Memo Day: Because You Said I Couldn't

I Will

Sources and Methods?

The source is the Clinton Campaign. The method is lying.

"To: HPSCI Majority Members
From: HPSCI Majority Staff
Subject: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department
of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Purpose
This memorandum provides Members an update on significant facts relating to the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Our findings, which are detailed below, 1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and 2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.
Investigation Update
On October 21, 2016, DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order (not under Title VII) authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC. Page is a u.s. citizen who served as a volunteer advisor to the Trump presidential campaign. Consistent with requirements under FISA, the application had to be first certified by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI. It then required the approval of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General (DAG), or the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for-the National Security Division.
The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC. As required by statute (50 U.S.C. §J805(d)(1)), a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. Then-Director James Corney 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 Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.
Due to the sensitive nature of foreign intelligence activity, FISA submissions (including renewals) before the FISC are classified. As such, the public’s confidence in the integrity of the FISA process depends on the court’s ability to hold the government to the highest standard particularly as it relates to surveillance of American citizens. However, the FISC’s rigor in protecting the rights of Americans, which is reinforced by 90-day renewals of surveillance orders, is necessarily dependent on the government’s production to the court of all material and relevant facts. This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application that is known by the government.
In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts. However, our findings indicate that, as described below, material and relevant information was omitted.
1) The “dossier’~ compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed’ an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research from Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or. any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.

b) The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named u.s. person, but does not name Fusion GPS and principal Glenn Simpson, who was paid by a U.S. law from (Perkins Coie) representing the DNC (even though it was known by DOJ at the time that political actor~ were involved with the Steele dossier). The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of-and paid by-the DNC and
Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.

2) The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23,2016, Yahoo News article by. Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. , This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News.
The Page FISA application incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News-and several other. outlets-in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS.
Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.

a) 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 in an October 30, 2016, Mother Jones article by David Com. Steele should have been  terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September-before the Page application was submitted to the FISC in October-but Steele improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts.

b) Steele’s numerous encounters with the media violated the cardinal rule of source handling-maintaining confidentiality-and demonstrated that Steele had become a less than reliable source for the FBI.

3) Before and after Steele was terminated as a source, he maintained contact with DOJ via then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOl official who worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Yates and later Rosenstein.
Shortly after the election, the FBI began interviewing Ohr, documenting his  communications with Steele. For example, in September 2016, Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he “was desperate that Donald
Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” This clear evidence of Steele’s bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files-but not reflected in any of the Page FISA applications.

a) During this same time period, Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs’ relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC.

4) According to the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial Page FISA application.  After Steele was terminated, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated. Yet, in early January 2017, Director Corney briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, even though it was -according to his June 2017 testimony- “salacious and unverified.”
While the FISA application relied on Steele’s past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in
Decemper 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.
5) The Page FISA application also mentions information regarding fellow Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, but there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos. The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete
Strzok.
Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s Office to FBI Human Resources for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page (no known relation to Carter Page), where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton, whom Strzok had also investigated. The Strzok/Lisa Page texts also reflect
extensive discussions about the investigation, orchestrating leaks to the media, and include a meeting with Deputy Director McCabe to discuss an “insurance” policy against President Trump’s election."....... 

Don Surber: "This, sir, is no Watergate; it is 10 times worse.

The Obama Scandal is the abuse of power by a president and his operatives to undermine the election -- and then to sabotage the regime change.

The release of the memo confirms the former.

We have known about the latter for a long time.

The Democratic Party, mainstream media, and thousands of political operatives in our federal government have spent the past year-plus sabotaging the peaceful transfer of power.

They seek to undermine our republic by replacing our elective process with a permanent bureaucracy of elitists controlled by Democrats, regardless of whom we elect. This is the government Patrick Henry feared, and James Madison tried to prevent.".......

This has gone way beyond Trump and Obama.

It is now about whether we're a democracy or a Blob-ocracy.

Moar Input-UPDATE:

Stein: "Wow, wow, and double wow. Now we are starting to get a look at a conspiracy so immense it can scarcely be believed. The media, the Democrat National Committee, a genuinely brain dead FISA judge, and now the media over and over again are shown to be working night and day to destroy the constitutional system of government. The media, apparently believing it is above the law (and I guess it is), has been working hand in glove with the HRC campaign to ensure that the GenSec of the Democrat/MSM Party could not lose the election of November 2016. Yet somehow, the GenSec, Madame Mao, Jing Qing (or however the hell it’s spelled) lost to a man who should never in a million years come even close to winning. So now the DNC/MSM coalition has had to go into the highest possible gear to cover up the failed conspiracy against the nation.

Instead of trying to get the big news out, the DNC/MSM apparatus worked like demons to bottle up the news. But now the news is out: The DNC/MSM Gang illegally spied on Trump. They didn’t use a bunch of burglars at the Watergate. They used the courts and they succeeded. They actually used a Russian or Russian friendly ex-spy, gossip, and bought paid for lies to violate the election laws and the civil rights of Americans.".......

Simon: "Their latest meme is "cherry picking." The memo was cherry-picked and therefore to be ignored. That's like saying a murderer who has a clean driving record and is a good cook is not a murderer. Whatever else happened, the FBI clearly used a slanderous fictional document to get a FISA ruling to surveil Carter Page without telling the court the document was a pack of lies paid for by the Clinton campaign and written by a creepy spy with old-line Soviet connections. And they did it multiple times.

The dossier was ludicrous on its face, yet the supposedly great legal minds of the FISA court accepted it as what appears to be the most important evidence for the case.

Think about that.

What we need, obviously, is the old word transparency. The public needs to see the full details of what went into the FISA decisions — and we don't need to hear any of that fake palaver about national security. Everybody's security depends on the FISA court working in a one-hundred percent unbiased manner. Otherwise we're living a nightmare.".......

Neumayr: "The media’s response to the release of the Nunes memo surpasses the level of Pravda covering a Soviet show trial. No sooner had the memo appeared than journalists immediately began throwing sand into their audience’s eyes. The story, according to the media, is not that Obama’s Justice Department/FBI snookered FISA court judges and used Hillary’s purchased Steele dossier to spy on Trumpworld. No, the scandal is that the evil Republicans exposed this outrage, and that Trump, the ultimate target of this espionage, has the gall to defend himself. How dare a defendant in our kangaroo trial defend himself with the truth — that’s the upshot of all the media’s bleating. All you can do is laugh at the intensity of the gibbering propaganda and misdirection, which is nothing more than the rage of a ruling class nabbed in an audacious act of political espionage. Katy Tur of MSNBC summed up the bewilderment of the ruling class perfectly: “None of this is normal.” In other words, we expose Republicans; they don’t expose us.
“None of this is normal” is what monopolists say when it dawns on them that they are losing their monopoly.
Much of the post-release coverage consisted of trotting out this or that “professional” from the deep state to call the Nunes memo “trash” without challenge. The kangaroo court was back in session, endlessly appealing to its own authority to bless the political espionage.
You can almost hear the Jeff Zuckers talking into their puppet-propagandists’ ears: Shoot the messenger, change the subject, talk about the “motivations” behind the memo, the “consequences” of the memo, what “Putin” might think of the memo, any “resignations” that might follow the memo’s release, but whatever you do don’t talk about the information in the memo.
The media’s favorite tactic is to treat Trump’s self-defense, even if it is rooted in the truth, as an ongoing scandal. It is appalling to the kangaroo court that he would “discredit” the probe into his campaign by pointing to discreditable behavior. That is a no-no. That is “politics.” That is “selfish,” placing his own “personal interests” above the “interests of the country.” The media’s view is that victims of political rape, provided they are Republicans, should sit back and enjoy it. Anything less is “not normal.”".......

You can't blame these heroic bureaucrats and politicians for throwing the Hillary prosecution,
wiretapping Trump and trying to frame him.

It's our broken Constitutional Coup system.

Clearly, we need Comprehensive Coup Reform.