In a surprise move, on Saturday evening the Department of Justice released copies of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications used to obtain a secret court order to conduct electronic surveillance on former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. The 412 pages of documents turned over in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by several media outlets included the initial October 2016 application and the three applications for renewal of the surveillance order.
While the newly released documents remain heavily redacted, the details revealed confirm the charges of abuse laid out early this year by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA). The documents also provide additional evidence that the Obama administration’s Department of Justice and career DOJ, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and State Department employees misused the FISA court system to spy on the Trump campaign. Here are ten key take-aways.
1. The State Department Had Its Fingers In this Mess
Last month, during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, it was revealed for the first time that “[f]ormer British spy Christopher Steele visited the State Department in October 2016 and briefed officials there about his work on the infamous anti-Trump dossier.” During questioning of President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, committee Chairman Richard Burr disclosed that “[b]ased upon our review of the visitor logs at the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department, briefing officials on the dossier in October 2016.”
Nuland, who in June 2016 had authorized the FBI to meet with Steele in London, denied attending the October 2016 meeting with Steele. She also “said in previous interviews that she and other State Department officials referred the dossier to the FBI,” but as The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross noted, “Burr’s revelations suggest the agency maintained interest in Steele and his report much longer than previously known.”
Saturday’s release of the FISA applications now exposes a new troubling detail: The DOJ sought the FISA surveillance order based on the information provided “by the U.S. Department of State” “in or about October 2016.” When considered in light of last month’s revelation that Steele had met with State Department officials in October, it now appears that the Obama administration’s State Department bore equal responsibility for presenting the FISA court unverified hearsay to justify spying on the Trump campaign.
2. The Applications Relied Heavily on the Steele Dossier
In charging the DOJ and FBI with abusing the FISA system, Republicans have long maintained that the FISA applications relied heavily on the Steele dossier’s unverified information—information the former British spook compiled for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Democrats challenge that assertion, stressing the bulk of the FISA applications and other information included. Although the redactions make it impossible to fully refute these claims, the FISA applications demonstrate the DOJ’s heavy reliance on the Steele dossier.
First, while the initial FISA application totals some 50 pages, large swaths of the double-spaced length consist of boilerplate jargon detailing the requested scope of the surveillance, claiming “compliance” with the statutory requirements for certification by FBI officials, and efforts to minimization the unintentional interception of third-party information.
Then there are the long narratives of background information concerning Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election. Only a relatively small portion of the total applications go to the question of whether probable cause exists to surveil Page. Those sections rely on the information the Steele dossier provided.
3. The FBI Paid Christopher Steele
It has long been known that the Clinton campaign and DNC paid Steele to compile the dossier. Media outlets have also reported, though, that the FBI did not compensate Steele. For instance, the Washington Post ran a story asserting, based on “several people familiar with the arrangement,” that Steele “had reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him,” but “[u]ltimately, the FBI did not pay Steele.” In another article, the Washington Post again claimed Steele was “not being paid as an informant,” but added that he may have been reimbursed for some travel expenses.
Those reports now appear questionable: The FISA applications state that Steele (identified as Source #1), “has been compensated” “by the FBI.” The redactions, though, leave open the question of how much and whether any of the payments compensated Steele for investigating the Trump campaign.
4. Warrants Relied On Hearsay from Tertiary Sources
The newly released FISA applications also confirm a fourth significant fact: To obtain the surveillance warrant, the DOJ and FBI relied on unverified hearsay from sub-sources (i.e., Steele’s sources) of unknown reliability.
While the government may rely on unverified information provided by an informant who has a history of providing reliable information, to establish probable cause with evidence coming from a source of unknown reliability, the government must corroborate that information. The FISA applications make no mention of corroboration of the sub-sources’ claims concerning Page’s purported conversations with two Russian agents.
Further, the FISA applications reveal that the DOJ only established Steele’s reliability, notthat of “sub-sources.” But as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy first highlighted in February 2018:
The only reliability that counts is the reliability of the factual informants, not of the investigator who purports to channel the informants. The judge wants to know why the court should believe the specific factual claims: Was the informant truly in a position to witness what is alleged, and if so, does the informant have a track record of providing verified information? The track record of the investigator who locates the sources is beside the point. A judge would need to know whether Steele’s sources were reliable, not whether Steele himself was reliable.
While we do not know what lay behind the redacted portions of the applications, it seems clear from the placement, context, size of the blackouts that the FBI did not include information in the application either establishing the sub-sources’ reliability or detailing any efforts to corroborate Page’s claimed collusion with the Russian agents.
5. The DOJ Used News Outlets to Establish Probable Cause
The FISA applications further exposed the extent to which the DOJ relied on unverified media reports to support their request for court-ordered electronic surveillance of Page. Contrary to Democrat claims that the applications’ reliance on a Yahoo News article was passing, the FISA documents detailed the Yahoo News article’s assertion that a “well-placed Western intelligence source,” told the news organization that Page met with the Russian agents in July.
Just as statements from unverified “sub-sources” could not establish probable cause, unverified newspaper articles could not either. The DOJ, however, did not limit itself to repeating the Yahoo News article’s claims, which the public later learned had also originated from Steele. The FISA application also cited two other media reports.
One was apparently Josh Rogin’s Washington Post opinion article, which reported claims that Trump campaign members “worked behind the scenes to make sure [the GOP]’s platform would not call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces.” The DOJ also relied on an article from August 2016—likely the Michael Crowley Politico piece—that “opined that while the reason for [Trump’s] shift [in Russian policy] was not clear, [Trump]’s more conciliatory words, which contradict [the GOP]’s official platform, follow [Trump]’s recent association with several people sympathetic to Russian influence in Ukraine, including foreign policy advisor Carter Page.”
There are two fundamental problems with this portion of the FISA application. First, as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York explained, the GOP platform narrative the Washington Post and Politico pushed was extremely misleading. Second, when I asked Page whether he participated in the GOP Russia platform debate, the former Trump advisor responded with an emphatic “NEVER,” and shared this excerpt from his defamation lawsuit against a media conglomerate:
Asking for 18 pages to be declassified so it can be determined if the Page warrant has additional evidence to justify the extension, Page is still a free uncharged man.
AGAIN, we find out what we already knew; that, though they knew the facts, the Democrats were lying to protect the “credibility” of this political witch hunt. WE knew it, THEY knew it and, certainly, MUELLER knew it, because no information he has to support the suspicions come from any credible source.
More lies from the left and deep state.
This is what happens when the investigators WANT to believe the information they get… so badly that they don’t even pause long enough to consider the source.
Leaked? Or provided by Obama’s SPIES?
Yet, though not even a particle of this accusation has been shown to be worthy of suspicion (“master spy” Page has never been indicted or charged with anything), the “investigation” continues. “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”… who said that? Obama? Mueller? Comey? Strzok? All of the above?
It seems as more and more solid evidence is forcibly wrested from the hands of the DOJ, FBI and Democrats that shows the depth, complicity and incredibly false nature of the conspiracy, the less and less we see of our liberal friends who regularly visit. Rich, who doesn’t answer questions anyway, stated he is taking a “sabbatical” from routinely lying, whining and dodging questions about his views until after the mid-terms; my guess is if they go the direction they appear to be heading, he won’t be back any time soon. One wonders why?