Showing posts with label FISA warrant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FISA warrant. Show all posts

Friday, October 26, 2018

The DOJ goes nuclear on Trump in the delay game on FISA warrants to cover up FBI wrongdoing, hoping Democrats win the US House in November

From the story here:

In court filings last week the Department of Justice deployed what could be the nuclear option in its latest effort to prevent President Trump from declassifying information regarding FISA warrants used to spy on his campaign aide Carter Page: It is claiming that such a move would interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 

This is the first time the DOJ has explicitly made this argument implying personal peril for the president, since interference could open Trump to charges of obstruction of justice. Until now, the department has argued that declassifying the documents threatened national security.

In the 178-page court document, DOJ officials said they had “determined that disclosure of redacted information in the Carter Page FISA documents could reasonably be expected to interfere with the pending investigation into Russian election interference."

That rationale has heightened suspicions among congressional investigators that the special counsel is being used to prevent the disclosure of possible FBI abuses and crimes committed during the Russia probe. ...

[S]ources told [Real Clear Investigations] that the president and the DOJ are at a standoff. “Trump knows that what’s in those documents clears him of all the collusion stuff,” said a third congressional source, “and it shows the FBI was doing some very bad things.” 
 
But what’s now keeping Trump from pulling the curtain back on the Russia investigation is the probe itself. “That’s the leverage the DOJ has on Trump,” explained this source. “Nothing on Russia or collusion or anything like that — it’s the actual investigation. If he’s seen to be interfering, they move to obstruction.”

Thursday, October 4, 2018

FBI lawyer James Baker met with law firm paid by DNC to compile dossier, in 2016 before securing FISA warrant against Trump


It means the FBI had good reason to suspect the dossier was connected to the DNC’s main law firm and was the product of a Democratic opposition-research effort to defeat Trump — yet failed to disclose that information to the FISA court in October 2016, when the bureau applied for a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“This is a bombshell that unequivocally shows the real collusion was between the FBI and Donald Trump’s opposition — the DNC, Hillary and a Trump-hating British intel officer — to hijack the election, rather than some conspiracy between Putin and Trump,” a knowledgeable source told me.

Monday, October 1, 2018

"Key allies" persuade Trump to rescind declassification order for FISA materials involving Carter Page

"The guards of a tyrant are foreigners" cuts both ways.

The English aren't worth it, Mr. President, and neither are your "key allies". End the disease of secret courts.

The Orange County Register comments here:

Trump has now asked the DOJ’s inspector general to review the unreleased classified material quickly. The president said he still may declassify the documents, and there’s good reason to do so. If government power was misused to spy on an American citizen and a political campaign, Congress should look at reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, at a minimum.

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Agent admits FBI leaks info to get it into the news, reports about which are then used by FBI to get FISA warrants

The practice is similar to the FBI's common practice of identifying potential "terrorists" whom FBI agents then suborn to commit criminal acts by posing as terrorists themselves.

From the story here:

A top FBI special agent admitted to House committees last week that bureau officials were known to leak information to the press and then use the resulting articles to help obtain surveillance warrants. 

Special Agent Jonathan Moffa, who worked with controversial former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, testified last Friday behind closed doors before the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee. 

A source with knowledge of his testimony confirmed to Fox News that Moffa said FBI personnel would use media reports based on information they leaked to justify applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

More FBI incompetence: "Unable to further identify the person who made the comment 'I'm going to be a professional school shooter'"

According to the story here.

These malcontents can get a FISA warrant on the basis of Democrat opposition research to surveil Trump, but somehow can't get to the bottom of whose YouTube account was used to post what appears to be the Florida shooter's threat.

Reminds me of James Comey, the former head of the FBI, testifying about the San Bernardino shooting that he did not know how guns are purchased on the internet (they are not).

As I recall, Google can be compelled by a court order, but the FBI was obviously keeping the court busy with something "more important".

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Anonymous sources tell WaPo that FBI had FISA warrant last summer to spy on Trump adviser

Trump has maintained all along that Obama had his wires tapped.


Monday, March 6, 2017

Robert Barnes: Obama and his team face jeopardy if they got a FISA warrant by withholding information

From his carefully presented state of the case here at Lawnewz:

and so, third, Obama circumvented both the regular command of the FBI and the regularly appointed federal courts, by placing the entire case as a FISA case (and apparently under Sally Yates at DOJ) as a “foreign” case, and then omitted Trump’s name from a surveillance warrant submitted to the FISA court, which the FISA court unwittingly granted, which Obama then misused to spy on Trump and many connected to Trump. Are these allegations true? We don’t know yet, but if any part of them are then Obama and/or his officials could face serious trouble.

Can a President be charged with a crime? Only once out of office. While in office, impeachment remains the exclusive remedy in order to avoid a single judicial branch trying to overturn an election, such as a grand jury in any part of the country could. Once out of office, a President remains immune from civil liability for his duties while President, under a 1982 decision of the United States Supreme Court. However, as the Nixon pardon attests, nothing forecloses a criminal prosecution of the President after his presidency is complete for crimes against the country. Obama, the Constitutional lawyer, should know that.