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AG reportedly assigns US attorney to review Ukraine information on Biden; DOJ disputes Stone sentencing recommendation
On Feb. 9, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said during an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that he intends to call witnesses regarding the many problematic issues surrounding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses that were highlighted in the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report.Continue Reading
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Feb. 4 posed a question in the Senate that Chief Justice John Roberts refused to read out loud last week in the chamber during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
In his question, Paul named a former National Security Council official widely alleged to have been the whistleblower regarding a phone call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, which ultimately led to the president’s impeachment in the House.Continue Reading
In a declassified Jan. 7, 2020, order released by Presiding FISA Court Judge James Boasberg, it was revealed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has determined that two of the four FISA applications on former Trump 2016 presidential campaign adviser Carter Page were “not valid.”
The court wrote that it had received notice of “material misstatements and omissions” in the FISA applications made on Page, apparently with respect to the final two FISA renewals. The court also noted that the DOJ had made the assessment that with regard to these two applications, “there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.”Continue Reading
DOJ internal investigation reveals the special agent was supervisor of Crossfire Hurricane, played key role in problematic FISA application
One of the special FBI agents who interviewed President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, at the White House in January 2017, played a much bigger role in the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign—known as Crossfire Hurricane—than previously assumed, a report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz reveals.Continue Reading
FISA Court questions whether ‘information contained in other FBI applications is reliable’
Less than a week after Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz released his investigation detailing FBI misconduct in obtaining a FISA spy warrant on a Trump 2016 presidential campaign aide, the presiding judge of the FISA Court, Rosemary Collyer, issued a Four-Page Response Order on Dec. 17, 2019.Continue Reading
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz in a nearly 500-page report—combined with a nearly seven-hour congressional testimony—provided an in-depth and damning portrayal of the FBI’s actions in its surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
While some media organizations have focused on statements revolving around Horowitz not having found political bias in the FBI’s opening of the probe, a fuller examination of Horowitz’s key statements portrays a more complete picture.Continue Reading
“There is such a range of conduct here that is inexplicable … Our final recommendation was to refer the entire chain of command,” DOJ Inspector General said
The newly released report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, along with his groundbreaking testimony before Congress, noted the material failures of the FBI—“not only the operational team, but also of the managers and supervisors, including senior officials, in the chain of command”—with regard to the FISA warrant application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.Continue Reading
‘The activities we found here don’t vindicate anybody who touched this FISA’
The congressional testimony by Justice Department Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz on Dec. 11, 2019, proved to be almost universally damning of the actions taken by the FBI, and despite ongoing efforts by Democrats, demolished the argument that the FBI engaged in proper conduct during its investigation of the Trump campaign.Continue Reading
FBI ‘misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts,’ and ignored unreliability of principal source
Attorney General William Barr gave an in-depth interview on Dec. 10 during a Wall Street Journal CEO Council conference, detailing material problems with the FBI’s FISA applications and the subsequent surveillance of members of the Trump campaign.Continue Reading