"...prosecute FBI agents and lawyers who submit falsehoods to the surveillance court."

Eli Lake writes an opinion piece for Bloomberg News recommending "an aggressive policy to prosecute FBI agents and lawyers who submit falsehoods to the surveillance court. The best way to prevent future violations is to severely punish those who commit them in the present."

On Tuesday, the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a new report that found systematic errors of fact in the FBI’s applications for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The memo does not speak to the materiality or significance of those errors — but they are startling nonetheless.

Out of 42 applications, the report says, 39 included major defects. All told, the inspector general uncovered 390 deficiencies, including “unverified, inaccurate, or inadequately supported facts, as well as typographical errors.”

Read more here.

"Mistakes were made!"

Where were the whistleblowers when America really needed them?

In the Wall Street Journal, James Freeman writes,

...The FBI shared all of their alleged concerns about Mr. Page’s Russian connections with the FISA court but did not share key information—including the fact that Mr. Page was working with the CIA. Is there any chance a FISA judge would have approved the FBI’s surveillance request on Mr. Page if his assistance to another arm of the federal government had been fully disclosed?

The full details on the Obama-Comey FBI’s abuse of power in 2016 are taking years to come to light, and not just because too many prize-winning media outlets failed to recognize them.

Where were the whistleblowers when America really needed them?

Read more here.

Ratcliffe: "The FISA Court was at the mercy of the people who verified this information!"

At the Conservative Treehouse, Sundance comments

Fusion GPS was not hired to research Trump, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification for already existing surveillance and spy operations.

Fusion-GPS gave them the justification they needed for a FISA warrant with the Steele Dossier. Ultimately that’s why the Steele Dossier is so important; without it, the DOJ and FBI are naked with their FISA-702 abuse as outlined by John Ratcliffe.

This comment from Sundance comes after he gives us another of his brilliant analyses of the Spygate story. He is so clearly the person on the web who has given the best analysis of the whole sordid affair. I frankly don't understand why other brilliant blogs like Instapundit and Maggie's Farm don't link to him regularly.

FISA abuse: "Don’t expect justice, it is not coming. Oh yeah, and half the population is okay with that."

Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse revisits some of the things he has written over the last year regarding the FISA process and the illegal activities of our intelligence communities. The scandal that makes Watergate looks like child's play.

Here are some comments from his readers.

Karen Ruby says:
December 16, 2018 at 9:34 am
Simply put, the Obama administration was spying on its political adversaries for years, and when Admiral Rogers discovered–and stopped–it, they had to find another way to continue it. It’s not a coincidence all outside government access to the FBI/NSA database and raw FISA information was halted in April, 2016, and that same month Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele started his work, and Joseph Mifsud met with George Papadopoulos to tell him Russians have information on Hillary Clinton. The dirty players were racing to get a Title-1 Surveillance Warrant granted before Rogers presented his findings to the FISA court. They beat him by three days.

Summer says:
December 16, 2018 at 11:54 am
Most of us “get the picture.” The important question is why nothing is seemingly being done about all this blatant abuse of power AND the subsequent cover-up.

One obvious answer to that question could be mass insubordination and sabotage. Hillary Clinton called it Resistance in her speech on November 9, 2016.

You can effectively manage an organization only if everyone follows orders and faifully discharges their duty. In a normal organization, a non-compliant employee would be fired. In a huge organization called the US government, with thousands entrenched and nigh-on impossible to fire career bureaucrats, what option do you have? Especially when dealing with the “intelligence community” that blocks any attempt at oversight.

You can fire a few political appointees but a huge bulk of the hostile bureaucracy remains. That bureaucracy accumulated tremendous power. Information is power. The most frightening thing is they have the power to ruin YOUR life, fortune and reputation and prosecute YOU for any bogus, manufactured crime but you can’t make them prosecute themselves for abusing their power. Laws are respected as long as there are people willing to enforce them. The DOJ is not willing, period.

So, nothing has been done because not much can be done. The monster is out of control. The only solution is to slay it but that’s out of question. Don’t expect justice, it is not coming.

Oh yeah, and half the population is okay with that.
Read more here.

Bought and paid for unverified dirt to ask the FISA Court to approve surveillance!

Chairman Nunes: "The next day after we told the DOJ "We're not going to go to another meeting where we don't get documents, and then the meeting leaks out," the mother of all leaks of all time to two major newspapers came out late Friday night!"

Nunes' House Intelligence Committee is investigating FISA abuse, Counterintelligence investigation into the Trump political campaign, and the State Department. He is also studying what are China's strategic goals globally!

"We've gone far afield!"

"If they can do this to the President, can you imagine what these intelligence agencies could do to an ordinary American?"

Rand Paul often makes a lot of sense to me.



Sundance responds,

Oh, heck yes. This is exactly what we have been talking about. In an interview with Neil Cavuto, Senator Rand Paul shares his opinion that President Trump should respond to the coordinated political attacks by FBI and DOJ operatives by declassifying the information underneath all their shenanigans.

Good advice. Without interfering with the IG Horowitz and parallel Proseuctor John Huber approach, President Trump should immediately begin declassifying the documents surrounding the FISA abuse scandal.

Start by declassifying the 99-page opinion of FISA Court Presiding Judge, Rosemary Collyer. Remove all the redactions and let us see who the FBI/DOJ officials were allowing to have access to the NSA database to conduct searches. Then declassify the full FISA Title-1 surveillance application used by the FBI and DOJ against U.S. person Carter Page.

If these releases of information create a need for prosecution of the people, entities and former officials behind the documents, then so be it. These documents are unrelated to the issues of the FBI conduct review of IG Horowitz, and extend outside the DOJ.

Be Patient!

At The Conservative Treehouse, Sundance warns people like Sarah Carter and Dan Bonginonot to get too far out ahead of the story of FBI and DOJ corruption during the Obama administration.

The story is simple.

Political operatives within the DOJ and FBI, working to help elect Hillary Clinton, conspired with political operatives outside government to spy on the 2016 campaign officials of Donald Trump. One of the tools they used was unlawful FISA-702 “queries” and surveillance. FULL STOP.

No need to go beyond that story yet.

Remember, we have the IG Horowitz evidence of a politicized DOJ and FBI coming up behind the FISA-702 surveillance story. Be patient…. everything has a plan.

Read more here.

"Explosive" report on FISA abuse

Sara Carter reports,

A review of a classified document outlining what is described as extensive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse was made available to all House members Thursday and the revelations could lead to the removal of senior officials in the FBI and Department of Justice, several sources with knowledge of the document stated. These sources say the report is “explosive,” stating they would not be surprised if it leads to the end of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into President Trump and his associates.

...“The document shows a troubling course of conduct and we need to make the document available, so the public can see it,” said a senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the document. “Once the public sees it, we can hold the people involved accountable in a number of ways.”

The government official said that after reading the document “some of these people should no longer be in the government.”

Read more here.