By Matt
Vespa
With shutdown theater in high gear, some stories get
buried.
The government runs out of money at midnight tonight, but there was
another story that was trending on social media last night.
The House
Intelligence Committee voted to release a four-page memo on FISA abuses that
have disturbed lawmakers to their core. Some were saying the actions described
were akin to the KGB.
The vote to release the memo to all members was along
party lines, and House Republicans seem adamant that the information should be
released to the public.
The consequences of these abuses have some members of
Congress commenting that deep, structural changes could be coming to the
Department of Justice and the FBI (via Fox
News):
A
four-page memo circulating in Congress that reveals alleged United States
government surveillance abuses is being described by lawmakers as “shocking,”
“troubling” and “alarming,” with one congressman likening the details to KGB
activity in Russia.
Speaking
with Fox News, the lawmakers said they could not yet discuss the contents of
the memo they reviewed on Thursday after it was released to members by the
House Intelligence Committee. But they say the memo should be immediately made
public.
“It
is so alarming the American people have to see this,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan
said.
“It's
troubling. It is shocking,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. “Part of me
wishes that I didn't read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds
of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so
much.”
Florida
Rep. Matt Gaetz said he believed people could lose their jobs after the memo is
released.
“I
believe the consequence of its release will be major changes in people
currently working at the FBI and the Department of Justice,” he said,
referencing DOJ officials Rod Rosenstein and Bruce Ohr.
The DOJ and FBI have been subjected to increased scrutiny
by Congress and some in the media over the allegation that the Trump dossier
may have been (and by saying that, I mean most likely) was the spark that
prompted wiretaps for Paul Manafort and Carter Page, two aides to
then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
It’s an allegation that will
continue to fester since the FBI refuses to turn over documents related to the
file, which was a Democrat-funded opposition research project executed by
research firm Fusion GPS, who hired a former MI6 operative to collect
information. The Hillary Clinton campaign retained Fusion for this purpose.
Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion and he met with the firm and tried
to conceal those meetings. He was then demoted once this fact became known.
Release the memo on the alleged FISA abuses and allow
Congress to go through the FBI files on the dossier.
It’s about time since the
Russian collusion narrative has decayed into a rotting corpse of baseless
claims.
There is still no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the
Russians to tilt the 2016 election.
There seems to be something more concerning
the FBI, DOJ, and apparently now how FISA is used by the intelligence
community.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) says it raises more questions about the
upper crust of the Russia probe headed by Robert Muller.
