The secretive federal court responsible for issuing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants issued a rare and stunning rebuke to the FBI, going after the bureau for misleading it to obtain secret surveillance warrants to eavesdrop on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Office of Inspector General] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above,” presiding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge Rosemary Collyer said in an order released Tuesday by the court.
Collyer said the sheer number of FISA process abuses by the bureau during their investigation into Page made her wonder if the problem was widespread throughout the FBI’s hundreds of other FISA investigations.
“The frequency with which representations by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable,” the FISA judge said. “The [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] expects the government to provide complete and accurate information in every filing with the Court. Without it, the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] cannot properly ensure that the government conducts electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes only when there is a sufficient factual basis.”
Collyer likely feels personally betrayed by the bureau, since she signed off on the initial Page FISA application in October 2016. Three other judges approved the renewals in January, April, and June 2017.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a bombshell report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse last week, concluding that the FBI’s investigation was filled with serious missteps and the concealment of exculpatory information from the FISA court. The DOJ watchdog lambasted the DOJ and FBI for 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to secret surveillance court filings targeting Page, which relied upon allegations contained within British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier.
“The Court orders that the government shall, no later than January 10, 2020, inform the Court in a sworn written submission of what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that the statement of facts in each FBI application accurately and completely reflects information possessed by the FBI that is material to any issue presented by the application,” Collyer said.
The inspector general didn’t rule out bias tainting the conduct of the investigation itself, saying he couldn’t determine whether the missteps were due to “sheer gross incompetence” or just “intentional misconduct.”
“That so many basic and fundamental errors were made 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,” Horowitz concluded.
The FBI relied upon the salacious and unverified allegations found within the dossier compiled by Steele, who was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself hired by the Clinton campaign and DNC. The DOJ watchdog concluded the dossier played a “central and essential role” in the FISA process.
As the FBI sought to determine the reliability of Steele’s research, officials held meetings with one of his primary sources in January, March, and May 2017 which “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting,” yet these serious doubts were never relayed to the FISA court.
The watchdog also found the FBI used an intelligence briefing given to future national security adviser Mike Flynn as a “pretext” to gather information for their investigation, and that in October 2016 the FBI told Steele the bureau was looking into Page, Flynn, Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos, and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort even as the Steele passed information to Fusion GPS.
Horowitz also harshly criticized top DOJ official Bruce Ohr for continuing to meet with Steele even after the bureau had cut the former MI6 agent off as a confidential human source for leaking to the media, acting as a conduit and backdoor between Steele and the FBI in 2016 and 2017.
The DOJ watchdog is also believed to have criminally referred one FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, who has since left the bureau, for altering an email used by officials as they prepared an application renewal to present before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Horowitz also slapped down former FBI Director James Comey’s claim that he’d been “vindicated” by the DOJ watchdog’s report when the watchdog testified before the Senate last week.
Horowitz drew a distinction between the investigation’s launch and the subsequent troublesome investigative steps taken during it, concluding the Trump-Russia investigation, dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane,” was opened on a sound legal footing and was unable to “find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced” the genesis of that investigation.
Attorney General Willam Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham, who are running their own investigation into the origins and conduct of the Trump-Russia investigation, quibbled with Horowitz’s conclusion that the investigation was launched properly. Barr said the FBI launched its probe on “the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.” And Durham released a rare statement noting he and his investigative team “do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”
