Multiple Trump campaign officials were the subjects of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigations, a Democratic lawmaker said in a closed-door hearing late last year.
If what Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, says is true, the scope of the FBI’s FISA efforts for its counterintelligence investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign and its ties to Russia span far wider than previously known. So far, it is only confirmed that the FBI obtained FISA warrants targeting onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
During a hearing on Dec. 19 with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the transcript of which was released on Monday, Jackson Lee mentioned three other individuals.
“I want to talk about the spring, summer, and autumn of 2016. Carter Page, at the time, was suspected of being a Russian asset; George Papadopoulos had told the Australian ambassador that Russians had Hillary [Clinton] emails; Paul Manafort had been named Trump campaign manager; Michael Flynn was Trump’s chief national security adviser and foreign policy adviser and, just yesterday, had a continuance in his sentencing,” Jackson Lee said. “One thing that all of these persons had in common was that each was the subject of a FISA Court investigation, which we now know, and all were directly connected to Trump. As attorney general, you had the authority to oversee FISA application process. Is that correct?”
Lynch replied “yes,” after which Justice Department lawyer Bradley Weinsheimer cut in to say Jackson Lee’s question “potentially gets into possibly classified information and also equities in an ongoing investigation.”
What followed was a back-and-forth about the “lead-up” to the question about Lynch overseeing the FISA application process that mentioned Papadopoulos, Manafort, and Flynn. Jackson Lee argued that she was only sharing a “statement of facts that are in the public domain.”
Weinsheimer shot back, saying that “just because something is in the public domain does not mean that as the former attorney general, this witness can talk about it, because it could relate to classified information, and it could also affect equities relating to an ongoing investigation.”
When cleared to respond further, Lynch spoke broadly about the dangers of disclosing the name of anyone under surveillance.
“Certainly, the release of the names of anyone under investigation or particular surveillance can do great harm in a number of ways to that person’s reputation, to people’s trust in the Department’s ability to maintain confidences, and if anyone were, in fact, affiliated with a campaign for office, certainly there could be aspersions cast on the campaign because of their affiliation, as well,” she said.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, later mentioned that the FBI director had informed lawmakers a few days prior that the FBI opened investigative files on four individuals, some of whom were associated with the Trump campaign, but not FISA applications.
The first warrant application targeting Page was submitted in October 2016, after he left the Trump campaign, and three renewals followed at three-month intervals, including in January, April, and June 2017. The FISA documents were released with heavy redactions in July 2018.
There has been talk in recent weeks about further steps taken to record members of Trump’s campaign, including Papadopoulos. Former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said on Sunday that the FBI withheld “game changer” transcript material about Papadopoulos from the surveillance court when filing applications targeting Page.
In an interview Friday, former FBI general counsel James Baker, who claims to have taken a leading role in overseeing the Page FISA warrant applications, was asked point-blank if the bureau used an unverified dossier to surveil anyone else. Claiming to be unfamiliar with what the government has revealed, Baker opted not to confirm nor deny it.
“I don’t think I should comment on that. I don’t know what else the government has confirmed,” Baker said on MSNBC. “I don’t want to confirm or deny anything about other potential FISA applications.”
The dossier, packed with salacious and unverified claims about Trump’s ties to Russia, was written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and formed a key part of the FBI’s FISA applications used to justify surveillance warrants against Page.
Amid allegations of a political scheme to undermine Trump, Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced an investigation last year into the Justice Department’s and FBI’s compliance with legal requirements as well as policies and procedures in applications filed with the FISA Court related to Page. He is expected to complete that inquiry in May or June.
Papadopoulos, Manafort, and Flynn were all subjects of investigation in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. They all pleaded guilty to charges, but none had to do with conspiracy with the Russian government. Page was also under scrutiny but never charged. Mueller’s report, released last month with redactions, showed his team was unable to find sufficient evidence of criminal conspiracy between any members of Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin.
