Posted on 12/11/2019 7:53:40 AM PST by Starman417
The DOJ Inspector General’s report disclosed a multitude of FISA violations by the FBI. As noted by John Solomon, there were 51 Woods violations and nine false statements made to the FISA Court.
To understand just how shoddy the FBI’s work was in securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, you only need to read an obscure attachment to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report.More at the link.Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true.
The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016.
A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: “Supporting document shows that the factual assertion is inaccurate.”
For those who don’t speak IG parlance, it means the FBI made nine false assertions to the FISA court. In short, what the bureau said was contradicted by the evidence in its official file.
Horowitz also identified 17 “significant errors or omissions” in the FISA application. Among them:
1. Omitted information the FBI had obtained from another U.S. government agency detailing its prior relationship with Page, including that Page had been approved as an “operational contact” for the other agency from 2008 to 2013, and that Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application;Do read the rest. 17 major “mistakes” and not one of them goes Trump’s way.2. Included a source characterization statement asserting that Steele’s prior reporting had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings,” which overstated the significance of Steele’s past reporting and was not approved by Steele’s handling agent, as required by the Woods Procedures;
3. Omitted information relevant to the reliability of Person 1, a key Steele sub-source (who was attributed with providing the information in Report 95 and some of the information in Reports 80 and 102 relied upon in the application), namely that (1) Steele himself told members of the Crossfire Hurricane team that Person 1 was a “boaster” and an “egoist” and “may engage in some embellishment” and (2) INFORMATION REDACTED
4. Asserted that the FBI had assessed that Steele did not directly provide to the press information in the September 23 Yahoo News article based on the premise that Steele had told the FBI that he only shared his election-related research with the FBI and Fusion GPS, his client; this premise was incorrect and contradicted by documentation in the Woods File- Steele had told the FBI that he also gave his information to the State Department;
5. Omitted Papadopoulos’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in September 2016 denying that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russia or with outside groups like Wikileaks in the release of emails;
6. Omitted Page’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in August 2016 that Page had “literally never met” or “said one word to” Paul Manafort and that Manafort had not responded to any of Page’s emails; if true, those statements were in tension with claims in Report 95 that Page was participating in a conspiracy with Russia by acting as an intermediary for Manafort on behalf of the Trump campaign; and
7. Included Page’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in October 2016 that the FBI believed supported its theory that Page was an agent of Russia but omitted other statements Page made that were inconsistent with its theory, including denying having met with Sechin and Divyekin, or even knowing who Divyekin was; if true, those statements contradicted the claims in Report 94 that Page had met secretly with Sechin and Divyekin about future cooperation with Russia and shared derogatory information about candidate Clinton.
The FBI knew that the dossier was nearly 100% without substance, but acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe demanded it be used in the ICA. The CIA was reluctant.
The [FBI] Supervisory Intel Analyst explained that the CIA believed that the Steele election reporting was not completely vetted and did not merit inclusion in the body of the report. The Intel Section Chief stated that the CIA viewed it as ‘internet rumor,’” and wanted to include the reporting in an appendix, not the body.Sen. Lindsey Graham said the moment the FBI used a dossier they knew to be essentially merit less to obtain a FISA warrant it became a crime. Actually, it became a conspiracy.
And that’s where Horowitz loses me. This is directly from the report:
Errors and omissions. Case agents provided wrong or incomplete information. Then he writes that there is no evidence of intentional misconduct and even went so far as to say they found no political bias.
Excuse me? He writes that they did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors and problems.
Bias would explain it perfectly. Why would seasoned FBI agents use a unsubstantiated dossier of lurid gossip, omit exculpatory evidence and frame a former IC asset who actually helped nab a real Russian spy (Page) if not for bias?
(Excerpt) Read more at Floppingaces.net...
It seems there may be a delineation. I think he says no bias for opening the investigation...did not say that about the rest of it. Will see what he says coming up.
there is no reason other than bias for what went down.
Throw in the false exculpatory statements by Brennan - that the dossier was not a key part of the ICA - and you have all the proof of bias that is needed. However, Brennan was outside the DOJ IG reach - but that information is in the public domain and should have been incorporated.
Bias?
How about sedition?
Horowitz was never going to deliver anything but whitewash.
It is his specialty.
Several months ago I heard Rush Limbaugh explain the FIB leaked lies and false intel to some legal blog.
Said legal blog then published that data.
The FIB then gathered that info from the blog and presented them as facts to obtain the phony and false warrants.
I’ve never seen any other corroboration on this.
He never said there was no bias. He said there was no testimonial or written evidence of it.
No one ever admitted to it or produced written proof of bias.
A better question would be, “Why are their secret courts and secret judges?”
This report is fake news. Obama said this was to be by the book. /s
“Obama said this was to be by the book”
The book Alinski wrote.
RUSH: Here is the latest news on just how deep — and this is going to continue, by the way — this conspiracy was and how fraudulent it was, the FBI, slash, DOJ investigation of Trump. It’s a Fox News story on their website. It was just published about 45 minutes ago. The headline: “FBI Clashed with DOJ Over Potential ‘Bias’ of Source for Surveillance Warrant.”
What this story is going to claim is that the texts between Andrew McCabe — not Strzok Smirk — the texts between Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page ended up being cited as sources in the application for a FISA warrant. And the reason is that those texts cited media stories about the dossier, which happened to be written by Benjamin Wittes, a friend of Comey’s!
“Just nine days before the FBI applied for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil a top Trump campaign aide, bureau officials were battling with a senior Justice Department official who had ‘continued concerns’ about the ‘possible bias’ of a source pivotal to the application, according to internal text messages obtained by Fox News.
“The 2016 messages, sent between former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, also reveal that bureau brass circulated at least two anti-Trump blog articles, including a Lawfare blog post sent shortly after Election Day that called Trump possibly ‘among the major threats to the security of the country.’”
So the FBI is reading blogs! One of them called Lawfare. And there’s some guy, a friend of Comey’s there named Benjamin Wittes. And he’s posting things on his blog, which are his opinion! Including, “Donald Trump could be among the major threats of the security of the country.” So they printed these blog posts out and they put ‘em in the FISA warrant application.
How did any of these people know? The FBI had told these people various bits of information. Then they wrote the pieces. Then the FBI go gets the media stories that they sourced, put them in the FISA warrant application as though they were independent pieces of evidence, when they were nothing more than blog posts, opinion posts.
“Another article, sent by Page in July 2016 as the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Russian election interference was kicking off, flatly called Trump a ‘useful idiot’ for Russian President Vladimir Putin.” A blog post! “Page told McCabe that then-FBI Director James Comey had ‘surely’ read that piece. Both articles were authored in whole or part by Benjamin Wittes, a Comey friend.”
This is blog posts! Lawfare. Left-wing blog posts by friends of the director of the FBI end up as evidence supporting a warrant to spy on Carter Page. “Further, the texts show that on Sept. 12, 2016, Page forwarded to McCabe some ‘unsolicited comments’ calling then-House GOP Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy a ‘total…’” Uhhh, I’m searching for a word here. Penis!
I’m not kidding. In the texts between Lisa Page and McCabe, Lisa Page forwarded to McCabe some unsolicited comments — I mean, some yokel opining somewhere — Twitter or a blog post, calling Trey Gowdy a total penis!
“Gowdy, at the time, was grilling FBI congressional affairs director Jason Herring at a hearing on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation. But perhaps the most significant Page-McCabe communications made plain the DOJ’s worries that the FISA application to surveil Trump aide Carter Page was based on a potentially biased source — and underscored the FBI’s desire to press on.
“The texts were connected to the ultimately successful Page application, which relied in part on information from British ex-spy Christopher Steele.”
Now, Kim Strassel at the Wall Street Journal today, her column deals with the fact that the counsel, the lawyer for the FBI, guy named James Baker, was very worried about the bias of all of the people reporting so-called facts that were pending in FISA application warrants. We know this because his testimony is leaking out, it’s trickling out. He’s testified within the past year before various House committees.
And there’s testimony from Comey, “Nah, there was no bias going on in this investigation. We didn’t fear any biased sources.” And James Baker, the FBI counsel, said, “Oh, yeah, we were very concerned, I was, about biased sources,” because he knew that Glenn Simpson was involved, Fusion GPS, and hired Steele to do the dossier. The bottom line here is that the FBI — well, these people leading the FBI ran a whole bunch of shenanigans that were in fact directly the result of their anti-Trump bias. They manipulated blog posts to look like real evidence that Trump was a Russian agent and stooge and got the FISA warrant, and then it was reauthorized four times — well, three times, total of four warrants to spy on Carter Page.
Now, Comey says that he doesn’t care, and he hopes Trump isn’t impeached, but he doesn’t care what the investigation uncovers, James Comey.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: James Comey leaked memos in order to spark the Mueller probe. Now he says he doesn’t care what the investigation uncovers.
From The Daily Caller: “James Comey claimed in an op-ed Thursday that he does not care one way or the other whether special counsel Robert Mueller finds evidence that President Donald Trump conspired with Russia.”
What? Doesn’t care? Why would he write an op-ed that says he doesn’t care, after all of this? Does this mean he knows Mueller got nothing or is this part of a grand sandbag to make everybody think there’s nothing and then Mueller’s gonna try to lower some kind of boom.
Quote, “Even though I believe Trump is morally unfit to be president, I’m not rooting for Mueller to demonstrate that he’s a criminal.” You’re such a fine guy, Mr. Comey, so impeccable, just like Mueller.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to James Comey. I had to finish this halfway through the story because of the screeching tone signaling the end of the segment. Let me read this again. This is James Comey in an op-ed yesterday in the New York Times.
“Even though I believe Mr. Trump is morally unfit to be president of the United States, I’m not rooting for Mr. Mueller to demonstrate that he is a criminal.” Well, I flat-out don’t believe that. I just flat-out don’t believe it! I also don’t believe that Comey didn’t know from the get-go that this dossier was a bunch of bogus drivel! They all knew it was bogus drivel, and yet they used to it.
It was the thing! It was all they had to start this entire two-year surreal disaster! And they knew it was bogus! They knew it was Hillary Clinton’s work! And they still used it to try to bring down Donald Trump. And now, “Even though I believe Mr. Trump is morally unfit, I am not rooting for Mr. Mueller to demonstrate that he is a criminal.” I just flat-out don’t believe that.
He also wrote, “I also am not rooting for Mr. Mueller to ‘clear’ the president.” Really? So you have no stake in this at all, Mr. Comey? You don’t care whether Mueller’s got the goods or not? “I’m not rooting for anything at all —” Mr. Comey writes. “— except that the special counsel be permitted to finish his work, charge whatever cases warrant charging and report on his work.”
There’s nobody trying to stop Mueller! There’s not a single person that’s made one effort to stop Mueller! And I don’t care, you can’t say Trump calling it a witch hunt has been intimidating to Mueller to get him to stop. The only way to stop Mueller is to fire him, and he hasn’t been fired. Nobody has impaired Mueller at all here!
Mueller has had free reign to investigate anything the hell he wants. He wasn’t even given a specific crime to look at! Comey claimed he only cares about transparency, which is a laugh, because that’s the last thing he wants unless he wants to go to jail. He doesn’t want transparency on the various lies and prevarications he’s been caught telling under oath before various House committees.
He also wrote this. “I have no idea whether the special counsel will conclude that Mr. Trump knowingly conspired with the Russians in connection with –” Mr. Comey, you know that didn’t happen! This is my ongoing big problem with it. This is what makes all this stuff seem surreal and of another world. They all know there was no Russian collusion that explains Trump’s election victory! Zilch, zero, nada! They know it! And yet he writes, “I have no idea whether the special counsel will conclude that Trump knowingly,” blah, blah, blah, “or that he obstructed justice with the required corrupt intent. I also don’t care.” You don’t care again.
You’re writing an op-ed in the New York Times about how you don’t care about anything except that your buddy Mueller be allowed to finish this travesty. “I only care that the work be done well and completely. If it is, justice will have prevailed, and core American values will have been protected.” Core American values have gone out the window in this investigation! That is the entire point!
Core American values? Core American legal principles have gone out the window in this investigation! An investigation everybody involved knows that the primary impetus for the investigation is a bogus hack job from the Democrat presidential candidate? They are continuing to create this narrative that all of this was legitimate precisely because they know it isn’t.
And I still maintain that the Mueller investigation was actually a cover-up for all of these illegalities and transgressions and all of the efforts to ignore the real collusion and real criminality that occurred between Hillary Clinton and the Russians and the Democrat National Committee.
This article originally appeared on Rush Limbaugh
“...there is no reason other than bias for what went down.”
The IG cannot interview anyone that is not a gov’t employee nor no longer in the gov’t employ. This is where the blatant bias is most obvious. This will be the job of Drummond.
Because Orange Man Bad. Next question.
I don’t know if it was the reporter or the Inspector General, but thank you for finally putting words to the acronym “FISA”.
It is thrown around by Hannity and Limbaugh like everyone does DC-speak. For most people who do not follow government closely, I think the seriousness of this whole scenario is lost on them because they don’t know a FISA Court from a tennis court. When it is called what it is, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, they may realize that this was a domestic spy operation on our own president.
They were just following orders
Because this was a Democrat stall and smokescreen operation to try to keep Democrat leaders from being jailed for their criminal actions.
Yup. We're debating the term "bias", when the description should be far worse.
If he says there was bias in the hearing, then it should have been in his report.
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