Tag Archives: FISA Memo

Election, Government Accountability, Politics, US

Poll Finds Majority of Americans Believe Obama Administration “Improperly Surveilled” Trump Campaign

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Washington, D.C. – A new poll reveals that the majority of the American public believes the Obama administration’s national security apparatus “improperly surveilled” then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign staff, according to the latest Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll.

The public survey showed that more than half of those surveyed would also like to see a second special prosecutor appointed to investigate potential impropriety on the part of the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI in relation to spying on the Trump team.

The poll suggests that some Americans don’t necessarily believe the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, and instead, perceive Obama’s law enforcement and intelligence bureaucracy as potentially complicit in engaging in political espionage.

Respondents of the IBD/TIPP public opinion poll were asked:

“How closely are you following news stories about the role played by the FBI and the Department of Justice during the 2016 presidential election?”

Responses were only considered from the 72% of individuals that noted they were either “very closely” (39%) or “somewhat closely” (33%).

Of those respondents, 55% said they thought it was “likely” that the Obama administration “improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.” There was clearly a partisan divide in the responses, with 87% of Republicans, but only 31% of Democrats, believing improper surveillance occurred— but interestingly, some 55% of independents believed the political spying allegations.

When asked whether it was necessary to appoint a second special counsel to “investigate whether the FBI and the Department of Justice improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election,” a majority of respondents (54%) answered “yes,” – with 44% responding “no.” This time, 74% of Republicans, 50% of independents, and surprisingly, even 44% of Democrats thought appointing a second special counsel was necessary.

Public bipartisan agreement on appointing a second special counsel for a full investigation of Obama-era political espionage could potentially spell trouble for many high-ranking security officials, especially if the special counsel is afforded similar latitude to investigate as seen in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion investigation.

The survey also asked whether individuals believed that “some senior career civil servants at the FBI and Department of Justice knowingly coordinated to frame the president with allegations of Russian collusion in order to cast a cloud over his presidency.”

The Investors Business Daily reports that 35% of respondents answered “yes” to this question – while 60% answered “no.” This question had the largest partisan divide – with 77% of Republicans saying yes, and only 11% of Democrats responding no.

Interestingly, only 30% of independents thought that elements within DOJ and FBI colluded to frame Trump for Russian collusion, which may be semi-surprising given the fact that 55 percent answered that it was “likely” that Obama-era officials “improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 election” and 50 percent thought it necessary to appoint a second special counsel to “investigate whether the FBI and the Department of Justice improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

Of note, a recently-released Rasmussen poll revealed a full 50 percent of Americans “believe it’s at least somewhat likely senior federal law enforcement officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the presidency,” while 40 percent disagreed.

The results of these polls indicate that a segment of the American public doesn’t believe the narrative that Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election, and would like a full investigation into whether or not political espionage was undertaken by elements of the Obama administration in an effort to handicap Trump’s presidential candidacy and presidency.

Government Accountability, Politics, US

Fmr. Fed Prosecutor Claims Democratic Memo Blocked Due to Internal “Criminal Investigation” of FBI and DOJ

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Washington, D.C.— Former Federal prosecutor Joe DiGenova, who was previously appointed as a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Teamsters, claimed during a radio interview with station WMAL that the reason the Democratic memo was blocked on the recommendation of the DOJ and FBI is that both agencies are conducting active internal investigations into politically motivated actions, carried out by certain individuals which the release of the memo without redactions could compromise.

During the radio interview with WMAL, featured below, DiGenova stated:

We’re going to see the [Democrat memo]. It will be heavily edited by the FBI and the Department of Justice and the CIA. The most important part of this story is that on Friday, February the 9th, Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray wrote a letter to the White House counsel Don McGahn that they could not agree to the publication of the Schiff memo because it contained national security and law enforcement concerns. It was actually the FBI and the Department of Justice says no [to releasing the memo]. The most important part of that letter is when it says… law enforcement concerns. What does that mean? It means, that there is a criminal investigation underway and release of some of the information in the memo by Mr. Schiff will affect that criminal investigation. I wonder who they are investigating? And the answer is pretty clear. They are investigating the people at the FBI and the DOJ who provided false information to the FISA court over a number of years, including, involving Carter Page.

Last month during an interview with The Daily Caller, DiGenova alleged that the Obama Administration engaged in a “brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton,” and that the attempt to “frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy” was unraveling.

“The FBI used to spy on Russians. This time they spied on us. what this story is about – a brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton from a clear violation of the law with regard to the way she handled classified information with her classified server. Absolutely a crime, absolutely a felony. It’s about finding out why – as the Inspector General is doing at the department of justice – why Comey and the senior DOJ officials conducted a fake criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton. Followed none of the regular rules, gave her every break in the book, immunized all kinds of people, allowed the destruction of evidence, no grand jury, no subpoenas, no search warrant. That’s not an investigation, that’s a Potemkin village. It’s a farce.”

In the interview, the former federal prosecutor condemned the FBI’s close relationship with Fusion GPS, which he described as “a political hit squad paid by the DNC and Clinton campaign to create and spread the discredited Steele dossier about President Donald Trump.” DiGenova went on lay out the breadth of the conspiracy against Trump, saying that the FBI, without a justifiable law enforcement or national security reason “created false facts so that they could get surveillance warrants.”

“Those are all crimes,” said DiGenova, noting that using official FISA-702 “queries” and surveillance was done “to create a false case against a candidate, and then a president.”

Government Accountability, Politics, US

Trump Halts Declassifying Democrat Memo; Revisions Underway

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Washington, D.C.— On Friday evening, President Trump declined to release the Democratic House Intelligence memo, noting that he was “unable” to declassify the memo, citing the “significant concerns” of both the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in relation to releasing the memo, due to “longstanding principles regarding the protection of intelligence sources and methods, ongoing investigations, and other similarly sensitive information,” according to a written statement from White House Counsel Donald McGahn.

According to a report by The Hill:

White House counsel Don McGahn wrote a letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) explaining that “although the president is inclined to declassify” the Democratic memo, the administration believes it would create “especially significant concerns” for “national security and law enforcement interests.”
Trump’s legal team insists that it came to that conclusion at the behest of senior officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The letter from McGahn to Nunes specified that certain information could not be released without compromising “sources and methods, ongoing investigations, and other similarly sensitive information.” A separate letter to McGahn from FBI Director Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein referenced information identified within the memo holding “national security or law enforcement concerns.” The FBI had previously echoed similar concerns about the release of the Nunes memo prior to Trump’s approval of the release.

The Democratic memo is reportedly ten pages long and is written in part as a rebuttal of the recently released GOP House Intelligence Committee memo, which claimed to have exposed politicization of the FBI and DOJ and lying by omission to the FISA court in an effort to attain surveillance warrants on Trump campaign staff.

McGahn wrote that in the name of maintaining transparency, President Trump had directed the DOJ to give technical assistance to the committee to a help revise the memo based on the “significant concerns” of the FBI and DOJ.

“The Executive Branch stands ready to review any subsequent draft of the February 5th Memorandum for declassification at the earliest opportunity,” McGahn’s letter declared.

On Saturday morning, President Trump took to Twitter to accuse the Democrats of playing politics with classified information, claiming that Democrats knew that inclusion of “sources and methods (and more) would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/962330457886076928

Democrats including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have criticized Trump for approving the release of the Nunes memo while blocking the release of the Democratic memo.

Chairman of the House committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, who ran point on the GOP’s FBI/FISA memo, said Democrats should follow the guidance of the DOJ’s recommendations and “make the appropriate technical changes and redactions” in order to allow their memo into the public domain.

Congressman and House Intelligence Committee member Jim Himes (D-CT) said on Saturday that the Committee plans to apply redactions to the memo, according to the New York Times. On Sunday, Committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA) said that “we’re going to sit down with the FBI and go through any concerns that they have, and any legitimate concerns over sources and methods, we will redact.”

Government Accountability, Politics, US

Senate Memo Claims Clinton Allies Were “Feeding” Info to State Dept., Christopher Steele

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Washington, D.C. — On Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) released a copy of their request for a criminal probe of anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele. The Grassley/Graham memo has alleged a convoluted scheme that entailed a foreign source supplying information to a friend of the Clinton family, to be fed to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, who then proceeded to forwarded the information to Steele.

The Grassley-Graham memo, which is heavily redacted at the FBI’s request, stated:

One memorandum by Mr. Steele that was not published by Buzzfeed is dated October 19, 2016. The report alleges [redacted], as well as [redacted]. Mr. Steele’s memorandum states that his company ‘received his report from [redacted] US State Department,’ that the report was the second in a series, and that the report was information that came from a foreign sub-source who ‘is in touch with [redacted], a contact of [redacted], a friend of the Clintons, who passed it to [redacted].

“It is troubling enough that the Clinton Campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility,” Grassley and Graham wrote in a statement accompanying the memo.

[RELATED: Reality Check: GOP Memo and FISA Problems]

The Grassley-Graham memo comes on the heels of the House Intelligence Committee memo, which publicly claimed that Steele lied to the FBI about his contacts with media organizations – thus being terminated as an FBI source. Steele was referred for criminal investigation by Grassley and Graham for lying to federal authorities on January 4, but the accompanying memo that explained their referral was not released at that time due to the FBI and Justice Department reviewing it.

The referral for criminal investigation was based on conflicts between Steele’s testimony in British court and the information he supplied the FBI/DOJ.

The Grassley-Graham memo includes those specific statements, but they have been redacted at the request of the FBI. In the wake of the House Intelligence Committee memo aka the Nunes/FISA memo being declassified, Grassley has called on the FBI to withdraw its redactions, as he noted the memo is “largely based on the same underlying documents.” The Hill reported that “According to a spokesman for Grassley, the blacked-out sections of the referral contain ‘verbatim quotes’ from government surveillance warrant applications that include ‘the government’s description of Steele’s statements to the FBI about his contacts with the media.’”

[RELATED: 5 Critical Facts the FBI Reportedly Withheld from FISA Court About the Trump Dossier]

“Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding,” Grassley wrote. “There are still may questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible.”

Reality Check

Reality Check: GOP Memo and FISA Problems

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Should the FISA court be more transparent? Vote in our poll.

Friday, the White House released a controversial memo meant to provide some context to the whole Trump/Russia investigation.

The Nunes memo is four pages long, and it explains many of what seem to be very questionable actions by the Department of Justice and the FBI in how they got their hands on FISA warrants on Trump campaign officials.

But more than just this case, this memo backs up what civil libertarians have been screaming about for years. And begs the question—can the FISA court system actually be trusted?

Let’s give it a Reality Check you won’t get anywhere else.

First, let’s start with the Nunes memo. It was long anticipated. So what did it show?

The memo focuses in part on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants that authorized the surveillance of former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

First, The memo claims that, “On Oct. 21, 2016 the DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Page.”

According to the memo, “The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant tareting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC.”

“…Then-FBI Director James Comey signed three FISA applications on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one.”

The memo also says, “Then-DAG [Deputy Attorney General] Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of the DOJ.”

Now, where things get interesting is when you bring in that infamous Trump dossier.

It was created by former British Spy Christopher Steele on behalf of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

The memo states that, “Neither the initial application for the warrant in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding of Steele’s efforts.”

That’s despite the fact that we know Steele was paid more than $160,000, and even though the memo states that both the DOJ and the FBI were aware of the Democratic Party funding of the dossier.

The memo claims that in the Carter Page FISA application a Yahoo News article was cited extensively. But the memo states that the article did not corroborate the Steele dossier because “it was derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News.

In fact, the memo says that the FISA application “incorrectly asses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News and several other outlets in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS.”

The memo also claims that, “before and after Steele was terminated as a source,” which by the way was, according to the memo, because of unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI, Steele “maintained contact” with the DOJ through then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr.

Ohr, who worked closely with Yates then Rosenstein, eventually spoke with the FBI about his communications with Steele.

In September 2016, Steele apparently told Ohr he was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” according to the memo.

And the memo also notes Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS to help with the opposition research against Trump, something the memo claims was—once again—not disclosed.

The memo also claims that McCabe testified before the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 “that no surveillance warrant would have been sought” without the Steele dossier information. But there is no direct quote from McCabe’s (behind-closed-doors) testimony.

Finally, the memo ends with information about George Papadopoulos—who has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI—and claims the FISA application mentions information about Papadopoulos “triggered the opening of a counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Peter Strzok.”

(Strzok was removed from Mueller’s probe after anti-Trump texts between him and his mistress, former FBI agent Lisa Page, were discovered.)

For her part, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told CNN that this memo is all a lie.

On Monday, the Washington Post reported, “FISA court was aware that some of the information underpinning the warrant request was paid for by a political entity, but that the application did not specifically name the Democratic National Committee or the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.”

But there is actually a larger question here. Larger than this memo, larger than the Trump/Russia question. It is a question civil libertarians have been asking for years.

How does anyone in America trust the FISA court system?

What you need to know is that this story is much bigger than just President Trump. If the Nunes memo holds up as true, what does that mean for those who have been charged or arrested under the other 38,000 plus FISA warrants?

The President shouldn’t be above anyone else and if transparency is deserved in his case, shouldn’t transparency be deserved in all FISA cases?

Lets talk about that tonight on Twitter and Facebook.

Government Accountability, Politics, US

Ron Paul on What the FISA Memo “Really Tells Us” About US Government

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Washington, D.C. — Preeminent “Godfather of Liberty” Ron Paul waded into the controversy surrounding the recently released FISA memo, which provided detailed allegations of the FBI and DOJ’s abuse of the FISA court, providing a unique perspective that aims to cut through the partisan divide. Paul was quick to call out the lies perpetuated in the run-up to the release of the memo.

In an article published for the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, titled What the FBI/FISA Memo Really Tells Us About Our Government, Paul noted:

The release of the House Intelligence Committee’s memo on the FBI’s abuse of the FISA process set off a partisan firestorm. The Democrats warned us beforehand that declassifying the memo would be the end the world as we know it. It was reckless to allow Americans to see this classified material, they said. Agents in the field could be harmed, sources and methods would be compromised, they claimed.

Republicans who had seen the memo claimed that it was far worse than Watergate. They said that mass firings would begin immediately after it became public. They said that the criminality of US government agencies exposed by the memo would shock Americans.

Then it was released and the world did not end. FBI agents have thus far not been fired. Seeing “classified” material did not terrify us, but rather it demonstrated clearly that information is kept from us by claiming it is “classified.”

[RELATED: Ex-CIA Operative Declares FBI is “Ticked” in Wake of FISA Memo; Pledges “We’re Going to Win”]

After rebuking the left/right media talking points perpetuated by corporate media, Paul placed a laser-like focus on what he identifies as the actual root cause of what has been taking place in Washington, D.C.: the Military-Industrial Complex.

Paul wrote that the “deep state” feared “Trump’s repeated promises to get along with Russia and to re-assess NATO so many years after the end of the Cold War were threatening to a Washington that depends on creating enemies to sustain the fear needed to justify a trillion dollar yearly military budget.” He claims that the fervor surrounding Russiagate was simply a ploy by hawks on both sides of the aisle to create anti-Russia sentiment within the American population, which “served their real goal of keeping the US on war footing and keeping the gravy train rolling.”

Paul continued:

In the end, both sides got it wrong. Here’s what the memo really shows us:

First, the memo demonstrates that there is a “deep state” that does not want things like elections to threaten its existence. Candidate Trump’s repeated promises to get along with Russia and to re-assess NATO so many years after the end of the Cold War were threatening to a Washington that depends on creating enemies to sustain the fear needed to justify a trillion dollar yearly military budget.

Imagine if candidate Trump had kept his campaign promises when he became President. Without the “Russia threat” and without the “China threat” and without the need to dump billions into NATO, we might actually have reaped a “peace dividend” more than a quarter century after the end of the Cold War. That would have starved the war-promoting military-industrial complex and its network of pro-war “think tanks” that populate the Washington Beltway area.

Second, the memo shows us that neither Republicans nor Democrats really care that much about surveillance abuse when average Americans are the victims. It is clear that the FISA abuse detailed in the memo was well known to Republicans like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes before the memo was actually released. It was likely also well known by Democrats in the House. But both parties suppressed this evidence of FBI abuse of the FISA process until after the FISA Amendments Act could be re-authorized. They didn’t want Americans to know how corrupt the surveillance system really is and how the US has become far too much like East Germany. That might cause more Americans to call up their Representatives and demand that the FISA mass surveillance amendment be allowed to sunset.

Ironically, Chairman Nunes was the biggest cheerleader for the extension of the FISA Amendments even as he knew how terribly the FISA process had been abused!

Finally, hawks on both sides of the aisle in Congress used “Russia-gate” as an excuse to build animosity toward Russia among average Americans. They knew from the classified information that there was no basis for their claims that the Trump Administration was put into office with Moscow’s assistance, but they played along because it served their real goal of keeping the US on war footing and keeping the gravy train rolling.

But don’t worry: the neocons in both parties will soon find another excuse to keep us terrified and ready to flush away a trillion dollars a year on military spending and continue our arguments and new “Cold War” with Russia.

In the meantime, be skeptical of both parties. With few exceptions they are not protecting liberty but promoting its opposite.

 

Government Accountability, Politics, US

5 Critical Facts the FBI Reportedly Withheld from FISA Court About the Trump Dossier

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Washington, D.C. — The recently released FISA memo, compiled by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and other Republican lawmakers, made a number of claims, with one of the most significant claims being that the FBI and DOJ officials utilized unverified opposition research from a dossier created by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to procure and renew a warrant to spy on Trump campaign officials – without informing the FISA court that the dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign.

The allegation that the FBI and DOJ reportedly withheld virtually all relevant political context from their submission to the secret FISA court as a basis for a warrant has been claimed by some to be indicative of troubling political motivations.

The Federalist created a list of five critical facts the FBI and DOJ withheld from the FISA court, according to the memo:

#1. The Clinton campaign and the DNC paid to commission the Steel dossier.

Despite claims that Republicans helped pay for the Steele dossier, the commissioning of the document by Fusion GPS only took place after Republican funding had ended. Steele was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to engage in opposition research on Trump, which was the sole source of funding for Steele’s work on the dossier.

According to the memo: “Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior and FBI officials.

“The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of—and paid by—the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.”

#2. Official FBI records note that Steele was “desperate Trump not get elected,” and was terminated for lying to the FBI about leaking to the media.

Steele was politically biased, as he professed to a senior DOJ official in September 2016 that he was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” This bias was actually noted in official FBI files, but was allegedly never disclosed to the FISA court.

Additionally, Steele’s relationship with the FBI was terminated after he revealed his work for the agency to the press in October 2016.

According to the memo: “Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September—before the Page application was submitted to the FISC in October—but Steele improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts.”

None of this was reported to the FISA court, according to the memo.

#3. Then FBI Director Comey testified in June 2017 that the dossier was “salacious and unverified.”

“According to the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial Page FISA application. After Steele was terminated, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated. Yet, in early January 2017, Director Comey briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, even though it was—according to his June 2017 testimony—”salacious and unverified.” While the FISA application relied on Steele’s past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.”

#4. The FBI essentially used the dossier to corroborate the dossier. A news story used by the FBI to corroborate the dossier actually came from the dossier author, Steele, leaking its contents to the media.

According to the memo: “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. The Page FISA application incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News—and several other outlets—in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.”

#5. A portion of the information provided to the FISA court came from senior DOJ official, Bruce Ohr’s wife, who was paid by Clinton opposition research firm Fusion GPS.

Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr provided the FBI with his wife’s opposition research, which was included in the information submitted to the FISA court to justify secret surveillance of the Trump team.

Despite the clear connections to Clinton campaign-funded Fusion GPS, the FISA court was apparently never made aware that some of the information provided came from the wife of a DOJ official who was actually working for the Clinton campaign.

According to the memo: “Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs’ relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC.”

The FBI and DOJ are accused of intentionally concealing important information from the FISA court when applying for secret surveillance. Dossier author Steele was fired by the FBI as a source after first FISA warrant was approved in October— with numerous claims put forth in the dossier largely proven unverifiable. Nonetheless, the FBI reportedly chose to conceal the numerous verifiable political motivations to the court in each of the three subsequent renewals of the warrant.

 

Government Accountability, Politics, US

Ex-CIA Operative Declares FBI is “Ticked” in Wake of FISA Memo; Pledges “We’re Going to Win”

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Washington, D.C. –Philip Mudd, former deputy director of the CIA’s National Counterterrorism Center, said on CNN that despite the recent declassification and release of the GOP FISA memo, which alleged FBI and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) surveillance abuse, the FBI is not worried – and is “going to win.”

Mudd, a CIA counterterrorism analyst for CNN, noted that the FBI is not concerned about the release of the memo, claiming that the recent arrival of Trump as president 13 months ago is inconsequential when compared to the 110-year history of the agency.

“I know how this game is going to be played. We’re going to win,” Mudd, who served as a analyst for the CIA before becoming the deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia on the US National Intelligence Council, told CNN.

In spite of the declassified memo alleging abuses by the FBI and DOJ, over which Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has announced he will pursue criminal charges of treason, Mudd claimed that Trump will be unable to “push us off” the Russian collusion investigation.

 “They [the FBI] are going to be saying (I guarantee it): You [Trump] think you can push us off this [investigation] because you can try to intimidate the [FBI] director? You better think again, Mr. President. You have been around for 13 months. We have been around since 1908,” Mudd said.

[RELATED: 5 Critical Facts the FBI Reportedly Withheld from FISA Court About the Trump Dossier]

Mudd went on to say that “FBI people are ticked,” and ironically claiming that accusations of widespread corruption in the agency, despite being based on evidence, are “an attack on [its] ability to conduct an investigation with integrity.”

The FISA memo was written by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and other Republican lawmakers, and made several claims of misconduct, including how FBI and DOJ officials utilized unverified opposition research from a dossier to acquire and then renew a warrant to put a former Trump campaign official under government surveillance.

The FBI reportedly failed to inform the FISA court of Steele’s self-professed disdain for Trump, which had been previously noted in official FBI records.

As previously reported, in the wake of the release of the declassified FISA memo, Gosar  announced that he will pursue a criminal prosecution of officials in both the Justice Department and FBI for “treason.”

“House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Memorandum on the FBI abuse of FISA warrants wasn’t just evidence of incompetence but clear and convincing evidence of treason,” wrote Gosar. The congressman labeled the behavior by FBI and Justice Department officials as “third word politics where official government agencies are used as campaign attack dogs.”

Numerous Democratic politicians, mainstream media outlets, as well as current and former security service officials fiercely resisted the publication of the memo detailing FBI and DOJ abuse, claiming the release would “endanger national security.”

Government Accountability, Politics, US

GOP Rep. Calls for Prosecution of FBI, DOJ Officials; Calls Actions in FISA Memo “Treason”

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Washington, D.C. — In the wake of the release of the declassified FISA memo, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) published a letter Friday, announcing that he will pursue a criminal prosecution of officials in both the Justice Department and FBI for “treason.”

The highly charged allegation of treason follows the contentious FISA memo released Friday by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which alleged misconduct through the abuse of FISA warrants to target political adversaries.

The FISA memo was composed by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and other Republican lawmakers, and alleged that FBI and DOJ officials utilized unverified opposition research from a dossier, compiled by self-professed anti-Trump former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, which was then used to initially acquire and subsequently renew a warrant to place a former Trump campaign official under surveillance— without informing the FISA court that the dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign.

“House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Memorandum on the FBI abuse of FISA warrants wasn’t just evidence of incompetence but clear and convincing evidence of treason,” wrote Gosar.

[RELATED: WATCH: Senator Rand Paul Calls Out Government Surveillance Power on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert]

“The FBI knowingly took false information from the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign and then used it to smear Donald Trump in order to hurt his campaign,” Gosar continued.

“The full-throated adoption of this illegal misconduct and abuse of FISA by James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein is not just criminal but constitutes treason,” Gosar explained.

The Congressman labeled the behavior by FBI and Justice Department officials as “third word politics where official government agencies are used as campaign attack dogs.”

Here is Rep. Gosar’s full statement on the declassified memo:

Gosar went on to write that he will be spearheading a “letter to the Attorney General seeking criminal prosecution against these traitors to our nation.”

Under the United States Constitution, if convicted of treason, FBI or Justice Department officials could be potentially be sentenced to death.

Government Accountability, Politics, Privacy, US

WATCH: Senator Rand Paul Calls Out Government Surveillance Power on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

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New York City — On Wednesday night’s airing of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, host Steven Colbert asked Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) if he thought the FISA memo, which allegedly details the FBI using opposition research — funded by a major donor of GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio, and subsequently paid for by the Clinton campaign — to manipulate the FISA court into allowing surveillance of President Trump’s campaign staff, should be released to the public.

“You said the Bob Mueller investigation was a witch hunt, and you think it is a distraction of Congress’s time,” Colbert said.

“Do you think it should be ended- do you think he should be gotten out of there? Do you think they should get rid of Rosenstein and release the memo, and just blow the whole thing up and forget it ever happened?” Colbert asked.

Paul then took the opportunity to express his concerns, while enlightening Colbert on the danger in allowing secretive intelligence agencies to monitor the private communications of every American — without a warrant signed by a judge — in light of “bias” in the intelligence community, clearly referring to the FBI and DOJ, as allegedly implicated in the now-released FISA memo.

[RELATED: Nunes Memo Released]

“I’m concerned. My biggest concern is over something that Madison said at the beginning of our country, he said that ‘men are not angels’ and that’s why we need more oversight of government,” Paul said.

“Our intelligence community has the authority to listen to every phone call. Everyone’s phone calls could be listened to if they wanted to. Everyone in your e-mails can be tracked, every one of your phone… who you call and how long you speak can be tracked, every bank transaction can be tracked,” Paul explained.

Paul went on to note that human nature can lead to potential “bias” in the “intelligence community,” and pointed out the critical need for “checks and balances” in the form of “a judge and a warrant.”

“I think because men are not angels and women aren’t either, that there can be bias that can enter into the intelligence community, so we have to be very, very careful that someone gives them a check and balance and that check and a balance should be a judge and a warrant, so one of the things, you know, I fought with over this collection of FISA data, we should go to a judge to get to that,” Paul stated.

Paul then explained that he was “concerned” that Mueller had gone beyond a “Russia Collusion” investigation. The Senator, who has previously called the investigation a “witchhunt” – invoked the indictment of former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, which was not for colluding with Russians, but for not being truthful about “what was recorded on the phone call.”

“I’m concerned that we give too much power to a prosecutor who was supposed to be going after Russian collusion,” the Senator cautioned.

“So far he’s gotten somewhat over. He recorded General Flynn and then got him to say something inconsistent with what was recorded on the phone call,” Paul reasoned.

“Think about it from a personal perspective, if I have a thousand phone calls of Stephen Colbert, what I could learn? And then I can interview you, and if you say anything inconsistent with what you said on your private phone calls, I could put you in jail.” Paul explained.

Following the recent release of the memo, Paul issued the following statement on Friday:

“While I applaud the release of this memo, I also call for Congress to take immediate action to help prevent such behavior in the future. It is imperative it start by listening to Americans who have expressed outrage over its disregard for the Fourth Amendment and reexamining the powers it reauthorized right before we learned of the memo. Continuing to ignore the Constitution will only guarantee that others fall victim to government abusing its domestic surveillance powers.”

Watch Sen. Paul explain the dangers of an intelligence apparatus given vast power to spy on Americans beginning at 15:10 in the video below.