Don’t Hold Your Breath For Deep State Bombshells In IG Report On FBI

The DOJ inspector general report on allegations of corruption in the investigations into members of the Trump campaign in 2016 is due out on December 9. The report by Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been eagerly anticipated by both sides in the debate over the origins of the Russia investigation, but the early signs indicate that proponents of the Deep State conspiracy theory may be disappointed.

Over the weekend, CNN reported the IG found evidence that an FBI employee altered a document connected with the surveillance warrant application for Carter Page, a former Trump campaign advisor. The CNN report did not detail what changes were made to the document and it is not known what role the document played in obtaining the warrant, but the alterations were reportedly significant enough to change the meaning of the document. The Washington Post cited US officials who said that the employee falsely claimed he had supporting evidence to back up the changes.

On the surface, the report seemed damning for the FBI, but, reading beyond the headline, the incident is much less sinister than it first appeared. The employee in question was a low-level attorney rather than an FBI agent or manager and, after the deception was discovered, the employee was forced out of the bureau. The incident became public as Horowitz turned over evidence of the alteration to federal prosecutor John Durham.

The Post reported that Horowitz found that the incident did not undermine the legal and factual basis of the federal investigation into Carter Page. The finding that the incident did not compromise the probable cause for the investigation undermines Republican claims that the counterintelligence investigations into members of the Trump campaign were begun in bad faith. Sources with knowledge of the report say that Horowitz found the FBI’s work to be sloppy but not indicative of a Deep State conspiracy against Trump.

Several Republicans have raised expectations for the IG report in recent weeks. President Trump, who said that he is “waiting for the report like everybody else,” told Fox News several weeks ago, “I predict you will see things that you don’t even believe, the level of corruption — whether it’s [James] Comey; whether it’s [Peter] Strzok and his lover [Lisa] Page; whether it’s so many other people — [Andrew] McCabe; whether it’s President Obama himself. Let’s see whether or not it’s President Obama. Let’s see whether or not they put that in.”

Likewise, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) said, “It doesn’t take 500 pages to tell the inspector general that everything was done properly. The IG report is going to find that there were problems.”

The question is how big the problems were and whether there was intentional abuse. Some of the problems are discussed in an assessment by the IG released last week that found "numerous issues" with FBI handling of secret sources The Washington Times reported that that the issues including failing to vet sources in a timely manner and insufficiently clear guidance from FBI headquarters. The assessment made 16 recommendations which were reportedly being implemented by the FBI.

"Ineffective management and oversight of confidential sources can result in jeopardizing FBI operations and placing FBI agents, sources, subjects of investigation, and the public in harm's way," Horowitz said in a two-minute video accompanying release of the assessment.

In the wake of the assessment and revelation about the FBI lawyer, Carter Page is among those trying to tamp down expectations. In an interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish over the weekend, Page said, “The keyword that you just said is sloppiness, right? And unfortunately, the way that this inspector general report has been assembled and completed over the last couple of years and particularly over the last few months, is completely sloppy. It’s only one side’s perspective.”

Indeed, the fact that the draft report was submitted to Attorney General Barr in September but the only hint of a prosecution is the unnamed former FBI lawyer is a strong indication that there was little unethical or criminal activity for Horowitz to find. The lack of criminal referrals to Durham or leaks trumpeting Obama-era FBI corruption is a strong hint that the conspiracy claims are duds.

While the report has not yet been released to the public, insiders say that the report paints an objective picture that is critical of the FBI but does not support the claim that there was a high-level conspiracy to undermine the Trump campaign. However, because the report does criticize the FBI, sources within the government say that it will give ammunition to both sides.

“You can see how the warring factions will seize on the various parts of this to advance their respective narratives,” a person familiar with the report told the Washington Post.

That will be particularly true for those who rely on cherry-picked passages cited by pundits without looking at the entire report.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why It Doesn't Matter That There Were No Hearings For Carter Page's FISA Warrant

Judicial Watch raised the hackles of Republicans this weekend when it announced that the Justice Department had said that no hearings were held prior to issuing the FISA warrant for former Trump advisor Carter Page. Many Republicans took this to mean that something nefarious was afoot with the investigation of Page, President Trump’s former campaign advisor, but that isn’t necessarily the case.

“It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in the press release. “Perhaps the court can now hold hearings on how justice was corrupted by material omissions that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC, a conflicted Bruce Ohr, a compromised Christopher Steele, and anti-Trumper Peter Strzok were all behind the ‘intelligence’ used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team.”

The Judicial Watch press release fails to tell the whole story, however.

Aside from mischaracterizing surveillance of someone that the first paragraph of the release refers to as “a former Trump campaign part-time advisor” as “spy[ing] on the Trump team,” the obvious question to ask is how many hearings are normally held on FISA applications. The answer is not many, but that is not proof of any wrongdoing on the part of the FBI or the FISA court.

The fact is that search warrants of all sorts are almost always issued by judges without hearings because the law does not require a hearing. If you have ever watched a television cop show, you’ve seen the process. The police gather preliminary evidence to show probable cause and then take this to the judge to get the warrant. The search warrant is then served, or, in the case of a FISA warrant, surveillance is conducted. The search and/or surveillance are then used to gather more evidence to determine whether an indictment, arrest and prosecution are warranted.

Logically, it makes sense that the law would not require a hearing before a warrant for a search or surveillance is issued. Who would take the opposing side in the hearing? If the suspect were invited to defend himself in a hearing to consider whether his property should be searched or he should be monitored, law enforcement would lose the element of surprise. It would be an extremely dense suspect who did not take the warning and clean out any incriminating items or break off contact with people who could implicate him in a crime.

So, who acts on the behalf of the suspect to prevent law enforcement agencies from abusing their power to search and surveil innocent Americans? The answer is that both the Justice Department and the judge act on their behalf.

In Just Security, former FBI agent Asha Rangapappa described the process of obtaining a FISA warrant in a 2017 article titled, “It Ain’t Easy Getting a FISA Warrant: I Was An FBI Agent and Should Know.” To get a FISA warrant, the FBI first must conduct a threat assessment to determine that there is a national security reason for the warrant. Second, the FBI would have to gather evidence to show probable cause that the target of the warrant was knowingly working on behalf of a foreign entity. Mere fraternization with agents of a foreign power would not be sufficient to meet this requirement. Finally, the warrant application is submitted to Justice Department attorneys who verify the claims made by the applicant and determine whether the evidence is sufficient to present to a judge. The application can be returned to the investigator multiple times until the evidence is both strong enough to meet the legal standard and able to be corroborated.

“It’s true that since its inception in 1978, the FISC has approved the vast majority of the over 25,000 FISA applications it has reviewed – some estimates put the number at over 99 percent,” says Rangapappa. He adds, “But that’s not surprising given the extensive process described above.”

This is confirmed by a 2013 letter to Congress from Reggie Walton, the presiding judge of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, in which the process for approving FISA warrants was discussed. The letter does state that in some cases where there is “special legal or factual concern,” the Court may request face-to-face meetings with law enforcement. The “frequency of hearings varies depending on the nature and complexity of matters pending before the Court at a given time, and also, to some extent, based on the individual preferences of different judges,” the letter says. In many cases, problems or questions about applications are resolved with telephone calls or informal contacts.

“FISA does not provide a mechanism for the Court to invite the views of nongovernmental parties,” Judge Walton wrote. “In fact, the Court's proceedings are ex parte [i.e., without a response from the opposing side] as required by the statute… and in keeping with the procedures followed by other courts in applications for search warrants and wiretap orders.”

The 99 percent approval rate for applications, the letter notes, is based only on “final applications submitted to and acted on by the Court.” About a quarter of applications have “substantive changes” before they are approved. The judge noted that the approval rate for wiretap applications in domestic criminal cases is higher than that of FISA warrant applications.

Andrew McCarthy, a writer for National Review and a former federal prosecutor, agrees that hearings are not a part of the process for getting warrants. On Twitter, McCarthy said, “There generally are no hearings on warrants, and you don’t want there to be because the four corners of the warrant application must state the probable cause. If they don’t, the judge should reject the application, not hold a hearing.”

“In nearly 20 years as a prosecutor, and hundreds of warrants, I never had a hearing to get a warrant,” McCarthy continued in a second tweet. “I had judges tell me ‘no,’ or tell me I needed to beef up this or that allegation with more solid evidence. But never a hearing.”

So, it’s true when Judicial Watch says that there was no FISA hearing before the warrant to surveil Carter Page was granted. It’s also true that it is not a big deal that there was no hearing. The law does not require a hearing and hearings are conducted only in rare circumstances. By making a mountain out of a nonexistent molehill, Judicial Watch has done a disservice to people who trust the organization to expose wrongdoing in the justice system. The press release is an overtly partisan attempt to smear the Justice Department and undermine an ongoing investigation.

Originally published on The Resurgent

FBI Releases Carter Page FISA Warrant

On Saturday, the FBI released a heavily redacted version of the FISA warrant application for Donald Trump's former campaign advisor, Carter Page. President Trump and other Republicans had charged the FBI with illicit spying on members of the Trump campaign.

The document (available here), which is 412 pages, is heavily censored with entire pages blacked out. The application was from October 2016, but even the exact date was redacted.

”The FBI believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian Government, ” the application says and then continues after a redaction, “[to] undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election in violation of criminal law.”

“Page has established relationships with Russian Government officials, including Russian intelligence officers,” the application states, but the evidence supporting these claims is censored.

”Source # 1” appears to be Christopher Steele, the author of the controversial Steele dossier. Republicans had alleged that the FBI did not disclose that the dossier was commissioned by Democrats as opposition research into Donald Trump.

In contrast to these claims, the application states, ”The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. person [who hired Steele] was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate # 1’s [Trump's] campaign.”

”Notwithstanding Source # 1’s reason for conducting research into Candidate # 1’s ties to Russia,” the application says, based on Source # 1’s previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby Source # 1 provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes Source # 1’s reporting herein to be credible.”

The uncensored parts of the application detail the allegations from Steele that Page had been told by the Russian government there was ”kompromat” on Candidate # 2, Hillary Clinton. The application says that the kompromat could possibly be released to the Trump campaign.

The application also contains background material on Page’s prior connections to Russia and cites several media reports that detailed alleged meetings between Page and representatives of Vladimir Putin's government. There is a reference to a letter written by Page to then-FBI Director James Comey. In the letter, Page, who was fired from the Trump campaign in September 2016, denied wrongdoing and called the allegations against him ”completely false media reports.”

Nevertheless, the FBI said that there was ”probable cause to believe that Page [redacted] knowingly engage in clandestine intelligence activities (other than intelligence gathering activities)” for a foreign power.

The redacted application strikes a blow at Republican claims that the FBI did not disclose the political nature of the information from Christopher Steele to the FISA court judge who issued the warrant. Less clear is how much evidence the FBI already had against Page before the warrant was issued. The Steele dossier and news reports were previously known, but a large part of the application is still classified.

Carter Page has not yet been indicted by the Mueller investigation even though he was questioned extensively in June 2017. This raises the possibility that either the surveillance did not uncover any criminal acts by Page or that he has been cooperating with investigators.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Nunes Admits That FBI Disclosed Political Bias On FISA Application

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) admitted yesterday that a central claim of his controversial memo was not true. In the memo detailing the FISA surveillance warrants obtained for former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, Nunes had claimed that the FBI did not acknowledge the political nature of the dossier compiled by Christopher Steele at the behest of the Hillary Clinton campaign. Yesterday, Nunes admitted that the FBI had in fact done so in a footnote.

Politico reports that Republican leaders have now acknowledged that the FBI included references to the dossier’s political origins in a footnote on the original application for a FISA surveillance warrant. Democrats accused Republicans of committing the very sin that they had accused the FBI of, namely cherry-picking information for political reasons.

Nunes responded to the revelation about the footnote on “Fox and Friends,” saying, “A footnote saying something may be political is a far cry from letting the American people know that the Democrats and the Hillary campaign paid for dirt that the FBI then used to get a warrant on an American citizen to spy on another campaign.”

However, Nunes’ claim that the FBI’s admission of political bias in the dossier was too vague is itself a far cry from the claim in the original memo that the FBI did not disclose the political nature of the documents at all. “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 memo stated.

There are other inconsistencies in the Nunes memo as well. For instance, despite Nunes’ claim, there is no evidence that the FBI spied on the Trump campaign. The FISA warrant was applied for in October 2016, a month after Page left his role as a Trump campaign advisor.

The memo also misquotes former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony about the dossier. The memo refers to Comey’s alleged statement that the dossier was “salacious and unverified.” Politifact points out that the comment referred to “some personally sensitive aspects of the information” contained in the dossier’s memos rather than the full dossier.

Further, the Nunes memo acknowledges that the FISA warrant for Page was renewed three times and that “each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause.” However, the memo does not describe other evidence against Page that was used in the original application or the subsequent renewals.

The inconsistency between the original claim that the FBI did not disclose the political bias of the evidence against Page and the later claim that the FBI followed the proper procedure but was not clear enough in its disclosure is a major blow to the credibility of Nunes and his memo. The claim that the FBI did not follow the law in obtaining the warrant against Page was a central argument in Republican attacks on the FBI.

There will be further revelations. The House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously this morning to release an 11-page Democrat rebuttal to the Nunes memo. The Democrat memo must follow the same process of declassification by the president that the Nunes memo went through.

The central question is whether the FBI followed the letter of the law in the application for the FISA warrants. The only way to resolve that issue is for President Trump to declassify the unedited versions of the applications and let Americans see the truth for themselves.

Originally posted on The Resurgent