When Hussein 0bama and his criminal regime were turned down by the FISA court for a legal(?) wiretap, what makes ANYONE think that he didn’t turn to illegal methods for wiretapping?
Excellent point. The obama administration had NO respect for the rule of law. I don’t think they saw the FISA Court’s refusal as even a speed bump.
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A second request, more “narrowly” drawn was put in and approved. The issue now becomes .... what did they do to get that second request approved? Did they lie to the FISC? Did they leave out material evidence?
From link http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/yes-obama-could-be-prosecuted-if-involved-with-illegal-surveillance/ :
The stories currently are three-fold: first, that Obamas team tried to get a warrant from a regular, Article III federal court on Trump, and was told no by someone along the way (maybe the FBI), as the evidence was that weak or non-existent; second, Obamas team then tried to circumvent the federal judiciarys independent role by trying to mislabel the issue one of foreign agents, and tried to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts, and were again turned down, when the court saw Trump named (an extremely rare act of FISA court refusal of the government, suggesting the evidence was truly non-existent against Trump); and so, third, Obama circumvented both the regular command of the FBI and the regularly appointed federal courts, by placing the entire case as a FISA case (and apparently under Sally Yates at DOJ) as a foreign case, and then omitted Trumps name from a surveillance warrant submitted to the FISA court, which the FISA court unwittingly granted, which Obama then misused to spy on Trump and many connected to Trump. Are these allegations true? We dont know yet, but if any part of them are then Obama and/or his officials could face serious trouble.
Here are the problematic aspects of the Obama surveillance on Trumps team, and on Trump himself. First, it is not apparent FISA could ever be invoked. Second, it is possible Obamas team may have perjured themselves before the FISA court by withholding material information essential to the FISA courts willingness to permit the government surveillance. Third, it could be that Obamas team illegally disseminated and disclosed FISA information in direct violation of the statute precisely prohibiting such dissemination and disclosure. FISA prohibits, under criminal penalty, Obamas team from doing any of the three.
At the outset, the NSA should have never been involved in a domestic US election. Investigating the election, or any hacking of the DNC or the phishing of Podestas emails, would not be a FISA matter. It does not fit the definition of war sabotage or a grave hostile war-like attack on the United States, as constrictively covered by FISA. It is your run-of-the-mill hacking case covered by existing United States laws that require use of the regular departments of the FBI, Department of Justice, and Constitutionally Senate-appointed federal district court judges, and their appointed magistrates, not secretive, deferential FISA courts.
Out of 35,000+ requests for surveillance, the FISA court has only ever rejected a whopping 12. Apparently, according to published reports, you can add one more to that even the FISA court first rejected Obamas request to spy on Trumps team under the guise of an investigation into foreign agents of a pending war attack, intelligence agents apparently returned to the court, where, it is my assumption, that they did not disclose or divulge all material facts to the court when seeking the surveillance the second time around, some of which they would later wrongfully disseminate and distribute to the public. By itself, misuse of FISA procedures to obtain surveillance is itself, a crime.
This raises the second problem: Obamas team submission of an affidavit to to the FISA court. An application for a warrant of any kind requires an affidavit, and that affidavit may not omit material factors. A fact is material if it could have the possible impact of impacting the judicial officer deciding whether to authorize the warrant. Such affidavits are the most carefully drawn up, reviewed, and approved affidavits of law enforcement in our system precisely because they must be fully-disclosing, forthcoming, and include any information a judge must know to decide whether to allow our government to spy on its own. My assumption would be that intelligence officials were trying to investigate hacking of DNC which is not even a FISA covered crime, so therefore serious questions arise about what Obama administration attorneys said to the FISA court to even consider the application. If the claim was financial ties to Russia, then Obama knew he had no basis to use FISA at all.
Since Trump was the obvious target, the alleged failure to disclose his name in the second application could be a serious and severe violation of the obligation to disclose all material facts. Lastly, given the later behavior, it is evident any promise in the affidavit to protect the surveilled information from ever being sourced or disseminated was a false promise, intended to induce the illicit surveillance. This is criminalized both by federal perjury statutes, conspiracy statutes, and the FISA criminal laws themselves.
More at the link such as this issue:
That raises the third problem: it seems the FISA-compelled protocols for precluding the dissemination of the information were violated, and that Obamas team issued orders to achieve precisely what the law forbids, if published reports are true about the administration sharing the surveilled information far-and-wide to promote unlawful leaks to the press.
Thanks. Probably the best explanation of the entire situation anyone will see. I’d like to see it on the “mews” programs for wide dissemenation, but even if it were presented, I doubt that no more than two sentences could be said before the host interrupted and started the left wing spin.
It probably should not escape attention that the FISA court has been asked for warrants 35,000 times(!)
While granted, this covers a nearly 40 year period of time, that's still well more than two requests PER DAY since the Act became law in 1978.
I would love to have an audit of these requests, who made them, and when.