Posted on 02/28/2020 5:50:52 AM PST by EyesOfTX
One of the most depressing aspects of Attorney General William Barr’s ongoing conduct of his job is his current campaign to have the FISA law renewed without a single modification. Coming as it does directly in the wake of the report by DOJ IG Michael Horowitz identifying no fewer than 17 instances in which highi-ranking DOJ/FBI officials lied to the FISA court in order to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump Campaign/Transition Team/Administration during 2016 and 2017, this insistence on a “clean” renewal of this dangerous law is simply inexcusable.
Barr is assuring Senators that they don’t need to fix the law because he personally will see to it that real reforms of the process are implemented within the DOJ and FBI. But if the administrative reforms offered by Christopher Wray – which consist essentially of a couple of yearly on-line “training” sessions – are any indication, that’s just another deflection by people who have no intention of actually fixing anything or punishing anyone.
Appearing on Fox Business last night, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made some very astute remarks about the current debate that people need to listen to. Below is a clip of his interview with host Greg Jarrett, followed by some outtakes from his comments.
First, the clip:
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Outtakes:
Fitton: Certainly, the process as it is set up isn’t protecting anyone’s rights. The FISA Court didn’t do its job; certainly they were the victims of a criminal conspiracy, But even when exposed, they haven’t held those responsible accountable. Forget about the Durham investigation: The FISA courts have inherent authority to investigate any criminality before the court, and I’m not seeing any evidence it is interested in doing that. If I were DOJ and FBI, I would have offered to help the court do that, but of course, DOJ and FBI are just pretending to quote, reform the system here.
The President has inherent constitutional authority to spy on foreign nationals. He doesn’t need FISA courts to do so. That authority is there, whether or not there is a FISA court. The FISA court is kind of like the War Powers Act – it’s kind of an uneasy compromise among the branches to try to restrain a presidential power that [congress] does not have the constitutional authority to restrain.
The key reform is to put people in jail who abuse the process criminally. This reform game is just that: A game. You know, Barr may have a credible point of view when he says, just renew it. Because the reform isn’t going to fix it in the sense that there’s no penalty for criminally violating the rights of American citizens.
The President’s a crime victim, and no one’s done a darn thing about it thus far. My thinking is that DOJ doesn’t even want to do anything [regarding reforms] during this period when FISA reforms are being debated, because they want the FISA court to continue operating.
Judicial Watch found – we had to force it out of the Justice Department – they admitted the FISA courts held not one hearing on any of the four FISA applications…on warrants targeting a candidate for president and a President of the United States. Why the heck have a FISA court if that’s the rubber stamp approach it takes?
The other key point here is that we still don’t have all the information. We still don’t know what else is in those FISA warrants. We don’t have all the text messages; we don’t have all the emails. So, they’re telling us they’ve got a handle on the problem; well, we don’t know the full extent of the problem and the full extent of the potential criminality.
The President is right to be skeptical of being rushed into approving this without any of the full information needed for any serious person to make a decision here.
Jarrett: In 2002, Comey was beaten up by the FISA court for his agents lying to the Court. He promised to institute reforms called the Woods procedures. And what happened? His agents went about circumventing those procedures, and of course we saw it in the Carter Page case. I’ve seen this film before; I know how it ends.
[End]
Fitton is right, of course: The one “reform” that would create a sure and long-lasting chilling effect on further abuses of the FISA process by FBI and DOJ officials would be to see Barr and Durham issue indictments targeting those who we know criminally abused the process in 2016/17: James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and on and on it goes.
Sadly, there is little indication that Barr has the slightest intention of pursuing real justice for any of those wrongdoers. Trusting Barr – who has repeatedly praised the worthless apparatchik Wray – to do anything real in terms of implementing “reforms” internally that would prevent future abuses is a fool’s errand.
I am generally opposed to Republicans in the Senate joining Democrats in filibusters, but this effort to renew the FISA law is a needed exception to the rule. Republican libertarians like Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz should be working to form a bipartisan coalition opposing ANY renewal of this dangerous statute until visible efforts to bring the known abusers of the system to justice are publicly taking place. Then, and only then, should the DOJ be trusted again with the use of this law.
That is all.
I agree, I think 2 years in Prison for Every Deliberate False Statement made before the Court would suffice, And since it is the FISA Secret Court, BAIL IS DENIED for Everyone, Immediate Remand.
Civil suits for damages against individual agents attorneys and the government would be a better solution. Make them all put some skin in the game.
:: The one “reform” that would create a sure and long-lasting chilling effect on further abuses of the FISA process by FBI and DOJ officials would be to see ::
...Judge Rudolpho Contreras frog-marched into Federal court.
The solution is to take this bush era civil liberties eroding hunk of quasi socialist shit called the patriot act, light it on fire and toss it into the dumpster.....
Ok lets do BOTH!! We can through in Civil Asset Forfeiture too if you like. Nothing is too good for these quislings.
...followed by the repeal of NDAA. Not sure that is where the FISA law is contained but both it and all of the abuses contained in the NDAA need to go.
Can we all agree that Government needs a ten percent reduction in personnel for the next five years followed by a five percent reduction for the next five and a hiring freeze for fifty years.
I am sure Judge Amy Berman-the-Hack-Jack-son will get the case per usual. Apparently she is the only judge in the country who gets deep state cases.
A stunning April 2017 report from the FISA Court received no publicity until nearly a year after it was released to the public. The report covered results of an investigation or audit into FISA searches made by Obama’s NSA, FBI and DOJ during Obama’s time in office. On April 26, 2017, an unsealed FISA Court Ruling unveiled a number of criminal activities that Barack Obama’s FBI, NSA and DOJ participated in during his time in office. The report was actually completed before the 2016 election.
The FISA Court Ruling showed widespread abuse of the FISA mandate. According to the report, Obama’s FBI, NSA and DOJ performed searches on Americans that were against their 4th Amendment rights. This went on for years. One paragraph in the report states that 85% of the Section 704 and 705(b) FISA searches made during the time of the audit (a few months in 2015) were non-compliant with applicable laws and therefore criminal.
In addition, Obama’s DOJ and FBI were illegally searching Americans against their rights. Unbeknownst to most Americans, Obama’s FBI was providing this information to outside contractors who had no business or legal cause or claim for the information. A review of the report showed on page 19 that the Court stated that Obama’s NSA had an institutional “lack of candor”.
LINKED Below is the 99-page report released on April 26, 2017 in an unsealed FISA Court Ruling.
2016 Cert FISC Memo Opin Order Apr 2017 (4) saved by the Sinclair Broadcast Group on Scribd) 1 of 99 pages
Rogers is also suspected of telling President-elect Donald Trump that he was being spied on in a meeting shortly after his election win in November 2016. The level of corruption within Obama’s NSA, FBI and DOJ is shocking. To date no one has been charged with crimes or is serving time as a result of the many crimes committed by this group of government hoodlums. We still don’t know what companies were receiving personal information on which Americans during the Obama years. It’s been more than four years!!! (Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
==================================
85% of NSA searches by Obama Were Illegal
Susan Rice was colluding with Obama to set-up the shady operation
Freedom Outpost ^ | 01-24-2018 | Tim Brown / FR Posted 1/24/2018 by ReformedMedia
CIRCA 2018---In trudging through the FISA document that came to light, it was discovered that Obama's National Security Agency (then-headed by Susan Rice) had been illegally conducting searches on people in the US. The document has gone on to state that those illegal searches, which were conducted under Obama amounted to a whopping 85% of the total searches involving US person identifiers.
Put people in jail?
BWAHAHAHAHA...
You’re killing me......
“Trust Barr. Trust the plan.”
Snort.
Guffaw
L
Am expecting some gov’t Hussein Head to tell us that those 17 “violations” against Trump were the only “violations” that happened against ANYONE invoived with the FISA court.
Rats then cheer: “Yay, let’s go after him again!”
You’re going to need an unreasonable prosecutor.
No reasonable prosecutor will charge Democrats, Comey told us that.
There also has to be an END to FBI using ‘302’s’ as interview records.
Electronic recordings—videos-—should be used ALONG with written notes.
There have been too many interviews that have been ‘adjusted’ by FBI agents using only the ‘302’s’.
Even the smallest Sheriff’s department in the entire USA uses video for interviews.
Indeed. The fact they do not allow recording devices is clear evidence of criminal intent.
Looks like Barr is just another deep stater. He’s had more than enough time to charge some of these obvious felons.
That results in taking money out of Trump's budget priorities (wall, military, etc.) and the taxpayers, rather than from those actually guilty. Need to hit the bad cops and their bad superiors hard, but not those who were innocent or even victims of these crimes.
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