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GOP Memo Criticizing FBI Surveillance is Released (washingtonpost.com)
The controversial four-page memo created by Republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee alleging abuse of surveillance authority by the Justice Department and FBI has been released Friday after being declassified by the president. The memo is unredacted. (Alternative link for the memo.) The Washington Post: The four-page, newly declassified memo written by the Republican staffers for the House Intelligence Committee said the findings "raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain (Justice Department) and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) calling it "a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process."
The memo accuses former officials who approved the surveillance applications -- a group that includes former FBI Director James B. Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, former deputy attorney general Sally Yates and current Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein -- of signing off on court surveillance requests that omitted key facts about the political motivations of the person supplying some of the information, Christopher Steele, a former intelligence officer in Britain. The memo says Steele "was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations -- an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI." The FBI Agents Association on Friday said that agents "have not, and will not, allow partisan politics to distract us from our solemn commitment to our mission." The full statement: The men and women of the FBI put their lives on the line every day in the fight against terrorists and criminals because of their dedication to our country and the Constitution. The American people should know that they continue to be well-served by the world's preeminent law enforcement agency. FBI Special Agents have not, and will not, allow partisan politics to distract us from our solemn commitment to our mission.
The memo accuses former officials who approved the surveillance applications -- a group that includes former FBI Director James B. Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, former deputy attorney general Sally Yates and current Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein -- of signing off on court surveillance requests that omitted key facts about the political motivations of the person supplying some of the information, Christopher Steele, a former intelligence officer in Britain. The memo says Steele "was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations -- an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI." The FBI Agents Association on Friday said that agents "have not, and will not, allow partisan politics to distract us from our solemn commitment to our mission." The full statement: The men and women of the FBI put their lives on the line every day in the fight against terrorists and criminals because of their dedication to our country and the Constitution. The American people should know that they continue to be well-served by the world's preeminent law enforcement agency. FBI Special Agents have not, and will not, allow partisan politics to distract us from our solemn commitment to our mission.
You know - the guy whose wife got almost $1 million from Hillary! cronies - while he was "investigating" Hillary!'s illegal email server.
Nah, no bias there.
A guy like that would never conceal the political origins of the Steele dossier from the FISA court....
This release was entirely for the purpose of ANNOUNCING a big thing, TEASING a big thing, then DEBATING it as a black box, then acting as if the release was some big lesson of punishment against those that disagree with the administration.
The actual details don't really matter, so much as they constitute an illusion that they have a big argument, and that for their captive audience on their news sources, they are winning on their terms.
And yes, this is very much how despotic regimes have operated for centuries.
I'm always still more than a little confused why anyone actually plays any of the particular roles in these scenarios though - does Devin Nunes think he's actually serving his own self interest in ANY way, given how basically every other person that has served Trump in this way has ended up over time?
So it seems the FBI/DOJ under Obama used smear information bought from Russian intelligence sources by the Clinton Campaign to justify secretly wiretapping and investigating their political rivals during a presidential election. Did someone say Russian Collusion?
If all of these crimes are so evident then why is it that a questionable document with little to no verification was used as the sole basis? Must be internet hour in the loony bin.
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At this point, if there is any politicization to be talked about, it is with regard to the creation and release of the memo.
The Nunes memo revolves around the assertion that Carter Page's collusion with Russia's spy agency should not have been caught by a FISA warrant.
By the time Carter Page was caught committing treason for the Trump campaign, he had already been caught communicating with and offering help to Russian spies in a completely separate spy ring.
In other words, the Trump / Russia collusion is the second time Carter Page has been investigated in connection to Russian spies he was working for.
Interestingly the Russian spies in the first investigation (1 did prison time, 2 fled to Moscow) thought Carter Page was an idiot who craved money. Watch one of his bumbling television appearances where he incriminates himself multiple times while trying to pretend nothing happened. Really quite amazing spectacle, and you have to conclude the Russians are right about this guy...
The *problem* with this theory of yours is that you are saying the recently released memo is wrong, that the FISA warrants where not based on the dossier from Steel, but other intelligence which was known to be true. The memo is based on the claims that without the dossier there would have been no justification for the FISA warrants.
So Carter Page's relationship with Russians isn't all that material here. Simply knowing and associating with somebody who had something to do with the Russians in the past is not enough to give you probable cause to do surveillance on other people today, any more than interacting with a murder who just got out of jail gives the police probable cause to get a warrant to search your house.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I have a friend who worked closely with the Trump org via his company, and it was well known that Trump works with the Russian mafia at that time, years before any Presidential run was possible. I'm not surprised in the slightest.
You also forgot the bit about how Trump refuses to sanction Russia when he clearly should.
What you said, plus this: Trump and his cabinet are corrupt as hell, probably being coerced or collaborating with Putin and Russia, have so many skeletons in their closet that they should open a haunted house, and Trump sees the hammer on it's way to falling on him (in the person of Robert Mueller) and is now desperately flailing about in what will be a futile attempt to avoid the consequences, which in the least will amount to being removed from office, and at most will result in criminal charges. This isn't going to be fun-and-games for anyone or for the country it's going to be BAD, BAD, BAD for the country, but allowing someone like Trump to continue would be worse. As is it'll take decades to repair the damage done to our government, and to the reputation of the United States with it's allies and with the rest of the world. Hell, it might destroy this country entirely. This particular political nuke is already on trajectory and can't be stopped; all that's left for us now is to sit and wait to see what happens.
Hillary committed felonies ...
According to who? Republicans pursued Hillary Clinton with everything and anything they could think of to prevent her from becoming the next President. (and, for whatever reason, *still* wasn't convicted of *anything*) The remainder of your commentary confirms that their attempts achieved their intended results none-the-less. *That* is what Fascism looks like.
Congratulations on being part of the problem.
Enjoy your "freedom" - while it lasts, until they convince you of the next thing they want...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
That would be a lot easier if there wasn't a contrived political release of a cherry picked memo designed to produce ammo to fire the very people doing that investigation.
Are you so impatient that you'd rather this bit of political shenanigans than the investigation run its due course? And exactly why do you think a year is an unreasonable amount of time to unravel a giant web of influence peddling, money laundering, and political favor trading? From my point of view, I think it's fine to take the time to do it right, rather than just release partial information which might hinder the investigation to satisfy the anger so well stoked by Fox News and the neocon twitter rampage.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Yeah. You might want to be able to show that, say, he was previously involved with a known Russian crime ring, and is now travelling to Moscow and giving talks condemning the US while working for a presidential campaign.
Can't imagine why you might want to investigate whether such a person might be working as a foreign agent.
Also, of note concerning this memo: FISA applications are generally ~50-ish pages long. If we're to believe Nunes, it was nothing but a giant list of "Steele says this..." and "Steele says that", and "Please don't ask us anything about who this steel guy was", and the judge was like, "Sure, no need for that, the word of one person is good enough for a FISA warrant." Actually, no, because even Nunes himself contradicts this narrative when he briefly brings up George Papadopoulos, who was apparently also listed as justification. If we're to take Nunes at face value concerning him ("there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos"), the FBI said to the judge, "Hey, this guy Papadopoloulos is dirty, but has nothing to do with Carter Page, so let us spy on Page" and the judge said "Okay, that sounds logical" and granted approval.
Nunes mentions this in the same paragraph where he brings up his favourite FBI boogeyman, Strzok and - everyone prepare to be shocked - while working to portray him as part of a corrupt deep state conspiracy to elect Trump, doesn't bother to mention that Strzok advocated for and drafted the "Comey Letter" reopening the Clinton investigation, which cost her in polls more than her margin of loss in the key swing states. Aka, their boogeyman was a key figure in electing Trump.
It's time for Operation Crazy Plan.
The committed voted on sending the minority memo to the WH along with the majority memo, and to submit them to WH vetting and if passed, release, concurrently.
The minority did move for this to happen in spite of the entire house not having seen it yet (persuant to Committee Rule 14(i), which *allows* for such a thing to happen, but does *not* require it for what the minority then motions for.)
The minority argues that since none of the House has seen any of the underlying evidence supporting either memo, along with all but 2 of the members of the Intelligence Committee, that the opinion of the whole House was irrelevant, and just political drum beating, and the real reason for the majority's demand that the minority memo go through the same process is to delay the release of the minority memo to be able to set the narrative publicly with their memo, which has been described as misleading and reckless.
This is all in the meeting notes, including citations of relevant rules.
In short, you're wrong. You're asserting the existence of a rule that does not exist. What a concept.