"Thanks in large part to the work of the Office of
the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, the Court has received
notice of material misstatements and omissions in the applications filed by the
government in the above-captioned dockets. See Docket No. Misc. 19-02, Order
(Dec. 17, 2019; DOJ PIG, Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of
the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation (Dec. 2019)," the court
released in an order. "DOJ assesses that with respect to the applications
in Docket Numbers 17-375 and 170679, 'if not earlier, there was insufficient
predication to establish probable cause to believe that [Carter] Page was
acting as an agent of a foreign power.'"
In other words:
-----
This is a big deal. The
Justice Department is conceding that two of the four FISA applications it used
to conduct surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page were not
lawful, and it's not defending the legality of its other two applications.
-----
During the time the FBI was illegally surveilling Carter
Page with illegitimate and illegally obtained FISA warrants, Page was working
for the CIA on behalf of the United States. He was not working for the Russias
as the FBI and their friends in the media repeatedly stated.
In his long awaited report about FISA abuse, which was
released late last year, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael
Horowitz found the FBI failed to meet "basic obligations" when
applying for warrants. FBI agents and attorneys, led by former Director James
Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe also made nearly two dozen egregious
"mistakes" in the process.
