no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

Politics U.S. Wire

Bombshell buried in IG report: OIG initiating FBI audit over FISA abuses targeting U.S. citizens
Ben Marquis, The Western Journal By Ben Marquis, The Western Journal
Published December 11, 2019 at 9:23am


Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz finally released his long-awaited report on the FBI's alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court to obtain a warrant to spy on a member of then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign named Carter Page.

In short, the inspector general found plenty of abuse -- due not to political bias, but rather to a plethora of errors and omissions that misled the FISA Court in order to obtain the warrant.

For a fuller picture of the numerous inaccuracies and omission of facts with regard to the Carter Page warrant and beyond, and what that means in the broader political sense for Democrats and Republicans, check out this rundown by Eli Lake of Bloomberg.

Setting aside the specifics of the Page warrant, as well as the partisan finger-pointing and mutually declared vindication by both sides over certain aspects of the report, Horowitz had a particularly scathing rebuke of the FISA process.

While overlooked by many, the inspector general's comments should worry anyone concerned about a lack of proper oversight in the realm of government surveillance.

TRENDING: Lindsey Graham: Report shows FBI ran a 'criminal enterprise' against Trump

"Given the extensive compliance failures we identified in this review, we believe that additional [Office of the Inspector General] oversight work is required to assess the FBI's compliance with Department and FBI FISA-related policies that seek to protect the civil liberties of U.S. persons," Horowitz wrote.

"Accordingly, we have today initiated an OIG audit that will further examine the FBI's compliance with the Woods Procedures in FISA applications that target U.S. persons in both counterintelligence and counterterrorism investigations."

In other words, the problems Horowitz discovered with regard to the FISA warrant were so severe that he launched a separate audit that will more broadly look into the FISA warrant process as a whole, in order to see whether abuses were isolated to the Page case or were more prevalent throughout the system.

Lake explained that the issues with Page's warrant matter "because his surveillance gives the public a window into how the process for obtaining electronic surveillance warrants from a secret court can be easily gamed."

Indeed, as both Horowitz and Lake noted, the secretive nature of the FISA warrant process requires that the government provide the court with any and all relevant exculpatory information in the absence of defense attorneys. In Page's case, that didn't happen, through either incompetence or malevolence.

Over at Reason, Scott Shackford describes that warrant process. The so-called "Woods procedures" mentioned by Horowitz are meticulous processes that FBI agents are supposed to go through in order to ensure that everything on a FISA warrant application is correct and that all pertinent information has been included and vetted.

"It turned out that the FBI failed on several occasions to properly follow the Woods procedures," Shackford wrote. "And if this hadn't happened in such a high-profile case involving the current president of the United States, would we have even known?"

Hence the need for an audit of the entire program, because if such a terrible job could be done on such an admittedly sensitive case, where one would presume extra precautions would be taken to ensure everything was right, then the same thing could happen, and perhaps has been happening, in less high-profile or politically sensitive cases.

Such was the question asked by the Cato Institute's Julian Sanchez, who tweeted: "If there were this many significant errors in applications everyone understood to be incredibly sensitive, and they were *not* the function of some special vendetta against Trump, what would we find if we kicked the tires on a 'normal' FISA?"

Even the American Civil Liberties Union -- no friend of the president -- was aghast at what Horowitz had discovered with regard to the "alarming" problems with the FISA warrant for Page, and said in a statement it was clear the program "lacks basic safeguards and is in need of serious reform."

One final thing worth noting about this audit of the FISA process: If the audit ends up showing the problems with the Page warrant were an isolated event, then Trump and others can use that fact to justify their claims that the investigation was all politically motivated against him and his campaign.

If, however, the audit finds widespread abuse, cut corners and slipshod practices among the FBI with the FISA program, then we have a much larger problem of apparent Fourth and Fifth Amendment violations by "deep state" bureaucrats that should be downright frightening to anybody who cherishes our constitutional right of due process.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

Carol Kelly

Great post, very informative.

bahmer

Amen and Amen a very good summation of what was going on in the FISA abuse case. Thanks for posting this NPP spot on as always.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

There are more Easter Eggs in this report. It is eye opening, but I doubt that many will read it.

woodguru

What you are calling very good covered one aspect, and doesn't cover the fact it says the rest was good, that the FBI had valid reasons for looking into Russian connections between trump campaign people, it's what they do. Undisclosed communications with Russians is considered a serious security breach, and always has been up until this administration acts like russia is our ally as opposed to an adversary on many fronts.

The United States is currently throwing the Ukraine under the bus in regard to our supporting them against Russia, they are being left on their own, and that is some despicable crap right there, trump's despicable crap he is taking on the Ukraine for his "friend" Putin.

woodguru

You certainly won't read the parts that reflect that Flynn and others were dirty and deserve to be sentenced now that they have been found to be guilty, you will be looking for every piece of negative with an attitude that some negative negates everything, and that is not the way it is.

When Durham comes out with his biased focus on what Barr and trump want, this IG report is going to be filling in details that provide context and the balance that supports the FBI and what they've found about Russian interference and trump campaign participation. The only thing trump was cleared of was a direct connection he could be charged with, not so for many of his campaign people.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Horowitz just testified that the FISA judges would not have signed the FISA warrant had he know the information was incomplete or that he was being lied to. Withholding the facts that the dossier was unverified, which it wasn't, and was being paid for by the democrats, which it was, are both lies of omission and at the very least made the information incomplete.

Spin it any way you want, the FBI was being dishonest with the FISA judge and were, in fact, very biased against Trump. This report, no matter what the IG says he had no "documentary" evidence of, makes all that clear. Horowitz is very careful to say, for example, that he had no "documentary" evidence of bias effecting what the FBI did but based upon the text messages, there was certainly heavy, heavy bias and dishonesty, he's calling it "mistakes", towards the FISA judge.

bahmer

You really should read and or listen to conservative articles regarding this instead of all the liberal views it may just enlighten you a bit and make you less angry at the conservatives viewpoint and where we are coming from.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Woody is commenting on it but has not read it.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Never happen!

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

Now then, do you know what the bar is for opening an investigation? It is very low, "Preliminary Investigation may be opened based upon "any allegation or information" of a possible criminal activity or threat to national security. Let that sink in.....a person can call the FBI and complain that you have talked to a Russian or terrorist cell and an investigation can be opened on you. You can be followed, your phones taped, and you can be covertly interviewed without benefit of Miranda Rights.

Russia and the Ukraine are currently suing each other for peace and have been since May 2019. I think peace should be given priority over furnishing either side with superior weapons or financing that would embolden war hawks or prolong a war.

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

I have read the entire report and am in the process of studying each significant event. How much of the actual report have you read?

Peewee Loc: San Antonio, TX

Did you miss things or leave them out on purpose? Obama sent blankets and Trump sent tank-k*****g weapons. Can't do one without divorcing Trump from Russian collusion. I understand your dilemma.

Pariahjf

Well stated...