The Epoch Times
The @FBI’s #FISA warrant to #Spy on Trump campaign adviser @CarterWPage—a key part of the agency’s investigation of the Trump campaign—has been fraught with irregularities.
By Jeff Carlson @themarketswork (Thread 👇)
The @FBI’s #FISA warrant to #Spy on Trump campaign adviser @CarterWPage—a key part of the agency’s investigation of the Trump campaign—has been fraught with irregularities.
By Jeff Carlson @themarketswork (Thread 👇) https://t.co/4to69qp8d1— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) December 7, 2019
Ahead of the release of the #DOJ Inspector General's #FISAReport, we provide an overview of what exactly the known irregularities are.
The initiation of the investigation by @JusticeOIG was originally announced on March 28, 2018.
However, the #IGReport has been repeatedly pushed back and delayed.
IG #Horowitz declared his area of original focus within his initiation announcement:
The “alleged FBI confidential source” being referenced is former MI6 #Spy #ChristopherSteele.
His “#SteeleDossier” was used by the @FBI as a large component of their #FISA warrant application on Trump campaign adviser @CarterWPage in October 2016.
But there are some obvious problems with the @FBI’s reliance on the #SteeleDossier. For one thing, former FBI Director James @Comey testified before #Congress to the #FBI’s lack of verification of the Steele dossier:
In other words, @Comey told congressional investigators the #SteeleDossier wasn’t verified as of May 2017.
Yet somehow, the dossier was used as the primary piece of evidence by the @FBI to obtain the @CarterWPage #FISA warrant on Oct. 21, 2016.
According to testimony by former FBI General Counsel #JamesBaker in October, 2018, it appears that the @FBI set its sights on @CarterWPage in the summer of 2016.
When asked how he had first gained knowledge of the FBI’s intention to pursue a FISA warrant on Carter Page:
Notably, it appears that some individuals within the @FBI, and possibly the @CIA, had begun to focus on Page earlier than Baker was aware.
Page had been invited to a July 2016 symposium held at Cambridge regarding the upcoming election, where he first encountered #StefanHalper.
#Halper, who has been outed as an @FBI informant in media reports, stayed in contact with Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly as the final #FISA warrant on Page expired.
In a November 2019 #IGReport, #Horowitz sharply criticized @FBI’s handling of confidential human sources, and stated that “The FBI’s vetting processes for confidential sources…did not comply with the attorney general guidelines, particularly with regard to long-term sources.”
The IG also found @FBI’s “review committee had not vetted long-term sources in a timely manner” and again, “did not comply with [AG] guidelines.”
Additionally, he noted “FBI employees were sometimes discouraged from documenting conclusions and recommendations about sources.”
Although #ChristopherSteele’s name is not mentioned in the November #IGReport, some of the issues described by #Horowitz may pertain directly to the @FBI’s handling of #Steele.
In a May 29, 2019 article by @jsolomonReports, Solomon claimed that #Britain’s top #NationalSecurity official warned US officials in a memo “that the British government lacked confidence in the credibility of former MI6 spy Christopher Steele’s Russia collusion evidence.”
The existence of this memo has reportedly been corroborated by @DevinNunes and is also mentioned in a filing by Lt. @GenFlynn’s lawyers, which notes the letter was “delivered by the British Embassy to the incoming National Security team after Donald Trump’s election, and to…
…outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice.”
The filing noted that “the letter apparently disavows former British Secret Service Agent Christopher Steele, calls his credibility into question, and declares him untrustworthy.”
The #FISA process is generally viewed as one that takes months of preparation before an application is actually presented to the FISA court.
But according to Baker, the process could move very quickly and could even be done orally, if needed:
When asked what type of evidence might be present in a #FISA application, Baker noted that it could come from a wide variety of lawful sources to establish probable cause and could include witness interviews and physical #Surveillance. Baker listed some additional sources:
A primary component of the @CarterWPage application was the #SteeleDossier, without which, according to FBI Deputy Director #AndrewMcCabe, no FISA warrant on Page would have been sought.
@FBI lawyer #SallyMoyer testified before Congress that without the Steele dossier…
…the @CarterWPage application would have had a “50/50” chance of achieving the probable cause standard before the FISA court.
Moyer also testified that the FBI’s Woods file was not reviewed as robustly as had been thought:
Moyer told investigators that “the person that’s signing the application is relying on the individuals who have signed the Woods form that they have the Woods file.”
These individuals would be the case agent and the supervisory special agent in the field.
Moyer acknowledged that in some cases, the supervisory special agent at @FBI headquarters who is signing off on a #FISA application might choose to review the Woods file, but that it wasn’t done for the @CarterWPage FISA.
Additionally, there appears to have been an unusual review process that took place within @FBI with regard to the #FISA warrant on Page.
Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel for the FBI and head of the bureau’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch, approved…
…the application for a #FISA warrant to spy on @CarterWPage before it went to @FBI Director James @Comey.
According to Congressional testimony, preapprovals for the @CarterWPage #FISA warrant were provided by both #AndrewMcCabe and #SallyYates.
The unusual preliminary reviews and approvals from both #McCabe and #Yates appear to have had a substantial impact on the normal review process, leading other individuals like Anderson to believe that the warrant application was more vetted than it really was.
To make matters worse, circular reporting, provided by #Steele himself, was used as corroboration of the #SteeleDossier. The Page #FISA extensively cited a Sept. 23, 2016, @YahooNews article by Michael @Isikoff, which focused on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow.
This information, which was used by @FBI to “corroborate” the #SteeleDossier, was provided to @Isikoff by Steele.
Additionally, Trump campaign adviser @GeorgePapa19, whose conversation with #Australian diplomat #AlexanderDowner was used to open @FBI’s counterintelligence…
…investigation, is referenced in the #FISA, yet there “is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos,” according to a House Intelligence Committee memo.
Steele also had ongoing contact with former and current officials along with many members…
…of the media in the fall of 2016.
@PerkinsCoieLLP, the #DNC law firm that hired #FusionGPS on behalf of the @HillaryClinton campaign and the @DNC, was aware of these media contacts as noted in the House Report on Russia Active Measures:
#ChristopherSteele also met with members of the US media during his visit to #Washington, doing so “at Fusion’s instruction.”
#Steele was terminated as a source by the @FBI on Nov. 1, 2016, for communicating with the media.
Steele had a longstanding relationship with #DOJ official #BruceOhr, and maintained ongoing contact beginning in July 2016.
Following Steele’s official termination by the @FBI, Ohr and Steele communicated regularly for another full year, until November 2017.
Steele’s personal biases against Trump have been reported in the media.
Ohr testified that he informed the @FBI of Steele’s bias, along with details of Ohr’s wife’s employment with #FusionGPS prior to the #FISA application made on @CarterWPage:
Ohr also personally told Deputy @FBI Director #AndrewMcCabe of his concerns about possible bias during an August 2016 meeting:
Although the public does not know what will be contained in the #IGReport—or what conclusions, recommendations, and referrals may be made—@RepRatcliffe had this to say:
Michael @Isikoff, whose Sept. 23, 2016, article was used in the @CarterWPage #FISA, gave an interview on John Ziegler’s podcast, “Free Speech Broadcasting,” on Dec. 15, 2018, where Isikoff appeared to materially back away from the assertions made in his original article:
Months before the @FBI’s #FISA application on Page, significant irregularities had been discovered by the @NSAGov in the agency’s accessing of raw FISA data on American citizens.
The sequence of events would result in what amounted to a surreptitious race between…
…then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers and DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin.
The timeline of events suggest that the @FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers’s investigation in order to obtain the Page #FISA warrant.
Virtually every @FBI and #DOJ #NationalSecurity Division official with material involvement in the original @CarterWPage #FISA application would later be removed—either through firing or resignation.