Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

FISA... an exercise in bad Judgement

I'm writing this journal entry before the 4 page memo is being released.

There is plenty of misdirection taking place as one might expect. The Democrats don't want the American People to know that the Obama Administration DOJ/FBI used a false narrative (Steele Dossier) to beef up a FISA warrant application that was then used to surveil an opposition candidate. If this happened the voters need to know. The Democratic narrative for the past year has been that the President is guilty of collusion and obstructed justice to cover it. That will come out in the Muller Investigation if it happened. Conversely, if the Obama Administration used its influence at the DOJ and FBI to go light on Hillary, and used a phoney document, to beef up a FISA warrant, twice turned down... to hoodwink a Federal Judge...then the American Public needs to know this as well.
It's one thing to get factual dirt on a political opponent and quite another to manufacture that dirt.


The essential elements of information are:

1. Who signed off on the petition for the FISA warrant.... the third time it was applied for?

2. Were parts of the Dossier used to beef up the warrant... as the Judge who turned down the first two requests insisted?

3. Who was the DOJ lead lawyer who carried the petition into the courtroom?

4. What was the basis for granting the warrant on the third try, after the first two tries were unsuccessful?

******

Around noon here Memo hit the streets. Take a look at how the contents fit into the EEI mentioned above.


1. Who signed off on the petition for the FISA warrant.... the third time it was applied for?

The memo says..."The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page..." This was on October 21, 2016. This was the first successful attempt following two that were rejected earlier. In this one instance, at least, the dossier was used.

2. Were parts of the Dossier used to beef up the warrant... as the Judge who turned down the first two requests insisted?

The memo says...."The "dossier"...formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application.

The memo goes on to quote Deputy Director McCabe who testified on December 2017 that... "no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISA without the Steel dossier information.

3. Who was the DOJ lead lawyer who carried the petition into the courtroom?

The memo does not identify the lead DOJ lawyer who brought the petition before the FISA court.

The memo does state that...." a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by there FISA every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding for probable cause. Then-Director Jame Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Then-DAG Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Bent, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of the DOJ.

4. What was the basis for granting the warrant on the third try, after the first two tries were unsuccessful?

The memo does not mention the earlier attempts to obtain a warrant. In Klein's book he reports that in the initial attempt...." The Judge arranged a conference call with his peers and decided that the application did not ..."rise to the level of an urgent request, because there was no evidence of a national emergency and for that matter no proof that Donald Trump was connected to Russian Espionage. He scheduled a hearing for later in the week.

You can imagine the chilling effect this had on the DOJ legal term petitioning the court. Sally Yates, the Deputy Attorney General returned on the appointed day, in person, to take the matter into her own hands. After hearing the petition the Judge went behind the scenes and again consulted with other FISA judges. An hour later he reemerged and told Sally and her team of lawyers that he was rejecting the government's application for a warrant. "The application had to be modified so that it did not appear that the government was indulging in Reverse Intelligence." It is not revealed by the memo if the dossier was a part of the first two applications.

5. How does the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who appoints these 11 judges, weigh in on the decision? Was the FISA Judge's decision prudent, based upon factual supporting evidence? Was the Judge "hoodwinked," by manufactured evidence? Was the Judge left leaning... like those in the 9th District Court? Basically, why did the Judge grant the petition, when two red flags had been raised previously? There was a precedent for saying "No" so what was it about the third petition that made it more palatable than the previous two. From the memo it appears that making the Steele Dossier the centerpiece, was the answer for getting the warrant. The FISA court is a last line of defense and is supposed to protect the people from the very abuses that are being alleged. The Chief Justice should be very concerned about what has happened here. The "hoodwinked" hypothesis might remove him from the spotlight but does not absolve the Chief Justice from a good measure of the responsibility. We deserve an explanation of what happened that day in the Secret Court. There was a stenographer present. Rand Paul is absolutely correct. The system "Hiccuped" leading to failures in both the judicial and application process.