Photographs connected to physical searches of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page’s property were found in “non-compliant FBI systems,” according to newly declassified notes from a Justice Department watchdog report.
The Justice Department’s National Security Division informed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in May 2019 that it was aware of at least two instances where the FBI did not comply with the FBI’s standard minimization procedures when carrying out physical searches authorized by the final June 2017 warrant against Page.
These procedures are designed to “minimize the acquisition and retention” and “prohibit the dissemination” of nonpublic information about a U.S. person being targeted in investigations, according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s Russia investigation, which was released in December. The new detail was revealed as part of five pages of declassified footnotes that cast light on further missteps by the bureau in their targeting of Page.
The bureau used an FBI‐issued cellphone to take pictures of property during a FISA‐authorized physical search on July 13, 2017, and held onto those photos on the device, which the Justice Department assessed “did not comport” with the standard minimization procedures.
The FBI then took photos during another FISA-authorized physical search on July 29, 2017, improperly transferring the photographs to an electronic folder on the FBI’s classified network.
“The sickest revelation yet, courtesy of Richard Grenell today,” Page tweeted Wednesday night in response to these revelations. “On that day, I was hiding out at a hotel in Princeton, NJ — still an international fugitive, after all the corrupt acts and death threats inspired by the Democrats, the DOJ, and the Fake News.”
Page is a U.S. citizen who was suspected of being an agent for Russia but was never charged with any wrongdoing.
After being made aware of these incidents nearly two years after the fact, the FISA court asked the Justice Department when the information at issue would be removed from “non‐compliant FBI systems” and questioned the Justice Department about “other cases that might be impacted by the same problem.”
The Justice Department told the FISA court in October 2019 the FBI “completed the remedial process” for the information associated with the Page FISA applications and also did so for information from other cases affected by the same problem.
Horowitz’s report, which was released with redactions in December, criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Page and for the bureau’s reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s unverified dossier. Steele put his research together at the behest of Glenn Simpson’s opposition research firm Fusion GPS, funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Horowitz also criticized the bureau for not sharing exculpatory information from confidential human sources with the FISA court.
The latest round of declassified footnotes revealed other new details about the FBI’s investigation into Page, including evidence showing the FBI kept using Steele’s dossier to secure surveillance warrants after being alerted to Moscow being aware of his investigation and possibly attempting to compromise Steele’s research with Russian disinformation.
Horowitz concluded the Crossfire Hurricane team’s desire to have FISA authority in place before Oct. 17, 2016, was due, at least in part, to the fact that Page was expected to travel to the United Kingdom and then South Africa, and investigators wanted FISA coverage targeting Page secured before his trip.
Steele’s dossier claimed Page held a “secret meeting” in the summer of 2016 with Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin, during which Sechin mentioned “lifting Western sanctions against Russia.” But the underacted footnotes show Steele’s primary sub-source told the FBI the sub-source who provided the information about this meeting had connections to Russian intelligence.
These footnotes were made public at the request of Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
“As we can see from these now-declassified footnotes in the IG’s report, Russian intelligence was aware of the dossier before the FBI even began its investigation and the FBI had reports in hand that their central piece of evidence was most likely tainted with Russian disinformation,” Grassley and Johnson said in a statement. “Thanks to Attorney General Barr’s and Acting Director Grenell’s declassification of the footnotes, we know the FBI’s justification to target an American citizen was riddled with significant flaws.”
The Republican senators said Horowitz and his team “did what neither the FBI nor Special Counsel Mueller cared to do: examine and investigate corruption at the FBI, the sources of the Steele dossier, how it was disseminated, and reporting that it contained Russian disinformation.”
