Promising more training and better procedures, the FBI told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court [FISA] Jan. 10 that it would implement new safeguards before filing with the court for warrants to wiretap U.S. citizens. When Department of Justice [DOJ] Michael Horowitz released his report to Congress Dec. 9, 2019, it noted 17 instances in which the FBI failed to follow DOJ procedures in seeking wiretaps on part-time Trump foreign policy aid Carter Page. FBI Director Christopher Page told the court that he would require agents to present all their evidence to justify FISA court warrants to wiretap U.S. or foreign citizens. “The FBI has the utmost respect for the court and deeply regrets the errors and omissions identified by” the IG, wrote Wray. Horowitz criticized the FBI for cherry-picking and misstating evidence to obtain warrants from the FISA court of wiretap Page.
Reported in the New York Times, the story completely omits the source of the evidence used by former FBI Director James Comey when he went to the court for a warrant on Page in July 2016. About that time, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) gave Comey a “dossier” of paid opposition research from the campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Times reporters point out that Horowitz found no evidence of “political bias” in opening up its counterintelligence investigation of 73-year-old President Donald Trump’s campaign. Yet the FISA Court was not told that Comey used as “probable cause,” or what the FBI calls “predicate,” Hillary’s paid opposition research designed to besmirch Trump and his presidential campaign. Failing to bring up Comey’s use of Hillary’s paid opposition research AKA “the Steele dossier,” tells the whole story.
New York Times editors don’t want to lend credibility to Trump’s claims that he was illegally wiretapped by the FBI for the purpose of helping Hillary win the 2016 presidential election. Omitting the fact that the FBI used Hillary’s dossier shows how badly the New York Times wants Trump to lose the 2020 race. No where does the Times report on the kind of mischief used by Comey to go after the Trump campaign in 2016. Comey was the first, following the Horowitz Report, to claim vindication, even though Horowitz said his report vindicates no one, certainly not Comey. Horowitz said the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign was legal but offered no statement about Comey’s use of the Steele dossier to obtain warrants from the FISA court. To underscore the fraudulent nature of the Steele dossier, Page was never charged with anything by the FBI.
Comey said he didn’t illegally “spy” on the Trump campaign because he had the authority from the FISA court to wiretap Trump campaign officials. Comey denied under oath that he used the Steele dossier as probable cause to the FISA court. Yet when asked about other sources, he mentioned nothing. Comey never told the FISA court that Page worked for the CIA, something that would have undercut the request for a warrant on a known CIA asset. When Horowitz said he did not find “documentary” evidence of FBI bias against Trump, it didn’t mean that bias did not exist. Well-known texts-and-emails between FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Atty. Lisa Page clearly show bias against Trump. Horowtiz, as IG, stuck only to known facts at hand, leaving it to others to prove motives. FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer said before stepping down last month she was deceived by the FBI.
Nowhere in the New York Times reporting does it mention that Comey and other FBI officials misled Collyer by using Hillary’s paid opposition research or Steele dossier as probable cause. “The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable,” Collyer said. Nowhere does the Times report that the fake information presented to Collyer was Hillary’s paid opposition research. Atty. Gen. William Barr assigned May 13, 2019 U.S. Atty. John Durham to get to the bottom of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign. Stepping down Jan. 1, Judge James E. Boasberg takes over as Presiding FISA court judge.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wants to implement new restrictions on the FBI’s FISA Court applications, especially when it comes to political campaigns. When Durham releases his report on the origin of the FBI counterintelligence investigation, it’s going to show a lot more than Horowitz. Papers like the New York Times and Washington Post will find more excuses to justify Comey’s use of the Hillary dossier to go after the Trump campaign. But if Graham has anything to do with it, the FBI won’t snoop around political campaigns, regardless of the unfounded allegations. McCain knew when he handed Hillary’s dossier to Comey in 2016 that it was pure propaganda designed to discredit the Trump campaign. It doesn’t help the New York Times’ credibility when it fails to report key details of how Comey relied on Hillary’s dossier to investigate Trump.
