FISA Court Was Not Told Dossier Was Political Opposition Research
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, left, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testifying before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in Washington. (Photos: Reuters)
A memo prepared by Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), which details abuses of government surveillance programs, reveals that officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Justice Department (DOJ) used false information to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Team Trump.
Read the full memo and the White House letter below, which contains nothing damaging to national security as Democrats and the intelligence community claimed. We suggest that you read it first and then the report that follows.
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“Our findings, which are detailed below, raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DUI and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process,” the memo states.
The false information was funded by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the campaign for Hillary Clinton, but officials never told the FISA court that it was political opposition research. The nonprofit Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging both the Clinton campaign and the DNC violated campaign finance law by failing to accurately disclose payments for the dossier.
In other words, the genesis of the Russia collusion investigation came from false information paid for by President Donald Trump’s political opposition. The memo specifically names former FBI Director James Comey, who signed 3 of the warrants; Sally Yates, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, as well as the just ousted FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
This week, Mr. McCabe was “removed” from his post at the FBI amid conflicts of interest and ongoing investigations of misconduct.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows intelligence agencies to collect information on foreign targets abroad. However, it has been “routinely” abused and misused to spy on domestic targets, including President Trump, his associates and other U.S. citizens.
“I think it’s a disgrace what’s happening to our country,” President Trump said in a statement in reaction to the memo. “A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that.”
In this case, the memo alleges the use of circular reporting of fake news based on the contents of the unverified fake dossier to lend credibility to the allegations in the fake dossier.
Christopher Steele, a former MI6 British Intelligence Officer, also used a false media report from Yahoo News and others to beef up the credibility of his dossier research. Mr. Steele, who was the head of the Russia desk at MI6, almost exclusively used sources tied to the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Worth noting, Fusion GPS bank records show the shadowy firm paid numerous journalists at Big Media outlets including Yahoo News for Russian collusion stories.
Mr. Steele continued to have contact with now-disgraced DOJ official Bruce Ohr even after the FBI and DOJ cut off their relationship with him. Mr. Ohr, whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, was twice demoted for his misconduct.
He told Mr. Ohr that he desperately did not want President Trump to get elected.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, had been making public statements sourced in the dossier during the campaign, well before it was first published by BuzzFeed. Multiple sources tell PPD that Mr. Schiff, a notorious leaker, sought to hide the revelation that the Clinton campaign and the DNC funded the dossier from his members of the committee.
Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., sent a a criminal referral to Mr. Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray to investigate Mr. Steele, citing potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, or making false statements to investigators particularly regarding the distribution of claims contained in the dossier.
The memo not only raises concerns about the investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller but also domestic spying programs under FISA.
As PPD also previously reported, the Obama Administration admitted at a FISA court hearing on October 26 (2016) that National Security Administration (NSA) intercept database searches “routinely” violated Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.
