Good question. We do know from the comments of Strzok and Lisa Page that there was an "insurance plan" to stop Trump. What many forget is that the FBI was spying on the Trump Presidency for almost 9 months after he took office using the Carter Page FISA warrant.
It is good that Tulsi is coming out with this information, but where was John Ratcliffe when he held the same position? He is now head of the CIA.
The late, great Angelo Codevilla wrote on February 12, 2020 an article, Abolish FISA, Reform FBI, & Break Up CIA , which seems prescient now. Some excerpts from the article, which should be read in its entirety:
America’s Intelligence agencies are the deep state’s deepest part, and the most immediate threat to representative government. They are also not very good at what they are supposed to be doing. Protecting the Republic from them requires refocusing them on their proper jobs.
Intelligence officials abuse their positions to discredit opposition to the Democratic Party, of which they are part. Complicit with the media, they leverage the public’s mistaken faith in their superior knowledge, competence, and patriotism to vilify their domestic enemies from behind secrecy’s shield.
Pretenses of superior knowledge have always tempted the Administrative State’s officials to manipulate or override voters. Hence, as Justice Robert H. Jackson (who served as chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials) warned, they often turn their powers against whomever they dislike politically, socially, or personally and try to minimize the public’s access to the bases upon which they act.
But only the Intelligence agencies have the power to do that while claiming that scrutiny of their pretenses endangers national security. They have succeeded in restricting information about their misdeeds by “classifying” them under the Espionage Act of 1921. Thus covered, they misrepresent their opinions as knowledge and their preferences as logic. Thus acting as irresponsible arbiters of truth at the highest levels of American public life, they are the foremost jaws of the ruling class vise that is squeezing self-rule out of America.
As Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) truly told President Trump, “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” As we shall see, Intelligence officials have proved Schumer correct.
What follows begins with an overview of the threats today’s intelligence agencies pose to self-government in America.
Next, it touches on U.S. intelligence’s dismal professional record, and suggests that the measures needed to refocus them on professional performance would also separate them from domestic politics.
In sum, we find:
CIA is obsolete. Cables show agents’ intelligence takes are inferior to diplomats’. Agent networks are unprotected by counterintelligence. FBI success at counterintelligence ended when the Bureau was politicized and bureaucratized in the 1970s. CIA bottlenecks and incompetently controls strategic intelligence, while the Army and Marines show demonstrable tactical superiority.
As a result, CIA is ideologically partisan. Its strength is in leading or joining domestic campaigns to influence public opinion. FBI has followed suit.
Senior intelligence officials were the key element in the war on Donald Trump’s candidacy and presidency. CIA used meetings that it manufactured as factual bases for lies about campaign advisors seeking Russian information to smear Hillary Clinton. Intelligence began formal investigation and surveillance without probable cause. Agents gained authorization to electronically surveil Trump and his campaign and defended their bureaucratic interests, sidelining Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and denying or delaying Trump appointments and security clearances.
Partisanship produces failure. FISA has incentivized political abuse. “Profiling” has failed repeatedly in high-profile cases like the Atlanta Olympics bombing and the anthrax mail attacks. Perjury trapping has become commonplace.
Finally, we outline the steps that presidents and Congress might take to improve matters:
FISA must be repealed legislatively or through Constitutional challenge in court. It unconstitutionally mingles judicial and executive power in secret. It gave Intelligence a blank check. Hardly “an indispensable tool” for national security, it is now indispensable for partisanship. Broad consensus exists for a legislative “fix,” but none is possible. The secret court’s existence, the heart of the law, allows partisan bureaucrats and allied judges to do what they want in secret.
Functions currently performed by CIA should be sheared down. Data infrastructure and consultant networks should be eliminated. Bipartisan opposition to the Intelligence threat should use fierce resistance and lobbying from Intelligence as evidence of why cuts are in the national interest.
CIA must be disestablished. Its functions should be returned to the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury. FBI must be restricted to law enforcement. At home, the Agencies are partisan institutions illegitimately focused on setting national policy. Abroad, Agencies untied to specific operational concerns are inherently dangerous and low-value.
Intelligence must return to its natural place as servant, not master, of government. Congress should amend the 1947 National Security Act. The President should broaden intelligence perspectives, including briefs from State, Defense, and Treasury, and abolish CIA’s “covert action.” State should be made responsible for political influence and the armed services for military and paramilitary affairs.
Angelo Codevilla: Angelo Maria Codevilla (May 25, 1943 – September 20, 2021) was an American professor of international relations at what is now the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He served as a United States Navy officer, a foreign service officer, and professional staff member of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate. Codevilla's books and articles range from French and Italian politics to the thoughts of Machiavelli and Montesquieu to arms control, war, the technology of ballistic missile defenses, and a broad range of international topics. Articles by Codevilla have appeared in Commentary, Foreign Affairs, National Review, and The New Republic. His op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator and The Washington Post.[3] He has also been published in Political Science Reviewer, Intercollegiate Review, and Politica.
In 1977, Codevilla joined the U.S. Foreign Service but quickly transitioned to Capitol Hill, where he served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as an aide to Senator Malcolm Wallop, a position he would hold until 1985. During this time, he also began teaching political philosophy at Georgetown University.
By 1980, Codevilla was appointed to the teams preparing the presidential transition for the United States Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency. His contributions to national security included helping to conceive the technology programs that, in 1983, were relabeled the Strategic Defense Initiative. Throughout his time in government, Codevilla published on intelligence and national security and taught.
In 1985 Codevilla returned to full-time academic life as a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was professor of international relations at what is now the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University from 1995 to 2008.
Among the almost 20 books he authored, the one most conservatives know about is The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and what We Can Do about it
I think they started 9 months BEFORE he took office. The FISA warrant on Page was from 2016.
It is good that Tulsi is coming out with this information, but where was John Ratcliffe when he held the same position? He is now head of the CIA.
One of my biggest worries is how many of Trumps picks will we be having problems with? He's notorious for not making the best of picks. Is that his fault? Hard to say he has so much on his plate and it takes hours and hours of research to find out who is who. Pres. Trump likely winds up depending on others to help make his choices.
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ABC up now with Donna my primadonna lying her ass off as usual. Sarah Isgur is shocked by too many executive orders. No action on Tik Toc. Rence Priebus trying to be the voice of sanity but it falls on deaf ears at ABC.
Molly Ball Wall Street Journal a publication that hates Trump accd. to Steve Bannon from the Warroom. Ball comes up with a bunch of smaller complaints and like the other dems ignores the huge accomplishments while lying her ass off about trumps accomplishments.
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Meanwhile on cbs mayor of LA Karen Bass doing chatting points about why ice wears masks. She wants them unmasked so her criminals she runs can go after them. She keeps saying 1/2 of L.A.s 3.85 million residents are Hispanic many illegal. She hates Trump and the nat. guard,marines. She says state officials are not being saluted. She's a huge waste,nothing but lies.
How many permits are being let in LA? They have no permanent fire chief only a replacement. They are searching for a fire chief on a national basis. No question about permits at all.