...1. The warrants were renewed three times. I'd think that they were required to show the progress that they'd made with the warrants to get them renewed....
I was already planning on writing something about Carter Page today.
For starters, it's always good to remember FISA courts are not like other courts. They are a specially created circumvention of regular federal courts. IMO, the reason they are "special" and "secret" is that what they really do is allow FBI/DOJ to circumvent the Constitution. It's a very big deal.
Also important to note is that the type of warrant used here was under Title I which requires the specific allegation by both DOJ and FBI that they had evidence that the target US Person (here C.Page) was essentially working as a spy. These are to be distinguished from Title VII warrants which seek to review 'ancillary data' collected on a US citizen while they were spying on a foreign person. This distinction is key. The FBI was not targeting Page incidentally. The FBI was targeting Page directly. Which gave them full surveillance authority upon "all of his activities, interactions, communications and contacts therein."
And it means the legal the standard is higher. To spy on an American through a FISA court, the FBI must show the target is an “agent of a foreign power,” not merely in contact with a foreign power. The law makes it difficult to show someone is an “agent of a foreign power” to make sure it is not misused to spy on Americans. The FBI is required to show the US person “knowingly engages in clandestine intelligence gathering activities for or on behalf of a foreign power”
and the nature of their activity is criminalized. This is not to be understated -- there must be specific evidence of a particular national security threat.
Another interesting fact regarding the type of warrant they used on Page is that there is an additonal level of approvals required that go up the chain. Check out the list of names here who signed off on these approvals -- James Comey (3X), Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein.
OK so since proving an American is an “agent of a foreign power” is not an easy thing to do, what proof did Comey, McCabe, Yates, Rosestein (+Peter Strzok and others) provide that Carter Page was an active Russia spy and a particular national security threat? They gave the Court the Steele Dossier (which was originally paid for by HRC/DNC). They gave the Court articles from the media (which we now know were leaks from Steele himself directly to certain media members). And they gave the Court some Nellie-Ohr- generated material. She was an employee of GPS Fusion and wife of the now twice-demoted Bruce Ohr. And they did this without notifying the Court of the political nature of this "proof."
That is a pretty sketchy package to support the idea that any US citizen is a spy for Russia. And these folks certified this sketchy package four different times. But the truth is not even the FBI itself thought much of this material.
What have they got from these many months of spying on Carter Page anyway? Is he in jail?
No, he is not in jail. He testified before Mueller's grand jury. And he has sat for at least 10 hours of interviews with FBI investigators. That's it, or all we know about. No charges have ever been filed against him and Page says he has never been notified by Mueller's office to expect an indictment.
So what is really going on here?
Here is what I say -- Trump winning the election created all sorts of problems for Comey. Then Comey’s firing caused problems for Rosenstein. Recall from above, both Comey and Rosenstein signed off on the bogus affidavits to the FISA court to continue spying on Trump team members post-election and post-inauguration. They needed some cover.
Enter Mueller, who is very close friends with Comey and was even his mentor. He is also a close friend of Rosenstein. They wanted him because Mueller has experience in coverups for law enforcement. See his role with regard to Whitey Bulger, BCCI, HSBC, Waco, Noriega, IRS/Tea Party and Fast & Furious.
FISA law protects Americans from lawless spying by demanding the masking of names and deletion of intercepted data. If an American’s conversations are intercepted, his identity must remain hidden, and if there is no probable cause of a crime, the conversations are deleted.
In this case, the law was not followed. The FBI turned over its NSA spying capacity to a private lobbying company in order to promote a smear campaign against a domestic political opponent (I still think we will see Susan Rice was in the middle of this). Fearing being caught, they appointed a special counsel (Mueller) to cover for them by accusing the man (Trump) who might expose them. Which leaves us with the biggest political scandal in US history
