Posted on 09/02/2022 3:45:41 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
A federal judge dismissed Carter Page’s lawsuit against fired FBI Director James Comey, the FBI, and others involved in the improper Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act snooping that had relied on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier.
Judge Dabney Friedrich relied on her interpretation of the criminal statutes that Page alleged the FBI officials had violated when she ruled against the onetime Trump campaign associate who was surveilled under FISA. Friedrich was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by then-President Donald Trump in 2017.
“Page alleges that the individual defendants violated §§ 1809(a) and 1810 both by unlawfully engaging in electronic surveillance and using or disclosing the fruits of that surveillance. ... Each defendant claims that Page fails to sufficiently allege that he or she violated the statute,” the judge said Thursday. “The Court finds that the claims are not time-barred but that Page does not state a claim against any of the individual defendants.”
The judge added: “This plain-text understanding — that Congress allowed suit against only those who conduct unauthorized surveillance, and not those who at the application stage mislead the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] to approve that surveillance — may seem odd. But it is not so ‘absurd when considered in the particular statutory context,’ as the Court must.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Page should have gone with “conspiracy to commit” since that is actually what happened. Although there is probably a “hold harmless” statute that protects criminal acts committed by the FBI/DOJ . . .
Page started out on his lawsuit by representing himself. I haven’t heard that he changed and hired attorneys. While I am not against a plaintiff going into a Federal court Pro Se, it does make it tougher because the system basically is against that right of the plaintiff. He may be able to refile an ammendment to his lawsuit to make his case, but the Court loses patience pretty fast with constant ammendments that don’t meet a procedural or substantive threshold to proceed. I’ve done some of my own cases pro se and it is tough. His case is too important for him to proceed with his ego driven trip into the legal system IMHO>
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