Wow… finally! People were wondering why the FISA Court was so silent. Well, not any-longer….
A secretive surveillance court issued a rare public order on Tuesday rebuking the FBI for its handling of warrant applications to wiretap Carter Page, a onetime Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser whose monitoring by the government has become the subject of significant public controversy.
Judge Rosemary Collyer, the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, wrote in the filing that a recent Justice Department watchdog report was “troubling” and described the behavior of the FBI as “antithetical to the heightened duty of candor” owed to the court by government agents.
“THE FREQUENCY WITH WHICH REPRESENTATIONS MADE BY FBI PERSONNEL TURNED OUT TO BE UNSUPPORTED OR CONTRADICTED BY INFORMATION IN THEIR POSSESSION, AND WITH WHICH THEY WITHHELD INFORMATION DETRIMENTAL TO THEIR CASE, CALLS INTO QUESTION WHETHER INFORMATION CONTAINED IN OTHER FBI APPLICATIONS IS RELIABLE. THE FISC EXPECTS THE GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE COMPLETE AND ACCURATE INFORMATION IN EVERY FILING WITH THE COURT,” JUDGE COLLYER WROTE.
The order could drastically reshape relations between the court and the Justice Department and could have ramifications for how some of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence programs are run. The court has long approved the overwhelming number of the government’s warrant applications and signed off on most of its surveillance activities, but in recent years it has begun to scrutinize them more closely. The rift over the matter of Mr. Page could heighten the court’s scrutiny of government surveillance.
Because of the nature of the court’s work in approving secret surveillance of people suspected of spying and terrorism, it operates in near total secrecy and rarely releases its filings or orders to the public.
The order follows the release earlier in December of a watchdog report that found serious lapses in the FBI’s handling of the warrant against Mr. Page. In the report, the Justice Department’s inspector general found that the FBI had withheld exculpatory material about Mr. Page from the court and made misleading statements about his relationship with another government agency.
Judge Collyer ordered the Justice Department to explain by Jan. 10 what steps it was taking to prevent such lapses in the future. The judge’s order also indicated it planned to release more secret material about the case in the coming weeks on its public docket, offering the possibility of additional insight into the government’s most secret surveillance programs…..
NEW: In response to the damning revelations in IG Horowitz’s report of FBI misconduct in the Carter Page FISA process, the FISA court issues a rare order to DOJ/FBI explain by Jan. 10 how it plans to make sure that such errors and omissions never happen again. h/t @MLevineReports pic.twitter.com/DA9euG2yk1
— Alex Mallin (@alex_mallin) December 17, 2019
REMEMBER, judge Collyer signed off on a Carter Page warrant… (July 2018) “DOJ Releases Carter Page FISA Applications – Critics Proven Right”
RIGHT SCOOP notes the case presented to Judge Collyer 2-and-a-half years ago:
Mark Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation filed a secret motion with the FISA court to act on application abuses all the way back in 2017, but just five days later the FISA court, via Judge Rosemary Collyer, denied their claim. Below is a statement from Mark Levin:
Over 2 1/2 years ago, a Landmark Legal Foundation asked Judge Collyer to act on the FBI abuses committed on the court and she denied our request. Now, she asserts she has the power to act. Better late than never, I guess, but the judge should have acted much earlier.
This is the same Judge Rosemary Collyer who rebuked the FBI today.
It just goes to show you how Landmark Legal was on this well before the OIG was ever asked to investigate the FISA abuses. Levin is right though, the FISA court should have acted then as some of this was known back in 2017…..
RIGHT SCOOP has the letter to the FBI. Devin Nunes had it right on Sunday…. shut down the FISA court!
ALL of this — however — shows that way, way back in March 2017, Mark Levin had it right. Even the 4-people being spied on… all of it confirmed by the IG Report (more at OBAMAGATE):
Which all goes to support the idea that #NEVERTRUMPERS and the Left are chasing people to the media they despise (the media, BTW, that called this all along):
- This is the entire issue regarding our Intelligence agencies… They abused the FISA Court warrant process. I was told that the Steele Dossier was only a small part of the warrant. For two years by Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, etc-etc. (BTW, the names represent Intel, the CIA, and the FBI). Turns out it was literally the only thing use as John Solomon, Kimberly Strassel, Sara Carter, Sean Hannity, Mollie Hemingway, Chuck Ross, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc — said. (MORE AT A PREVIOUS POST)
The bells are tolling…
