BREAKING: Spy Court Admits FISA Warrants Against Carter Page Were ‘Not Valid’
By: By Sean Davis
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Authority granted to the federal government to secretly wiretap and spy on former Trump affiliate Carter Page was “not valid,” the nation’s top spy court noted in a secret ruling penned earlier this month. The order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which was created and authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), was initially signed and issued on January 7, 2020, but was not declassified and released until Thursday afternoon.
Judge James Boasberg, the current federal judge presiding over the FISA court, wrote in his order that at least two of the four FISA applications against Carter Page were unlawfully authorized. Additionally, according his order, the Department of Justice similarly concluded following the release of a sprawling investigate report on the matter by the agency’s inspector general that the government did not have probable cause that Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power. The FISA law states that American citizens cannot be secretly spied on by the U.S. government absent probable cause, based on valid evidence, that an American is unlawfully acting as a foreign agent.
“DOJ assesses that with respect to the applications in Docket Numbers 17-375 and 17-679, ‘if not earlier, there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power,'” Boasberg wrote, referring to the final two of the four FISA applications to spy on Page. “The Court understands the government to have concluded, in view of the material misstatements and omissions, that the Court’s authorizations in Docket Numbers 17-375 and 17-679 were not valid.”
Boasberg’s ruling noted that DOJ had not yet taken a position on the lawfulness of the first two applications against Page, but was currently collecting information to assess whether those two spy applications were also invalid. The invalid applications specified by Boasberg were dated April 7 and June 29 of 2017. The false and invalid April 7 application was personally signed by James Comey, while the false and invalid June 29 application was signed by Andrew McCabe. Both men were referred for criminal prosecution by the inspector general . Former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who is alleged to have offered to wear a wire against President Donald Trump , also signed off on the false June 29 FISA warrant against Page.
The FISA court order also noted that it is a federal crime for any federal official to “intentionally…disclose[] or use[] information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having any reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized” by law. The following sentence of Boasberg’s ruling is redacted, raising questions about whether the government used any information obtained pursuant to the now-invalid Page surveillance warrants in other cases.
The final warrant against Page overlapped with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The final three-month authorization to spy on Page was signed nearly six weeks after Mueller was appointed, meaning that Mueller may have had real-time access to and utilized nearly five months worth of surveillance of Page during the course of Mueller’s investigation. If his office used any of the information in subsequent cases, the declaration that the final two spy warrants against Page were invalid could potentially nullify previous or future convictions sought by Mueller’s office.
Surveillance under FISA is not limited to the individual targeted, as the government also surveils individuals with whom the target communicates, and individuals with whom those individuals communicate. That process is called the “two-hop” rule and allows the government to spy on and collect information and communications from individuals who are two degrees separated from the actual surveillance target. Therefore, even if Page never personally spoke to Trump on the phone, the government could still eavesdrop on Trump’s conversations if Page spoke to someone who had spoken to or electronically communicated with the president. It is not known whether the government used the two-hop process on Page to sweep up information from former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, or even the president himself.
In his January 7 order , Boasberg directed DOJ to retain and sequester all information and evidence relevant to both the Carter Page applications, the inspector general investigation of FISA abuse, and any additional DOJ investigations related to or spawned by the inspector general’s report. Boasberg told DOJ to provide all of the required information to the FISA court no later than January 28.
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Strange how long it took to just get the obvious acknowledged. Them we have all of this talk of fixing the system, as if that was the problem. Let us see if we can get some on the left to simply at long last admit there was FISA abuse committed by the highest level of the FBI
Rules of civility will be enforced
Never going to happen.
Their whole argument is that Carter Page wasn't harmed by the spying done on him. They don't care about the legality of it; or the fact that those associated even indirectly with Page were spied on as well illegally.
Oh, I see, so first was the denial of the Steele Dossier being used, then it was that the Dossier was only part of it, then the failed attempt at making the Dossier credible and now it's that the violation of Carter's rights didn't hurt him. And absolutely NO outrage from old fashioned liberals who supposedly believe in civil rights!
Hillary was supposed to win and none of this would see daylight.
How lucky we were. Now we get to see what those highly paid government officials are capable of.
All you have to do is take a look at the comments on NT when Carter Page was suing Hillary, DNC, Fusion GPS, and the government.
The violation of his rights were the last things on their minds.
And even with the proof of his rights being violated not much has changed!
The Federalist?! Really?!
The only rights that have been violated were violated by Trump himself.
The only laws that have been violated were violated by Trump himself.
The criminal in chief needs to be removed from office.
What do you see there that is not factual?
Before ridiculing The Federalist, perhaps you should open the sourcings that are embedded in the seeded article, because they come from federal government agencies and the NYT.
All anyone needed to do was a simple search using the words "Carter Page" and "FISA".
Here's another NYT article that supports the seeded Federalist article. If you can't open and read it, let me know - I'll copy/paste the text.
That is hilarious coming from you and Tex...
False grace is less than no grace at all fellas!
This seed isn't about religion.
You may have noticed that I asked that question 4 hours ago.....No takers!
That's when two adults can admit there was nothing left to contradict the facts.
Unbelievable, dirty cops at the highest level.
Pathetic effort to distract from Donald trump's impeachment.
Yes everyone! Dont pay attention to the impeachment of a man who wanted to pervert the power of the presidency to his personal , unethical use, let's instead concentrate on CARTER PAGE.
lol.
Where are the indictments against the FBI agents involved? This happened THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO. What is William Barr waiting for? Where is an expose of a co-ordinated "deep state"? Where is Durham? Where is Giuliani ? Where where where?
[ DELETED ] Both James Comey and Andrew McCabe were referred for criminal prosecution by the inspector general. I even bolded the section of the article.
It is laughable you commenting on anyone to hurry up. The Democrats have been openly trying to impeach Trump since before he took office. Nothing can distract anyone from that. Nor is anyone distracted from their asinine attempt now.
The Federalist is a crank, far right , web site.
The sentence above falsely implies that a criminal prosecution referral on Comey and Mccabe was made relating to the Carter Page FISA warrants.
That is a lie. If you read The Federalists own link to a previous article of theirs from last summer you see that the "criminal referral" reference is to different matters other than the FISA warrants.
Comey's was allegedly for leaking his personal notes of his dinner meeting with trump to reporters, and McCabes was for misleading FBI investigators about a matter related to his informing a reporter about the Hillary Clinton email s investigation.
The Federalist is, generally, not a credible source of information.
[Deleted]
It does not. It simply mentions that both had criminal referrals. Neither of which were acted upon. Obviously both men were all in on this scheme!
Don't make it personal. Just try and make your case
Vic, it implies they were referred for the FISA warrants. They were not.
You are seeding articles from a duplicitous website.
Why? because it's in the same sentence? Should they not remind the readers that both men had criminal referrals?
Well, that's silly.
Let's say Person A only got their information on say the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Russia and the FISA scandal from the Federalist.
Person B only got their information on those subjects from CNN, the Washington Post etc.
Guess which one wasn't at all surprised when Mueller found no conspiracy between Trump and Russia and that the FBI DOJ engaged in all sorts of shenanigans with the FISA Court?
It wasn't Person B, who got "news" that consisted of little more than Adam Schiff press releases and had been led to believe Meuller had all this secret evidence implicating Trump and that everything the FBI did with the FISA Court was by the book and vetted by Judges who hold the FBI accountable.
Pathetic effort to distract from the illegal activities that were perpetuated in the Obama administration, whose slimy tentacles reached into several federal agencies. This couldn't have come at a worse time for Democrats whose pathetic attempt to get rid of Trump has failed big time and will reflect badly on those shit stained wretches of the far left.
Some of these clowns might be doing the perp walk right around election time. .
2 more Republicans do a perp walk? Sounds about right.
Were they or were they not working for the Obama administration?
Nothing to do with the conversation, just another deflection.
Are they or are they not Republicans?
Did the two year Mueller fiasco bother you as well?
Haven't you heard?
The Democratic lemmings still think the Mueller investigation proved that Trump colluded with Russia; or at the very least obstructed their investigation that couldn't prove he colluded.
Of course that investigation was based on information from illegal FISA warrants using the Hillary Clinton paid for political hit job Steele Dossier. So they are accusing Trump of obstructing an illegal investigation to begin with.
What's the matter? We can't talk about more than one thing during the day?
Who's saying that?
Maybe they're coming. Or maybe all that's really needed is adjustment to policies and practices. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Unlawful even? Imagine that!
And probably very little will happen as a result. Maybe some procedures will get changed, or regulations rewritten. I expect and hope for no more than that and I expect that is the most any good Democrat would call for.
This kind of thing happens in our government bureaucracy every day. Consider the typical responses and compare them to the impeachment hysteria.
Somebody does something that they arguably shouldn't do. They might get caught and have to stop what they're doing. Often, they just say "sorry" and do it differently next time. If there is committed disagreement, they get the matter adjudicated by superior officers or in the courts. It doesn't always result in someone being arrested or losing their job. In fact, it rarely does. I doubt very much that many (if any) heads will be rolling over this FISA thing.
If we freaked out every time something like this happened, government would come to a screeching halt in about half a day (I understand, of course, that plenty of people think that would be a good thing).
Of course the Democratic Impeachment Club will tell me everything with Trump is entirely different. They have to tell themselves that or the cognitive dissonance would overwhelm them.
"My sight is failing," she said finally. "Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?"
For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
Final thoughts:
Here we have the FISA Court finally admitting what they had been silent on for so long. In December the Court condemned the FBI for the errors and omissions in its application to "surveil" Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page and gave the bureau until January 10th to propose reforms to prevent future abuses. Propose reforms? So now we will make it tougher to do the work the FISA Court was set up to do - protect the US from terrorism. The right thing to do was to punish a few rouge agents for spying on President Trump's associates!