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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 18 2019, @09:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-rules dept.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/secret-fisa-court-issues-highly-unusual-rebuke-fbi-mistakes-n1103451

The secret federal court that approves orders for conducting surveillance on suspected foreign terrorists or spies issued a strong and highly unusual public rebuke to the FBI on Tuesday, ordering the agency to say how it intends to correct the errors revealed last week by a Justice Department report on one aspect of the FBI's investigation of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said the FBI made serious and repeated mistakes in seeking under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

The FBI's submission to the court made assertions that were "inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation," the report said.

Rosemary Collyer, presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, said in the unusual public order that the report "calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable." She ordered the FBI to explain in writing by Jan. 10 how it intends to remedy those problems.

Document here: https://www.scribd.com/document/440156909/Fisa-Court-to-FBI


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @07:08PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @07:08PM (#933852)

    Also note that they investigated FOUR separate warrant applications and found errors only on ONE of them. So, 75% were fine.

    False. On page 367-368, 377-378:

    None of the inaccuracies and omissions we identified in the first application
    were brought to the attention of 01 before the last FISA application was filed in
    June 2017. Consequently, these failures were repeated in all three renewal
    applications.
    [...]
    In addition to repeating the errors contained in the first FISA application, we
    identified other, similarly significant errors in the three renewal applications, based
    upon information known to the FBI after the first application was filed and before
    one or more of the renewals was filed.
    [...]
    As described above, given that certain factual misstatements
    were repeated in all four applications, across three different investigative teams
    [...]
    That so many basic and fundamental errors were
    made on four FISA applications by three separate, hand-picked teams, on one of
    the most sensitive FBI investigations that was briefed to the highest levels within
    the FBI and that FBI officials expected would eventually be subjected to close
    scrutiny, raised significant questions regarding the FBI chain of command's
    management and supervision of the FISA process.

    https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6571528/120919-Examination.pdf [documentcloud.org]

    And, they also found that no bias was involved in these errors.

    False. Page 193, 376-377:

    Steele's September 2017 interview with the FBI, which was conducted 2
    months after the final Carter Page FISA renewal application was submitted to the
    court, also revealed bias against Trump.
    [...]
    We also found the quantity of omissions and inaccuracies in the applications
    and the obvious errors in the Woods Procedures deeply concerning. Although we
    did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the
    part of the case agents who assisted 01 in preparing the applications, or the agents
    and supervisors who performed the Woods Procedures, we also did not receive
    satisfactory explanations for the errors or missing information.
    [...]
    While we found no documentary or testimonial evidence that this pattern of
    errors by Case Agent 1 was intentional, we also did not find his explanations for so
    many significant and repeated failures to be satisfactory.

    https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6571528/120919-Examination.pdf [documentcloud.org]

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday December 18 2019, @07:37PM (3 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday December 18 2019, @07:37PM (#933869) Journal

    Oh ya got me! I should have said 'investigations' instead of 'applications.'

    In addition to repeating the errors contained in the first FISA application, we
    identified other, similarly significant errors in the three renewal applications,

    They found errors in the Carter Page application and those errors weren't fixed in the renewals.

    They reviewed FOUR investigations:
    Carter Page
    George Papadopolous (who is now a felon)
    Paul Manafort (who is now a felon)
    And, Michael Flynn (who is also now a felon)

    From the OIG report:

    he decision to open Crossfire Hurricane and four
    individual cases on current and former members
    of the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos,
    Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn;
    the early investigative steps taken; and whether
    the openings and early steps complied with
    Department and FBI policies;

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @08:25PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @08:25PM (#933885)

      I don't even believe that is what you original meant (you most likely copy-pasted that talking point from somewhere), but this report only tangentially touches on those other investigations:

      With respect to the four individual investigations, CD transferred the Carter
      Page investigation to NYFO, and it remained assigned to Case Agent 1, who
      returned to that office following his 90-day TDY. DAD Jennifer Boone and SSA 3 of
      Operations Branch II at FBI Headquarters assumed program management
      responsibilities over the case. The Papadopoulos investigation was transferred to
      the Chicago Field Office and assigned to Case Agent 3. The Flynn investigation was
      transferred to the Washington Field Office (WFO) and assigned to Case Agent 4.
      Strzok and SSA 2 of Operations Branch I retained program management
      responsibilities over both of these investigations. The Manafort investigation was
      transferred to a white collar criminal squad at WFO. 185

      However, as to whether those investigations were above board:

      We concluded that the FBI's decision to open Crossfire Hurricane and the four
      related individual investigations was, under Department and FBI policy, a
      discretionary judgment call and that the FBI's exercise of discretion was in
      compliance with those policies. For the reasons described below, we found that
      each investigation was opened for an authorized purpose and, in light of the low
      threshold established by Department and FBI predication policy, with adequate
      factual predication. We also found that the FBI satisfied the DIOG's notification and
      approval requirements for designating Crossfire Hurricane and the four related
      individual investigations as SIMs. Nevertheless, we were concerned about the
      limited notice requirements under Department and FBI policy before opening
      investigations such as these, relating to constitutionally protected activity occurring
      during a national presidential campaign. We were also concerned about the limited
      notice requirements before using more intrusive investigative techniques that could
      impact constitutionally protected activity.

      And finally there is this:

      In addition, Source 2 told the Crossfire Hurricane team that Source 2 had
      known Trump's then campaign manager, Manafort, for a number of years and that
      he had been previously acquainted with Michael Flynn. Case Agent 1 told the OIG
      that "quite honestly ... we kind of stumbled upon [Source 2] knowing these folks."
      He said that it was "serendipitous" and that the Crossfire Hurricane team "couldn't
      believe [their] luck" that Source 2 had contacts with three of their four subjects,
      including Carter Page.

      Whenever you see something surprising, that means one of your premises is probably wrong. This is why Barr/Durham said they disagreed about the predication for the case because they had extra info. Here the CIA comes into play, we will see that coming out later.

      So anyway, the report does not say what you claim it does (as usual). Now go forth and continue to spew your propaganda.

      • (Score: 2) by Aegis on Thursday December 19 2019, @12:12AM (1 child)

        by Aegis (6714) on Thursday December 19 2019, @12:12AM (#934001)

        You realize that your quotes say there were four cases and that they were opened appropriately, right?

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 19 2019, @12:20AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 19 2019, @12:20AM (#934005)

          Can you see where it says "appropriately" is according to some very low standards that should be changed, and only refers to *opened* as a preliminary investigation vs continued after contrary evidence accumulated (and was hidden and falsified).