaiden MSM/DSM would not be enough even before election, IMHO.

What are National Security Letters? (If I ever knew, I forgot now

[greeneyes]

That’s what I’ve thought too. Illegal spying, until they thought they might need a veneer of legality-so they started a parallel construction type thing for going forward.

[stylin19a]

If 50 USC 1802 was used, there is also an un-seal clause in it. 3) The Attorney General shall immediately transmit under seal to the court established under section 1803(a) of this title a copy of his certification. Such certification shall be maintained under security measures established by the Chief Justice with the concurrence of the Attorney General, in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, and shall remain sealed unless—

(A) an application for a court order with respect to the surveillance is made under sections 1801(h)(4) and 1804 of this title; or
(B) the certification is necessary to determine the legality of the surveillance under section 1806(f) of this title.

The RATs really don't want anybody to go down 1806 to (f)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1806