The reason I keep referencing Andrew McCarthy on this is that he’s a former U.S. attorney who knows how this stuff works. He’s not just some partisan commentator. He’s familiar with the process, knows how it’s supposed to function and can recognize when it’s not functioning as the law and established procedure says it should.
I’ve been saying all along that, if the Obama DOJ wiretapped Carter Page based solely on the Steele dossier, it’s worse than Watergate. Why? Watergate was the Nixon campaign sending burglars to break into the DNC headquarters and plant listening devices. That’s bad. What is wiretapping someone? It’s essentially the same thing. But if you did it under false pretenses, and abused federal law enforcement in order to do it, that is a much greater sin that sending in burglars to accomplish the same thing. Those are crooks. This is the FBI.
The defense of the Obama DOJ has been that there must surely have been more to the FISA application than the Steele dossier and a Yahoo news article for which Steele was the source. Surely, we were told, when we see the FISA application we’ll know that the FBI has real probable cause to wiretap Page apart from those two things.
Did they?
Take it away, Andrew:
Former US attorney talks Carter Page FISA warrant documents
An important note about the renewal applications as well: A FISA wiretap warrant has to be renewed every three months, and a renewal application is not supposed to merely include the same information you included in the original application. You’re supposed to bring the FISA court new information that demonstrates the first three months of wiretapping is producing information that justifies the continuation. You can’t just wiretap someone forever based on the original rationale.
Yet it appears that’s exactly what the FBI did, and the FISA judges – for whatever reason – continued to approve the renewals.
Finally, why was the identity of the FBI agent who signed the application redacted? Is it because the name of that agent is Peter Strzok?
I don’t know how the media can continue to defend the FBI now that this has been released. I know they will badly want to, but I don’t know how they can. They would have to deploy either willful ignorance or flat-out deception. It’s that bad.
The Obama Justice Department wiretapped an adviser to the Trump campaign based on false pretenses. That is a scandal of gigantic magnitude. It may not be treated that way by the mainstream media or the political class, but make no mistake. That’s exactly what it is.
Two things before you watch this video:
