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"U.S. intelligence officials have determined that the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. this year used an American internet service provider to communicate, according to two current and one former U.S. official familiar with the assessment." "The balloon connected to a U.S.-based company, according to the assessment, to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to its navigation. Officials familiar with assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time." More at link

FBI officials improperly searched a foreign intelligence database for information on a U.S. Senator, a state senator and a state judge, according to an unsealed court opinion released Friday. The improper queries of the surveillance collection tool, which allegedly occurred last year -- could further roil an ongoing push by the Biden Administration to have the Section 702 program reauthorized before it is set to expire by the end of this year. The disclosures come even as the FBI said it has reported significant improvements in oversight to help curb further abuse of what intelligence officials argue is an essential...

A federal prosecutor made a rather explosive filing on Friday, admitting that three police officers helped instigate parts of the crowd on January 6th. The case, which is before US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, involves a defendant named William Pope who is seeking to uncover the videos in question. Prosecutors are none too happy about that, arguing that “unmasking” the videos would put police officers at risk ... A federal prosecutor admitted in court papers that three D.C. Metropolitan Police Department undercover officers acted as provocateurs at the northwest steps of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The admission...

In January 2017, Igor Danchenko, a primary source for the Steele dossier, told FBI officials in a debriefing that one of his sources for derogatory information about Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia was merely an anonymous voice on the other end of a phone call that lasted 10-15 minutes. The voice, Danchenko claimed, was someone he assumed to be Sergei Millian, an immigrant from Belarus, president and founder of an organization called the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. As thin as that sourcing sounds, the truth appears to be worse. According to a new criminal indictment, Danchenko lied to FBI...

https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/21-129.pdf

Things are getting interesting, potential ramifications are growing, as the FISA Court responds to the latest information from the DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG). After a review of 29 FISA applications, from eight FBI field offices, the OIG informed the FBI and DOJ that none of the surveillance applications were compliant with the Woods procedures. Meaning zero applications had FBI evidence to support the validity of the claims within the FISA warrants. That’s a very big problem if those FISA warrants were used to gather evidence used to prosecute the 29 targets of the applications. In a FISC order...

A ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Wednesday mistakenly said Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm which hired British ex-spy Christopher Steele in 2016, was looking for dirt on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rather than on then-candidate Donald Trump. The court fixed the glaring error only after the Washington Examiner brought it to its attention. Judge James Boasberg, the court’s presiding judge, cited the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page in a Wednesday opinion and, in the midst of pointing out the multitude of flaws, omissions, and factual errors in...

FBI officials involved in the wiretapping of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page have been blocked, at least temporarily, from appearing before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in regard to other cases, in rebuke that exceeded the remedial recommendations made by the monitor recently appointed by the court. The decision by James E. Boasberg, chief judge of the secretive court created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), comes as Congress faces a March 15 deadline on whether to renew three FBI national-security surveillance and investigative tools that were enacted after 9/11. "FBI personnel under disciplinary review in relation...

During his twelve-year reign as FBI Director, Robert Mueller not only protected his criminal friends by silencing those who could expose their bad acts, he projected his friends’ crimes onto others in order to fraudulently appoint a Special Counsel. And the FISA court judge Reggie Walton — who was hacked by Obama officials John Brennan and James Clapper, according to whistleblower evidence — has been involved in more than one of these plots. There is no better Deep State tool for punishing your enemies than a fraudulent Special Counsel (who is not accountable to anyone) with an unlimited budget and...

Former DOJ official David Kris was picked Friday to oversee the FBI’s reforms of its surveillance procedures in the wake of a damning inspector general’s report. Kris was an ardent defender of the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page. He was also a vocal critic of Republicans who suggested the FBI misled the surveillance court in its applications to wiretap Page. In one essay, Kris endorsed a suggestion that Rep. Devin Nunes should face obstruction of justice charges. Nunes told the Daily Caller News Foundation the choice of Kris is “shocking and inexplicable.” former Justice Department official picked Friday to oversee...

Presiding FISA judge Rosemary Collyer will be stepping down early due to ‘health issues’ reported NY Times’ Charlie Savage. Chief Justice Roberts tapped Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee to replace Collyer.

FISA Court Neck Deep In Surveillance On Trump Campaign, Knew Of Application Issues, Report Carmine Sabia By Carmine Sabia Published December 26, 2019 at 9:49am The Deep State is a real thing, and with each new report or finding we discover that it is deeper than any of us have imagined. In the most recent case, it appears that the FISA courts were aware that the applications to spy on Carter Page, an aide with President Donald Trump’s campaign. After the report of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the head of the FISA courts, Judge Rosemary Collyer, ripped into the FBI...

Yesterday we identified one FBI Confidential Human Source who was part of the Trump campaign [SEE HERE]. Today we identify another, more interesting, one. Throughout the 478-page IG report on FBI FISA misconduct there are several mentions of Confidential Human Sources (CHSs) who were either officially “tasked” or unofficially involved in the 2016 FBI investigation of the Trump campaign. The inspector general review of the CHS activity is fraught with examples of the FBI denying many of the numerous “non-tasked” sources were acting in an official capacity. The inspector general’s office knowing the FBI were lacking candor is one thing;...

Earlier this month, the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ordered the FBI to re-verify all previous warrant applications involving the FBI attorney who falsified evidence against the former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. However, Fox News has learned the court did not order the FBI to double-check warrant applications involving other officials who made key omissions and errors in warrant applications as the bureau sought to surveil Page. The FISC's failure to request a comprehensive evaluation of previous submissions has stunned court-watchers who have questioned whether enough is being done to deter future misconduct by the FBI. In the...

The FISA court has awakened from its deep slumber. Too damned late… and not enough. Finally, the FISA court has awakened from its deep slumber. Too damned late… and not enough. On Tuesday, presiding judge Rosemary Collyer issued an order slamming fired director James Comey’s FBI for presenting “false information,” concealing exculpatory evidence, and misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But her judicial fix is feckless. She is now demanding that the FBI present the steps it will take to remedy these problems in future surveillance warrant applications. If this is her idea of a solution, it’s a joke. And...

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court (FISA) that approved FBI surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page is now investigating other applications it's received from one of the agency's attorneys accused of making an inappropriate change to the Page application. In the order, written on Dec. 5 and declassified Friday, the court requested that the executive branch identify "all other matters currently or previously before this Court" that involved FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.

In a rare public order Tuesday, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISC] strongly criticized the FBI over its surveillance-application process, giving the bureau until Jan. 10 to come up with solutions, in the wake of findings from Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz. The order, from the court's presiding judge Rosemary M. Collyer, came just a week after the release of Horowitz's withering report about the wiretapping of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, as part of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. "The FBI's handling of...

To fully understand today’s response order (pdf here) from FISA Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer to the DOJ/FBI, a little background context is needed. As we noted, last weekend HPSCI ranking member Devin Nunes dropped the gloves and essentially stated the DOJ/FBI were conspiring against U.S. citizens with the wilful participation of the FISA court. This was a stunning, albeit unreported, development. Nunes change in posture is important because he outlined that without severe corrective action the FISC should be dismantled. Additionally, on the specific issues of fraudulent applications to the FISC, in February 2018 Devin Nunes and former Judiciary Chairman...

CNN reports that an FBI attorney tampered with documents related to the Carter Page application. How much does it matter? Is this the tip of a scandalous iceberg? Or is it a signal that Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s much anticipated report on investigative irregularities in the Trump-Russia probe will be much ado about nothing much? A low-ranking FBI lawyer altered a document that was somehow related to the Obama Justice Department’s application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for a national-security surveillance warrant. The application, approved by the FISC in October 2016, targeted former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page...

The target of Democrat zealots in the House of Representatives led by Speaker Pelosi and Adam Schiff is to impeach and remove President Donald Trump. Sadly for him, the person they have a much higher probability of removing from his lofty perch is Chief Justice John Roberts. The famous cliché, the law of unintended consequences, is fast approaching. In an earlier American Thinker blog post, I asked a very simple question of Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts: Mr. Chief Justice, what did you do about the fraud on your Court? He and he alone "owns" the FISC, so he...