Conservative commentator Mark Levin tore into the FISA court judge who expressed anger at top FBI and Justice Department officials who misled the court while conducting a counterintelligence investigation into President Trump’s campaign.
“Judges don’t take this court seriously enough,” Levin said on his podcast Tuesday. “The judges are not doing their damn jobs.”
Levin was referencing Justice Rosemary Collyer, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who approved the warrants that were used to conduct surveillance of close associates of Trump’s campaign in 2016.
Collyer this week set a Jan. 10 deadline for the FBI to overhaul its FISA court application process after damning revelations came to light as part of a Justice Department inspector general report.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz found more than a dozen examples of information top law enforcement officials failed to share or misrepresented with the court when seeking a warrant to investigate whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. He also found, however, that there was no political bias against Trump that motivated that effort.
Horowitz additionally determined that an FBI lawyer in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court application process improperly altered a document during the third and final warrant application renewal targeting a Trump campaign adviser to cover up that the bureau had erred in the previous filings.
Attorney General William Barr has said he believes there was “spying” that occurred as a result of the approval and has appointed a special prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation into the matter.
Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill and in conservative media have used the scandal as evidence of a “deep state” that sought to undermine Trump.
On his show, Levin also referenced the conservative legal foundation he founded and remains a board member of, which filed an amicus brief with the federal court in April 2017 alleging leaks and other FISA abuses by top law enforcement officials.
“Every single one of those leaks is a felony,” Pete Hutchison, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, said. “This whole FISA process needs to be scrapped.”
Hutchison said it angered him to read Horowitz’s report after having his motion denied by the court two years earlier.
“I find it frustrating and totally disingenuous for the court to suddenly take this seriously,” Hutchison said. “I just think it gives further evidence that she was part of this whole cabal.”
Levin echoed that sentiment.
“The court knew what took place,” Levin said. “Or they knew enough to know something bad was happening.”
