Ex-top FBI lawyer: 'Gratuitous' to name Dems who funded Steele dossier in Carter Page FISA

washingtonexaminer.com ^ | 5/10/19 | Jerry Dunleavy & Daniel Chaitin

[ransomnote]

Full Title: Ex-top FBI lawyer: 'Gratuitous' to name Dems who funded Steele dossier in Carter Page FISA applications

The FBI's former top lawyer defended the bureau's controversial surveillance warrant applications against a member of President Trump's 2016 campaign.

As general counsel, James Baker said he "wanted the burden on me to a significant degree" in preparing the paperwork to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to wiretap one-time Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

In front of a packed room at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Baker was prompted to discuss the Trump dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele. The research was cited in the warrant applications, despite being largely unverified, and has become a flashpoint with GOP investigators who allege the FBI misled the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

At issue are the applications' lack of information about the Democrats who paid for the creation of the dossier and Steele's anti-Trump bias when the bureau applied to spy on Page, who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller over his interactions with Russians but was never charged.

“You don’t want to put into a document like this gratuitous information about U.S. persons," Baker said moderator Benjamin Wittes. "You want to try to minimize it, to some extent. If it's important. If the assessment is that the identity is critically important and you need it to either follow the flow of the information ... then you might put the person's name in."

Baker noted that FBI lawyers are tasked with these kinds of questions and might find another reason to put identifying information in the applications.

The first warrant application was submitted in October 2016, after which there were three renewals at three-month intervals, including in January, April, and June 2017. The FBI's use of the dossier, contains claims about Trump's ties to Russia, has rankled Republican investigators on Capitol Hill, who are investigating possible bias in the upper echelons of the Justice Department and FBI.

A memo from the House Intelligence Committee in February 2018 alleged Steele was paid over $160,000 by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm and opposition research group Fusion GPS to "obtain derogatory information about on Donald Trump's ties to Russia." The memo also said the FBI never informed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of the dossier's Democratic benefactors or Steele's anti-Trump bias when it applied to spy on Page, who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller over his interactions with Russians but was never charged.

[palmer]

I listened to his whole interview carefully. The hypothetical addition of Hillary's name into the FISA app was one of many straw men created both by the unhinged anti-Trumper doing the interview and Baker himself. The purpose of the interview was to allow that minor mistakes were made. Baker said several times that the IG report may find that mistakes were made.

The interview was a setup for his slap on the wrist for a couple of typos in the FISA app. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Missouri gal]

RE: Arkancide

Exactly. It was really really REALLY important NOT to put any names in, especially Hillary's.

[LeoTDB69]

“’Gratuitous’ to name Dems who funded Steele dossier”

Gratuitous is a strange name but glad someone is naming them. /s

[tet68]

no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation,

Someone needs jail time over this, a false oath or affirmation to subject a citizen to investigation
and criminal charges should be punished severely.

[Travis McGee]

I think a lot of fingers will be pointing upward until they are all pointing at Brennan and Obama. (2 communists.)

Then the last battle will be between those two.

May they both rot in prison, then in hell.

[Travis McGee]

Amen.
Got rope?

[tet68]

A problem we seem to have is that a politician hasn’t
been hanged in too many years, just to encourage the others.

Same problem with the atomic bomb...

[Travis McGee]

I hope we live to see it.

[unread]

"A memo from the House Intelligence Committee in February 2018 alleged Steele was paid over $160,000 by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm and opposition research group Fusion GPS to "obtain derogatory information about on Donald Trump's ties to Russia."

Hold on a second… I thought they said it was TRUMP that was using the Russians to get dirt on Hillary and THAT was the reason for the investigation...(?)
Man oh man... Those dimocraps are as slippery as snot on a doorknob....

[Ann Archy]

Really?? a DC GRAND JURY with ONLY BLACK DEMOCRATS??? Get Real...they will CROWN him KING!

[stinkerpot65]

When in doubt, lie bigger.

[ALPAPilot]

no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation,

Someone needs jail time over this, a false oath or affirmation to subject a citizen to investigation

and criminal charges should be punished severely.

At minimum, each individual that signed a FISA application with the dossier as evidence.

[YogicCowboy]

Correct: Telling the truth in the District of Corruption is considered gratuitous.

[tet68]

And anyone who knew it was bogus, and facilitated
this assault on freedom and our Republic and our
elected leader.

Always remember this wasn’t an assault only on
President Trump.

This was an assault on ALL Americans.
IF the culprits are not prosecuted to the FULL EXTENT
of the law then this experiment we call AMERICA is done.

[bitt]

I want to see which FISA judge signed the first one. If it was Contraras..

I want to see that judge interviewed.

I want to see John Roberts interviewed.

[lepton]

Steele was paid over $160,000 by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm and opposition research group Fusion GPS to

---

And the method through which it was done appears to have been money laundering, as well as being bundled with money from allies which seem clear-cut campaign-finance violations.

[octex]

I just hope this idiot, Baker, is one of the people indicted after the IG’s report is submitted later this month or early June. He’s just another of the Dem gusanos.