The Witch Hunt Revealed

[Kidlicious]

The FBI Dir signs a FISA application saying that they have verified evidence so they can spy on political opponents and then tells Congress that he doesn't know who verified the evidence and JR thinks that's a talking point.

[Kidlicious]

You guys don't seem to understand that saying REPUBLICAN talking point and REPUBLICAN congressman doesn't mean anything unless you are actually saying something that means something.

[Kidlicious]

Hey Berzerker. Also, Nunez didn't go to the WH that day to tell Trump that he was being spied on. He went there to get the evidence that he was being spied on. It was at the WH.

To JR that's a Republican talking point.

[Kidlicious]

Alternative views:
Having seen Kid's blind repetition of GOP talking points about the latest Comey hearing and what it supposedly reveals, I thought I'd post another GOP view on the matter. Here's a column by insider and media strategist Kurt Bardella.



Now the founder of Endeavor Strategies, Kurt Bardella previously worked as a spokesperson for Breitbart News, the Daily Caller, Rep. Darrell Issa, Rep. Brian Bilbray and Senator Olympia Snowe. He played an integral role in shaping the U.S. House investigations into the IRS targeting scandal, the State Department’s response to Benghazi, the Department of Justice’s management of Operation Fast and Furious and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He has been named one of Washington’s “50 People to Watch” by Politico and “Top 35 under 35” by the DC Republican Party. He is not a fan of Mr. Trump.

You do know that this is a conspiracy theory right? The Intelligence Committee has seen all the applications, all the classified documents. Your saying that all of them are lying to screw up the Mueller probe. That's a conspiracy theory.

Idk who this guy is that wrote this. He hasn't heen the classified documentshas he? He hasn't interviewed witnesses behind closed doors, has he?

[-Jrabbit]

What have you seen? What witnesses have you interviewed?

And yes, I'm fully aware that "FISA abuse by Comey to spy on Trump" is nothing but a conspriacy theory.

[Kidlicious]

No. There's evidence. I just posted it. I've posted it over and over again. This is a useless game you play.

[Kidlicious]

More talking points according to JR

Former top FBI lawyer James Baker gave "explosive" closed-door testimony on Wednesday detailing for congressional investigators how the Russia probe was handled in an "abnormal fashion" reflecting "political bias," according to two Republican lawmakers present for the deposition.

"Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature," Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News. "This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That's extremely troubling."

Meadows claimed the "abnormal" handling of the probe into alleged coordination between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign was "a reflection of inherent bias that seems to be evident in certain circles." The FBI agent who opened the Russia case, Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and others sent politically charged texts, and have since left the bureau.

Baker, who had a closely working relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, left the bureau earlier this year.
The lawmakers would not provide many specifics about the private transcribed interview, citing a confidentiality agreement with Baker and his attorneys. However, they indicated in broad terms that Baker was cooperative and forthcoming about the genesis of the Russia case in 2016, and about the surveillance warrant application for Trump campaign aide Carter Page in October 2016.

COMEY SUBPOENA CONSIDERED BY REPUBLICANS ON CAPITOL HILL

"During the time that the FBI was putting -- that DOJ and FBI were putting together the FISA (surveillance warrant) during the time prior to the election -- there was another source giving information directly to the FBI, which we found the source to be pretty explosive," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Meadows and Jordan would not elaborate on the source, or answer questions about whether the source was a reporter. They did stress that the source who provided information to the FBI’s Russia case was not previously known to congressional investigators.
Baker is at the heart of surveillance abuse allegations, and his deposition lays the groundwork for next week's planned closed-door interview with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Baker, as the FBI's top lawyer, helped secure the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Page, as well as three subsequent renewals. Prior to the deposition, Republican investigators said they believed Baker could explain why information about the British ex-spy behind a salacious Trump-related dossier, Christopher Steele, and Steele’s apparent bias against then-candidate Trump, were withheld from the FISA court, and whether other exculpatory information was known to Rosenstein when he signed the final FISA renewal for Page in June 2017.

Fox News asked Baker after the deposition about the handling of the Trump dossier, what he told Rosenstein about exculpatory evidence, and whether he is the subject of an FBI leak investigation. Baker told Fox News he could not answer such questions.

TRUMP-MUELLER INTERVIEW NEGOTIATIONS STALL AS 2 MORE PROSECUTORS LEAVE RUSSIA PROBE

Rosenstein is now expected on Capitol Hill on Oct. 11 for what Republican House sources have described as a closed-door interview, not a briefing to leadership. It comes after The New York Times reported last month that he’d discussed secretly recording the president and removing him from office using the 25th Amendment. Rosenstein’s planned in-person meeting with Trump has been pushed off amid speculation he might be fired or resign.
....

I already reported this, but JR only says "talking point"

[-Jrabbit]

Yes, that closed-door testimony by the 88-year old Baker was in October. Your post just says "Republican investigators believed Baker could explain..." If it was substantive, you'd think Congress would have done something about it by now.

Oh and you "reported"... LOLOLOL!!!

[Kidlicious]

They did do something. They gave Comey a subpoena. Now you and your fake news journalists are saying they are trying to mess up the Mueller investigation.

Another useless post.

[Dinner]

Wow. A whole page of kidiocy.

[Kidlicious]

Wow. A whole page of kidiocy.

No idiot. Those are facts. James Baker testified against the FBI and DoJ.

[Kidlicious]

Newly released documents confirm House and Senate investigators’ claims that the Department of Justice and FBI used materially false and misleading information to secure wiretaps on Carter Page, a former volunteer foreign policy advisor to President Trump. The highly redacted documentsreleased in response to Freedom of Information Act requests show how the FBI was able to convince the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil the Naval Academy graduate and energy consultant for a year of his life.

The wiretap was applied for and granted in October 2016, shortly before the end of the presidential campaign. Approved applications last for 90 days. The Department of Justice requested and received three renewals, for a total of one year of surveillance. Despite claiming to the court in 2016 that “the FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian Government,” the government has yet to charge Page with breaking any of the serious laws it alleges he knowingly transgressed.

Here is what the highly redacted FISA applications show us thus far. The Dossier Provided an Essential Part Of Application

As members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligenceand Senate Judiciary Committee previously reported, a salacious and unverified dossier was essential to the government’s case for spying on Page. The information from the dossier is presented to the court as if it’s believable.

For instance, the application states, “the FBI has learned that Page met with at least two Russian officials during this trip.” The only way it learned that was through the dossier. Steele’s claim that Page had a “secret meeting with Igor Sechin, who is the President of Rosneft [a Russian energy company] and a close associate to Russian President Putin” to lift sanctions is included.

Another secret meeting with Igor Nikolayevich Divyekin to discuss releasing dirt on “Candidate #2” to “Candidate #1’s campaign” is mentioned. Also, while Page had left the campaign by the time the wiretap was sought, it is clear that the FBI believed its wiretap would find information on the Trump campaign, stating that the “Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated” with the Trump campaign. The Dossier Was Not Verified

As House and Senate members reported, there is no evidence the dossier was verified before being used in the applications. For instance, there is no evidence as of July 2018 that either of the two meetings above that Steele claimed happened ever occurred. There was obviously no verification of these claims in 2016, or even an indication that the FBI desired verification. Page has repeatedly denied that he met with these individuals. The Applications Employed Circular Reporting

As senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) wrote earlier this year, “The application appears to contain no additional information corroborating the dossier allegations against Mr. Page, although it does cite to a news article that appears to be sourced to Mr. Steele’s dossier as well.”

As the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence reported, “The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News.”

These reports are accurate — the Yahoo News story sourced to Steele is cited extensively and repeatedly. Even worse, the FBI repeatedly claimed Steele is not the source of the article. Isikoff has confirmed Steele was of course his source. Cites Steele’s Credibility, Despite Overwhelming Evidence To Doubt It

For the first application, the FBI reported that the previous reporting of Steele (identified as Source #1) had been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings and that Steele was deemed “reliable” by the FBI. They said they were unaware of any derogatory information on him. They said he wasn’t told about the motivation of the funder of the research.

There are a few problems with this. One is that the application itself admits that Steele was working with sub-sources. We now know he never visited Russia for his research but had other people gathering information from Russians, including from Russian government officials. Since the information was actually provided by these second- and third-hand sources, it is their reliability the FBI should swear to, not Steele’s. Just because he once had reliable information or had a source with reliable information doesn’t mean that all or even most of the sources he compensated for information will be even remotely reliable.

The other problem is that at some point in the process, the FBI realized their source was unreliable in multiple ways, yet they continued to swear to the court otherwise. Soon after the first application, the FBI had to terminate the relationship with Steele because he broke a promise to not share information with the press.

What’s more, he broke that promise out of fear that Clinton might lose the election, suggesting extreme motivation. He claimed he had not shared information with the press before the end of October 2016, but that was not true. He later testified to a British court that he’d briefed numerous media outlets throughout the waning months of the U.S. election. The Applications Made Materially False Claims

Again, the dossier was essential to the wiretap applications, and its credibility was sourced not to the veracity of its claims, but to its author. So Steele’s lies were a problem. How did the FBI and DOJ handle this? Not well.

The FISA applications cited Isikoff’s September 23 Yahoo News article, which you would have to be an idiot to not realize was sourced to Steele. Take this paragraph, for example:

But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian’s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News.

A well-placed Western intelligence source? You don’t say! What an obvious way to describe the non-American researcher who is the sole source of the claim! But note how the FBI reported the inclusion of this Yahoo News article in the dossier:

Footnote 18, application: “Source #1 told the FBI that he/she only provided this information to the business associate and the FBI. REDACTED The FBI does not believe that Source #1 directly provided this information to the press.”
Footnote 19, first renewal: “Source #1 told the FBI that he/she only provided this information to the business associate and the FBI. REDACTED The FBI does not believe that Source #1 directly provided this information to the identified news organization that published the September 23rd News Article.”
Footnote 20, second renewal: “Source #1 told the FBI that he/she only provided this information to the business associate and the FBI. REDACTED The FBI does not believe that Source #1 directly provided this information to the identified news organization that published the September 23rd News Article.”
Footnote 22, third renewal: “”Source #1 told the FBI that he/she only provided this information to the business associate and the FBI. REDACTED The FBI does not believe that Source #1 directly provided this information to the identified news organization that published the September 23rd News Article.”

As Sens. Graham and Grassley wrote earlier this year:

In Steele’s sworn court filings in litigation in London, he admitted that he ‘gave off the record briefings to a small number of journalists about the pre-election memoranda [i.e., the dossier] in late summer/autumn 2016.’ In another sworn filing in that case, Mr. Steele further stated that journalists from ‘the New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, the New Yorker, and CNN’ were ‘briefed at the end of September 2016 by [Steele] and Fusion at Fusion’s instruction.’ The filing further states that Mr. Steele ‘subsequently participated in further meetings at Fusion’s instruction with Fusion and the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Yahoo News, which took place mid-October 2016.’…

The first of these filings was publicly reported in the U.S. media in April of 2017, yet the FBI did not subsequently disclose to the FISC this evidence suggesting that Mr. Steele had lied to the FBI. Instead the application still relied primarily on his credibility prior to the October media incident.

Anyone should have doubted the credibility of a man who claimed he wasn’t Isikoff’s source. But to do so after his sworn court filings admitting to any number of press briefings during the campaign is downright scandalous. The True Funding Of Dossier Was Oddly Obscured

House Intelligence Committee members complained that the wiretap applications failed to disclose that the dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Sens. Grassley and Graham said the FBI revealed the political origins of the dossier to only a “vaguely limited extent.”

That’s true. Donald Trump shows up in the application as Candidate #1 and Hillary Clinton shows up as Candidate #2. The Republican Party is identified as Political Party #1. So it would have been easy to note that the dossier was secretly bought and paid for by Candidate #2 and Political Party #2. Instead, a veritable word salad is deployed to hide that significant fact.

The court is told Source #1 was told “that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified U.S. person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1’s ties to Russia” and that Source #1 wasn’t told about the motivation behind the research. The FBI surmises that Source #1’s boss — Fusion GPS’ Glenn Simpson — wanted information to discredit Candidate #1’s campaign.

Critics of the House and Senate investigators say it’s obvious that referred to Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. But remember that Simpson and Fusion GPS had also been hired by the Washington Free Beacon to gather information to discredit Candidate #1’s campaign. The Free Beacon contracted with Fusion GPS through January 2017.

And the Clinton secret funding is relevant. In the second renewal, the application says:

Page sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, urging the review of what Page claimed was ‘severe election fraud in the form of disinformation, suppression of dissent, hate crimes and other extensive abuses led by members of [Candidate #2’s] campaign and their political allies last year.’ In his letter, Page claims that he has not directly supported a political campaign since September 2016, but continues to be subjected to personal attacks by former members of Candidate #2’s campaign based on fictitious information. Page wrote that his academic lecture and related meetings with scholars and business people in Moscow had no connection to the U.S. election. Page attributes the assertions in the September 23rd News Article that Page met with two senior Russian officials (i.e., Sechin and Diveykin) while he was in Moscow in July 2016 to give the commencement address at the New Economic School, which Page claims is ‘false evidence,’ to Candidate #2s campaign. Page further claims that the information relied on by Candidate #2’s campaign, certain members of the U.S. Congress, and the media are lies that were completely fabricated by Candidate #2’s paid consultants and private investigators. [emphasis added]

You don’t say! While the redacted application renewal does not indicate why this letter from Page is included, it is clear that the government continues to believe “Candidate #2’s paid consultants and private investigators” over the word of the surveilled American citizen. From the date of his letter, two more wiretap applications are pursued and granted. What In The World

It remains possible that Page is the most talented spy who ever walked the earth and fully deserved to be surveilled by the federal government. It is also possible that the surveillance was ordered merely because the country has an intelligence apparatus that was unable to recognize their main source was a liar whose sub-sources were at best playing him and whose recklessness left his little partisan research project open to manipulation by foreign adversaries.

Barring those options, our intelligence apparatus misled a FISA court with materially false claims.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway

[-Jrabbit]

Mollie Hemingway? The Federalist's "most reliable Trump defender"?
OK, pro-Trump writer's opinion column on pro-Trump website supports Trump. Thanks for "reporting" this.

[Kidlicious]

What your saying doesn't mean anything. "Oh you reported from blahs blah blah." Nothing. A useless post.

[Kidlicious]

The FISA court is not a regular court. There is no one to defend to suspect or his/her rights. The FBI can not mislead the court. It must present exculpatory evidence, which it did not.

[Ming]

What your saying doesn't mean anything. "Oh you reported from blahs blah blah." Nothing. A useless post.

You're the one posting opinions as if they were facts... talk about useless posts...

[Kidlicious]

Nunes memo raises question: Did FBI violate Woods Procedures?

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FullscreenBY SHARYL ATTKISSON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR8,335 The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The HillTWEET SHARE MOREFor all the debate over the House Republican memo pointing to alleged misconduct by some current and former FBI and Justice Department officials, one crucial point hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.

And it relates in an unexpected way to special counsel Robert Mueller.

The point is: There are strict rules requiring that each and every fact presented in an FBI request to electronically spy on a U.S. citizen be extreme-vetted for accuracy — and presented to the court only if verified.


There’s no dispute that at least some, if not a great deal, of information in the anti-Trump “Steele dossier” was unverified or false. Former FBI director James Comey testified as much himself before a Senate committee in June 2017. Comey repeatedly referred to “salacious” and “unverified” material in the dossier, which turned out to be paid political opposition research against Donald Trump funded first by Republicans, then by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clintoncampaign.


Presentation of any such unverified material to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to justify a wiretap would appear to violate crucial procedural rules, called “Woods Procedures,” designed to protect U.S. citizens.

Yet Comey allegedly signed three of the FISA applications on behalf of the FBI. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly signed one and former Attorney General Sally Yates, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein each reportedly signed one or more.

Woods Procedures

Woods Procedures were named for Michael Woods, the FBI official who drafted the rules as head of the Office of General Counsel’s National Security Law Unit. They were instituted in April 2001 to “ensure accuracy with regard to … the facts supporting probable cause” after recurring instances, presumably inadvertent, in which the FBI had presented inaccurate information to the FISA court.

Prior to Woods Procedures, “[i]ncorrect information was repeated in subsequent and related FISA packages,” the FBI told Congress in August 2003. “By signing and swearing to the declaration, the headquarters agent is attesting to knowledge of what is contained in the declaration.”

It’s incredible to think of how many FBI and Justice Department officials would have touched the multiple applications to wiretap Trump campaign adviser Carter Page — allegedly granted, at least in part, on the basis of unverified and thus prohibited information — if normal procedures were followed.

The FBI’s complex, multi-layered review is designed for the very purpose of preventing unverified information from ever reaching the court. It starts with the FBI field offices.

According to former FBI agent Asha Rangappa, who wrote of the process last year in JustSecurity.org, the completed FISA application requires approval through the FBI chain of command “including a Supervisor, the Chief Division Counsel (the highest lawyer within that FBI field office), and finally, the Special Agent in Charge of the field office, before making its way to FBI Headquarters to get approval by (at least) the Unit-level Supervisor there.”

At FBI headquarters, an “action memorandum” is prepared with additional facts culled by analytical personnel assigned to espionage allegations involving certain foreign powers.

Next, it goes to the Justice Department “where attorneys from the National Security Division comb through the application to verify all the assertions made in it,” wrote Rangappa. “DOJ verifies the accuracy of every fact stated in the application. If anything looks unsubstantiated, the application is sent back to the FBI to provide additional evidentiary support – this game of bureaucratic chutes and ladders continues until DOJ is satisfied that the facts in the FISA application can both be corroborated and meet the legal standards for the court. After getting sign-off from a senior DOJ official (finally!).”

There’s more

But there are even more reviews and processes regarding government applications for wiretaps designed to make sure inaccurate or unverified information isn’t used.

In November 2002, the FBI implemented a special FISA Unit with a unit chief and six staffers, and installed an automated tracking system that connects field offices, headquarters, the National Security Law Branch and the Office of Intelligence, allowing participants to track the process during each stage.

Starting March 1, 2003, the FBI required field offices to confirm they’ve verified the accuracy of facts presented to the court through the case agent, the field office’s Chief Division Counsel and the Special Agent in Charge.

All of this information was provided to Congress in 2003. The FBI director at the time also ordered that any issue as to whether a FISA application was factually sufficient was to be brought to his attention. Personally.

Who was the director of the FBI when all of this careful work was done?

Robert Mueller.

Perhaps ironically, Mueller isn’t in charge of the investigation examining the conduct of FBI and Justice Department officials and whether they followed the rules he’d carefully implemented 15 years before. Instead, Mueller is leading the probe into Russia’s alleged illegal connections with Trump associates. Congress is looking at the wiretap process.

With so much information still classified, redacted and — in some cases — withheld, there is much we don’t know. Perhaps we will eventually learn that there’s a good reason unverified material was given to the court. Maybe there was no violation of rules or processes.

But there’s a reason Woods Procedures exist in the first place. They aren’t arcane rules that could have been overlooked or misunderstood by the high-ranking and seasoned professionals working under the Obama and Trump administrations who touched the four Carter Page wiretap applications and renewals. And unless they’ve secretly been lifted or amended, Woods Procedures aren’t discretionary.

In the past, when the FBI has presented inaccuracies to the FISA court, it’s been viewed so seriously that it’s drawn the attention of the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates Justice Department attorneys accused of misconduct or crimes in their professional functions.

Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) is an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist, author of The New York Times bestsellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,” and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program “Full Measure.”

[Kidlicious]

You're the one posting opinions as if they were facts... talk about useless posts...

No. I'm reporting facts. Again, I just did, posting an article on the Woods Proceedure.

It's a fact that the FBI can not mislead the FISA court. FACT FACT.

DEAL WITH IT!

[Proteus_MST]

No. I'm reporting facts. Again, I just did, posting an article on the Woods Proceedure.

It's a fact that the FBI can not mislead the FISA court. FACT FACT.

DEAL WITH IT!

If the FBI can not mislead the FISA court, chances are high that the FBI didn't mislead the FISA court, i guess

[-Jrabbit]

No. I'm reporting facts. Again, I just did, posting an article on the Woods Proceedure.

It's a fact that the FBI can not mislead the FISA court. FACT FACT.

DEAL WITH IT!

You are not "reporting." You are copy/pasting, usually without attribution, and almost uniformly from opinion writers on right-wing sites.

If your posts were FACT, the GOP Congress, DOJ, White House, and courts would have acted (especially since many of your posts are several months old).
Doesn't it just blow your mind that they haven't?