Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he may not have not read the entire Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant renewal targeting Trump campaign associate Carter Page before signing it.
Rosenstein, who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller in 2017 while overseeing the Russia investigation after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself, made the admission during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was pressed on the topic by Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Josh Hawley of Missouri.
Noting that “on June 29, 2017, you signed off on the third FISA renewal application,” Lee asked: “Did you read that application?”
Rosenstein replied, “Yes.”
Lee said, “So, having been asked to sign off on it, you read it.” The former deputy attorney general did not disagree but appeared to reverse himself after further questioning by Lee.
“Senator, I have to tell you in context,” Rosenstein said. “You asked me about reading the FISA. There are a lot of FISA applications that come through. Some are more significant than others. This one was unusual in that I already knew about it because of the Russia investigation. Most of the FISA applications that are presented to me, I’m the last eyes on them before they’re filed with the court, and I know nothing about them. But this one I knew a fair amount about, and they gave it to me in advance so I could review it. Not sure I read every page, but I was familiar with what was in it.”
[Read more: Rod Rosenstein says he would not have signed Carter Page FISA warrant with knowledge he has now]
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in December that criticized the DOJ and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Page in 2016 and 2017 and for the bureau’s reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier. The FBI submitted the applications to the FISA court for approval over the course of the bureau’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Steele put his research together at the behest of opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Recently declassified footnotes showed that the FBI was aware that Steele’s subsources disputed the accuracy of his claims and knew that the dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation.
Cruz asked Rosenstein if he read the Horowitz report, and he replied, “I’ve read most of it.”
The senator asked: “You just told Sen. Lee you read the FISA application — at the time you read the FISA application, did you know that the primary source behind the Steele dossier had disavowed it and said it’s not true?”
Rosenstein said he had not read the entire document, saying, “At the time, I reviewed it. I’m not sure I read every word, but I certainly reviewed it. And no, I did not know that.” The former deputy attorney general said he was unaware at the time that significant exculpatory information had been concealed from the court, that Steele’s dossier was paid for by the DNC, and that FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith altered a key document, making it seem as if Page was not a source for the CIA when he had been.
Cruz said: “Did you ask any of those questions?”
“Well, the questions I would’ve asked, senator, would’ve been: Is the information presented to me verified?” Rosenstein said.
U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and the conduct of the law enforcement and the intelligence officials involved in that inquiry.
Cruz also leveled criticism against the former deputy attorney general.
“You came into a profoundly politicized world, yet all of this was allowed to go forward under your leadership,” Cruz said. “That unfortunately leads to only two possible conclusions: either that you were complicit in the wrongdoing, which I don’t believe was the case, or that your performance of your duties was grossly negligent.”
Rosenstein later said, “I don’t believe I was rubber-stamping, senator, and I fully appreciate your concern, and obviously, you always wish you could’ve done more, but we did have 70,000 cases filed that year.”
“I devoted more attention to this case, but I still didn’t know everything,” he added.
Hawley referenced the exchanges with Lee and Cruz, and pushed Rosenstein on whether he had a duty to verify that the claims in the FISA application were accurate. Rosenstein said he had “a duty to make sure it had been verified” and again denied he rubber-stamped it.
“But you also testified today that you didn’t read it, so, I’m curious,” Hawley said.
Rosenstein denied saying that.
“Would you like to us have your testimony read back to you?” Hawley retorted. “You said: ‘I can’t say that I read it. I don’t think I read every page.'”
Rosenstein agreed this is what he said.
“Okay, so you didn’t rubber stamp it, but you didn’t read it,” Hawley concluded.
Earlier this year, the DOJ determined that the final two FISA warrants, including the one signed by Rosenstein, were “invalid.” The FBI told the FISA court it was working to “sequester” all the information obtained through the Page wiretaps, and FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress he was working to “claw back” information gleaned through the electronic surveillance of Page.
