President Donald Trump on Sunday baselessly asserted that the newly-released, highly-redacted FBI application to surveil a former campaign foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, “confirm[s] with little doubt that the Department of ‘Justice’ and FBI misled the courts.”
“The FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government,” the application says.
It adds: “[T]here is probable cause that such activities involve or are about to involve violations of the criminal statutes of the United States.”
Page, meanwhile, claimed on CNN that some of the claims made in the application were untrue, calling it “ridiculous” and “misleading.”
However, the warrant to surveil Page was successfully renewed three times after its initial approval, which itself was signed by four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges all appointed by Republican presidents. The surveillance was also approved by law enforcement officials from both the Obama and Trump administrations.
And the documents, which were released in response to lawsuits from various news organizations, fly in the face of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) claim in a memo earlier this year that the FBI had misled the FISC.
Among other things, Nunes asserted that the application had not properly informed the court of the political nature of former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele’s work in compiling a dossier on Trump, information from which was included in the application for a warrant to surveil Page.
Steele was hired by a research firm, Fusion GPS, which in turned had been hired by a lawyer, Marc Elias, who was representing both the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.
Contrary to Nunes, as Lawfare’s David Kris noted, “the footnote disclosing Steele’s possible bias takes up more than a full page in the applications, so there is literally no way the FISA Court could have missed it.”
Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton on being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents. As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of “Justice” and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018
Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Ask her how that worked out – she did better with Crazy Bernie. Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018
Andrew McCarthy – “I said this could never happen. This is so bad that they should be looking at the judges who signed off on this stuff, not just the people who gave it. It is so bad it screams out at you.” On the whole FISA scam which led to the rigged Mueller Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018
.@PeteHegseth on @FoxNews “Source #1 was the (Fake) Dossier. Yes, the Dirty Dossier, paid for by Democrats as a hit piece against Trump, and looking for information that could discredit Candidate #1 Trump. Carter Page was just the foot to surveil the Trump campaign…” ILLEGAL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday, Page disputed certain assertions found in the application, echoing his past denials of being a Russian agent. No charges have been brought against the former campaign aide.
“No, I’ve never been an agent of a foreign power by any stretch of the imagination,” he said. “I may have, back in the [2013] G20 when they were getting ready to do that in St. Petersburg, I might have participated in a few meetings that a lot of people — including people from the Obama administration — were sitting on, and Geneva, Paris, et cetera, but I’ve never been anywhere near what’s being described here.”
“I sat in on some meetings,” he said separately. “To call me an adviser is way over the top.”
The New York Times and Washington Post both noted that they hadn’t found another example of a FISC warrant application that had been released publicly since the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act four decades ago.
I guess the same “Trump lies again” headline would get old.
Anytime, Mr. Mueller. Anytime…
That first tweet is at 4:28 AM. Pretty early in the morning to be so “obstructiony” but this guy is clearly a go-getter.
‘Nothing to see here, move along, please…’
It will be the never-ending debate: 'Which came first, the Page/FISA warrant renewal or the ‘Steele dossier’?; repugnicans will never admit/concede.
Let it go.
Trump is attacking the federal judiciary -again. There was no DOJ nor FBI misconduct his own DOJ asked for continued surveillance of Page. Sigh.
https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1021049824269959169