House memo describes misuse of FISA rules by Obama administration
The House intelligence committee memo released today reveals clear misuse of the FISA law and its rules for allowing spying on American citizens.
Essentially, the memo outlines how the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, and the FBI used sloppy, inaccurate, and unverified Clinton campaign material to get a FISA warrant, without revealing this fact to the courts, and then used that warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, during the campaign. Had they told the courts about the nature of that Clinton campaign material, the courts would never have allowed the FISA warrant.
This release essentially confirms what was already commonly known, that the Obama administration was misusing FISA to try to obtain campaign dirt on the Trump campaign.
I should note that, having read the memo, I can find nothing in it that threatens American security in any way. There was never any reason to keep it classified. In fact, the entire FBI investigation that is describes had nothing to do with the country’s security. Instead, it was clearly an effort by the FBI, the Justice Department, and Obama to abuse their power in order to sabotage the campaign of their political opponent.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The House intelligence committee memo released today reveals clear misuse of the FISA law and its rules for allowing spying on American citizens.
Essentially, the memo outlines how the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, and the FBI used sloppy, inaccurate, and unverified Clinton campaign material to get a FISA warrant, without revealing this fact to the courts, and then used that warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, during the campaign. Had they told the courts about the nature of that Clinton campaign material, the courts would never have allowed the FISA warrant.
This release essentially confirms what was already commonly known, that the Obama administration was misusing FISA to try to obtain campaign dirt on the Trump campaign.
I should note that, having read the memo, I can find nothing in it that threatens American security in any way. There was never any reason to keep it classified. In fact, the entire FBI investigation that is describes had nothing to do with the country’s security. Instead, it was clearly an effort by the FBI, the Justice Department, and Obama to abuse their power in order to sabotage the campaign of their political opponent.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Reposted: Lets cherry pick the essential points about the memo, short and sweet:
1. The initial Carter Page FISA warrant that set it all off was misrepresented to the court, they basically lied to the FISA judge so the entire special investigation I will assume is invalid.
2. They also did not reveal to the judge that Steele revealed that he had extreme bias against Trump becoming president.
3. It was not revealed that the DNC essentially paid Steele. The dossier is not research but a political hit piece paid for by trumps opposition.
4. McCabe testified that no warrant would have been granted by the court if the court knew what the FBI / DOJ knew and understood.
5. DOJ #4 Bruce Ohr, and the fact that his wife worked directly for Fusion, was concealed from the court.
6. The Hillary interviewer and indictment softening Strzock, and his girl friend Page communications and conspiracy against Trump becoming president.
7. Steele, an FBI agent essentially, fed information about the dossier to certain cooperative media outlets.
My fist thoughts on this?
DOJ head Jeff Sessions can now be freed to either establish that he is in fact the head of the DOJ and do what must be done or resign / be fired.
That is the first thing that came to my mind.
My second confirmed thoughts;
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/31/robert-mueller-requests-postponement-of-general-mike-flynn-sentencing/
“, I can find nothing in it that threatens American security in any way. There was never any reason to keep it classified. In fact, the entire FBI investigation that is describes had nothing to do with the country’s security. ”
You do not consider that law enforcement agencies within our own government looking to overturn a valid presidential election a threat to national security?
The Dossier may be information apparently produced in some kind of association with Russia or Russian interested party’s funneled into the American courts and it basically seeks to overthrow a presidency.
In addition, does what the memo layout create a Constitutional crisis? Is that a security threat to the nation? Whether the Russians were fully involved or not? Lets think a bit further out, no?
Cotour: Don’t be silly. You know quite well that when I was referring to the lack of national security threat, I was not referring to the corruption at the FBI, but at the claims that releasing this information would reveal legitimate intelligence information. There is no legitimate intelligence information here, other than the fact that the FBI was misusing its power to try to steal an election.
Cotour–
The Feds conduct intelligence-investigations all the time. Most if not all (at least originating domestically) require a FISA warrant of some sort.
-If you will recall, this morphed into a criminal investigation. Even if everything was kosher, this memo alone does not ‘cancel’ Mueller’s criminal investigation.
Mark Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation, was the only one who filed an Amicus brief directly to the FISA Court, at the time, asking about the manner & form of the 3 requests & 2 actual warrants issued.
-Obama & his cronies, made up stuff & lied to the FISA Court to get warrants.
This goes all the way to the Top. And as I mentioned in another thread, these current clowns just are not the droids for which we are ultimately looking. Minor actors– we need to get the Guy who was In Kontrol.
Jordan Peterson:
“The reason modern people can’t see God, is that they won’t look low enough”
[clip from the “Mayhem while we’re freezing and starving: my talk at Western University.]
https://youtu.be/n2py4aBpmko
7:04
“-If you will recall, this morphed into a criminal investigation. Even if everything was kosher, this memo alone does not ‘cancel’ Mueller’s criminal investigation.”
What is the crime being investigated?
If the FISA warrant, which is what everything is based on, is based on fraudulent and purposefully incomplete information presented to a FISA judge what does that say about the Mueller investigation?
Definition of collusion: secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose acting in collusion with the enemy.
I think we do have a case of collusion here, only its between the FBI, DOJ, The Hillary operation, Steele, the media and information that supposedly comes from THE RUSSIANS. Now that appears to be a slam dunk, through evidence, criminal case of collusion.
And again, the Trump “collusion” investigation becomes born through false information that has violated, in this case D.J. Trump’s Constitutional rights, not to mention depriving the American people their duly elected president as per their Constitutional rights. Collusion, corruption, sedition, subversion, abuse of power, and on and on it goes.
The Mueller investigation should never have been in existence in the first place. Should something still exist that should not have existed in the first place?
I know that I am cranked on this particular subject but I can not help myself because of what this memo release reveals about how some in our country choose to think. Specifically very high ranking individuals in government and specifically by the name of Nancy Pelosi.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/02/02/pelosi-nunes-trump-gop-memo/
This is her interpretation:
“He (Trump) has abdicated his responsibilities as commander in chief to protect the American people by protecting our intelligence sources and the rest,” she said of Trump. ““If the president uses this fake, horrible release of distorted intelligence as an excuse to fire [deputy attorney general Rod] Rosenstein or [special counsel Robert] Mueller, it could lead to a constitutional crisis.”
So its “intelligence” at any cost, even the Constitution?
Trump is not going to fire Mueller or Rosenstein, the Congress is going to have to do it. By a majority of both houses, they again will have to be dragged to it by public sentiment. And Nancy Pelosi can thank her conspiratorial compatriots if there comes a Constitutional crisis and her and her insistence that the American people remain ignorant. (Liberals love people to be and remain stupid) She, Nancy Pelosi, needs to resign her seat and go home to her San Francisco mansion and remain there in shame.
Pelosi, Comey and many on the Left suggest that we all allow the perversion of our Constitution and law because “The FBI and others in government agency members do a dangerous job”. I have a big problem with this stunted and circular (Moronic) thinking, it endangers us all and its all based in partisan politics and not the interests of America and certainly not in the interest of the Constitution.
Cotour–
yeah, you are cranked-up on this Topic!
(lighten up on the Adderall!)
But seriously–Go for it, it’s still a relatively free Country!
:)
(whaddabout’ that alleged LV shooter? He’s conveniently cremated and disappeared, but the Autopsy isn’t done yet? yeah… sure, that’s the ticket! )
just briefly….
-It’s totally unclear what is being investigated! (but everyone is getting paid….)
-Those FISA warrants look pretty darn illegal to me, which would void them & anything that lead from them. (except if they use the “parallel-construction” route and claim, “we would have ‘discovered something’ even without the warrant’s.”
-“Conspiracy” is a crime. “Collusion,” (I’m pretty sure,) only comes up in the anti-trust laws, and only in conjunction with actual conspiracy. Trump not only did not collude, he did not conspire. HRC and Barack, on the other hand? Oh yeah… dead bang they did!
(every time you hear the word “collusion,” it’s a dead give away the person is crazed. It’s viewing this mess through a lefty lens, avoid it.)
Cotour
February 2, 2018 at 1:31 pm
“-If you will recall, this morphed into a criminal investigation. Even if everything was kosher, this memo alone does not ‘cancel’ Mueller’s criminal investigation.”
What is the crime being investigated?
Russia has been meddling but we won’t be learning about that. The investigation is to see if Trump colluded with the Russians. It will not be looking at what Russia actually does in our society to meddle. This is because Democrats have been working with the Russians for decades.
Democrat activist groups, aka the Democrat base, has been heavily influenced by Russia operations for a long long time. Even now, some of their activist groups get funding from the Russians, while others just carry on with “critical theory” installed by the KGB.
There was the famous incident with Ted Kennedy too.
The Obama amin was also very accommodating with Russia, just as Hillary was.
wodun
extremely good stuff!
Unless Mueller can come up with some other form of evidence related to this supposed “criminal” activity, but still, any information that is a function of the Mueller investigation is now IMO void because the Mueller investigation itself, through Deputy of the FBI McCabe’s testimony before Congress would not have been granted without the fraudulent evidence being presented to the FISA judge.
They are going to have to show the evidence now.
How can an investigation that should not have existed in the first place continue to investigate something that it is now established it has no authority to investigate?
The logic puzzle here is difficult for many, mostly on the left, to comprehend.
James Comey ” Thje FBI must continue doing there job” yeah, so? What is your point Comey? That fact still does not explain your actions to formulate your and your compatriots own preferred results in the 2016 presidential election violating someones Constitutional rights and your actions after that event.
How do we know who has the bigger problem? Who is being fired and who is resigning their positions? When the indictments start to show up that will be further evidence of the bigger problem and who owns it.
Let’s step back, take a look at the big picture and realize what this memo means.
The fall-out from this memo will determine if we still have a constitutional govt. with actual law (more in a moment.)
If the media machine goes into high gear to ‘inform’ us that none of these criminal conspirators ‘intended’ to cause any harm and enough people are satisfied with that then we no longer have a country because they’ve just invalidated the rule of law.
Rule of law BTW has never been about the rules. It’s always been about the people and selective enforcement. If people don’t understand this memo and demand punishment that means something; that means (repeating myself) we have lost our country and there is no fix. This has been the whole point of dumbing down our education system for generations.
The memo doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, but with the memo it’s undeniable and action must result. We have become a nation of children where any doubt lets people off the hook when that doubt is NOT reasonable. Hillary didn’t become president precisely because people (realizing it or not) had no doubt.
Obama needs to go down; Hillary needs to go down; every criminal person and association of theirs needs to go down; and a real investigation should begin that doesn’t interfere with any charges against them (you don’t wait for better. You get them now. They can stand trial again after they’re in prison.)
100 years ago they’d all be publicly shot or hung. That would be too good for them.
Bob, your point that there was no national security issue to prevent releasing the memo and the implication are entirely correct. They got caught and they know it. But Cotour’s point is also valid to the extreme. This is ALL about national security and sedition. It is time for a witch hunt, but the witches are the shadow government and we need to burn them all even at the cost of some that simply went along.
Any American that isn’t seeing red right now doesn’t deserve this country.
Since FISA warrants are supposed to be used for espionage or terrorist activity, I’m sure that Page’s suspected espionage or terrorist activity will become clear when we read the Democratic response to this memorandum. The Democrats will explain it. This must be what the Democrats mean by “misleading” and “cherry picked” information; the real information would have shown Page’s involvement with spies or terrorists.
The memo points out that Steele lied to the FBI, but his lie was not a process violation but an attempt to deceive the FBI. Perhaps he, too, will soon be prosecuted, because his lie was far, far worse than Scooter Libby’s or Michael Flynn’s; they merely disagreed with someone else’s statement or stated something in a different way a second time.
As far as I can tell, the only reason for the memo to be classified Top Secret is to prevent anyone from discovering the truth about the extent of the government corruption. Without this memo, the corruption is only rumor.
I’m sure that when we read the Democratic response, we will understand how this kind of activity by government departments is not corrupt but that it is acceptable for government to take one side during a political campaign.
wayne,
I recommend that you avoid getting caught up in Cotour’s stuff; he will drag you down into a rabbit hole. I learned the hard way that he does learn from anyone’s responses, even when they answer his direct questions. He has his opinions and his own facts, and he’s sticking to them.
Just a recommendation.
ken-
extremely good stuff.
Dr. Jordan Peterson
“Evil Bloody Well Exists” clip
https://youtu.be/zPfFqFl31ZI
(6:35)
If Mr. Sessions doesn’t, in very short order, grow a spine, rescind his recusal, fire and bring charges against the conspirators and begin acting like America’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer .. well, he needs to find another job. His time to shine and be a positive factor in out nation’s history in upon him. He must realize this or be made to.
I hear you “Molten Carpet”, livin rent free right between your ears.
Make sure you keep reading everything I write, you know, to keep up with my “ridiculous” and “not credible” opinions and analysis.
Is this the first official confirmation we’ve had of the 30 December NYT story that it was indeed Mr. Papadopoulos’s drunken boasting which led the FBI to launch their counterintelligence investigation?
zootopia
the howl…
https://youtu.be/Jw0c9z8EllE
0:37
This is how MSNBC sees it all, Trump, who from what I can see has had HIS CONSTITUTIONAL rights violated, “is a dictator!”. And Donny Deutch says “people need to take to the streets”? For what? Because these actors were revealed to be bad political actors who have attempted to subvert the peoples will?
I think that the Left in the media believe that their only way back to power is through chaos and violence in the streets. Which I do not believe will be happening because the American people in general know intuitively, even if they can not overtly admit it, that the democrats here are totally out of control and desperate.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/02/msnbc-take-to-the-streets/
Two very different world interpretations exist in America today, in the media anyway. But like I have pointed out to those who ask me: Who has been either fired or removed from their high level jobs? (Comey, Rybeki, Page, Strzock, Ohr). Did Trump have them removed? Why did they leave their jobs?
How is it that Trump is a dictator? Because as the truth is coming out and the people who have done wrong, who are political actors within government, are all loosing their jobs? That establishes Trump to be a dictator? Would they really leave their jobs just because they thought Trump did not like them?
Do any of these MSNBC talking heads have a problem with this all in reality leading right up the ladder to former president Obama and his lieutenants, Lynch and Eric “Im Obama’s wing man” Holder? Was it maybe that Obama was in actuality the wana be dictator that has been revealed? This will be entirely invisible to them?
People, especially at the levels we are talking about in the organizations we are talking about usually do not leave their jobs but for very good and solid reasons, both good and bad. And these people from where I sit have all left their jobs for bad actor reasons. The good and righteous do not quit their high powered jobs, but the truly guilty do.
Cotour: You are making an error. This FISA warrant has nothing to do with the Mueller investigation. It was issued during the period prior to Trump taking office. The Mueller investigation was initiated far later, and not because of any evidence from this FISA warrant.
That said, I have been discussing this story with those in the know, and there will be plenty of revelations coming in connection to the Mueller stuff. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
Robert wrote: “This FISA warrant has nothing to do with the Mueller investigation.”
Confusion may come from the fact that the Steele “dossier” was used both to obtain the FISA warrant as well as part of the excuse to create the Mueller investigation. This is the commonality between the two actions.
Although it did not win her the election, as had been intended, Clinton is getting her money’s worth out of that bogus pile of horse stuff.
Except for the part where she has now been shown to be the one who colluded with the Russians to throw the election.
Yes, the Dossier / Clinton campaign product, as I am understanding this all, is a universal key to all doors here, that is its designed function. The FISA warrant / warrants, which were started previous to the election using Carter Page as the wedge and entre to spy on the Trump campaign and begin the Mueller “Russian Collusion” investigation. Page is a squrrily character, vociferously claims to be a patriot, a minor player who does not appear to have ever met with Trump but may have met with Kissleack at some point. He does not come across as a player of import (But that may be his spy super power?)
Rabbit hole time:
A Youtuber pointed out something potentially interesting related to Mueller and exactly what he is investigating.
https://youtu.be/QPnMyftwpE0
Mueller, White hat? Or Black hat?
Mueller is elbow deep in everything from the 911 investigation (and we all know what I think of that) right up and into Uranium One and not reporting to Congress about it (By the way, remember Mr. Campbell who was going to testify about his 6 years inside Uranium One, video tape, documents, brief cases full of cash, what ever happened to him?) and now through to the Trump / Russia “collusion” investigation.
Once again, 2018 is a pivotal year in American history, the battle will be intense and many on both sides will fall. Prepare to gird your loins.
Quick follow up:
1. Its the Dossier to help defeat Trump through public scandal. (Trying to rattle Trump and his supporters with scandal, you have got to laugh at that one. What were they thinking? We were hiring a ruthless American political hit man, not a choir boy.) And the dossier was presented to the FISA court and used to gain legal access to spy on the Trump campaign using Carter Page, for the Obama / Clinton operatives. The first attempt at taking Trump out.
2. After Trump wins in spite of the Dossier then it is used again to continue the FISA warrant to begin the “Russian / Trump Collusion” investigation. The second attempt to take Trump out. Still ongoing.
Tom, every time Session speaks he proves he’s the wrong guy for the job. I understand how Trump got himself into this spot, but he needs to fix this. It would make his life a lot simpler, but who could he trust?
Ken Anthony:
Trey Gowdy, he would make an Attorney General that would have many bad actors bust into tears and become unable to control their own bodily functions.
Notice that Gowdy has announced that he is stepping down, says he is going back to practicing law.
BUT, here he IMO seems to contradict himself and says that the Mueller investigation should continue despite the Memo / dossier revelations. If the dossier was the main reason to open the investigation and it has been proven faulty and lies accompanied its presentation to a FISA judge, then how can the investigation continue without legal doubts about its viability and initial reason to exist in the first place. Faulty logic? Convenient logic?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/gowdy-gop-memo-doesn-discredit-mueller-probe-article-1.3798165
You may want a Russian investigation but how you get there has IMO been short circuited by the Memo / dossier revelations and must be accomplished in another way. Convenience, unless he knows something that we don’t (And that is likely) is not how you get from point A to point B.
“We need an investigation”, does not preclude a candidates rights.
PS: These behaviors and illegal actions that is in the process of being revealed that have existed within the DOJ and the FBI, subordinates of an elected administration / administrations and a governmental monolith is all pure and unabashed S.O.M.. Happening today, in front of everyone’s eyeballs, the foundation of abuse of power.
Leadership and their subordinates must somehow accomplish its prime directive, “LEADERSHIPS CORE PRIME DIRECTIVE: Above all else the securing, promotion and survival of the society, culture, territory, power and treasure.” it is essential, but the Constitution structures certain rules of operation that must be adhered to in order to accomplish ITS prime directive and designed purpose, the short circuiting of the abuse of power that threatens every free born Americans freedoms.
S.O.M. is the poisonous natural human state related to power and the Constitution is the attempt to counter balance that nature and is the proposed antidote, if it is adhered to. Some Americans seem to be proposing that these administration subordinates, the FBI and the DOJ, are now somehow above and separate from oversight and these attempts at counter balancing the thing that threatens us all.
They are incorrect and now must be corrected by adhering to the rules / antidote if we are to continue on.