The normal warrant process gets reviewed by outsiders to the system. This forces law enforcement to keep up better methods and follow the law more closely. The secret nature of the FISA court was bound to lead to sloppy practices and over-reach. Republicans and Democrats who had any contact with the FISA system knew that this was going on, but who wants to go against "anti-terrorism" measures? This situation is just a sample of what is going on with FISA. Secret courts without effective oversight are always a bad idea.
18
The battle for civil liberties has been lost, and both parties are complicit.
Kudos to those who keep fighting like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU.
17
When does self-policing ever work? Whether it is Boeing and the FAA, or the FDA or FISA, self-regulation will always have failures, especially if you can hide behind "classified intelligence". Obviously the FBI had legitimate reasons for concern but lets not give the surveillance state free reign.
18
Great job picking through this mirage of wrong doing Charlie - it's not often I agree w/much written about the truth and/or veracity of our government agencies and your piece hits the problem spot-on. Enough examples have been permitted in the press about citizens being ruined by the IRS, CIA or FBI. It's high time we lay bare these agencies for what they are - cesspools of partisan hackers intent only on keeping their high-paying jobs by any means necessary. I'm sure there are thousands of good folks doing what they're hired to do, but many - as they rise through the ranks of the swamp - learn to twist and turn truth into falsehood, all to the detriment of whomsoever they're targeting next.
7
Obviously there needs some changes in FISA applications. The one priniciple that seems to rule in the "mistakes" category is that if a legal authority can get away with it, then pursue all such means to your end. When has that not ever applied? Get on with fixing the process and protecting every citizen's right to privacy.
The public yet has to deal with "The Great Divider" Trump's repeated lies about what the IG report says and now has to face the egregious mischaracterizations ("lies" just doesn't cover it) of his abler alter-ego Billy Barr. "Billy" is used intentionally because some of his arguments (vis the NBC interview--was Pete Williams not prepared?) are self-evidently juvenile.
5
Sad to say, but if ever there was a person who should be surveilled at all times it is Donald Trump. Like a toddler, you need to keep an eye on him at all times as he's totally unpredictable. Trump has proven over and over that in the absence of adults in the room, he's likely to do or say something stupid. Yes, our intelligence agencies and law enforcement must operate within the law and established protocols. Trump seems to have no hesitation to misuse the levers of government for his own interests. Too bad he's not more concerned with his own conduct and is overly eager to malign the institutions that serve to protect us.
15
Anyone remember the FBI Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO)? Talk about the politicization of a government agency. I guess some would call it the deep state.
2
Hmmm, 1800+ targets in 2018—230 were American?? I wonder what the count was for 2017 and even so far this year, 2019.
2
"And while Mr. Horowitz obtained no documents or testimony showing that the inaccuracies stemmed from any political bias". In other words, the conspirators didn't put their bias into writing, and didn't confess to the IG.
11
@Steve Your argument applies to Bill Barr.
8
Not much new here. the FISA court & how it operates has always been controversial. An investigation into a Presidential campaign (anyone's) would be bound to be more so. It's correct to examine the motivations of such an investigtion & come to a conclusion about it. At this point the Justice Dept & even a US Attorney look like they are defending the President instead of their institution & the law.
15
There is nothing new under the sun. The FBI and other state security agencies had, have and will used any dirty tricks in the book against labor, trade unions, black organisations, native or indigenous organisations.
Two good books to read about it:
1)Tim Weiner
Enemies, A History of the FBI
Ramdon House, 2012
2)Ellen Schrecker
Many Are the Crimes, McCarthyism in America
Princeton University Press, 1998
3
Not sure we can “move beyond partisanship “ with current republicans, this WH and Senate as they push us Deeper into fascism! 45 appears mentally impaired, projecting his anger & paranoia onto his perceived enemies. Imagine Gore as Trump-like when the SC blatantly handed the presidency to George W. In the mishandling of the Florida recount!
6
The coup to overthrow our duly elected president was the cause of the illegal and unethical FBI activities. Try as he might to de-politicize the FBI problems, Mr. Savage - along with every Trump Hater in the USA - must concede that renegade FBI personnel (and CIA/NSA leaders such as Clapper and Brennan) are the biggest threat to our democracy. They should be thrown in jail!
13
Any reasonable person could conclude, that the deliberate omission of exculpatory investigative material from the Carter Page inquiry by an FBI investigator is indefensible. But could it be that the FBI and CIA did not want it known to the Russians or others that Page, who is clearly a less than useful idiot, was once in the CIA's employ? As an Independent, I have no sympathy for Trump, or his rotten band of fascist hugging rogues. The FBI was quite right to aggressively put the nation's safety and security first, by pressing forward with its investigation of the Trump campaign, the head of which was openly screaming that Russia and Wikileaks should instigate a dump of Hillary Clinton's e-mails, while the gnome-like Rudolph Giuliani openly and loudly peddled FBI leaks on television to help scuttle Mrs Clinton's campaign. The greatest damage to the FBI is being done by its former alumnus, who still brazenly hobnobs with shady foreign operators under Trump's direction. My greatest disappointment, is the apparent inability of the CIA and FBI to determine Trump's real connection to Russia. Quite sadly, Trump won, and based on the current political stasis in this country, he just keeps on winning, aided and abetted by the smarmy likes of Graham, Cruz and Rubio.
7
Absolutely no doubt that their was bias on the part of the FBI in submitting the FISA requests. Horowitz was reluctant to state that fact but his team surly inferred it throughout their report. Hopefully the NYT will write about Schiff's outrageous false statements re. the Russia probe and the accuracy of Nunez's statements re. the same issue.
9
NYT should stop behaving like this is a sudden new realization. In fact, you led a team of dysfunctionals that include the WashPost, CNN, and MSNBC, that could have brought this story to life years ago but chose to look the other side because with your editorial policy of encouraging a shakedown of the President is a fair game in progressive circles. Shame on you, NYT!
15
Forget Trump. We should all be concerned about these errors or abuses--the characterization depending upon one's political prism. We are one small step away from banana republic-like weaponization of the vast resources of the federal government. What else is going on that we don't know about? The mind reels.
4
The report uncovers evidence that Carter Page may have been assisting the CIA in his contacts with Russian nationals. Hardly evidence of an American turncoat. Yet, with no evidence other than supposition contained in the Steele documents, the FBI and Obama administration DOJ proceeded to sweep Page into the Trump campaign spy operation dragnet. People within the Obama administration may not have liked Page’s views on Russia, bit that should not qualify him to be spied on by the U.S. government. It is not okay for the FBI or our intelligence agencies to spy on you just because they object to your political views.
Apparently, J. Edgar Hoover is still alive and well in our nation’s top law enforcement agency.
15
The right believes that the FBI was politically biased against Donald and that's not the case at all. The implication follows that they were wrong to investigate, but they had clear probable cause and followed long-standing procedures. The FBI needs to do a better job and Congress needs to pass laws that better define the FBI's role in investigating, but this throw the baby out with the bathwater approach by Republicans is absurd.
5
Anyone the assumes they have some god given right to privacy in this country is sadly mistaken and very naive. From the day you were born you had no right to privacy from your parents. When you were married you had no right to privacy from your spouse. When you pay taxes you have none. When you go to school you have none. See a doctor or have lab tests run... none. Go into the military... definitely none. Even when you die you have none. And why, if you are happy, living well and are honest should you care? However, if you’re president, in congress or a banker, then you might want a lot of things kept secret. All I can say is that secrets for the most part are useful to avoid shame. However, shame is valuable for learning. Secrets of a crime are far more useful as they help avoid condemnation and jail. So, which secrets are you keeping and why? And don’t expect that most secrets you have will not be revealed, if not soon, then certainly after your death.
2
@BS We have a 4th amendment Constitutional right to some privacy from unreasonable search and seizure by our government. Unquestionably, what was done to Carter Page was ‘unreasonable’ and like Steven Hatfill who was wrongly accused by the FBI, Page deserves an apology from former Director Comey and monetary damages for illegally rummaging through his life.
3
The important point is that the FISA process had come to routinely abused by investigators. I'd guess that Republicans and Democrats were equally vulnerable, but that Muslims suffered the most.
1
As someone who came to maturity in the 1960's and early 70's, I am not a bit surprised by this. Few people trusted the FBI (or the CIA!) then, and in spite of a slew of reforms, there's no good reason to trust them now. I'm on the left end of the Democratic party, but I find it distasteful, to say the least, that since Trump took office, the Democrats have become defenders of these "intelligence" agencies that have virtual carte blanche to pry into private lives almost at will. This is, believe it or not, bigger than Trump.
113
@VGraz I don't believe it's bigger than trump, who received help from a foreign enemy in his campaign. no, it's not bigger than having a man who despises democracy as the head of our country. No. Maybe the FBI strayed because of the associations of the republican campaign with russian operatives, but it doesn't change a thing about the impeachment or the fact that our democracy is in greater danger from the president (and his cohorts) than anyone else.
24
@Sook Nice definition of tyranny. We have the moral high ground, and therefore any actions are permissible as long as we get the "Right" outcome.
10
@VGraz:
No, it was not ugly. The report proved that trump and the Republicans were wrong. No deep state. No conspiracy. So let’s keep our eye on the ball here. The Republicans are dodging their embarrassing slander and now trying to make it about a FISA error. The FBI proved correct in wanting to wiretap Carter Page. They may not have crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is, but they did their job and found what they were looking for. Good for the FBI. I have never feared the FBI would be derelict in their job of protecting America.
17
The FBI Headquarters building pictured in the article is a metaphor for the Agency: it has been falling apart for years..
Where's Frank Church?
3
The times picks one area out of a large report to support the right wing nuts. We seem to be heading for 2016 again. You helped elect trump then and are doing so again.
4
Well I watched the entire thing. The press wants to run with the "no political bias" line. They do not clarify that it relates to the inception of the investigation and NOT the conduct of the investigation. In that regard, the IG said there was so much troubling evidence that he agreed there was either political bias or gross incompetence. He just didn't have evidence to prove bias. Either scenario is a bad look. All of the cut corners, falsifications, and burial of exculpatory evidence in isolation could be incompetence. However, when matched up with the know political biases of the FBI participants, it's a pretty damning confirmation of a political hit job from the Obama FBI and DOJ. Also note, Jonathan Winer refused to testify. He was the Steele channel into the State Department that also was leaking the Dossier to the press and everywhere else he could. Nothing in the IG report debunks the deep state narrative. The press is already burying the testimony today and letting Democrats try to spin the narrative. In fact, it was a horrible day for America to learn how badly the FBI was perverted for political aims. It's funny how the media is just asking you to "take their word for it", when they wouldn't even show Lindsay Graham's opening statement on CNN or MSNBC. Posted 6:22 EST Wed.
148
@TL
Madam or Sir, Your post is as succinct and eloquent a summary of my own position as I could ever aspire to pen.
Thanks and well-done.
10
To paraphrase Gomer Pile, I'll be "gall dang"! Straight reporting from the NYT.
When they come for your neighbor, no big deal. But then they come for you......
7
The GOP can spare us its hypocritical self-righteous hyperventilating since, first, those who are having fainting spells over FBI inadequacy have been in government forever and should have been more diligent in their overseeing of its processes as well as, I’ll wager, cognizant of it.
Second, no amount of melodramatic hyperventilating can mask the crucial fact concerning the corrupt squatter in the White House that the report substantiates: the inquiry into Russia interference was not political and thus untainted by the conspiracy theories this buffoon likes to perpetuate and his acolytes prefer to believe to validate an election outcome that never should have happened.
6
@FoxyVil
Your screed would be far more persuasive if it had fewer adjectives.
The baseless surveillance of Carter Page isn't just about Carter Page's civil liberties.
Mueller's main complaint was that he couldn't find "sufficient evidence" because the Trump team wouldn't talk to him and/or destroyed evidence.
That is a lie. Mueller had all the surveillance evidence he wanted because of the FISA warrant on Carter Page.
Mueller already had everyone's phone calls, emails, documents, etc. Even if Trump's team did attempt to destroy evidence, a copy of it already existed with the FBI. Mueller knew it because he examined it. And with all that, he still couldn't make his charges stick.
4
"...a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process."
That's a very nice euphemism.
So, the old cut-off-the-left-arm-to-save-the-body trick, eh?
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!
1
Savage claims:
"But that system (FISA) demonstrably failed in the Page wiretap."
Give me a break.
No "system" in the history of the world is immune from a concerted and intentional effort to mislead it.
It is obvious to any rational person that every one of the errors/omissions was done intentionally...and in one direction. These clearly were not simply "human errors" (a we-all-make-mistakes kind of thing) that resulted from a complicated and antiquated FISA "system".
If a home plate umpire makes 17 bad calls all against one team....it is not because the "system" of calling balls and strikes failed.
The umpire abused the system to achieve a desired result.
6
Sir! I am shocked, Shocked sir! LOL
The Intercept has a profile of what "mistakes" the FBI made going after the "animal-people" animal rights protesters in the '90's prosecuting them as terrorists. Let's not even ponder whether "they" had sharp shooters in Atlanta... oh no. NOT going there. But they do wear nicer suits these days and it's always fun to watch the principled people "elected" to represent us fall over themselves.
1
Very surprisingly, I actually agree with Lindsey Graham on this! It is not about Trump, or even the FBI as an institution. It is about being fair and getting the details right.
I'm sure Putin wouldn't care; but that's an essential difference between Russia and the US, no?
63
@Al King Oh, now the repubs are worried about being fair and getting details right? that's hilarious!
12
@Sook
Forget fairness. Trump is a brawler, and make no doubt, he will take any risk to get to Obama. I'm sure he believes that BO was at some point either complicit or at least aware of the attempts to take him down. In manners like this, Trump is totally vindictive, and will not rest until he eviscerates (metaphorically) anyone with their fingerprints on this process.
Case in point, it appears that McConnell wants to go for acquittal in the senate rather than dismissal, but does not want a prolonged trial. DJT on the other hand wants a scorched Earth full court press to destroy any opposition that can be shown through evidence to have acted inappropriately to create an administrative Coup. This is still unproven, but DJT is willing to risk it all to have that fight - and will likely revel in it. People may find that detestable, but that is the reality. Looking at it through his eyes, not hard to see his point when Impeachment was discussed before the Left's tears were dry on the floor of the Javitz center. This I'm sure is in part why he would rather give Democrats the finger than cooperate with them. They are the enemy to him until proven otherwise. Whether he is the second coming of Satan or not, he is entitled to have the fight if he wants it.
4
Some Democratic members of Congress had called the IG investigation a waste of taxpayer money. Clearly, it was not. We all may wonder whether we are falsely characterized as foreign agents as a rationalization for unjustified government snooping.
Investigation of possibly unjustified FISA applications was performed in 2000 and reforms were made, but unsurprisingly, there was backsliding. Outside monitoring of FISA applications must be an ongoing activity.Secrecy is anathema to self-policing.
5
Not anything that we did not already know, suspect or willing to look the other way about (except for the details) came out of this report on FBI conduct.
Graham's quote however is more applicable to Trump's actions against our democracy and country, which Graham defends as standard operating procedure, than any overreaching the FBI has done in the interest of our country.
I agree with Graham, if Trump's actions become aceptable in the United States of America, God help us all.
He and other congressmen servile to Trump should do the right thing for the country.
1
Good overview. And requiring disclosure to the defense in any subsequent trial would act as a check on abuse, as you indicate. Maybe any objections, challenges could also be handled in a...closed session, with appropriate gag orders, protecting that..sources and methods.
And while Horowitz found no political bias in the....missteps...outlined, the obvious question, with the Biden allegations, with concerns over the Trump family members engaged in government activities, is- what investigations aren’t being started.
What investigations may a president, any president, prevent from starting? Or once started, being stopped.
Spies, foreign actors seeking advantage, trying to use influential family members of any political figure would seem a no-brainer. So what’s the remedy for this possible use of a political, bias?
Hunter Biden, the president’s son-in-law- obvious targets for spies. So shouldn’t we all want their contacts checked out, looked into? And if not, why not. Just a thought in reading this article.
3
It’s sure hard to see the forest for the trees.
There is a forest, and it’s this:
Beginning around 2014, the Russian military under Putin’s command cyber-attacked the United States to defeat Hillary Clinton and install Trump as president.
Trump and his campaign minions had deep and continuing ties to Russia and Russian oligarchs.
Longer term, Putin wanted to exploit the divisions and weaknesses in American society and system of government; he sought and seeks to defeat America through agitation and disinformation via social media and with money.
The IG found the FBI properly initiated an investigation into Russia’s cyber war. It found the above to be facts.
The independent IG found no evidence personal biases influenced the findings and outcomes of the investigation.
FISA processes in one case were flawed, and all agree the processes need to be fixed.
Trump and Barr and the GOP want their personal biases to control every outcome.
They want what Putin has: a dictatorship where fact and independent checks and balances no longer pertain.
Trump confers with and defers to Putin routinely. Transcripts of his phone calls with Putin have been improperly stored in classified servers, essentially ensuring neither Congress nor our intelligence officials know what they said.
Trump often serves Putin’s goals to destroy the fact and law based institutions that have made America a far better society than Russia has ever been.
3
The surveillance is only bad if it is directed at you or someone you like. Otherwise everyone should be happy with it.
This is what happens when paranoia trumps civil liberties. I can only imagine what Richard Nixon could have done to anti-war protesters has he had the FISA court.
Where is the evidence that secret surveillance has prevented or prosecuted violent acts?
None of us is safe.
So now the Left will be joining the Trump sycophants in claiming that our intelligence services are unfair. PERHAPS YOU WOULD PREFER MORE 9/ll incidents? Civil liberties, like all liberties, must be balanced by duties that citizens have.
The quote from the ACLU official about how the FISA's approval process is concerning for other investigations, "including especially Muslims", is too hilarious for words. Gasp! Carry me away before I faint! This surveillance act and the process for putting it into action should worry all Americans, because we could all be targets. It's a shame that it took the Trump imbroglio to bring attention to FISA abuse to the forefront when this has been going on for years, but now that it has, hopefully the politicians won't miss their moment to make changes.
1
Our worst enemy is the CIA,
It has led US astray over and over.
It’s time to clean house.
Well, that is about as mild a rebuke as I can imagine.
Do you think any of the people defending Page even know that the FBI tried to get MLK to kill himself? Do you think they know the FBI shadowed and intimidated former members of American communist parties? Do you think they know the FBI only affords you the rights you're entitled to if you have the lawyers and wealth to defend yourself?
Give me a break. Carter Page is still suspected of being a Russian agent, no matter what additional work he may have done for the CIA. If anything, the FBI ended its investigation of him too early. This FISA nonsense needs to be reformed, but not for Page. It needs to be reformed for MLK and political dissidents and those without the resources to defend themselves.
1
Obama fought against and successfully overturned a judge's ruling that a person accused of a crime based on evidence derived from FISA-approved surveillance has a right to see that evidence. Am I the only person who finds that unforgivably despicable?
4
We seem to forget that the Bush administration had permission to surveil domestically without needing FISA warrants at all. Did this undermine a system put in place after Watergate? Also not mentioned is that Carter Page was never prosecuted using any information gained from these warrants. J Edgar Hoover would be proud.
33
'Specifically, the application included allegations about Mr. Page contained in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Democrats.'
Correction
'Specifically, the application included allegations about Mr. Page contained in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Hillary Clinton.'
3
In October 2015, Fusion GPS was contracted by conservative political website The Washington Free Beacon to provide general opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates.
—— from Wikipedia
It was only in 2016 that the Clinton campaign picked it up. Facts are facts.
3
@FarOutWest Oops, correction: Christopher Steele's investigation into Trump and associates was initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon which is funded by Paul Singer, one of your fellow conservatives. The DNC and Clinton campaign only picked up the funding after Trump clinched there Republican nomination.
3
@FarOutWest. And who was friends with the Trumps...
1
Let's keep a balance. We know the irregularities some FBI agents are accused of here run across the board of political parties, etc. I.e, we were just told the Pentagon kept the unwinability of the war in Afghanistan from us all along (echoes of Vietnam?). Which is not to excuse the surveillance behavior, and monitor it for improvement. However, however, how anyone could argue that a presidential candidate who invites Russian hacking of another candidate publicly on live TV shouldn't be investigated is beyond me. Let's remember not to allow this Bully-in-Chief to convince us he's a victim of any sort.
8
Make no mistake. What was happening yesterday in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was a brazen G.O.P. attempt at discrediting, or even destroying, the F.B.I. And, as Senator Lindsey Graham assured everyone, this was just the beginning.
Discrediting the F.B.I. has become a primary objective for both Mr. Trump and the G.O.P. as it is becoming clear that Mr. Trump’s re-election chances are slim. And the G.O.P. has a blue print for discrediting the F.B.I. It is the same one Mr. Trump used to discredit the media by labeling every piece information he did not like "fake news." Now behind every F.B.I. decision is "the deep state."
The G.O.P. logic is inescapable: Once Mr. Trump is out of office, much of his corrupt wheeling and dealing will be exposed by the US District Courts. And when the sleaze surrounding “Individual-1” is revealed in all its entirety, many questions regarding G.O.P.'s machinations will be raised. The voters will understand how irresponsible the G.O.P. has been in defending Mr. Trump’s actions and blocking the impeachment, thus allowing so much damage to be inflected on the country.
By thoroughly discrediting the F.B.I., the G.O.P. will be able to dismiss all current and future charges against Mr. Trump, calling them as “the deep state” polys; thus, justifying their own blind, injudicious, support of Mr. Trump.
7
A core problem is the low threshold and lack of fixed standards to begin investigations, especially of a political campaign organization.
Essentially, the FBI can initiate such investigations at its own discretion, with no oversight, using whatever justification they say is sufficient.
This low bar should concern everyone, especially Democrats who loathe Trump.
Imagine if the FBI, right now, has launched an investigation into connections between China and Joe Biden, citing his statement that China is “not a competitor” and his son’s sweetheart deals that occurred on the back of Joe’s official trip to China.
Ridiculous? Perhaps.
But if the FBI determines that this is sufficient, then it is sufficient. And even if the FBI uses improper FISA applications, it will get a warrant to begin wiretapping.
This should scare all of us, regardless of political leaning.
4
Horowitz's claim of incompetence and negligence was just a cover up. When all the actions point in the same direction, they were intentional.
6
Would any individual presented with these facts claim no spying,as for lack of
political motivation how was this established.Were the liars filing these requests
just asked who they voted for?
Wonder what the FISA or other investigative processes in Ukraine work like? The ones Trumpsters are pushing to subject Joe and Hunter Biden to in order to help his campaign. Think it’s better than what we have going here?
It's too bad that President Nixon didn't have FISA back in 1972. There would have been no need for the "plumbers" to break into the Democratic HQ at the Watergate in order to spy on the McGovern campaign. The DOJ could have simply obtained a FISA warrant based on the numerous contacts between the McGovern campaign and North Vietnam and other foreign countries. Is this the world the Democrats want to live in? Because it's the world they have created.
7
Once again, politicians will address a government process if it, on occasion, negatively impacts white republican males.
3
Speaking of cherry picking...I notice that you selectively listed the "mistakes" uncovered by the Horowitz report without mentioning the most egregious action of all: The intentional and blatantly (also criminally) doctoring of a CIA e-mail by an FBI lawyer in order to eliminate exculpatory evidence regarding Carter Page.
11
A thorough study found that the investigative process has major flaws - namely it does not produce nuanced opinion, but focuses on making the strongest possible case for action. Isn’t this how we all operate - trying to justify our own actions?
What we need is a better defined process based on we have learned that becoming a big part of continuing education of the investigators. Those who are strongly pro or anti Trump should have been able to recuse themselves from the investigation, starting with Attorney General Barr.
It's time to say out loud, and at every opportunity - The United States of America is a police state, with a sophisticated surveillance apparatus fully deployed, surveilling the entire domestic population, able and actively monitoring and recording all communications between citizens and corporations 24/7/365, including cell phone use, landline use, email use, text use, all social media use, all credit and debit card use, all travel on road systems monitored via ezpass and now that ezpass is being phased out, via camera systems which send you the toll bill.
Every police station is equipped with "Stingray" devices which act as fake cell towers and capture your cell usage, plus many police cars are outfitted with stingrays as well which means that while transiting neighborhoods they access your cell activities.
Other devices that we know about are "DRT BOXES", which are stingrays deployed on helicopters, planes, and blimps, as well as far more advanced surveillance equipment deployed on dozens of low earth satellites.
So, this planet is now a kind of panopticon; we know we are constantly surveilled, what we do not know is the true extent of it, and how many newer more sophisticated methods are in use.
There is no doubt also that the Five Eyes Group, now expanded to include 9 additional nations, are all working together to maintain this Orwellian nightmare.
Privacy ?? Gone the way of the Dodo.
6
Ever wonder whether anything is beyond partisan politics by now?
2
I am conflicted about these revelations. The FBI deserves credit and our thanks for having the courage to open the highly sensitive investigation of the Trump campaign. Despite more than sufficient prediction, it was bound to be fraught with controversy and danger for the participants and the entire institution. I am disheartened that there would be serious lapses and corner cutting by the supposed most highly professional instigators that our nation has. We now see how bad processes can lead to unjustified investigations and taint the credibility of those that are most critical.
2
Surveillance is a necessary tool for intelligence gathering. Unfortunately there are U.S. citizens who sell out our nation to foreign powers, and terrorists. Without adequate evidence collection, law enforcement will not be able to stop those who would do damage to our nation. Aside from the fact that it was a Republican operative who was under surveillance, Senator Graham would not be concerned about this case. We need adequate surveillance processes to avoid Russian involvement in our elections an terrorist attacks like 9-11. Maybe more oversight is needed, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There needs to be bipartisan support on this matter.
1
We've certainly known about this problem since the Puzzle Palace was first published and later reinforced by the Snowden revelations into NSA surveillance, and it's only gotten worse since then. The reason it is top secret is not so much to keep foreign actors from assessing our capabilities as it is to keep American citizens from knowing just how little privacy we have in our modern surveillance state. Now with deep learning algorithms, there is enough bandwidth to listen to every conversation near a cell phone or networked device with a microphone and assess it for threat level, to say nothing of meta-data analysis. From the Republican viewpoint, such practices are fine as long as they are targeted against Democrats, immigrant communities and Americans of questionable heritage, including black and brown bodied citizens.
2
Now that Republicans got a taste of their own medicine, i.e. a rubber-stamp FISA court and lax practices in putting together the wiretap requests, they suddenly see the need for reforms and tightening the process. Maybe now something good will come out of this whole mess.
2
Equally as ugly was the drum beating of the liberal media, not verifying, but publishing, the false statements, lies, and innuendos perpetrated by Adam Schiff , The Democrats, and their cable news buddies at CNN and MSNBC, to bring down Donald Trump,
at any cost. And what a cost it has been to us! This should never happen to our country again. Shame on all of you.
15
The inspector general report about the FBI's Russia investigation and national security surveillance is apparently being treated by The Times as of low importance and unworthy of headlines.
The Times has essentialy "buried" this important report.
This exemplifies the media bias since the report undermines the Democrat narrative and is therefore embarrassing.
13
As a citizen of the U.S I find myself now completely perplexed, and perhaps this is just as it should be. Where do we go from here? The answer lies in each and every one of us. Now, instead of believing any authority figure I am required to seek my own council of truth, which for me is based upon "Do unto others as you would have done to you." Things are unraveling. I suppose it has to be this way. Now the question is, what will arise out of all of this once the untangling is done? The truth is, we are in this together. Let us be good to each other as things fall apart.
2
In the 74 years of my lifetime government secrecy has always been faulty. Someone always leaks.
1
So it took a hissy fit by Trump to expose the inherent abuses of a secret court where the judges hear only the government?
Oh the irony.
8
Fair, honest, nuanced, critical reporting by Mr. Savage.
The country needs more of this.
Thanks.
8
The dysfunction of our surveillance state is only “staggering” if you haven’t been paying attention.
Snowden revealed that nothing we do online is secure or private and all is subject to the whims of curious contractors, sloppy investigators, and worse.
We’ve learned elsewhere that the NSA worked to actively undermine the encryption standards we need for banking and other e-commerce, and has massive server farms where it can store -forever- everything that passes through its grubby hands.
And who really believes that this is for our own good? Too many legislators and people in the press, it seems.
We’ve constructed a surveillance state that Stalin or the GDR could have only dreamed of. And we did it voluntarily.
And the guardians of our freedom, American journalists, have been too busy credulously reporting how well the FISA court and other agents of the surveillance state run to really ask the hard questions.
Maybe giving Trump the keys to the surveillance state will be sufficient to cause a rethink. But probably not.
7
It's shocking that Comey is publicly taking a victory lap.
13
Thanks to the FBI, Alex Jones just became all the more credible to his zealot followers.
It's almost as though one has to imagine someone else's being on the receiving end of these questionable actions (ex., Muslims) to understand how damaging they really are.
It's bad. Very bad. Take off the Trump animus blinders to see how bad.
8
Is the FBI sometimes incompetent with a tendency to over-reach? Does that exonerate Trump and his lackeys?
2
The FBI is about to find out what happens when it messes with a GOP election, just as the IRS did.
5
If all of this FISA nonsense actually made a difference in helping law enforcement the FBI world have stopped the last Vegas massacre and the Florida naval Base murders.
4
AG Barr wants us to think that opening the investigation into Russian interference wasn't justified; it WAS justified per IG Horowitz.
Lots of comments here imply that lefties approve of the FBI withholding information to get wiretaps, as they did with Carter Page. But this old lefty remembers what happened under J. Edgar, long before FISA courts. No good American approves of bad actions by the FBI. Free countries put tight reins on law enforcement.
Don't get distracted: Our elections are corrupted by foreign interference, voter suppression, gerrymandering, and Citizens United. Not to mention the Electoral College, which is supposed to prevent the unfit from becoming president.
So here we are: President Trump is unfit for office, and per Mueller, Russia continues to interfere in our elections.
6
Mr. Savage is right; this issue transcends parties. It's the terrible baggage left over from 9/11, and we've truly been left holding the bag...one packed with dynamite. One might hope we could revisit a host of terrible policies that infringe on fundamental rights and freedoms. This is what "panic" legislating looks like and it's dangerous.
The most egregious case I know happened to a friend. Picture the quintessential American Mom ...dog lover, beloved teacher, lifelong resident of small town America, never even had a speeding ticket. To her astonishment, her bank called one day to warn her that somehow, mysteriously she was on the terrorist watch-list. What?!
This came to light when she and her husband applied for a loan. Her banker, a life long friend, was so appalled that he did what he was threatened not to do and told her. Both he and she called officials and that's where it gets truly Orwellian. Here is what they were told. "You can't ask how or why you got on the list. To ask makes you look more guilty." What?!
And so began her legal nightmare. The sole explanation her lawyer has construed is that she had visited the DMZ. Born in Korea, she was adopted by American parents during the war; this trip was an attempt to find her roots. Evidently even visiting the DMZ triggers "certain" "interest."
A woman who found safety and shelter as a baby, raised to love this country unconditionally, one who gives back every day as a teacher treated like this. Beyond irony.
12
I agree, and accept, that the FBI made egregious errors in using the FISA tool to surveil Carter Page. I agree that such misuse puts our civil liberties in jeopardy, and that safeguards against such misuse must be strengthened. Still, members of the Trump campaign had over 100 contacts with Russians, many of which they sought to hide. Trump himself has chosen to conceal his conversations with Putin in super secret classified servers. Trump bragged to Kremlin officials that he had gotten rid of Comey and so the pressure was off vis a vis a Russian investigation.
I agree, and accept that the FBI made egregious errors in using, misusing, FISA. I also believe that FBI investigators must have become increasingly concerned, frightened even, as more and more evidence of Kremlin tentacles insinuating themselves in the American electoral process came to light. Yes, let us be protected from overzealous FBI investigators (remember COINTELPRO from the sixties). But let us not forget that Trump bragged, and laughed, with Kremlin officials, that he had derailed the Russian investigation. However do I prioritize my outrage?
6
Horowitz did the job he was tasked to do. He was tough on the FBI because otherwise he would have been ridiculed by Trump. There was basis to initiate the investigate. The most serious concerns remain about Trump's vulnerability to Kremlin influence that were at the heart of the original investigation remain to be investigated. This would have required investigation of Trump's financial dealings. Several years ago his son Eric said most of their money came from Russia. What conditions were associated with this money? Trump called for the recognition of Russia's seizure of Crimea during the campaign as legal. U.S. national security policy differs starkly from many Trump statements regarding Russia. The American people deserve and need to know more about the person chosen to serve them as president. Trump's tax statements need to be released and it needs to be clear that Trump is not an asset of a hostile foreign government.
Thus far Trump has resisted all requests for disclosure from Congress and from lower level courts. It appears that disclosure of his financial information would doom his election prospects. Otherwise, he would have disclosed this information.
It appears that barring Supreme Court ruling compelling Trump to release his tax returns the present game will continue. All highly complex processes such as FISA involve a level of judgement that cannot be easily documented. The FBI did a superb job under tough conditions. Learn the lessons learned and serve on!
5
It would be important if Comey would acknowledge the failings outlined in the report and support strengthening protections for citizens. Alas, his “spin” was to assert the report vindicated him and the FBI. What is he hiding?
7
OK. So they have been abusing the system to gather information on suspects? What a surprise! Really I thought we went over all that and determined that the total surveillance state was not only a necessity but would be handled responsibly.
Guess we were fooled. Don't me wrong I fully believe they got the evidence on our great presidente. I also believe there was cause aplenty to investigate him.
In fact absent Bill Barr and his complete lap dog status, I think public opinion on the matter would be far more irate about the so called presidente. This is a real shame because The guy is going to pull the wool over the very ? feeble ? minds of our people.
In any case along with everything else we also now know that the authorities are playing a little loose with the truth when it comes to surveilling us. What could go wrong?
Of course in the hands of an authoritarian and dictatorial regime, one perhaps comprimised by hostile foreign powers, there could be cause for concern.
But that could never happen here, what with steller persons with great impartiality and ethics, like Bill Barr and the great presidente Himself guiding us back to gretness again.
Rest easy fellow countryman- we are in good hands indeed. We only need to trust in these great men and all will be well.
3
As Charlie Savage's column notes, the sloppiness regarding the renewals of the FISA warrant for Carter Page is something upon which both Republicans and Democrats can agree.
It is equally clear that neither Donald Trump nor William Barr should take any comfort from the report of the Department of Justice's Inspector General, Michael E. Horowitz.
The report devastates the Trump-Barr phony claim of bias or impropriety in the decision to investigate Trump and his associates, and Horowitz also found no evidence to exculpate Russia from its massive effort to rig the 2016 election in Trump's favor.
4
This is old news. No one remembers Edward Snowden and what he released. The FISA system has been terribly abused for years. The brouhaha now because Barr is on a crusade to vindicate Trump's fantasies.
2
I couldn’t help but notice your omission (and it is very telling) that the Republicans had,in fact, employed Mr. Steele before the Democrats. This is a widely understood and relevant fact but you felt compelled to leave it out. You piece strikes me as a partisan argument rather than a clean argument about surveillance.
2
@John Effa
Both parties pay for dirt. The problem is how this dirt was used. It was falsely presented as "verified."
7
@John Effa
It's not widely understood because it is a lie that is repeatedly propagated in these comment.
Steele was not brought on board by anyone in the Republican camp. He only came on board when the dossier moved to the Clinton campaign.
If you doubt this, then explain why the RNC and Bush, Cruz, or Rubio did not use the dossier to deny Trump the RNC nomination? Why would they willingly sabotage their own campaign for Hillary's benefit?
1
Since 9/11 it's become the Foreign Bureau of Investigation while domestic law enforcement has dropped. Look at the FBI budget - it's only a fraction of the proposed cost of the wall on the Mexican border.
3
What a surprise! It seems that the some individuals. in the criminal justice system are as inclined to falsify information against high profile targets as is done against poor people. The differences I observe are that often for the poor people, the falsifications often continue including the "evidence" that wrongly incarcerates them for years, and they don't get so much ink from the press.
4
And they have to show up to court when summoned !
Contempt of court to everyone but republicans and the president
1
"....And what the report showed was not pretty...."
This is a mild rebuke. What about saying - "was ugly."
I have read much of the report - and it is indeed deeply troubling. And I am a Republican.
The sheer number of 1,300 plus per year is astonishing.
That means it averages almost 4 a day.
Reading the report - the Page FISA took almost 3 weeks and involved at least 10 people up and down the FBI food chain.
So, just imagine what other FISA efforts for these 1,300 warrants are.
It means that FBI is bound to cut corners.
The report clearly shows that FBI does not seems to know GIGO principle - Garbage in, garbage out.
The Page FISA did not just have mistakes, omissions but it had outright lies.
FBI knew long before Page FISA that Downer tip off was wayway over exaggerated.
And long before Page FISA - FBI also knew that this dossier was total GIGO.
Yet, they persisted.
What Congress as a minimum needs to do is order a blanket ban on FISA authorization when it impacts a political campaign, period.
There is simply no need for FBI to meddle in our campaigns. We have enough problems with Ukrainians.
I never thought I would agree with ACLU - but Congress should consider it's FISA recommendation.
5
The author fails to provide the full facts of Christopher Steele's dossier and only states it was funded by Democrats.
Steele was first funded by Republicans who were opposed to candidate Trump. Only after Trump became the GOP nominee was the information sent to and funded by Democrats.
The author simply repeats the GOP lie that Steele was funded by Democrats and never mentions Republican opposition.
4
It is my recollection that Steele was hired by Fusion after the Democrats began paying for the Fusion's services.
3
Abuses and excesses of FISA court surveillance are well documented, as are the abuses and excesses of Trump in his pursuit of power and profit. The need to reform FISA should not halt or delay holding Trump accountable for his misbehavior.
5
This stinks to high heaven. Period! What if you are next. They destroyed people based upon bizarre unsubstantiated schemes. The FBI has violated the trust of Americans! Joseph McCarty is laughing in his grave!
4
He is definitely crying over our presidents relationship with Putin. I never thought I would welcome the days of the Red Scare but I also never thought I would see such an authoritarian rise to power in the USA.
@dan/pvbeachbum (and wonder how many other ppl on this forum):
Page was one of the few (only?) ppl that the FBI investigated in the Trump campaign whose life wasn’t ruined, except for having to suffer the investigation. One thing that Savage does not mention is the heavily redacted discussion on what Horowitz made of the findings of that investigation, which remains secret. We can only speculate whether early findings in the investigation over-rode the “false” evidence brought up initially to justify the FISA app, and repeated rotely in subsequent applications (because we all know it is easier these days to copy and paste to create a “new” document than it is to generate a new one, with the critical fresh eye that entails). All we know is that Mueller elected not to charge Page. It is always easy to find errors in retrospect, even where people have made heroic efforts to avoid them. If Page had turned out to be a Russian double/triple agent, all this worrying would be contained in one ACLU office, Snowden’s Moscow apartment, and Glen Greenwald’s news organization.
This is also an indictment of Rep. Adam Schiff, who defended the use of the Steele dossier and the FISA warrant application process.
11
These numerous infractions had nothing to do with Trump. Except that there need to be very thorough and effective reforms made to the surveillance process. It's so ironic that the Trump lap dogs want to twist this into discrediting the impeachment process??
Can we imagine a worse president than Trump to competently and sincerely make these reforms happen? In this area, his sole motivation is to undermine the democratic foundations of our national security so that they only serve to enrich his personal economic and political goals!
1
It is refreshing to see conservatives as well as liberals become suspicious of the activities and of the FBI, which are so similar to abuses in other countries with secret service operations. These human tendencies toward abuse can be seen in history as far back as the days of Herodotus.
Clearly there needs to be a federal security investigative agency, but there are inevitable abuses that will take place whenever such institutions are created due to the tendency of teams to engage in group think and lose track the broader implications of their actions.
The victims of these abuses tend to be different subsets of the general population at different times, depending upon the latest obsessions in the news. These victims are always more knowledgeable about these threats than the rest of the population....until it happens to them.
However, I am more concerned with the abuses within our political system which allows big donors to give to political campaigns free of public disclosure of the source of those funds. If we don't know where the money comes from that spins the truth in political advertising, then how can the electorate make intelligent decisions about the truth?
Transparency should be a fundamental prerequisite for any democracy to be more than a sham. Too many appointees to the Supreme Court in recent decades have dropped the ball on the protection of our fragile democracy.
They should be impeached unless they overturn their warped decisions.
2
First, Congress takes some of the responsibility for this, as it authorized a clearly unconstitutional process.
The findings underscore the reason that we have an adversarial legal process, one in which an accused person has the right to hear and rebut the "evidence" against them(sic).
In this instance it took a bad case to create, one hopes, a good outcome.
1
Not only does the Horowitz Report point to our lack of national preparedness and know-how for living in the chaotic boundary less, winner take all, money making world of Trump, it may also highlight serious cracks in the strength of consent of the governed toward upholding the freedoms lived throughout US history.
We are living in a dangerous time. Many of us find it an absolute stunning surprise that our government structures appear so weak in the face of rapid movement toward authoritarianism and economic and political inequality.
The Horowitz report confirms once again that freedom and security seem a continuum paid for by the other. The American founders established important guidelines within the US Constitution to maintain balance between them. We need to be respectful of these if we are not to sacrifice our freedoms for an untenable security.
The benefit of the doubt should always be granted to the subjects of government surveillance. Not government agencies. Government has much greater power.
1
ABOLISH the FISA court, the CIA and the NSA. There is no need for them. The FBI can be restricted to investigations involving interstate criminal conduct. Terrorism should be reclassified as criminal matters for which warrants must be obtained in federal district courts, as in other criminal matters.
Prosecute George Bush and Dick Cheney for crimes for which Nancy Pelosi knowingly refused to impeach because she is a moral imp.
1
I find Trump loathsome, but I dared to actually read the first hundred or so pages of the IG report and felt--to my horror--that a great deal of what I thought I knew about that supposed vast web of conspiratorial connections between DT, his campaign, and various Russians begins to look like a dark fantasy. People, we spent three years pursuing all of these "leads" flogged on primarily by the shocking "revelations" of the Steele Dossier, almost NONE of which could ever be verified in any way by the FBI! It is painful but important to face the brutal truth that as vast and abhorrent as DT's corruption and malevolence is, neither the FBI nor Mueller delivered ANY proof of such. IMHO, Mueller failed utterly because he decided not to "follow the money"--the loans, the offshore funds, the corrupt business ties from Trump Soho to golf courses to Baku. But to understand why Mueller's endeavor failed, the IG Report is essential...and it is excruciating!
7
I don’t know how many citizens switched their choice because of so- called Russian influence, do you? Maybe...no one? This whole thing is alternate reality. Let’s face it, the FBI didn’t make these large series of incompetent “mistakes” because all of a sudden, they weren’t paying attention. This is a bit more than that, wouldn’t you say? It really was politics and underlying shock that Trump got elected , period. Comey and his cronies are the ones who should be charged, while all they could come up with were process crimes, wasting everyone’s time and money. Guess what? Trump was right.
18
@Brian Kenney . I saw this 3 yrs ago by following the investigations of people like John Solomon, Greg Jarrett, Kim Stassel, and others. Distilling articles from the NYTs, WaPo and Politico, Mark Levin laid out the entire Deep State conspiracy in March of 2017. The leftist media has been living in anti-Trump Alternate Reality Fantasy Land since Trump was elected.
5
the Republicans are howling about the FBI and the rule of law but have no interest in the rule of law when it comes to our corrupt President bribing foreign governments to help him personally. They are all trashing the Constitution and our democracy.
1
The F.B.I. is not the heart that beats freedom, liberty, and justice for all. That falls under the three branches of federal government. So who is the Crook. That may have to fall under the Attorney General Barr.
1
So, the next logical step is... Republicans calling for Regan... err regulations?
If Page wasn't actually harmed by these omissions, because not prosecuted, why, the FBI can use the Trump Ukraine Excuse: Yeah, but they didn't pursue my idea; so nobody was affected by my crime, so I never committed one.
1
Anything Trump driven - 33,000 lies and counting - is easily dismissed.
1
According to Senator Klobuchar in her Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell appearance tonight, FISA requests have long been notorious for fast and loose stretching of the truth. Republicans are feigning outrage as if the Trump campaign was intentionally targeted for special treatment -
5
Peter Van Buren, a former State Department official and the author of We meant Well: How I helped Lose The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, shows convincingly that the IG report proves that the Trump campaign was the target of unethical investigations and that the Steele dossier was instrumental in lying to the Fisa court. (Can we impeach the FBI Now?)
The Times says it cares about the truth and the truth is that the Times, like the Dems around Nancy Pelosi, promotes a disingenuous approach to getting Trump which will only strengthen him. Now the pro-Trump ads are out and this misguided approach is a key element in his propaganda.
Now I agree with the Times that Trump is a vile incompetent President but using disingenuous ways to get him is a disaster. Sen Schumer let the cat out of the bag when he bragged that the intel services had "six ways till Sunday" to get him. A society run by its intel services is not a democracy.
5
“If the broader audit of FISA applications reveals a systematic pattern of errors of this sort that plagued this one, then I would expect very serious consequences and reforms.”
That's rich. No one is seriously auditing anything. Everything is top secret. If you've got a problem, you probably have something to hide /s
2
So the entire top leadership of the premiere, best ever law enforcement agency (as everyone boasts about FBI) was so incompetent? Sorry, this does not pass the smell test.
If you believe for a second that those people made mistakes, did not know what they were signing etc etc, you need a cold shower.
This was exactly as the logical conclusion points to: a soft coup. It failed. Had it succeeded, we would have never known a thing about it. Most likely this is not the first take-down of a political candidate, they're buried under FBI and DOJ secrecy.
Trump cut the head of the snake by firing Comey. That was his best and worst decision of his presidency.
6
This is a candid look into our secret American domestic spying operation that denies the constitutional civil rights protections for the citizens.
9/11 was used as an excuse to increase domestic spying on citizens with little oversight leading to police state human rights violations.
Paranoia runs rampant as much in a democratic republic as a dictatorship.
117
Every time I have marched and protested I have been filmed by police. Everyone is, bc we protest?
3
If these types of mistakes and errors of judgement occur against high level targets, it's freightening to think what's happening to everyday targets on the other end of the stick.
6
I am a lawyer who has read Carter Page's testimony before Congress, and the FISA applications. Here is the gist of what happened.
1. Page was a lower level unpaid informal adviser/nobody. No substantive input into policy.
2. As an academic he visited Russia in summer of 2016.
3. FISA application falsely alleged that he was an agent of Russia based on alleged nefarious interaction with Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin. Turns out that he had never met either person in his life.
4. When rumblings of Steele Dossier became public in Sept. of 2016, he called them "complete garbage." Nonetheless nobody from the FBI bothered to contact him.
5. Surveillance began in Oct. of 2016, and since time has proven Page was 100% innocent, obviously nothing was found notwithstanding enormous FBI surveillance reach.
6. Instead of taking a step back and seriously looking at the allegations another FISA was filed in January 2017, which was clearly wrongful. Again, after surveillance was coming up negative FBI persisted with bogus investigation.
7. Page was questioned multiple times around March 2017 and again strenuously denied (if this was untrue, he would have been prosecuted for perjury) the Dossier allegations.
8. Two more applications were filed after Page was questioned although FBI had to know there were no grounds to surveil Page.
The takeaway is that there were zero grounds to surveil Page, and the FBI's actions were one of the biggest civil liberties violations in US history.
199
@JD Alll this based on Page’s testimony that you read? Your argument amounts to little more than “Page says he didn’t do it,” which doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t do it. Just like Trump, who I’ve been watching stink up the public sphere for the better part of 40 years. I’ve seen enough to be 99 percent sure his presidency is the result of unprecedented foreign and domestic skullduggery. Our free society and constitutional democracy are at stake, and if some FBI agents cut a few corners following any leads to root out said skulduggery, I can live with it.
29
@JD It strikes me that the investigation, in and of itself, is the thing, the results of the investigation being of secondary or of no import whatsoever. This attitude leads to the "perpetual" investigation -- e.g. into Hillary Clinton's emails -- and it is the "fact" of the investigation itself that creates a vague sense of culpability (if there's nothing wrong why are they investigating) and equally vague sense of on-going confusion (the "results" of the investigation often being of little import and inconclusive). It also strikes me that this has been the prevailing paradigm since the "investigations" into whitewater, and it is now thoroughly non-partisan. The Republicans, in short, are reaping what they've sown with the on-going investigations into Trump and his associates. The irony is over-whelming and disheartening.
18
@Bill If Carter Page did anything wrong he would be prosecuted. He was not.
Now, if u love America more than u hate Trump and his friends, you would see that the FBI has done Carter Page wrong. No ifs or buts!
28
Ironic that the Republicans were perfectly fine with such surveillance under Bush, but started complaining about it during the Obama administration and now, are using a case of its use against one of theirs to express newfound indignation.
While FISA warrants to tapPage were mucked up, the central evidence of Trump mucked up with Russia remains Loud & clear.
If only there could be a simple graphic presentation that showed all the Russian disinformation & malicious propaganda in support of Trump, all the consistent evidence of his Ukraine scheme and all the anti-NATO policies, meetings and hidden phone calls with Putin.
Carter Page is almost irrelevant.
If a cop sees a flickering light and peers inside a bank looking for a n electrical short but catches Burglars looting the vault- he is not mostly at fault when it is flashlights not a short that attracts him.
Our intelligence agencies saw flickering lights which turned out to be a Big Foreign Heist.
2
I get the impresion that Charlie Savage reports a more nuanced version of events than his colleagues who fall in with the national secuirity establishment.
3
I am disappointed with the scope of errors because our democracy depends on being able to learn the truth which occasionally demands investigating nefarious people, However, rather that throwing out the baby with the bathwater by destroying FISA, I would hope that they will help improve the process. This is not the time to forget that our democracy is under siege from forces outside and within our own country.
Bravo for getting to the most important story.
4
This coverage is exactly what the Republicans were counting on. This go's a long way towards undermining our security agencies. Trump wants total control of our government, like Putin, and he will stop at nothing to get it. With Barr at his side, they knock down our protections so that Russia becomes an even bigger enemy of our way of life in the USA. If Trump gets re-elected, we may see what living under a dictator is all about. It appears that the Republicans and this administration want this outcome and will do anything to get it.
1
Well if the Democrats want to show that they can walk and chew gum and the Republicans are really so enraged about process, they should pass a bipartisan bill to fix FISA before xmas right?
6
Since reform in this arena is all suddenly important to Republicans and their electorate, by all means, lets pass some laws to protect civil liberties. Its an opportunity! Maybe now we’ll have some votes to get something done!
Or the outrage will suddenly fizzle when legislation to protect future abuses gets proposed. IOW, its a bluff.
2
Want to talk about paranoia, just look at the crazy amount of redaction that’s in the overturning of a January 2014 US v. DAOUD decision a few months later; as I went through to the end, it did make sense for reasons of the original FISA and subsequent FAA.
Actually interfering with a political campaign is the worst thing the FBI can do.
7
@Shamrock
Yes, because it's Trump, this has been overlooked. Graham rightly pointed out that spying (or whatever one calls it) on an opponent's presidential campaign team is a very serious offense. Smacks of J. Edgar days.
Quite frankly, this is worse than foreign interference.
6
The Republicans were committed to expanding the surveillance powers of a huge spy system and only turned critical when it came to Trump.
The left and Democrats have long been suspicious of FBI tactics and only turned into cheerleaders when it came to Trump.
2
You omitted the most egregious “error.” A lawyer tampered with an email to make it provide the opposite conclusion. Then this email was used to help secure a FISA renewal on Carter Page.
I think this had to do with whether or not he worked for the CIA. He did and had reported his contacts accordingly. The FISA court did not know that.
The FBI has abused its power in a way that threatens our democracy.
12
Of course, if someday there is another untainted election and somehow the Democrats win, and the new president turns out to be a criminal who abuses power and does whatever he wants to enrich himself and stay in power, while frolicking with our enemies. Well the GOP is just gonna have to give him a pass. Of course total stonewalling will be the norm, so don’t even bother to complain or investigate. Just sit back for 4 or 8 or 12 or 16 years till the nightmare passes. It’s the new way.
@Budley
What has Trump done that is criminal, exactly? The Carter Page surveillance proves that the Trump team was monitored from the start via FISA warrants. They could do that because Page communicated with everyone on the Trump team.
Therefore Mueller's claim that he couldn't find sufficient evidence because Trump destroyed evidence and wouldn't meet with him is bogus.
Any evidence Trump's team destroyed already existed as a copy with the FBI. Mueller had access to all of it, and still couldn't make it stick.
1
@viv
Page’s FISA party started after he left the campaign
Manafort was being investigated before he came on (to work for free! Even though he was broke! After working with Russian oligarchs friendly with Putin. A competent organization would have vetted him & avoided like the plague)
Papadopolus triggered the Russia investigation by bragging about having contacts that could provide Clinton emails. In a bar. To an Australian.
Flynn lied to the FBI, who knew because they were monitoring the Russians, not Flynn, and not thru FISA
And no one is saying Trump destroyed evidence. There are allegations that his team used encrypted apps like Signal & WhatsApp to communicate, which the FBI can’t (easily?) obtain. But mostly he only gave limited testimony (with many “I can’t recall” answers) in writing, avoiding Bill Clinton’s mistake of lying under oath.
@Chuckles
1. Manafort's investigation and subsequent prosecution had nothing to do with his work for Trump's campaign. Stop pretending that Mueller's "convictions" had anything to do with Trump or Russia.ZERO people were convicted on the Russia conspiracy thing.
2. Both Flynn and Papadopolous have filed papers to withdraw their pleas. The Russians were merely charged with impersonating people online, and nobody will ever prosecute them on those ridiculous charges. Mueller did nothing but his usual practice of trumping up charges and claiming victory over nothing.
2. Page's FISA warrant was extended many times until mid 2017. Why? Because the FBI knew he was talking to the Trump clan and that would be an easy way to snag him.
3. Papadopolous's claim to Downer was proven bogus soon after he told it to Downer. He said nothing that wasn't already reported in the NYT and other outlets. It was Downer who kept soliciting meetings with Papadopolous, for no plausible reason. Trump wasn't the RNC nominee in May, and there was still a great deal of debate about what the RNC would do.
4. Papadopolous's claim was proven wrong. Nobody hacked Hillary's home server, which is what he claimed. The threat was to release the deleted emails she refused to turn over to the FBI. Nobody even hacked her emails. Podesta's emails were hacked, and the DNC server, which contained a fraction of Hillary's correspondence.
Seems like so many so called conspiracy theories are more easily explained by simple minded bureaucratic bungling that has been institutionalized through government growth. Hearing them speak, the bureaucrats appear to lack the ability to organize their thoughts coherently which explains why they found their way to government jobs where the bar for lifetime employment is set very low.
It’s hard to believe it’s simple-minded bungling when every “mistake” of 17 serious “mistakes” go only one direction: to falsely make Carter Page and thus his boss look to the FISA Court to be Russian assets.
Note too Horowitz’s statement that when questioning those involved about the reasons for their conduct he never got an answer that satisfied him. Think about that. He’s saying in his bureaucratic way that he suspected they were lying.
4
It is so interesting to hear such different viewpoints. Listening to some other informed scholars it is assumed there will be some errors and policies advised but that the investigation was successful and found in political bias of the investigation into the meddling of Russia in our elections and whether Trump and/or his family and/or advisors were somehow involved. We have all heard what transpired in the Trump tower with a meeting to have hoped to deliver dirt on Hillary. We have all heard Trump side with Russia regarding whether they meddled or not. We all heard Trump ask Russia to dig up Hilliary’s emails. The idea that any investigative body would not have had ample reason to investigate the matter of Russian meddling to the fullest is ludicrous. This is not political bias. This is mandatory. Period.
These "mistakes" sound about as unintentional as the ones of the shoplifters who "forget" to pay for the goods they carry out of the store. Based on the court' record of rubber stamping most FISA requests, it probably would still have granted the wiretap and extension, but that doesn't give the FBI agents a pass on unethical behavior.
92
@Laurence Hauben Three different groups made 17 serious errors, and over 115 decisions all in one direction that were all later proven to be incorrect.
If you want to know the odds that that so many errors and so many wrong decisions can be an accident, you can put down the calculator. It's zero.
5
"Defenders of the system have argued that the low rejection rate stems in part from how well the Justice Department self-polices and avoids presenting the court with requests that fall short of the legal standard."
Let's understand how absurd this system really is.
When the government asks the government if it's ok if the government does something to it's own citizens the government is sure to tell the government no. Because that's always how governments work. Nope no problem there. Who could have foreseen problems in a system like that? Our checks and balances were supposed to stop this type of thing but when so many of our leaders hold an ideology that disagrees with it's own governing documents is it really a surprise that these things happen? Not to me at least. And probably not if you've read a newspaper in the last 20 years. We shouldn't be reforming a fundamentally ill conceived system. It should be trashed and replaced with something that isn't going to violate half the constitution every time the court meets.
4
I don’t see an FBI problem here.
The standard in investigation is like probable cause (i.e., good reason for further investigation), not preponderance of evidence *YET) or reasonable doubt.
Investigators have to make judgment calls in a total context of investigation that is beyond what’s material to warranting further investigation. It’s not the job of the FICA court to evaluate the preponderance of relevances, only to evaluate whether surveillance is warrantable.
Mr. Horowitz’s rejection of the FBI’s plausible claim that there was a large-scale context involved is not itself evidentiary of misjudgment by the FBI.
1
@gary e. davis
The standard in investigation is first NOT to lie on your warrant applications.
We should definitely see a larger review of FBI investigations. My guess would be that this one was probably typical, in terms of shoddy practices. It would be nice to say "I'm sure the FBI generally does very good work" but in reality we hear a lot of pretty worrisome stories.
Unfortunately, this administration isn't starting with a healthy skepticism of the FBI, but simply with a drive to defend Trump at all costs. Who will monitor the investigation of the investigators?
This is the first time I have agreed with Senator Lindsay Graham: "after your report I have serious consideration whether the FISA court can continue"..unless there's serious reform. We need to make sure that FISA is used for the proper reasons and not for political gains. This article scared me since I remember when all out surveillance on protesters during the Vietnam War led to many false arrests. We haven't come too far from that era.
11
There is a lot of hand wringing about FISA and the federal surveillance warrants it issues, along with expressions of concern about the facts that its actions are "secret" and the target is unrepresented. (Or was; changes have added an advocate to stand in for the target).
FISC proceedings are classified because of the classified material such as intelligence sources and methods. Otherwise they probably are much like any other warrant issuing court in which the proceedings are equally non-public and ex parte. Warrants those courts issue can be as intrusive as the FISC's; and like them, they may never become known to the target only during pretrial disclosure, or never.
There is no obvious reason to think the FBI is more careless with FISC warrant applications than any others, or more careless than other law enforcement agencies - federal, state, or local. Warrant issue relies on the accuracy and honesty of those seeking the warrant in all cases, and failures like the IG report describes surely occur throughout the court systems.
The report took care to state that reviewers "found no documentary or testimonial evidence [of] political bias or improper motivation" - quite different from finding that there was none - but did not address, at least in the executive summary, the more likely case, that warrant applications are made by or for police who may naturally incline to look harder for indicators of guilt than of innocence.
5
I can't help being struck by the outrage now expressed in some quarters, who up to this point have seemingly been perfectly happy to overlook gross negligence and wilfull misconduct by other government agencies and bodies.
20
These were not "mistakes, errors or commissions" and this was not incompetence. All 17 "mistakes" led in one direction towards falsely maligning Page and justifying increased surveillance. Was there a single example or a "mistake" that created false exculpatory information? No.
And we know the key people involved were vehemently anti Trump. So to say there was "no evidence" bias played a role is false. There was in fact evidence of bias but not enough to prove it played a role. Motivation and intent are always hard to prove but any fair thinking person can see what happened here.
57
@Aurthur Phleger With one exception, FBI warrant application missteps can be understood about as well as making "safe" assumptions to ensure the information available for charging decisions is as complete as possible.
The exception, of course, was altering an email from "another agency" to change its meaning to support the warrant application; that is beyond the pale and should result in disciplinary action.
10
This charge of bias is perplexing to me. To include a description, “vehemently anti Trump” leads to a question that can’t be answered because the initial charge, if supporting actions were included, can be refuted by a counter charge with supporting actions: let’s appoint officials who are “vehemently pro Trump” based on their history and review the results with hindsight.
1
@Aurthur Phleger: Well, remember, in those days Lindsay Graham was vehemently anti-Trump. Trump was just plain unpopular. It would have been weirdly difficult to come up with a team of investigators who favored him, and of course, that's a bias too. The point is that an agent has to be able to carry out an unbiased investigation, regardless of political preferences; that is really not that much to ask, and apparently that is what happened. That said, as FBI agents, these people are always going to push for more investigations. That's their job. It becomes a real problem,and the agency should be reformed. But it wasn't a case of political bias against Trump. Remember, in the end the FBI head was the one who handed the election to Trump. So it's hard for Trump to complain...
3
Interesting. Omissions and repeated errors but there was no documented bias. Undocumented bias is called discrimination based on factors including political leanings. I would like to see a few criminal indictments so the behaviors change. James Comey should pay for this so the future directors pay attention to these serious issues.
FISA is needed more that ever, but not to have abused repeatedly even after the election which clearly lends credibility to the claims of deep state hatred towards Trump.
35
@JustWatching
Both Comey and McCabe were already referred for criminal indictments. Barr declined. They are not out of the woods yet as Durham's report is next.
Barr is a stickler. I suspect no one will get away with "fixing" FISA applications without prosecution.
3
It is fair to ask whether Carter Page would have been caught in the the FBI’s Trump campaign dragnet and spied on if he had not joined the campaign. I suspect not. He is an American citizen with some views that may be considered ‘pro Russia’ in Obama administration policy circles. Any American, like Page, does not deserve to be spied on by the U.S. government because the FBI does not
like their political views.
The abuse is a warning to all of us.
35
@J House The point of the investigation was about Russian interference in the campaign. It wasn't Page's views, it was when he said that the Trump campaign was aware that the Russians were giving stolen material to Wikileaks... that was a crime in progress. Remember, at the same time the FBI was investigating Clinton, and being public about it in a way that handed the election to Trump. So, who were they biased for or against?
1
@John Bergstrom
Your facts are not correct. There is no testimony or evidence Carter Page ever mentioned Russians, stolen emails or Wiki leaks....none.
2
I am looking forward to a movie about the egregious FBI behavior regarding Carter Page similar to the current film about Richard Jewel. If one is not familiar with the case Jewel was falsely investigated by the FBI for planting the bombs after he discovered one in Atlanta in the 1990's.
18
Any system that depends on the good faith of the people running it is a system that will be abused.
17
@Frank We're out of luck, then. Every system that involves people relies on their honesty and integrity to a considerable degree. Management and other controls can help maintain operations and often detect and recover from errors and misbehavior, but people make mistakes or are dishonest, and failures will occur.
4
@Frank
Normally when wiretapping requests are made, prosecutors know that eventually a defense attorney is going to scrutinize his/her every step.
In the case of the FISA spying, there is an assumption that all due diligence was done prior to the request's being made. In this case the process was clearly abused.
4
@AACNY Information obtained from a FISA warrant, if used in a court proceeding, is subject to the same scrutiny as that from any other warrant. Federal prosecutors sometimes are prevented from using such evidence in order to safeguard its sources or intelligence collection methods, and "parallel construction" has sometimes been used in drug trafficking cases to avoid revealing that initial information came from NSA operations.
If Carter Page had been charged with a crime, any use at trial of information from these warrants probably would have brought out their dodgy justification. One inclined to believe in deep conspiracies might hypothesize that some of the apparent anti-Trump bias among the investigators was a sham, and some of the actions were intended to sabotage the warrant applications to protect Page from prosecution. That may seem far fetched, but it is not more so than some of the others that bubble up around the "Russia thing."
Look up the legacy of the Church Committee headed by Sen. Frank Church and the abuse of the FBI and CIA when it was briefly decided ‘enough.’ No new news here; surveillance can be a nasty word. Are there any Frank Church’s left in Congress?
17
@wsmrer
Things have changed. Will ANY Senator or Congressman dare investigate any Intelligence Agency if their own skeletons may come falling out of the closet?
All the Republicans screaming about how the Patriot Act violated the bill of Rights voted FOR it. Why? Keep in mind that illegal surveillance was in place long before the vote. When you know a person's secrets you control them.
Also keep in mind, JFK wanted to break up the CIA. Carter tried and was kneecapped - Regan was elected and the hostages freed right after his inauguration. Herbert Walker restored the CIA.
And even if a politician was willing to face character assassination and blackmail, our intelligence agencies have shown a willingness to do anything to protect themselves - irrespective of US law.
1
@cynicalskeptic Frank Church was a hero. And he ultimately lost in his fight to reform things, now Democrats along with Republicans go along with horrible, secret abuses.
I heard him speak in the 70s. Awesome person!
1
The article's headline is: "We Just Got a Rare Look at National Security Surveillance. It Was Ugly."
I don't understand why American hair is on fire over a botched FISA warrant to wiretap Carter Page. Does no one remember, did anyone bother to pay attention to all that Edward Snowden revealed about surveillance on Americans?
He should be considered a hero, but instead, he is in exile in Russia in order to avoid potential life sentences, or worse, if he were to come back to the United States.
Americans are ignorant, or just don't care.
Our politics are pathetic, and our minds are clouded by smoke and mirrors.
32
@James Barth For the most part Snowden revealed was detail about NSA programs that were legal (under US law) known to and authorized by the Congress, and operated with qualitatively and quantitatively low rates of error and misbehavior. Most of the activities were known fairly well to those who paid attention to such things, although Snowden provided a lot of detail in the way of program names and structures.
Many (and I include myself) opposed or had concerns or reservations about some of what they did, but that alone is not evidence that what they did was wrong. Certainly listening to Angela Merkel's or Dilma Roussef's phone calls is not. Knowing as much as possible about foreign government actors, objectives, and plans is a primary objective of foreign intelligence agencies, true as much for allies as adversaries. Nor is collection of thousands of US person emails with foreigners; it is impossible to collect communications to and from one person without also collecting information about the senders and receivers.
The Church Committee work gave us the FISC, partly as a control on collection from US persons. Snowden's "revelations" seem to show that NSA, with minor exceptions, followed the statutory rules. As the recent IG report shows, the FBI did not in the Carter Page case. By deceiving the FISC they arguably got a warrant that shouldn't have been granted. That is why "American hair is on fire" over it.
4
Very selective outrage.
@Thomas D. Dial J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI for 48 years. The reputation of the FBI, and the biased conduct of the FBI, was far worse during those days under Hoover's unchecked direction.
It is ironic that a Justice Department led by Mr. Barr, who seems to believe that all power within the Federal Government should emanate from the West Wing of the White House, is, along with Donald Trump, undermining the authority and respect for the leadership (a Trump appointee no less) of the FBI, while Barr undercuts the authority and respect for the Inspector General in his Department.
The contempt of Congressional Authority shown by the entire Trump Administration is the true Constitutional crisis.
The Republican "hair on fire" is caused by the Report's finding that the investigation was initiated based on reason and fact. The FISC process has a long (1978) history of issuing surveillance warrants on "ham sandwiches". If the FBI lied in this process in a few areas, I would not even be "shocked" a la Claude Rains in "Casablanca". The President, along with his A.G. and Republican legislators, however, are simply interested in undermining the Report's major finding of non bias.
Of course, the weirdest part of it all is that Hillary Clinton was the victim of the actions of James Comey's FBI, not Trump, yet Trump whines the part of victim for the past three years.
I disagree with your portrayal of the import of Edward Snowden's revelations.
"You're only as sick as your secrets".
And my, how sick we are! The secrecy that has grown like a plague, especially since 9/11, has now gotten us to the brink of a police state, with a wannabe dictator already in place in the WH. We've allowed our fear to drive us to accepting the false promise of secrecy and abridged civil liberties as protection from terrorists, when in fact the more dangerous terrorists are our so-called leaders who use fear to enhance their own power.
An informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny, but secrecy and disinformation removes that defense. With the rise of Trump's Orwellian oratory, we're witnessing the death of truth, and the inability to believe in anyone or anything. The Founders would be appalled.
11
Seriously? Was anyone actually listening to Snowdon?
22
Snowden the hero, the government the enemy. Ironic? No expected. Remember to rent Post expose of the Afghanistan fiasco. Incompetence and corruption is not a good combination. But that’s who we really are. Date of onset Vietnam?
2
The FBI and James Comey false attack on Hillary Clinton a few days before the 2016 election should be the only reason to blame the FBI . Finding that we have a US president who was elected by Russian oligarchs and Putin's puddles should be celebrated as a glory day our top intelligence agency.
13
@Herbert: Poodles. And in spite of everything, we should remember that the Russians were just there to give a relatively small boost to Trump: he won because of the amazing effectiveness of his crude demagoguery, because of a decades long, home-grown smear campaign waged against the Clintons, because of talk radio, and the Tea Party, the Mercers and the Koch brothers, etc etc. It was all those forces of the American ultra right that put Trump within striking distance, so the little boost from the Russians was enough for him to squeak in...
3
@Herbert
False attack? Clinton’s emails were found on the computer of the perverted husband (Weiner) of her aide during the course of a criminal investigation!
How did the “Russian oligarchs and Putin’s puddles” elect Trump? How many votes did they cast for him? In which states? How many electoral college votes did they influence? Who were these electoral college electors who influenced by these Russians?
Another victim of Trump derangement syndrome!
2
I hope the Barr DOJ makes the same “mistakes” about the Democrat nominee, of course with any bias.
7
That would be democratic.
1
Great job, everyone including you NYT. Lead us to oblivion because Lindsey had a hissy. Unbelievable.
8
When you look beneath the covers- this whole episode of FBI spying looks very UGLY. Things need to change soon. Regardless of your political beliefs, we cannot have a repeat of this again Ina political election. It’s galls me that Comey claims this as a Victory.
49
So all of you are ready to believe that Bruce Ohr, James Comey, Lisa Page and Bruce Strozk were just incompetent and that's why this all happened? They were not incompetent at all, that is obvious,.
C'mon people it is clearthere was a political purpose to it all. Just face up to it now, it will make it easier when the rest of the truth comes out.
52
@Bill .....How about facts. The Russian propaganda arm was active in interfering in the 2016 election. The Russian's hacked the DNC and dumped conveniently damaging information via wikileaks. Members of the Trump campaign met with a Russian agent because they said they had dirt on Clinton and they did not report it to the FBI. Manafort, Trumps campaign manager, gave Republican polling data to an oligarch friend of Putin. Stone reported on upcoming wikileaks dumps to the Trump campaign. Flynn, as National Security Adviser lied about his phone call with the Russian ambassador, Trump has been oddly differential towards Putin. These are indisputable facts. The thing is, if the FBI did not investigate a Russian connection with the Trump campaign they would have been negligent in the extreme. It is unfortunately true that people who are unable to argue with the facts, argue about the process.
9
Carter Page is a victim, sure. But for the purposes of impeachment is Trump? How about Manafort's conviction? Did the FBI derive anything from this questionable activity that caused them to do anything they would not have otherwise done?
6
@Art About Manafort's conviction: aside from possible lying to FBI agents about election-related matters, his convictions derive from activities prior to about 2013 that had nothing to do with the 2016 election.
Carter Page, as yet, has not been charged with a crime, despite being under communication and possibly other surveillance for nearly a year, on warrants that arguably should never have issued.. The government probably should apologize to him for that.
5
@Art Carter Page can rightly claim that after all that, he wasn't convicted of a crime. Good for him! But that he did what he did, and said what he said, has never been denied, and totally justified the investigation. It sounds like the next guy is going to say it should have been a "preliminary" investigation, rather than a "full" investigation. Well, maybe, or maybe not. But it certainly warranted an investigation.
2
I've been wondering for a long time why Carter Page was the target of FBI investigations re. his Russian connections when the FBI had known for years about those business connections; and Page has never been charged with anything. Now - voila! - we know Page was sharing info. with the CIA and the FBI kinda sorta omitted that tidbit in the FISA warrants.
32
Hey Charlie Savage nice reporting. Where have you been the last 3 years.
31
People have been pointing out the dangers of the FISA courts for years. Where were Republicans then? FISA courts needs to be more accountable and less secret.
And if FBI agents misrepresent facts to get surveillance abilities they should be held accountable as well. I’m sure it’s not just Carter Page who had misleading information used against him.
But the 500 other search warrants in the Russian interference probe were valid. Trump and others in his campaign were soliciting or maneuvering for Russian help in the election.
The FBI had every reason to open an investigation to protect the country. Not to do so would have been a criminal dereliction of duty.
8
@Michael The FISC is not inherently more dangerous than any other court. All of them depend on a chain of trust from law enforcement officers and prosecutors to the judge asked to issue a warrant, Ultimately that, not the raw capability of agencies like the FBI (or NSA) to gather data, is what is supposed to guard our civil liberties. When it fails, as it seems it did in this case, it is a problem. But, again, it is not a problem unique to the FISC, but one that is a risk for any warrant issuing court.
1
Here's what's going to happen. Both side sides will mealy mouth the subject for awhile. Then, very much of nothing will happen, because both sides are complicit this unconstitutional activity.
18
The cops bungled the investigation?
Does that exonerate the criminal?
Especially when 17 other agencies weighed in on Russian interference.
Maybe if there were not over 100 contacts with Russia, including Trump Jr saying "I love it" (Russian dirt on Clinton), then the suspicion wouldn't be so intense.
Trump invites scrutiny.
Repeat -
Trump invites scrutiny.
Cause he doesn't like to play by any rules but his own. And they are not normal.
23
In your other article, Charlie, you said that the Inspector General painted a bleak picture of a dysfunctional FBI. I watched the hearings, almost all of them. He did no such thing. So that was about as false as can be, sir. Correct the record. He painted a picture of a FISA application and its extension that were done wrong and never corrected. That isn't a dysfunctional FBI, there was a lawyer who probably broke the law, and people took his work product and used it.
It's no wonder every other election we get a totally lawless administration that funds death squads, or tortures, or engages in graft and threatens allies. Because "reporters" like you are busy pretending that everybody and everything is similarly abusive in D.C. But that isn't true. So before we get another 4 years of this mob boss, just stop. There are differences, they are important, there are people in the FBI who are competent and not dysfunctional, and what matters is a cohesive nation that can function in the face of complex problems and even complex attacks, not the burnishing of anti-surveillance creds for a reporter who wants the spotlight.
11
@ondelette Mr. Savage should not be chastized for communicating facts. Please stop destroying the institution of the New York Times with your childish demands for narrative compliance and headline editing. Mr. Savage, thanks for your courage.
15
Trump's suspicious connections with Russia both before the election and after were many and still continue. Many were in public view including his comments regarding Putin, the Republican Party's changing their platform to remove the reference to lethal aid to Ukraine. To say that the FBI didn't dot it's I's and cross it's T's in this instance is ridiculous.
11
@Adam
I question your contention that "...Democrats historically have challenged the expansion of surveillance powers." The reality is that they usually do so when a Republican is in the White House. When they are in the White House, matters often are different.
Here, I refer not simply to Lyndon Johnson's practice of ordering that surveillance files of critics be delivered to him for personal review, but also to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's expansion of wiretapping activities prior to World War II and Woodrow Wilson's mail surveillance during World War I.
And they Both parties have been quite happy to take more power when they have the opportunity to do so.
12
So what shall we do? Power corrupts; absolute power .....
@Ken Bishop
I have two suggestions, one of which is structural and one of which is attitudinal.
First, I hope that both Senators and Congressmen decide that their duty to the Constitution and the legislative branch require that they reverse the decades-long flow of power from their own branch of government to the executive branch.
In terms of structure, I suggest that any president be considered someone whose conduct needs to be watched and that we continue to watch the watchers.
5
@Ken Bishop
UNDO the Imperial Presidency. Kill The Patriot Act.
Appoint a new Church Committee to review the CIA et. al. WITHOUT the 'National Security' shield. Prosecute those guilty of crimes - including torture and illegal war
RESTRICT government. NO unrelated items in bills. Line item veto. NO Executive Orders. War - ANY military action ONLY with a Congressional
Declaration
No more civil forfeiture. Restore the Bill of Rights.
NO revolving door between government and corporations. NO bills written by private organizations or companies.
It's not that hard to figure out what's needed. Just try and get it done.
2
Where was the NYT's investigative reporting all along the Trump-Russia investigation?
27
Sadly, we the public hold some of the responsibility for this embarrassing overreach of our national security state. The rush to pass a poorly structured 'Patriot Act' to respond to the horrors of 9/11 were compounded by ill conceived modifications that were passed in 2007, 2013/2014. Both republican and democratic administrations, congresses and the enabling voters are to blame for giving the FBI and other agencies cart blanche by lowering the bar for obtaining FISA warrants. Lack of vetting of people like Mr. Steele and his sources/sub-sources are emblematic of the mistakes and subsequent damage to FBI that is now occurring.
We must now try and work in a bi-partisan way to modify the legislation that enabled this abuse and hold our leaders including career employees accountable for their actions.
9
@tippicanoe The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the related Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court go back to 1978, with several renewals and minor modifications in the meantime. The 2001 PATRIOT act does not apply in this case.
The FBI, according to the IG report, committed errors in requesting a surveillance warrant that arguably should not have been issued. Under the law, the FBI does not have "carte blanche" but must adhere to standards in requesting warrants. It is not a problem with the law if they failed to do so, but instead a problem with FBI management and internal controls. Director Wray's concurrence with the report, and description of oversight and procedural changes is attached to the report.
3
The abuse of power by the FBI is truly breathtaking. It appears that despite countless media reports to the contrary that the FBI did in fact meddle in the election by spying on a presidential candidate. The more sunlight that’s shed on Trump’s version of events, the more credible Trump becomes. This on top of the face that after years of investigation Mueller found nothing of consequence on top of the the fact that the whistleblower disappeared after the transcripts of Trump’s call were released is enough to make me switch to being a republican. I’m done with the Democrats. Full stop.
44
@Dara You might get kicked out of Seattle for saying such things... Democrats aren't interested in the facts or the truth.
18
@Dara Trump is not credible. People can jump up and down all they want, What ever the circumstances of how we got here, the Mueller report is a scathing indictment of Trump. He then repeated his lawlessness in Ukraine!
15
@Joe I would say, if you want the truth, read the Mueller report.
12
Sen. Graham concluded today's hearing by saying this is the beginning and not the end of this committee's involvement in this matter, much more to follow.
If the beginning is this explosive, what will the rest of it look like?
Would all this corruption have come out and clean up initiated if Hillary had won?
I'm sure glad that 63 million Americans were wise enough to save our country from disaster.
24
How long has the J. Edgar Hoover FBI culture that gave us CONINTELPRO attacks on the Black Panthers & is implicated in exchanging information with the Chicago Police Department to murder Fred Hampton held on since the death of Hoover?
Comey ought have been fired by Obama, not Trump. Certainly Comey did more good for Trump than Clinton Unit II as it was.
That Trump locked Americans out of the White House to celebrate with Russians was enough. We all saw it. Since then most of us have been banging our heads wondering why he wasn't arrested. Since he wasn't arrested many are left believing it may as well be standard operating procedure. Dolly Madison should have not fled with Washington's portrait, aye?
When you can fire the cop who's got suspicions about you that in time would show to be correct would you be firing that cop?
Trump really got going with that playing the mob boss that time, and has sure kept at it. The sadism fits him as much as it did Al Capone, though on a different and larger scale.
It's even our Post Office.
7
The nation desperately needs a new "Church Committee" (i.e., a 2019-2020 version of the original committee that uncovered horrific national security state overreach and abuse and led to the FISA system to begin with).
Who will be today's Frank Church? Senator Rand Paul on the right and perhaps Ron Wyden on the left seem to be the top two contenders.
8
As I read this article, I feel as if I am reading fantasy. Does anyone here really think that the abuses of power will stop? No. The abuses of power will only be called "abuses" when they are leveled at the rich and powerful. Fox will decry the wiretaps of Trump associates--and demand that Muslims, Latinos and other groups be denied due process on the grounds of "national security." The sanctity of "criming while white" is a very real value among the Trump supporters. Indeed, they believe that they have a God given right to steal and oppress---and the law is expected to look the other way when a white man does it. Just as the law once looked the other way when crowds of white celebrated lynchings of Black men. I really do not understand why some people are so proud of being melanin deficient. Does being more prone to skin cancer really make you better in the eyes of God?
6
The problems and resulting concern with FISA seem rather quaint against the backdrop of National Security Agency hoovering up ALL electronic communications, citizens and non-citizens, foreign and domestic, and running them past artificial intelligence. If it lands on a server or repeater in the US, NSA grabs it. Privacy? We've heard of it.
10
@jon_norstog The claim that NSA collects all electronic communications is provably false based on no more than the volume of such communications. The claim that they collect all US communications is probably false because it would be both unlawful and out of scope for NSA, and one of the things the Snowden leaks show, even with the strongly anti-NSA slant of their customary presentation, is that the NSA, in the main, operated within the law as written and the constraints approved by the FISC. The headlines and articles concentrated on the exceptions and the potential for misuse. They barely mentioned the overwhelming majority of the agency's activity, although that information was available from the underlying materials combined with independent sources readily available on the Internet.
2
And this is the great FBI which is hailed as a great institution by most democrats, while Trump assails it. The abuses by the FBI in obtaining warrants from these secret FISA courts are unforgivable. There is no oversight done. Americans need to wake up. The CIA and FBI routinely invade our privacy and just don't care about their own actions. And the politicians don't care either. Why are we all so lame by allowing this? We need to start dismantling these agencies, somehow. They are way too big, too secretive, and too powerful.
21
@JP It is Congress who gave these powers. The Senate voted 95-1 for the FISA act. A healthy majority voted for it in the House. By the time the 2008 reauthorization, it was the Democrats who stared abandoning the act. Your insinuation that it is only Democrat supported, is telling. Trying to push all the blame onto the FBI, all though important, doesn't dissolve the Republicans (or Dems) of blame.
3
The only problem that Trump, Barr and Graham have with FISA is that it is part of Trump's paranoia. They'd be really happy to use it on any one of us. Maybe if Trump had run a law abiding campaign, had not hired a criminal as his campaign manager, had not consorted with Flynn and the like, hadn't sought a back channel to the Russians, and hadn't had an obvious love affair with Lavrov and Kislyak, which apparently continues to this day, people wouldn't have gotten interested. Some day it will all be clear.
11
There are no "errors" plenty of selective "omissions".
15
“ Some liberal lawmakers who have long sought to impose tighter controls on government surveillance powers welcomed conservative interest in enacting such legislation. ”
The GOP seems to be turning very liberal of this!!!!!!!
3
"While clearing the F.B.I. of acting out of political bias," a sentence edited out of his earlier article, and proven to be more than an outright false statement given the fact the IG stated he did no such thing and that "nobody was vindicated."
I read the IG Report, and feel it very hard to believe Savage did. If so, learn the English language and leave Your bias behind. When the IG says "I found no documentary or testimonial evidence of political bias." that means "I didn't find anything in writing that their actions were directly tied to political bias and while talking to the people I could, as I couldn't talk to those no longer at the FBI like Jim Comey, nobody confessed and said "oh yeah, I did it because I hate Trump," because of course, that would be a confession to at least one Felony,"
Instead, the media jumps to "The FBI was Proven Innocent!" And you wonder why you have Zero credibility.
Shameful to make that kind of retraction without a note confessing you're wrong leaving previous readers to run around pushing an entirely false narrative, of which we have enough of.
33
@Constance Underfoot , what do you expect, it is the NY Times? Especially the last 3 plus years, the firewall between Opinion section and news articles has seemingly been dismantled. Opinion statements seem to frequently find their way into "news" articles and are written as if they are fact. It is just how the world is now unfortunately.
25
Very impressed with the NYT for not trying to downplay the seriousness of the FBI's transgressions. And not pandering to its readership who wants badly to believe these were just lil' innocent mistakes. Because there are different levels of "getting it wrong". Like, you might forget to mail a check, or mispell the recipient, but one does not accidentally forge one or put a different name on it.
With lies now the currency of the realm, what's needed above all is unbiased reporting, like the NYT has been proving on this. Thank you.
11
Ha! In the face of today's testimony in front of the Senate, the NYT had no choice but to revise their earlier factually incorrect "reporting" about what the Horowitz report actually contained. There is nothing honorable about being caught lying, then changing one's "story" once the original lies are exposed and debunked. The NYT has yet to admit they got the "collusion" story wrong for two years, even after the Mueller report shredded their main storyline by concluding their was no knowing cooperation. Yet the leftist cranks on this site continue to beat the Russia drum, because they too cannot admit their error (or their relentless bias.)
25
You clearly haven't read Mueller's report.
6
Well needed expose of how the FISA courts are the most egregious example of the deep state that has run amok in Washington DC.
The whole impeachment debacle is a mere sideshow to the big top carnival of grotesqueries that is the deep state as run by the DOJ, CIA, NSA, FBI, EPA, FDA and so many other agencies that have administrative justice powers that are extra-judiciary in nature.
Congress needs to stop passing broad laws that any president can then wildly interpret as s/he sees fit. The same laws that have been allowed to go unchecked for decades by a supine federal judiciary.
Time for a new American Revolution!
9
@Common Sense
The Revolution has already occurred. The Republic was replaced with an Empire ruled by an Imperial President serving an unelected oligarchy.
Any attempt to reinstate the Republic and overthrow the oligarchy will not be permitted. The Patriot Act, our militarized police forces and surveillance state are not to protect the people - they are tools for controlling the people
Our Founding Fathers foresaw this end. That is why they kept our standing Army to a minimum, and installed so many checks and balances in our government.
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." James Madison
Could you describe what's happened any better?
8
Mr. Wray the FBI director, has to leave the agency immediately, we need someone who has the ability to restore the trust of the American people in this very important agency... He’s not up to the task due to mistrust with AG Barr... and he’s playing politics with the president...
17
@Amir Girgis oh great, sure let Trump fire Wray and hire Guiliani. Makes perfect sense. Does it occur to you that nobody normal wants to work for Trump?
6
@Amir Girgis Right. Punish the innocent and promote the perpetrators. Nothing in the IG report happened on Wray's watch.
I find it odd that a population that freely gives away information about their personal habits with their cell phone every day might be upset that a national security agency is looking out for them by looking in occasionally.
How many innocent people are worrying that there are others listening, watching, or tracing?
3
@Jay Edgar
Plenty.
2
How large a part of the FBI's Russia investigation did the wiretap on Carter Page actually play? From the loud noise of Republicans at the hearing and from this Times "news analysis," it appears that it was the biggest part. It sounds like the entire investigation depended on that one campaign operative and whatever evidence a wiretap might produce. Is that so? If Carter Page was all they had, I can see why cutting corners to get a FISA warrant would bring down the whole investigation. So much reporting, commentary, and political posturing takes things out of context and makes mountains out of molehills. So much of the Republican defense of President Trump continues to be distraction from the core facts of what he and his associates did or didn't do. The operation of the FISA court already was and will continue to be controversial and Congress should deal with that issue separately. The urgent matter today is what the president did and will continue to do if allowed to. Can we focus on that, Mr. Savage? Please?
6
We now know from the IG report that the FISA warrant granted for Carter Page was based on the Steele reports, DNC and Hillary campaign opposition research created by a British foreign national, and no intelligence product derived from the USIC. Page also may have been assisting the CIA in his contacts with Russian nationals. Yet, Comey and Yates signed the warrant application unequivocally stating Page was an ‘agent of Russia’. Carter Page has never been arrested or charged with a crime. The USIC, FBI and DOJ maligned him and owe him an apology at minimum, as they did with wrongly accused Steven Hatfill.
22
What a surprise, the FBI engages in testilying to the FISA court. Funny how the usual group with high and mighty justifications for this practice, your far right FBI lovers are now the complainers. What a pack of hypocritical phonies.
5
Trump deserves intense severe criticism for his actions regarding domestic surveillance. But only selfish, unpatriotic partisans confine criticism to his presidency.
The facts are that the US entered a new era of authoritarianism when it established secret courts in 1978 with the establishment of the FISA secret court. It has been used to secretly spy on Americans ever since. After 9/11, the Bush-Cheney authoritarians greatly intensified and expanded surveillance of Americans. During Obama's authoritarian reign, surveillance of Americans was expanded even further. The brave patriot Edward Snowden informed the American people that authoritarian ruler Obama had used secret court orders from FISA to monitor every phone call made through the Verizon network. It is obvious that such spying would not be limited to only Verizon. Other networks would similarly have received secret court orders to facilitate government monitoring of our calls. through subsequent Congressional hearings we saw top NSA officials lie to us claiming that NSA did not listen to our calls. But later it was admitted that he lied to the people.
Adding insult to injury, Obama publicly pretended that he would contract the spying, saying that the nation needed to have a "conversation" about the intense domestic spying. But there was never any "conversation" in which Obama played any part. The intense spying on all of us continued unabated.
Every president has become an authoritarian ruler.
5
Even the NYT can't pretend anymore that there wasn't a problem at the FBI and DOJ. You can hate Trump all you want, but there is no escaping that what went on here was the worst political interference by an intelligence service we have seen since Nixon. We can only hope Durham can lower the boom on the lot of them.
37
@Chris And it was politically motivated. The IG can try to protect the agency by saying it was all down to incompetence but c'mon we've heard what the players had to say & they were against Trump.
22
The lid blew off FBI cover-up attempts today. It is now painfully clear that coordinated malfeasance spanning multiple Federal agencies was directed to conduct surreptitious spying on one political party for the benefit of the party in power. The NYT has been at the forefront of the attempts to paint Devin Nunes and other whistleblowers as nut cases ans tin-hat conspiracy theorists. What is your plan to get your honor back? Do you have the nerve to report the truth, finally?
43
Realistically, overturning FISA isn't going to happen. When the political hurricane blows over it'll be business as normal again.
5
@bob Or, I should say if FISA is overturned, it will be in name only. The practice of promiscuous surveillance will continue one way or another.
5
Bottom line: Trump was and is an active Russian asset. We needed and got a few good men to stop him. Otherwise we would be further down the road to a dictatorship.
6
There are scores of NSA employees [and sub-contractors] who were fired because they would intercept the calls, texts and e-mails made by their ex-spouses or lovers. The power is so great, the temptation must be greater.
24
@Stuart
I recall plenty of reports bout the personal abuses - but don't recall seeing any reports abut people being fired for doing so.
It seems like an all too common abuse - like cops running background checks on people. If the tools are there they'll get abused.
4
@Aaron
What is the source of this information? I cannot recall ever hearing about this. Thanks
1
We would do well to go back and study the New York Times’ reporting on the Patriot Act.
We all knew we would eventually find ourselves living in a surveillance State devoid of individual freedoms.
We might as well change the name of the country to “The United Russian Federation of America”
Bush Junior was gleeful to call himself a war president and seemingly gloat about it. He also seemed proud of the Patriot Act. I am afraid that the powers bestowed on Trump by the Patriot Act are terrifying. And, we can only hope that Trump will remain too ignorant of the law to have never realized what the President, the CIA & FBI can legally do now. But, I am sure the Russians are working on it as we speak.
We should not be complaining now that we are in such a mess. We can only hope that Trump doesn’t get it in his head that he could easily tag anyone of us as an enemy of the state and our goose cooked to a crisp.
12
And don't forget Real[Creepy]ID.
4
@Truth is True
These powers were terrifying under Bush. They are terrifying under ANY person.
yet the Democrats renewed the Patriot Act with a unanimous vote in an amendment buried under a budget act.....
Remember NO government has sought power over its citizens without USING that power.
9
@Truth is True , we elected the Democrats back to full control of House and Senate in 2006. Did they impeach Bush-Cheney for the WMD lies? No.
We then elected Obama in 2008, and gave Democrats control of all 3 branches. For 2 full years. Did they seek to repeal or seriously amend and contain the Patriot Act? No. Obama talked the talk but walked the military-industrial/national security state walk. For his entire presidency.
Voters see through it. Democratic Party and Obama made crystal clear through their actions they did not want our votes anymore.
Hopefully this will finally cause enough people on both sides to say enough is enough.
7
This article mentions three things that the FBI might have included in its FISA application, and says of them (respectively): "Even if the investigators did not necessarily believe"; "may, of course, have been lying"; and, "the F.B.I. never got to the bottom of it."
The FBI concluded that it had a case for its FISA application. The IG does not contest this.
The FBI also concluded that the three things brought up in the article didn't change its conclusion, presumably (given what the article says about them) in part because they weren't solid. The IG doesn't contest this either; nor does it judge that they would have made any difference to the court (the FISC).
It's good to have oversight, because judgments will differ. In this case, it still looks like surveillance was justifiable. The IG doesn't say it wasn't.
3
This surveillance KEEPS US SAFE! Like the war, which is GOING WELL!
6
Ok, so the FBI bungled investigations. So did the LA police and OJ got off. It doesn’t mean he’s not a criminal, no different than the president and his corrupt entourage.
3
The ig found problems with obtaining a fisa warrant to surveil carter page and thew times acts like he found the end of the world. My god people you are repeating 2016 and worse. You helped elect trump and you are doing it again. This article, like several others, is sickening.
4
The time has come the Walrus said to speak of many things. The walrus is a large slow powerful marine mammal Pinnipedia Odobenidae.
I was born in 1948 and my father was probably the number one Reagan hater on the planet. It was my father's heroes who were betrayed by Reagan. My father knew his heroes were loyal patriotic Americans. My father grew up loyal to Poland and attended Catholic school before my grandfather exiled all his children to America in the 1920s.
I grew up with my father's FBI led by J. Edgar Hoover and in league with the same forces catered to by today's GOP. The people Reagan talked to J. Edgar about were men and women like Judy Holliday who loved America but believed in finding better paths. They were men of intellect and honour and talent.
Reagan ruined their careers and reputations and they were more than likely to be Jews because much like stop and frisk suspects suited a profile. Those are the eyes with which I saw the FBI. J Edgar Hoover's name is on the FBI building much has changed in 70 years but 70 years is a long time for a human but for institutional memory it is a snapshot.
I am not the only person to understand what is meant by a New York lawyer. I am the wandering Jew and think I have seen this all before and I am sore afraid because we are in a world where most of us are Wandering Jews. America travelled a long way from 1948 -1964 and its taken 55 years to go almost all the way back.
2
If the FBI is so sloppy and incompetent when investigating a Presidential Candidate, it makes me wonder if they were just as bad when they investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of an unencrypted home computer and Clinton deleting over 50,000 emails (and who knows what else). We all had better hope that the FBI doesn’t investigate any of us.
19
Secret courts have no place in a Democracy. Transparency of prosecutions should be the rule. Voters need to know what their government is doing, so that they can make informed decisions at the ballot box.
Any temporary secrecy in a national emergency, such as 9-11, should be just that--temporary, with full disclosure of what transpired after a short period, say 5 years.
Another aspect of this is that what the government does in secret is often to cover up wrong-doing, failure, or incompetence. While they got it right in the end, the FBI failed to warn of the Russia interference before the election, largely one suspects because they didn't know the extent and how it was being done until late, and then tried to cover up what they saw as their failure. They didn't even tell the Democrats in a believable way that they had been hacked by the Russians. One would assume that the Russians are aware of most of the surveillance done by the FBI, and would use this knowledge to plant disinformation to throw them off the track of what they were actually doing.
Further here: 1. Trump bends over backwards to accommodate the Russians, including secret meetings in the WH and the content of private meetings with Putin. The appearance is that more is going on here than just help in his campaigns. 2. The Republicans, and specifically Mitch McConnell don't care--they try and expect to cheat to win everyday. They have even blocked legislation to protect the ballot box with a paper trail.
2
Good job with a fair and accurate analysis of a *big* problem that goes much deeper than the Trump matter.
5
No, pretty much the opposite of what our fearful leader has been saying. He had the FBI up for treason and the death sentence. Do you maybe see the discrepancy? You know, Mistakes vs "Deep State " Witch Hunt? Come on then!
1
Given the real foreign and domestic threats and the difficulty of thwarting them, the pigs sometimes feel they have to break the rules to do their job and that will continue. People get hurt and it just confirms that the police are a Necessary Evil. "Get over it."
@Kenneth
Was that sarcasm? Excepting the 'pigs' reference it sounds all too much like certain people willing to trade all their rights for the illusion of safety and security whey truth is they've given up everything for abject servitude
3
Next how about bringing in all the bad actors from the FBI to testify?
12
And now Trump and his minions, per their deep state paranoia, have NYT's readers bickering about an error-laden surveillance of Carter Page who is NOT the reason for Donald Trump heartily inviting and accepting Russian cybewarfare in an American election, nor bribing a foreign leader for 2020? Well done, deep state conspiratorialsts.
2
It is absolutely disgusting what some of the rotten partisan FBI under the Directorship of James Comey, during the Obama years did to the Trump campaign in 2016 and then continued even after he became president. What is totally appalling is the partisan impeachment. The harassment of the duly elected president is undemocratic. Shame on the biased democrats for obstructing and concocting absurd articles of impeachment. Speaker policy abandon the articles of impeachment and continue working with the president to do the people's work.
24
So let me get this straight:
According to Kamala Harris’s questioning, the US attorney general has NO WAY within the DOJ to be reviewed under an IG? Not like every other secretary position or other elected and confirmed positions of governance who are serving and being paid for by the USA citizens?
Is Barr above the law too?
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/kamala-harris-blasts-barr-at-ig-hearing-doing-the-bidding-of-the-president-to-undermine-our-intelligence-community/
@Bob , no more above the law than Clinton's AG, Janet Reno, and her decision, for example, to reject the FBI Director's recommendation of a special counsel to investigate the illegal campaign cash to Clinton and the DNC.
Speaking as a former Clinton voter who was so disappointed by this. At least Trump AG Jeff Sessions had the decency to recuse himself and then allow Rosenstein to appoint Mueller as special counsel. Janet Reno decided to conduct her own investigation and, as was later well reported, overrule DOJ's own campaign finance expert lawyers and declare that there was nothing to see and no need for her to appoint special counsel.
8
The unanaswered question, in fact not even asked, is why was the FBI so obsessed with Page even after he left the Trump campaign and they continued to get information undermining the basis for FISA surveillance. Horowitz couldn’t determine a motive for the apparent omissions from the application, but why continue to monitor him? Was he bait in an expedition trolling for bigger fish? That would seem a major abuse of the process.
13
Holy cow! This is terrifying: I agree with Lindsay Graham.
21
Dude is "shocked, shocked" to find surveillance going on here? Isn't this what Ed Snowden has been trying to tell us for years?
9
This is an absolute joke.
3
I love this: “These errors are bad,” said David Kris, an expert in FISA who oversaw the Justice Department’s National Security Division in the Obama administration. “If the broader audit of FISA applications reveals a systematic pattern of errors of this sort that plagued this one, then I would expect very serious consequences and reforms.”
Made my sip of wine come through my nose. Best laugh of the day!!!!
Am I allowed to say: what an incompetent MORON. Amongst possibly dozens of morons supposedly doing ‘oversight’ of our civil liberties...
13
Okay, everyone who is surprised that a court overseen by a judge approved by Chief Justice Roberts (R) *always* sides with the government, pull your head out of...the sand.
2
Since the patriot act was passed we have been under constant surveillance. Now that the government has been looking at these crooked white people it’s a problem.
Funny when black people was being watched it wasn’t an issue now white folks caught up its a problem
So before you troll look at the debates about surveillance on CSPAN it’s live and in your face when white folks found a way back under President George w to watch everyone
1
@Tony , except people of all stripes objected to and still object to the Patriot Act. Including plenty of people who voted for Democrats and President Obama, expecting them to finally repeal or significantly amend the Patriot Act when we gave them control of all 3 branches from 2008-2010 and they instead didn't touch it.
Just kept reauthorizing it, including with even greater expansions of surveillance. And Obama brought zero accountability when CIA Director Brennan lied about CIA breaking into Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee computers; and Obama brought zero accountability when NSA Director Clapper perjured himself before Congress regarding mass warrantless surveillance, including of US citizens on US soil.
Voters of all stripes, regardless of melanin content, have virtually no where to turn. Who to vote for. A write-in for Tulsi Gabbard or Rand Paul maybe.
4
Carter Page is no ordinary citizen and the vigilance by our intelligence agencies is more than understandable. When you elect to do business with an adersarial power, you SHOULD be scrutinized to a higher degree than your neighbors for their safety and national security. Carter did work for the CIA - that is good news, but does not give him a pass to avoid scrutiny.
8
@dutybound Except that the fact he was a CIA “operational contact” providing information to the CIA explains the Russian contacts
14
Our national security surveillance does not have a good record of spotting foreign agents, and our agents in hostile countries are frequently betrayed by foreign agents in our intelligence apparatus, rounded up, and imprisoned or executed.
Our national security apparatus, like our military in general, tends to arrive at conclusions that will safeguard or expand its budget. This problem is much bigger and more important than our FISA warrants and abuses thereof.
Our military-industrial complex,of which our intelligence agencies are an integral part, is out of control in many ways and on many levels. When these come to light, little is done and punishments are light except for whistleblowers. Much of our military budget supports powerful corporations and their stock prices, areas of the country that have little else going for them and are satisfied to remain so, and politicians who keep bringing home the goodies for their states or districts. Citizens get to picture themselves as patriots working for national defense when some or all of them are actually engaged in make-work jobs producing unnecessary or ineffective weapons and thereby weakening the country and its defense.
FISA warrants and their abuses are a useful distraction from all this.
3
@sdavidc9
Our intelligence agencies have done a superb job of securing their place in our government. Despite countless failures. Presidential and Congressional efforts to rein them in - or eliminate them entirely, they remain exerting more power than we can imagine.
Keep in mind, the CIA failed to see:
China going Communist
North Korea invading the South
the long running debacle in Vietnam
The Soviet Union's inherent economic weakness
The fall of the Shah in Iran - after installing him in power
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
and on and on and on.........
They very publicly botched Cuba and got the US involved in drug smuggling.....
Billions have been spent on failed efforts which only worsened our position in the world. Any efforts to investigate these agencies have been blocked - or worse.
Just TRY to get rid of them.
8
@cynicalskeptic , on December 22, 1963, exactly one month after President Kennedy's assassination, retired President Harry Truman publicly lamented in a Washington Post opinion piece that the CIA and NSA (or its predecessor agency) were out-of-control. And stated that they were not serving their intended purpose based on what he understood when he signed the legislation authorizing the creation of these agencies (and the modern national security state).
4
Warrant abuse is systemic in our system. If nothing else good comes from Trump's presidency, at least more general awareness of this problem will have come about.
4
A fair analysis. This is not a partisan matter. Mr. Page who served this country as a naval officer will ever get his reputation back. I hope Mr. Wray will change the culture at FBI.
7
I do not know where this author has been, but back in 2001 when Congress passed the Patriot Act, these type of concerns were voiced and it does not take much research to verify those concerns were correct. So what did Congress do? They renewed it and it was supported by both parties. This article is worrying about one small leak while the rest of the dike and the 4th Amendment got washed away. Welcome to the military police state brought to you by both political parties and ready to knock on your front door whenever. But it is okay since we are all so scared of our own shadows, we will gladly sacrifice our rights.
4
On this:
"Specifically, the application included allegations about Mr. Page contained in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Democrats."
Am I living in the land of Oz, or was there, once upon a time, members of the Jeb Bush campaign who actually initiated and funded the Steele Dossier, before it later fell in to the Dems hands when Jeb folded?
That is never mentioned anymore. If it was not for the GOP, the Steele Dossier would never have existed.
6
@Gary , true, and a very important point (although there is not that much distance from Jeb Bush to Hillary Clinton).
3
"In 2018, there were 1,833 targets of such orders, including 232 Americans."
Which proves -- given that the US population in 2018 was 327,267,434 people -- that the bar for issuing a FISA warrant is extremely high.
Let's not blow this out of proportion.
6
@David H
Obtaining a warrant to spy on a presidential campaign, especially under false pretenses, is at another level altogether.
3
@Pat
Could not agree more. There is little question that the FBI teams involved were politically motivated, as Mr. Horowitz strongly suggested in his testimony this week.
I agree with many here that suggest the FISA submissions need improvement and errors removed from applications, etc.
But I don't think it's fully "negligence" or "incompetence" which would be employee training and staffing problems. It's a police surveillance mentality: they'd rather have the ability to keep watch over someone with any whiff of suspicion, than not. And that means you report that Page meets with Russian Intell ops but not that he meets also with CIA. But has he really been telling us of all the times he met with the Russians? Are we sure? So better to keep an eye on him and if nothing shows up in the FISA wiretap, then good. To the spies and counter-spies it's better to keep an eye out, than not look, if someone is robbing you blind of secrets.
And 232 Americans out of 300 million is a tiny fraction of us.
2
“But its findings about surveillance are important beyond partisan politics.”
Well, congressional Dems joined hands with their partners in crime across the aisle and renewed the Patriot Act, so yes, this pertains to both parties.
5
"Defenders of the system have argued that the low rejection rate stems in part from how well the Justice Department self-polices and avoids presenting the court with requests that fall short of the legal standard. They...stressed that officials obey a heightened duty to be candid and provide any mitigating evidence that might undercut their request."
Yes, this is the pious official story that has been put forth for decades -- and is even now ritually repeated like salivating dogs by cable TV "national security" experts. FISA courts only look like they are rubber-stamping FBI surveillance requests because these impeccable patriots are doing such a bang-up meticulous job that no mistakes can ever be made.
All this nonsense may prove worthwhile if it results in a hard public look at FISA abuses. The pattern described in the article suggests that another round of mere "reform" may be insufficient. More drastic measures are indicated.
The delicious irony of the Age of Trump is its topsy-turvy character. The conservative Republicans who are testily challenging FISA now would have been, a short four years ago, unanimous in their unquestioning support of the absolute prerogatives of the surveillance state. Their sudden change of heart may be unprincipled, but it serves a useful purpose.
So too, much of the Democratic defense of the FISA process may be impelled by blind hatred of Trump. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let's hope a few of them also awaken to the bigger issues.
12
Well, we've seen what happens when Boeing self-regulates. Is there any reason to expect better from the whomever applies for a FISA warrant? I'm more inclined to think the FISA court judges keep a rubber stamp handy.
To some extent the enemy (FBI) of my enemy (trump) is my friend. But you got to keep your eye on them. Both.
2
Why is anyone surprised by any of this? FBI agents, at bottom, are just high level cops. Everyone knows that cops routinely lie to try to get what they have concluded are bad guys convicted and fined or imprisoned. A completely honest cop is the rare exception, not the rule. Just another day in our system of "justice."
5
Thank you Charlie Savage. Well done. Te IG report indirectly calls the entire investigation of Trump an illegal operation from day one. BUT, beyond that, Rand Paul, several years ago, warned us about runaway surveillance in a video that parallels 1984 which is easily found. No one paid attention then and no doubt this will be swept under the carpet and those directly responsible will go on speaking tours and get rich. Meanwhile, nothing factual regarding Trump and collusion was found; and nothing specific in the way of a documented fact can be found regarding his call to the Ukraine. Imagine that! Just supposition and lies. With the press so in the pocket of the left that they have lost credibility regarding the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And now, after 3 years, the truth is coming out. Impeachment or not, Trump will likely rub everyones nose in this mess, and rightly so.
Thanks again Charlie Savage! And do look for the video by Rand Paul. The long version. We were warned.
7
Two things can be true: Fisa warrants can be drawn up erroneously and should be subject to scrutiny, and Donald Trump and his campaign had unusual and suspicious ties to Russia that called for investigation.
5
I get a kick out of the people writing to the NYT. Everything is Trump,Trump,Trump. The surveillance was on Page not Trump. The purported reasons for the surveillance were wrong and have been exposed. The only part Trump plays is did the surveillance of Page occur to get to Trump.
5
It was secret, all right. So secret, they kept relevant (exculpatory) facts from the poor FISA judge. Not to mention the President elect. But all just a bunch of errors. No political agenda at all.
19
@Edwin
If you look at the history of FISA, this was not at all unusual. In fact, the careful pruning of arguments for FISA warrants is quite routine.
So if your argument is that something special was done with how this case was handled under FISA, that dog just doesn't hunt.
If any of this enrages you, then you should be arguing to abolish FISA, instead of standing with the crowd suggesting an exception be made for our Corrupter-in-Chief.
1
@Mike Really? This is what you think of our FBI?
Interesting, troubling analysis. But not a single mention of former FBI Director James Comey, who crowed in the Washington Post that the FBI had been cleared by the IG's report. Apparently not quite.
13
It would appear the Times and others in the media were guilty of a rush to judgement. They were far too eager to hail the IG’s report as a vindication for Comey, Strzok et al when they first reported what “those who have seen the report” were telling them. Today’s testimony by Horowitz has shined a bright light on the ugliness, and liberals can’t spin what’s been exposed. Durham will undoubtedly reveal even more nefariousness. The bottom line is Trump has been right all along: elements at the highest levels of our Justice Department were out to get him, and by any means necessary. What a disgrace.
21
Given Trump's corruption and the people he has in his administration, especially AG Barr I really don't trust this report.
2
These sound like the same kind of "errors" Republican members of House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees keep making when they complain the impeachment inquiry is a charade.
2
Secret warrants presented to secret courts based on secret evidence means we are living in a national security police state.
Of course, you've got nothing to worry about unless the State thinks you've done something wrong, but you won't know that because it's secret.
Makes you want to order an extra helping of Freedom Fries.
5
I wonder if the FISA Court could order the seizure of an 'SSL Certificate' for an 'https:' website. That would block the website at the browser end (Chrome, IE, etc.). Or, for that matter, would they even need a Court order to do that? It would certainly be a handy way to 'turn off' someone they don't like.
This is probably not an original thought but what if a cadre of adversarial lawyers (not unlike the Federal Defender program) could be put in place to make the process better.
As it is, like all of Washington, the US Attorneys and FBI are all law school gunners who are certain of their righteousness and superiority. No one like gunners but they self-replicate. I am sure the adversarial cadre would be suborned over time but some push back would be nice.
1
The most troubling take away from the IG report findings, relating to any sort of Russian connection; it revealed that the FBI uses KGB tactics to spy on its citizens.....
8
Sounds like the ghost of J Edgar Hoover lives.
Not to let these folks off the hook, but FBI really is NOT set up to do intelligence.
See: Richard Gid Powers’s “Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI"
2
The FBI is not without blame on a procedural level in this matter, but at the same time, no one has ever seen a Presidential Campaign more willing to enlist contact with foreign nationals as " Normal" folks to interact with in an election cycle.
Did the FBI stray off target in places? Sure.
But when observing the level of foreign government contact , the likes we have never see from a presidential election group, should make their antenna's light up in concern. Who could fault them for wanting to take a look?
The entire Trump Russia connectivity in this process should make all of us have a bit of concern.
Personally glad the FBI decided to take a look; results look to place 5+ folks associated with the Trump Campaign go to jail.
Something no one has ever seen in our " Post Watergate" modern times.
277
Either you don't understand what you're condoning or your commitment to the rule of law is rather weak.
I'm not particularly surprised, of course. You have a lot of company, on both sides of our current partisan divide.
That's another thing that's ugly.
42
@Douglas History it's out there. Look at Mr. Bill. The Chinese bought and paid for him. An we are still paying for it. Russia is a joke compared to China, https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-was-bill-clintons-russia-1488585526
20
@jerry , how about when Lyndon Johnson installed a CIA agent into Barry Goldwater's campaign and then bugged the Goldwater campaign plane? No need to enlist contact with foreign nationals when one can have the national security state do one's dirty work for you. How about when FDR had the IRS audit his political rivals and business opponents, like Huey Long, John Lewis, Hamilton Fish, Annenberg and Andrew Mellon? And Nixon did the same.
Also, while I voted for him, I have to agree with the comment by CWS and his link regarding Bill Clinton and China. This was one of the great disappointments of the Clinton presidency.
In fact, as was well-documented in the papers back in the late '90s (including Boston Globe, NY Times, etc), President Clinton bowed to pressure from the Chinese to kill the Jordan Commission immigration reform legislation. They did not want chain migration reform and Clinton and the DNC wanted the illegal campaign cash that was coming via John Huang. And, when the FBI recommended a special counsel investigation, just like Comey did for Trump, Clinton's AG, Janet Reno, decided to overrule the FBI and refused to appoint the special counsel! Unlike Jeff Sessions, who at least had the decency to recuse himself. The irony is that the quid pro quo ultimately probably led to Trump's election and the defeat of Clinton's wife in 2016. If the Jordan Commission immigration reform had passed, the issue would not have festered for Trump to seize on.
27
Unfortunately, we live in an age where presenting only cherrypicked information that supports an argument is the rule rather than the exception. And how ironic is it that so many of the Senators asking questions and voicing indignation regarding the FBI’s behavior in this case do exactly the same thing in public on a near daily basis? As you sow, so shall you reap.
271
@Derek Martin
You may be correct, politicians always say what they think their constituents want to hear. That behavior does not equate to FBI / intelligence agents specifically using only information that supports their own agenda, ie., not providing or considering exculpatory data. I find this incredible and it seriously tarnishes the image I once had of our FBI.
5
@Derek Martin
You may be correct, politicians always say what they think their constituents want to hear. That behavior does not equate to FBI / intelligence agents specifically using only information that supports their own agenda, ie., not providing or considering exculpatory data. I find this incredible and it seriously tarnishes the image I once had of our FBI.
Where oh where was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when we needed it prior to September 11, 2001? Where there is great investigative authority there also the potential for great abuse. That said, what happened to Carter Page is a tempest in a teapot compared to potential Russian intelligence agents infiltrating a presidential campaign. And let us not forget the six convicted felons associated with Donald Trump unearthed by Bob Mueller and his investigation. Fine article Mr. Savage and yes there needs to be some tweaking of this particular law. But for heavens sake my question still stands. We could have used a heavy dose of FISA 12 months before 9/11 don't you think?
92
@Jean W. Griffith , convicted felons have lots of influence in Washington, DC. Iran-Contra criminal Elliot Abrams, among others. Obama's former NSA Director, James Clapper, happens to be walking free because he is seen as "too big to prosecute" but his blatant perjury before Congress makes him a de facto felon. Doesn't matter which party, national security state criminals seem to always be welcome back, both in the halls of power and with paid appearances and editorials in the media.
16
@Jean W. Griffith
Where was the FISA prior to September 11, 2001? Exactly the same as it is now and as it has been since 1978, according to the article, with all the same abuses, flaws, errors, and failure to suffer any consequences. The Bush Administration's failure to take seriously a clear warning about Osama bin Laden cannot be blamed on FISA.
24
@Thomas Zaslavsky
By the way, I am no friend of FISA; I think it is abusive and undemocratic. But put each piece of the blame in the right place.
7
You know, what are being described as "mistakes" are not mistakes which are accidential, or unintentional. Some of this appears very intentional. I dislike Trump and his ilk as much as anyone, but that's not the point. The point is, this kind of "mistake" could be directed at anyone. You can trust anything anymore, can you?
169
@Eve Waterhouse
Yes; NYT's demand that its readers parse the meaning of "errors" and "errors and omissions" is unreasonable if not irresponsible.
I get it that Charlie wants to maintain his access to the security/intelligence community and knows a bit of obfuscation will advance that goal, but he and his editors should keep in mind that they have a duty to their readers, as well.
14
@Eve Waterhouse
It has already been directed at "anyone", meaning people who are not foreign subversive agents.
11
@Eve Waterhouse There were also pro-Trump views and "mistakes" that benefitted the campaign if they look closely enough - it is not all one way.
Look at the Mueller Report. The Ds could argue it didn't go far enough because Mueller was a Republican.
Personally I feel that even though everyone has biases, everyone tries to do the best for their country and jobs. Even Trump to a degree but among all the people, he is the least good. Barr is next. Obama was much cleaner and a better President.
Just listen to Trump talk in one of his rallies and tell me that what is being stated is sane.
6
I trust the dysfunctional intelligence services... WAY MORE than Trump; and way than the Republican Party by any measure.
The Republican are/will attempt taking over the intelligence Agencies..... for their purposes.
I estimate they’ll do so right the election...if Trump wins.
Wake America
147
@Mark
Yeah, and if and when those Republicans do that it might be just like what happened to them. You’re still sleeping and don’t even know it.
12
Might? Do you really believe this has happened to only Republicans and only now? The ACLU has been advocating for FISA reform for years. You wake up.
9
I am all for protecting civil liberties. But let’s not forget that this brouhaha all started because team trump was consorting with the Russians to the extent that a counter intelligence investigation was necessitated. Just sayin.
228
"I am all for protecting civil liberties. But . . ."
Be afraid, America. Be very afraid.
36
@Hub Harrington You're just saying a conspiracy theory that has been widely debunked.
25
@thorsmjollnir
The Russia report details more than 140 meetings between Russian agents and the Campaign personnel of Individual-1 in 2015-2016. At one of those meetings his Campaign Chairman and Vice Chairman handed voter data files to a known GRU officer for four swing States and Individual-1 squeaked out wins in three of those states by less than 78,000 total votes.
24
Well, we traded away our constitutional rights for "security" and look what it got us.
Maybe we should stop worshiping the intelligence agencies.
They're not suddenly "defenders of democracy" simply because Trump is president.
113
@Eric W -- Well, then we're left with -no- 'defenders of democracy', because Trump, by all evidence, is no friend of democracy. I think I'll take my chances with the FBI and other intelligence agencies before I put my reliance on Trump and his minions.
22
@Jim Brokaw
You misunderstood Eric W. Eric W did not say we should disbelieve the intelligence agencies entirely. He said we should stop worshipping them as if they are the guardians of the faith.
You surely know about J. Edgar Hoover's abuse of the FBI to undermine civil rights and other progressive political organizations. You must know about the NSA's illegal collection of data on Americans, revealed by Snowden, who suffered loss of his passport and permanent exile as a result. There is more.
13
My take, they just made it completely legal to get foreign adversaries to help in any forthcoming election. If the FBI can’t investigate treasonous activities than who will, the GOP?
153
@Harry B Wipe the sleep from your eyes. The facts are now known.
9
@Harry B, excellent question for which I have not read a good answer.
4
@John, point well taken. The issue is not just about "treason" per se. If Americans are involved in unusual ways with nations with very opposing political, economic, & trade interests, then the American gov't has reason to be concerned. So then what happens? Wiretaps? Formal investigations? Closely adhering to well defined rules or "due process?" No matter what, there is good reason to be concerned with BOTH gov't overreach OR with gov't neglect of potential problems. ...All of which prompts review of SOP. But even after any review or reform, it should be remembered that those with malicious intent will look for paths of evasion...So the dilemma may resist resolution.
7
Don't be fooled. This is not democracy in action. This is not public oversight of our institutions. This is an authoritarian president and wannabe dictator bullying the law enforcement officials who dared to investigate him. The Republicans lackeys doing his bidding in the Senate have no real interest in reforming the FBI. They share Trump's authoritarian impulses, and are actually quite comfortable with a secret police using secret courts to throw people in jail without any scrutiny or accountability. They are never going to reform the FBI. Get real. Their only motive here is to discourage any further investigation of the madman they depend on for their political survival.
377
@bpmhs
Good point!
16
@bpmhs Completely untrue. I guess you didn't watch any of the Horowitz hearing today. You should base your comments on FACTS not some nonsense about what you think Trump did or didn't do.
22
@bpmhs
The Republican Senators probably have no wish to reform the FISA but it certainly needed it decades ago. The ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights have made that clear.
10
Thank you, sir, for this fair reportage and analysis. Surpised and pleased to see this here. Generally speaking, looking at the NYTimes and CNN and MSNBC and Washington Post, you would not even know the IG report said anything troubling at all.
87
@Harry Mylar
Really? I was just reading the WP
One of the main stories on the WP site as I write has the subheading: Horowitz noted his investigators found no evidence of “political bias or improper motivation,” though they did find other failures...
These failures are covered in the article, although not in the same level of detail as are found in this piece.
3
@Harry Mylar
Could not agree more Mr. Mylar.
And your list should include the
Wall St. Journal.
4
@Harry Mylar
That's not true. PBS right off the bat focused in on the IG's report of massive numbers of "errors" and then they began to delineate some of the facts around the FISA warrants, and it was nauseating. But this article makes clear that what Barr has claimed on MSNBC and what Page tried to convey as well when interviewed on MSNBC, that the FBI actually falsified affidavits, and he calls that falsification and skating (ommission of facts about Page's involvement and or association with the CIA which would have removed the cloud of suspicion around him which in turn might have dissolved the FISA warrant - that information might have caused the FISA court to not only challenge the FBI's continued application to surveill Page, but might have rejected the warrant altogether - the Court might have acted independent of a motion and acted on its own motion after it became apprised of facts that the FBI concealed (or just forgot to mention).
I hate false affidavits. AG Barr might be correct that those affidavits may rise to the level of perjury charges against the agents who submitted the FISA warrant requests, not a mere reprimand.
3
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
40
@SR
If Trump weren’t elected or if Democrats ran the senate this never would have seen the light of day. Do you think Adam Schiff would of allowed this testimony?
4
Who would have guessed that when a person doesn't have an opportunity to defend them self in a court of law miscarriages of justice occur?
63
@Melbourne Town
Maybe you should get your information straight for once.
Everyone involved and that was an enormous group, was invited, or subpoenaed for all meetings.
Guess who did not show up, wasn’t allowed to show up or just wanted to break existing laws (including of course no 1 law breaker in the country your leader)?
As expected the same people who refused to testify are now complaining the loudest, including yourself.
2
@Johan Debont it is interesting to be told to get my facts straight by someone who clearly didn't read the description in the article of how FISA warrants are granted.
3
Finally this story is being analyzed through a lens other than whether the immediate implications are good or bad for Trump.
If it’s OK for the FBI of a Democratic administration to spy on the campaign of a rival party using ginned up opposition research, the FBI and FISA courts, then it will be OK for a Republican administration to spy on political rivals in the same manner.
Now, where are the civil libertarians when it comes to members of Congress releasing phone records on rival elected officials and reporters?
When Adam Schiff released phone records on a journalist, it didn’t seem to matter much to mainstream media. As it happened, it was a conservative journalist, John Solomon. My guess is the NYT would be in full high dudgeon mode had a Republican member of Congress released metadata records on the number of times, say, and NPR or NYT reporter spoke to Schiff’s office.
56
@Doug But it's the Ds doing this - trying to do something right. When do you ever see the Rs doing this in recent memory? Since Gingrich especially, they've put party over country.
1
@Doug
Solomon is a journalist? Who knew?
4
@rmreddicks
The people who gave him multiple awards for journalism, for starters.
Unlike any other major news outlet, he was able to score interviews with Shokin and Lutsenko, two central players in the Biden Ukraine story.
Now that’s good reporting. But the same FBI people who handle national security issues at the FISA court are involved in all sorts of investigations using many different investigative tools. If they bend the rules at FISA you can darn well be assured they bend the rules in other areas. The point here is you have part of an agency that has not done a good job with their investigations and need more oversight from An independent review board.
27
@Richard
Yeh sure, let’s get another independent review board!
If a country needs an independent review board for all and each of governmental institutions to govern, then there is something really wrong with that country, our country.
It is Trumps favorite trick to order an new investigation, when he doesn’t like the one that is just completed.
It is also Trumps ally Barr (who runs Justice) who favors new investigations, if you are not able to influence or secretly change a result before it is published.
It is a typical authoritarian way of operation, finessed by President Putin into the extreme in his effort to become Russia’s supreme leader.
And Trump wants to be like him.
So how many more so-called independent investigations will be called and overthrow the original investigations?
This debacle is the source of the failed Mueller investigation. When did Mueller’s people know there was no there there?
On another note, what are the implications for criminals convicted by way of testimony of any of these sleazy mooks?
How many convictions will be overturned?
30
You’re wrong that there was no “there” there, and I doubt any of Trump’s “mooks” will be exonerated by this report.
3
@Buster Dee Carter Page was the source of nothing
1
@Zoe Baker
Both Papadopolous and Flynn have filed papers a while ago to retract their "confessions".
Manafort is not in jail because of anything to do with Mueller's Russia investigation.
Exactly what President Trump has been telling Americans for the last two years.
53
Actually, no. He claimed his campaign was “spies” upon, which it was not.
5
@Alan Einstoss Not even CLOSE. Trump has been saying "11" when it is like 5 or so. Remember, no anti-Trump bias. No coup. It was legitimate and justified, but sloppy. That's a difference. And this is all in a Trump admin putting pressure.
Remember what happened to the boy who cried wolf. The Rs are the ones who pushed for the FBI to have this power.
7
You mean the same President that calls the press "fake news," the FBI "scum," the intelligence community inferior to Putin's claims of innocence, and genocidal tyrant Kim a guy he shares "love letters" with?
8
So. let's have some bipartisan action on this issue. The Democrats in the House should have a committee investigate and issue proposed legislation. The Republicans in the Senate should do the same.
Anyone who believes anything the national security military industrial complex tells them is a fool. In the last few days we learned of twenty years of lies about Afghanistan and who knows how many years of lies in the FISA court.
The American people must write and speak to their elected Senators and Representatives about this issue and seek action.
Now.
39
One other point:
IG Horowitz testified that his Office would conduct an audit of FISA warrants.
That investigation may bring out the data for fundamental reforms, as well as show how aberrant the Trump misconduct was.
5
It seems to me, this type of abuse was predicted after the rush to pass laws to protect "the American people" after 9/11.
58
@Curt
We had abuse long before 9/11. That's why people were opposed to the extension of government powers after 9/11.
Look at the Nixon administration.
Look at LBJ's history.
It seems like those in power will misuse government agencies for their own advancement whenever given the opportunity.
If only there was an overriding neutral authority that whistleblowers could go to to report abuses..... like that will ever happen.
3
Listen carefully to what Horowitz said. No documentary evidence of bias, no testimonial evidence of bias. Fine, I believe him. But that doesn't mean no bias. It means that nobody wrote it down or admitted to it. Surprised? The bottom line is that the 17 critical errors in the FISA process don't pass the "ain't no bias smile test". Any jury of reasonable citizens may easily draw a conclusion of bias. The blood is in the water and the sharks are starting to circle.
37
You missed the point. No one ELSE — not one independent observer — suggested any of these individuals allowed their personal bias, if they had any, to color their actions.
Do you think most people don’t have personal bias? Do you understand that personal bias isn’t the same as professional bias?
Didn’t think so.
5
@Mike No, there was PRO-TRUMP bias as well! Remember, two the agents said they were really happy with the victory. So how did they act??
But I trust all of them to act as professional as possible. I think they did good. This is just nit picking after the fact. If Trump can pardon military soldiers who've committed actual crimes, what these agents did is NOTHING.
3
I can't understand why anyone is still talking about Carter Page.
Have you ever listened to the man during an interview ?
I can understand why the FBI was confused .
23
The FBI may have been confused, but the issue under discussion is that the FBI was *dishonest*.
5
FBI behaved more like keystone cops than a world class police organization.
14
Counterintelligence is always a messy issue. It has to be. You are dealing in the world of spies.
Lets not forget one thing though. At least one member of the Trump team was very dirty. Manafort got convicted by a jury of his peers for the tax and fraud portions. He plead out when he faced the Ukraine charges.
Flynn was sort of dirty. He should have known better.
So, given the convictions and indictments, yes the operation was appropriate.
39
@Andy Makar Flynn is going to walk, and soon, with no assistance from Trump.
4
So, for you, getting convictions justifies dishonest representations to courts by law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. Dishonest cops and prosecutors agree with you.
People for whom fairness and the rule of law are important do not.
7
@Andy Makar Agreed!
How many times does a judge in any court deny a request from prosecutors, police, or government agents? The answer is hardly ever. “In 2018, there were 1,833 targets of such orders, including 232 Americans....Out of 1,080 requests by the government in 2018, for example, government records showed that the court fully denied only one.” Where was the worst senator in the world (R) Lindsay Graham then? We all know where: Not taking care of his state but sucking up to Trump and making lies for Trump.
And how many times does a prosecutors put in short-cuts or use limited sources that just “good enough” to get a judge to take action and grant their request. The answer is almost always.
Where is the evidence within these warrants that were granted? According to the courts and the IG that information is secret. No defense lawyers allowed. Lets somehow get a defense team of a sort to review and take responsibility that these warrants have been cleared. FISA may have been built to spill but in this case a lot of crooks involved with Trump went to jail.
7
It also begs a broader question. What about the other much larger number of cases that used fisa court surveillance? How many of them were tainted?
15
@tom Good point. I can hardly wait to see crowds of outraged Trump supporters rushing to defend falsely accused and wiretapped Muslims, Latinx Americans and foreign nationals from all over holding every level and type of visa, whatever their status, or none at all.
If FBI surveillance is an impossible burden to the most politically powerful person in America (who wasn't even the one being watched!) imagine the crushing legal weight on some poor working stiff or student just trying to live their life and get by the best they can minding their own business. C'mon, you MAGA folks! How about trying to make America great for everybody, not just the select, already privileged, self-pitying few!
5
Well, okay, but is disingenuous to argue this is much beyond an attempt by the Republicans to describe a so-called deep state before the arrival of the impeachment trials. Do these practices need reform? Yes I think so but Republicans’ newfound interest in curtailing surveillance powers is not a benign exercise in oversight. When faced with having to choose between the institutions they historically have cherished and an off the hook President, they’ve sensibly (sarcasm) chosen to side with the least functional member of out nation (Donald Trump, that is). This is example #1247 of Republicans putting Trump before personal convictions. Im surprised Republicans’ constituents aren’t feeling whiplash, but they don’t seem to be.
24
@Aaron Republicans started this mess with the Patriot Act and an unlimited budget for the intel agencies after 9/11. This was bound to happen eventually. Doesn't make it right. Comey was out of control, and it sounds like Durham and Barr will prove that to be just the tip of the iceberg.
You are correct, there is nothing partisan about the conclusion. The bottom line is Trump was more than right.
The Obama administration not only illicitly spied on the Trump campaign, they set up a scheme to continue spying even after he became President.
This should never happen to another duly elected president.
Perp walk the culprits as a lesson.
34
The Obama Administration did nothing of the sort.
5
@Baskar stop with the big rightwing Lindsey lies.
As the IG clearly stated and many other sources
NO one spied on Trump. Even under oath the IG agreed and said NO there was no spies. That’s the truth and the facts. When you repeat these Rush Limbaugh Yelling Points you are carrying water for Trump and his Nationalist Republican cohorts.
Think for yourself.
3
When it comes to a foreign power, Russia, attacking us vis-a-vie our elections I'm not sure I care where, or even how the FBI gets evidence. Regardless of any issues, there was a finding that the Russians are working to influence our elections and questions about the trump campaign are entirely warranted.d
11
@Blue Couple Not true. Russia may well have tried to influence elections, just as they always have. But not only was there no evidence of Trump collusion, but exculpatory evidence was purposely withheld in order to obtain the warrant. Not only that, the warrant was requested AFTER the initial spying occurred in a (now failed) attempt to retroactively cover the behinds of the perpetrators.
2
After 9/11, the entire nation seemed perfectly eager to forego some privacy in exchange for security. Millions of people line up barefoot for TSP to examine their stuff.
We knew AT&T just handed over gazillions of phone records to NSA. We acquiesced in torture and other war crimes to get at the terrorists.
So, it's true. We need to reexamine our practices and procedures while still maintaining a measure of counter-terrorism and public safety.
What the FBI needs is housekeeping. What the nation needs is to frogmarch Donald out of the Oval Office.
21
@Occupy Government '[H]ousekeeping' or Housecleaning?
Lost in all the arguing about whether Carter Page was treated unfairly is the nature of the investigation itself. I hope I'm not alone in being glad that the FBI thought it important to find out what kind of connections Donald's campaign had with Russia. Donald's refusal to release his tax records was suspicious enough, and his open invitation to Russia ("Russia, if you're listening...") was impossible to ignore. I've long been very uncomfortable with the secrecy and potential misuse of FISA warrants, and this report makes it clear that we should all re-think FISA. But please, please don't lose sight of the frightening evidence that Donald and his henchmen were and are likely colluding with Russia. And if Russia has been helping Donald, they are surely getting something even more important in return.
49
@ARNP "Russia if you're listening..." was a JOKE. I can see you're not from New York, so maybe that's why you didn't get it. Or you are suffering from the general sense-of-humor deficiency that has sadly become epidemic in our country. There is zero evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. In any case Mueller's $40M fishing expedition couldn't find any - but you're sure it exists?
7
@Eliza Bennett
Actually, before moving to Iowa I lived in NY. I may lack a sense of humor, but my vision is 20/20. Donald has had numerous private conversations with Putin (including a meeting in the Oval Office), and every foreign policy decision he's made so far has benefited Russia and alienated or betrayed our allies. So no, I'm not chuckling.
10
This is a symptom of a much bigger problem. The entire U.S. establishment runs on secrecy. Everything from security clearances, national security oaths, special access projects, even NDAs in the private sector. With this much secrecy, how free are we really?
15
Many of the older senators were around when Cheney was forcing the NSA into illegally obtaining and storing phone communications with no protection afforded the NSA officials who were legal whistle blowers but treated as criminals by the FBI/DOJ. And they did nothing to stop Cheney's actions even when make public.
The GOP's press for 'deep state' is purely for the purpose of furthering paranoia and feeding into conspiracy theorists ... those are the votes that matter to them.
This in no way vindicates dodgy and even illegal methods that have been revealed through the report.
14
Not quite Pres. Candidate Bernie Sanders spoke out against The Patriot Act.
Here he is in '02:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=DmcZxKPHs4E&feature=emb_logo
Here he is in '03:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nXy0F0pZrc
40min. C-span interview in '05 on Patriot Act:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIBkqL8S9gg
1
Thanks for this analytical following to your prior reporting.
While the larger FISA issues are relevant, let's not be in such a hurry to get past the misconduct that was documented in the IG Report.
In that regard, you mentioned the CIA source issue, but left out the fabricated email falsely stating that Page WAS NOT a CIA source.
The probability that the 17 major examples of misconduct were innocent errors is virtually nil.
I loather Trump and AG Barr, but intellectual honesty forces me to agree that they had a plausible "narrative" regarding corrupt political FBI and DoJ motives.
18
@Bill Wolfe Thank you. You restore my faith in the readers of this publication. Lately they have devolved into wielders of witless personal attacks.
3
It's easy to rush to judgement on the FBI's (mid)use of FISA, but in reality, it all depends ...
Domestic counter intelligence surveillance is not nor should it be held to the same standards for investigating a domestic crime. We are a nation of 300+m people, of whom 232 Americans were subject to FISA authorized surveillance in 2018. Do the math.
Yes, an out of control FBI could abuse its investigative powers. J Edgar Hoover is case exemplar. This is not J Edgar. This is investigating Russian interference in our election process. It really doesn't matter whether their aggression was a response to American support for the ouster of Mr Yanukovych and general American cyber actions. If a cyber version of the Cold War is underway, then the FBI would have to be aggressive in pursuing leads.
The issue is whether or not we trust our system of governance and justice to act in the best interests of the American people. That means pushing boundaries when warranted. It only works when people trust in the process.
The tails of both parties have done their best to undermine public confidence in our system of justice and governance.
The republicans have done their best to undermine public confidence in the FBI, the CIA, the patriotism of public servants. The list goes on.
Democratic extremists have done their best to brand city police departments as racist at worst and biased at best.
Who is right? Apparently whoever shouts the loudest.
Who wins?
Putin and Xi.
10
Procedural errors of the kind described would get FISA applications that don't meet requirements rubber stamped. This very serious problem must be fixed so there's a required level of evidence for permission to collect data. But the issue is a distraction.
The existential threat to America is an attack on the US Constitution by the Trump Administration to throw out the Separation of Powers, specifically Congressional oversight over the Executive. Trump refuses to honor Congressional subpoenas and distracts by claiming to be the victim of anti- Trump prejudice at the FBI which caused a "Hoax" investigation of his 2016 Campaign collaboration with Russia. The evidence? Defects in the FBI FISA Application and renewals for Page. A pair of FBI agents that sent each other anti Trump emails at the FBI were involved but not responsible. The public evidence on Trump's bromance with Putin and his son's appointment with a Russian lawyer to collect dirt on HRC don't matter. Obama tapped his phones at the TrumpTower (no evidence).
14
What could have gone wrong in a secret surveillance program?
Given the repeated failures and abuses that have occurred in the secret activities of our intelligence agencies, perhaps we should be reining them in instead of granting them unlimited powers (and they are UNLIMITED because they are hidden in secrecy).
If you know enough about someone you control them. One FBI agent who'd been vetting candidates for Federal Judgeships was surprised to see that the 'squeaky clean' candidates were rarely appointed. It became clear that TPTB WANTED people with skeletons in their closet - people they could control if necessary.
This article covers one case. What else has gone on? Ever wonder why all the good Republicans who ranted on about individual rights voted FOR the Patriot Act? Domestic surveillance had been underway for some time before that act was passed.
8
Reading this article makes me wonder what Mr Barr can do, or has done. Mr Durham is going to foreign countries seeking who knows what. As for the IG Report we now know that Mr Barr, and Mr Durham, have both made negative remarks about the IG Report. We live in interesting times, and scary times at that.
9
It remains ugly. While AG Barr seems to be devoting much of his time to (1) flying to Europe to chase down unfounded conspiracy theories that he and Trump want to substantiate or (2) disparaging his own agency (and the people who work in it) and criticizing reports that don't produce the answer he wants...
...he has managed, nonethelss, to spend time trying to convince social media app execs to a back incorporate a back-door way to get around encryption...
He's as enthusiastic about surveillance as his predecessors (even across administrations), and in some cases, markedly more so.
10
The abuses within the FISA system are hardly surprising given the lack of public oversight for this most secretive of processes. As such, greater internal safeguards are essential to reduce to as close to nil as possible the chances that the process can be abused. Having said that, the idea that Donald Trump’s rights were abused through this process is preposterous. If there really were the level of bias alleged or the makings of a political coup, then the existence of the investigation into the Trump campaign would have been leaked or announced to the public. That would have irreparably harmed Trump’s election chances, likely fatally. As it was, the only investigation publicized and re-publicized was the one regarding the Clinton server. Trump and his acolytes really have no valid complaint. The American public, on the other hand, does.
12
Reading several cubic feet of F.B.I. files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, I thought the Feds were essentially a laughably funny jobs program that was so thoroughly politicized (though not entirely partisan), that they couldn't tell their you-know-what from their elbow.
Then came 9/11, and it was no longer funny. They were so blinded trying to fit square pegs into round holes that they couldn't even even imagine what was in front of their nose.
This is merely a comment on what I found, not on the validity (or the lack thereof) of the conclusions or even the observations in the current report. However, I have little reason to doubt that little has changed, inasmuch as no President has been willing to insist that our intelligence agencies should adhere to their legitimate mandate, which is to gather intelligence, rather than to serve the President's agenda in one way or another.
I do understand that the F.B.I. is a legitimately dual function agency, combining both intelligence gathering and police functions.
6
After reading several cubic feet of F.B.I. files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, I thought the Feds were essentially a laughably funny jobs program that was so thoroughly politicized (though not entirely partisan), that they couldn't tell their you-know-what from their elbow. (Which in no way mitigated their many nefarious deeds.)
Then came 9/11, and it was no longer funny. They were so blinded trying to fit square pegs into round holes that they couldn't even even imagine what was in front of their nose.
This is merely a comment on what I found, not on the validity (or the lack thereof) of the conclusions or even the observations in the current report. However, I have little reason to doubt that little has changed, inasmuch as no President has been willing to insist that our intelligence agencies should adhere to their legitimate mandate, which is to gather intelligence, rather than to serve the President's agenda in one way or another.
I do understand that the F.B.I. is a legitimately dual function agency, combining both intelligence gathering and police functions.
2
Patriot Act, FISA Courts, ICE, and FBI surveillance practices are all assaults on the Constitutionally protected rights of Americans.
Big data collected by our computers, our social media, Google, Amazon, smartphones, and online searches, purchases and visits, let's others use and sell more information about ourselves than we know ourselves.
The 4th Amendment needs strengthening with 21st Century legal protections in mind. Add to that DNA privacy and limited access of our data to corporations.
The FBI has been used for political purposes in the past as all who participated in the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam war movements know too well from first hand experience.
In this case, the FBI had ample reasons and urgent need to fully investigate Russia, its election interference, and links to Republicans in 2016, but Director Comey demonstrated bias and poor judgement in his condemnation of Dem. Hillary Clinton (without charging her with any crime) and publicly "re-opening the investigation" shortly before voters began to vote.
That Republicans are upset with the FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign links to Russia is ludicrous.
I am personally upset with the FBI for their limited, superficial and unprofessional investigation of the credible charges of attempted rape by Brett Kavanaugh of Christine Blasey Ford in Maryland.
Equal justice under the law? When?
16
Thank you Charlie Savage for giving me hope that someone at the NYT actually read the document and thank you for reporting it fairly. I read was the Executive Summary and it sickened me.
My new rule is this: if the ACLU and Trump are saying something similar, pay attention!
26
And so we are a Nation of Laws, and more laws, and laws about laws, and laws about those laws, and laws preceding laws, and laws replacing laws, and laws undermining laws.
I shoulda been a lawyer's lawyer's lawyer.
But one thing I would never do is vote for Trump, even if there's a law saying I have to.
Amen.
7
There (was) might have been some information left off the FISA application, might have been in the interest of time and events occurring quickly, as the Trump campaign was gaining traction. The court authorized the investigation and wire tapping. The FBI did not do it without approval. While there might have been information not presented, there was also a long history of Trump's business dealing with Russians. Trump's own son stated that in 2008 that Russians made up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. There is plenty of history to support or justify the FISA warrants, even if there was information left off. Carter Page was thought to be a asset of Russian Intel services as early as 2013. I started with the (was) might, because we don't have access to the FISA application, so what information was not presented? We don't know.
If Carter Page was above board, what did he have to lose?
Did not every U.S. Intelligence Service state the Russia interfered in the 2016 election? Yes - case closed? No - more to follow. Russia is not done and Trump is not done.
7
@Dave So I sense ,everyone now agrees there's no vast right wing conspiracy making up this FISA story.
8
The IG report clearly shows problems with the FBI and the FISA process, and these problems are important and need to be acknowledged. However, it is critical these issues are not used to whitewash the Russia investigation. The IG says the start of the Russia investigation was legitimate. And beyond that all the main findings of the Mueller investigation are still valid:
1) Trump asked for Russian interference in the 2016 election.
2) Trump received help in the 2016 election.
3) Multiple members of Trumps' campaign had clearly questionable links to the Russian interference campaign.
4) Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.
18
No one wants the government wire tapping an American citizen without justification, even someone as sketchy as Carter Page.
My fear, though, is that the Republicans are using this report as one more opportunity to undermine investigations into foreign intervention into our elections, which apparently they think is okay (see their comments re impeachment).
The FBI may not be perfect, but I hope the American people have some defense against attacks on our elections ... since we can’t even get backup paper ballots! I urge Congress - on both sides - to be careful what they wish for. The next foreign interference may be against them.
81
@arvds: And the next wiretap may be against you.
16
@avrds so, uh, how much law enforcement corruption and illegal spying and lawbreaking by the federal government are you willing to tolerate to investigate foreign interference?
14
@avrds If the Russians can take down the country with Facebook posts maybe we do not deserve our freedom
5
National security and disclosing government secrets have been used by the FBI and countless administrations to justify this type of unconstitutional activity. If you haven't done anything, then you have nothing to fear.
If only that were true and maybe, just maybe, our government shouldn't have so many secrets in the first place.
11
Republicans voted unanimously for the Patriot Act that allows law enforcement to spy on any one of us, but they're upset when there was surveillance done for good reason in a case of potential treason?
Yeah, fix FISA, as Dems have been trying to do.
But don't blame Feds for Trump and his administration's actions in trying to work with and accept help from Russia.
There is no Deep State. Just Americans doing their job, protecting America and Americans.
159
@D.A.Oh This is untethered to the facts. Please reflect.
8
@D.A.Oh
I always wondered why so many Republicans who screamed about the Bill of Rights voted for the Patriot Act.
But then domestic surveillance had been going on for some time before then. If you know a person's secrets, you control them. Funny how those most adamant about investigating our intelligence agencies meet with early deaths.
3
@D.A.Oh How do you think they caught the pedophile Dennis Hastert? The patriot act was used to catch his wire transfers to the victims. What’s next GOP, will Dennis Hastert be Trumps next cabinet appointment.
7
A good reminder that just because Trump is against something doesn't mean one should be for it.
FISA and the FBI have been a civil liberties nightmare since the beginning, and the claims of scrupulous adherence to safeguards absurd on their face.
If anything good comes from Trump's time in office, maybe it will be the opportunity to peer behind the curtain and see how rotten this process is.
I would like to think there will be a lot more denials from FISA courts in the future.
29
These abuses of the FISA court are appalling, yet they don't mitigate the valid reasons for impeaching Trump in the least. Let' not forget that Trump and his GOP enablers are trying to use today's hearing to distract the nation from our most pressing issue.
23
@DB This IG report was years in the making. Are you suggesting its release was somehow timed to deflect from impeachment? Rather, it is actually ill-timed from Trump's perspective, as it will inevitably bring accusations that it's all just retribution.
2
If we want to keep our civil liberties and maintain a functioning democracy we need to have to allow more surveillance. We are under attack from Russia and should keep an eye on what Kremlin Assets are doing in the United States. I don't think it really is a liberal issue to not have strong law enforcement with powerful tools to combat mobsters, traitors, oligarchs and foreign assets. Without vigilance our country will be lost.
7
The article should note that it turns out that the Nunes memo about the FISA abuse was accurate; and that the Schiff memo was misleading and inaccurate. Horowitz's report proves it. Nunes should get an apology from all who attacked him for his memo detailing the FISA violations.
43
It’s hard to accede any point to Nunes, who has regularly and repeatedly violates his oath of office in order to protect the President.
But okay, yes, I’ll concede this point.
7
@R.P. Only proves Feinstein is wrong ,there is a deep state and here it is in full ,how it operates and why,the proof was placed in front of her today.
10
RP Okay so will Nunes champion the reforming of FISA. Of course not. He is cherry picking a situation. The GOP loved this kangaroo court until it was used against their hero. Let them put their money where their mouth is and toss the FISA courts.
7
This has been a problem for almost two decades, at least since a program of warrantless domestic wiretapping was ordered by the Bush administration in 2002 to be carried out by the NSA. Interesting that people are calling for oversight and reform now in. Politics not justice or transparency.
11
Senator Ernst focuses on "bad actors" and their punishment as opposed to addressing a failure of procedures. This is not an approach that promotes quality work and sounds suspiciously like an effort to vilify individuals as politically biased. This will not solve the problem.
Other Republicans are working hard to prove bias but their arguments are far from compelling. There is an alternative conclusion to make when Senator Tillis finds it difficult to believe that intelligent FBI top officials who are critical of Trump can act professionally without bias. If these folks feel so strongly that bias hinders competency, how in the world can they support our president? Trump only speaks to his base and insults the rest of us. Here comes Senator Blackburn with a deep state conspiracy theory...
9
What here is new? It's been like this, the quest to gather information on everyone as openly stated in interviews prior to Snowden verifying all of that, and Clapper lying to Congress about it before getting his promotions.
Routinely deceiving the FISA courts was also featured years ago. Nobody cared. Nobody will care now.
6
The way I read this article leads me to the conclusion that the FBI had it in for Trump from the get-go in 2016. How else can you read this? Why does the NYT, WaPO, and other msm insist on clinging to the notion that an institution such as the FBI could NOT have been biased against Trump: it's so obvious the FBI had it in for this guy prior to the November 2016 election. Maybe it was just rogue agents within the FBI -- but that still implicates this agency -- and not for the first time too. Come on: wake up folks.
34
Yet the FBI torpedoed Clinton’s campaign right before the election while never announcing they were investigating Trump.
14
@tony.daysog I don't know, the way I read it was that it's impossible to maintain a transparent democracy AND an effective surveillance state simultaneously. One or the other is going to give.
As far as the FBI having it in for Trump, there's just one problem with your theory...
Right before the election, it was the FBI that did major damage to Clinton's campaign. If they had it in for Trump, why did they wait until AFTER the election to do him in? Wouldn't they, you know, stop him?
That being said, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were rogue agents in the agency that "had it in" for either or both candidates. They were some lousy candidates.
8
Is it so impossible for you to believe that people who dislike Trump could have still legitimately been UNBIASED in their pursuit of justice?
Why is this so difficult for people to believe? Everything I’ve heard from everyone who knew Struck and Page said they were nonpartisan and basically disliked BOTH candidates.
Why does it have to have been “bias” that caused FBI agents to be concerned about this candidate, due to his statements, actions, and choice of allies during the campaign?
10
Now that the Russian Republicans are criminal rights’ activists, I guess their first move will be to repeal the Patriot Act and the NDAA police state/surveillance provisions. Not holding my breath.
15
Thomas Friedman had a piece in the NYTimes yesterday about how President Trump represented the gravest threat to American democracy. This is another example of a grave threat to democracy that we never address because we lack perspective other than our own in all these matters. There are many geave threats. One dkminates the headlines. The others get lost in the shouting.
13
Yeah, Lindsey Graham, I'd hate for the Senate to betray the country at a time when we need it most, either, but that's exactly where you are leading it. The FBI process may not have been great, and it may need fixing, but it wasn't wrong. Trump and his entire campaign had multiple suspicious contacts with Russian agents. The FBI was fully warranted in surveilling this ultra-corrupt Trump organization -- and you, Lindsey Graham, are complicit in covering up the truth and helping a President of the USA Obstruct Justice. A felony offense. You bring eternal Shame to your office and our once Great Country.
64
As a Democrat, it's disheartening to learn that Carter Page was treated unfairly - this whole scenario also brings into question how the FBI and DOJ may have equally been mishandling secret FBI subpoenas on ordinary Americans as recently described in the NYTimes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/us/data-privacy-fbi.html
Americans want to continue to revere our FBI and DOJ professionals, and hope what the I.G. has found regarding the Carter Page FISA warrant will encourage a review and tightening of procedures for secret FBI subpoenas to avoid errors as in the FISA warrant process.
Of course, the even bigger problem at the FBI was the fact that Director Comey did not reveal there was an active FBI investigation of the Trump campaign at the same press conference in Oct. 2016 where he discussed Hillary's emails.
39
@R. Law - Nice to move from 72nd to 21st in 39 minutes; wonder how many more readers would have seen the comment if it hadn't been withheld for 2 hours, then dumped in amidst 28 others?
Readers obviously believe the comment a good contribution; the new moderating regime is a disservice to the comments forum created by readers, as well as to such excellent topics as this one by primo journalists like Charlie Savage.
4
In an article detailing the failings of the FBI to provide complete information for judicial review, the author writes "Specifically, the application included allegations about Mr. Page contained in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Democrats."
(1) Fusion GPS, under whose contract the dossier originated, was initially hired by a politically conservative group to perform opposition research. (2) The relevance of the funding source is not discussed. Together, these omissions are exactly analogous to the conduct of the FBI highlighted in the IG's testimony: they, intentionally or not, mislead and misdirect.
This particular story was clearly not intended to be about politics, but rather the FISA process and failures in implementation of procedure. There is so much disinformation available that one would hope that the Times could remain on message.
16
@G. Right on. The Times can deviate from the issue. It was still a good article.
1
Very pleased that the NYT went with this story. No matter what one's opinions are about Trump, the fact that the FBI was able to surveil a major political party's candidate's staffer with sloppy work put before the FISA court should give pause.
24
@Leo Schmdit "Sloppy" is generous. It was an intentional weoponization of FISA as a pretext to target a politically unpopular candidate. Make no mistake. The FBI didn't either.
5
As I have postulated before, a lot of this started out with 9/11 and the planes hitting the twin towers in New York City. The war on terror!Since that day it seems that Americans have willingly traded their privacy to the government And a slew of wealthy corporations. We also now also have a demented POTUS who believes he is an autocratic king. We also have a republican party that has embraced lies and propaganda as a means to keep their power.
What does all of this mean? It means that the United States of America is closer to a banana republic or a future dystopia than anything we have seen before.
19
@Fourteen14
The " stable situation" you think Trump leads us into is incredibly dangerous to the entire world.
I haven't paid much attention to this issue so I decided to read this article in detail. What a revelation! Democrats paying a Brit to dig up dirt on Trump. The FBI acting like a bunch of incompetent vigilantes with the FISA process.
An ugly process indeed when you fold in the entirety of the Trump White House and their daily machinations.
It would seem our entire government has lost it's way. The Keystone Cops routine is wearing thin. Let's get back to governing instead of hyperpartisan politics.
19
You do realize that “Brit” (a Trustee MI-6 Agent) is an ALLY of the US, who had been hired and paid by a *Republican* candidate, right?
He was subsequently hired by the DNC.
Different than an unknown, untested, unvetted political candidate whose previous highest office has been on “The Apprentice” whose campaign was regularly and, yes, suspiciously close to Russia — an ADVERSARY.
See the difference?
6
@Zoe Baker You do realize that the Brit was being paid to gethis dirt on Trump from Russian sources
3
@Zoe Baker
First of all, Russia is not an "adversary" of the US. The term has no legal meaning.
The US is not at war with Russia, and as a matter fact trades with them and cooperates with them on a lot of international issues like Islamic terrorism.
Second of all, US election law forbids ANY foreign involvement in US campaigns. There is no exception for "friendly" nations.
You can't ask or accept help from Canadians, Brits, Argentinians or any other group without violating FEC law.
1
I don't see how Loretta Lynch stays out of jail on this one.
All roads lead to her..and the $64,000 question is whether they also lead to her boss via Bill & Hillary Clinton.
Do we want to revisit that tarmac "visit about grandchildren and golf" in Phoenix maybe one more time?
15
The real witch hunt here was Trump slathering the FBI with allegations of political bias.
The findings of the IG have flushed that down the toilet.. but I'm sure Republicans will keep snaking it back up and throwing it all over the place.
As for warrant and surveliance issues with day to day operation of the FBI... yeah.. needs more actual oversight and tightening.. but I blame Congress for this, not the FBI.
7
What a sad Holiday Season for the United States of America.
Divided, racist, secret, prejudiced, corrupt....bah, humbug.
Oh, but the Federal Reserve gives a worthy report, so that will make everything all better, right?
8
Repeating that the Steele report was a Democrat funded investigation just repeats a Republican fallacy. The report was initially funded by Republicans and then funded by Democrats. The early concerns about Page came up previous to Democrat’s involvement. The report was non-biased and should be reported as such. Nytimes try to stop looking non-partisan and start reporting truth.
18
@Diana Kunce sorry that is false. yes, republicans worked with fusionGPS, and yes, to do oppo research on trump. but the republicans grew frustrated with fusions sloppy work and terminated their relationship. the democrats then started up a new relationship wiuth fusionGPS and that spawned christopher steele and the dossier. sorry, fact.
11
@Diana Kunce They were 2 separate investigations. Fusion hired Steele--whose work was used to justify a Fisa warrant--for the one paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign.
6
@Talbot Not to mention that Steele was getting his dirt on Trump for the Democrats from Russian sources, exactly what Trump is being condemned for doing.
3
Congress set up the FISA laws and process... and chose to keep it highly... HIGHLY secret as a process too.
When something is so secret at to be without clear and transparent ovesight.. what exactly do you think will happen?
DUH!
Congress... DO YOUR JOB.. and do it without all this partisan nonsesense you have become so addicted to over the last decade.
13
I am supposed to be upset because of what happened to Charlie Page ? What about the ones who were sent to prison ?
The NYT seems to be making a facile effort to placate the Trump admin..
The threat to Democracy in this country comes from Trump's criminality and Kelptocratic Tyranny. He is a traitor and the enemy of the State and the People. It is not the FBI.
15
People have been screaming about FISA applications for a long time - where has the NY Times been?
And now we know why it was "long awaited." I bet the Justice Department had a conniption when they saw that section.
4
Even so long after 9/11 it seems from the IG report that the FBI and CIA remain distrustful of one another and don’t share information. I guess the lessons of 9/11 didn’t last long. This makes me wonder if not only were FISA applications sloppy but whether the investigation into Trump’s Russian connections were, too, and stuff was missed just like before 9/11. The FBI would have been derelict in its duty to not investigate Page given his background once he showed up in the Trump campaign. My fear is that more than the FISA applications were botched in this investigation.
19
It would certainly be great if this were to get GOP politicians to worry about how little protections people have from invasive investigations. However their current debate is trying to rope off the investigations of "sensitive" political campaigns (and politicians). They are not going to protect the people - just themselves.
101
@Ivan The GOP has been supportive of authoritarian policies for many years, they just don't say it in election campaign speeches. But.. when the NDAA authorized indefinite imprisonment without trial or charges in 2012, 93% of the Senate voted in favor.
Those weren't all Republicans.
13
As long as you have human beings with all their biases, frailties, and built in mindsets, stuff like this happens. FISA with all its secrecy is just a time bomb ready to explode. In the case of Page it did with some agents.
Make these secret courts more open and/or available to audit, and it should help to mitigate problems like this from festering again.
I find secrecy to be more troubling than openness. Be reasonable in choosing the degrees of what you hide from the public, for it can come back to haunt you later.
6
Yes let’s start the transparency by prying loose Trump’s tax returns.
9
Secrecy breeds abuse.
Yet, without secrecy, it is argued, national security policy, as it is conducted with FISA warrants and other secret counter-intelligence investigative procedures of the CIA and FBI, cannot be effectively conducted in this most dangerous world.
While it is good for Democratic politics (and the country) that the IG found no "Deep State" political bias, it will be bad if progressive pundits gloss over the FISA abuses revealed in the surveillance of Carter Page.
Secret powers that allow abuse of civil rights to privacy in the name of national security are fraught by nature. Any abuse by the CIA and FBI of these powers should be viewed with deep suspicion on both side of the aisle.
A police state or national threats. What's worse?
Herbert Hoover and his extra-legal FBI has been gone for awhile now. The CIA that tried to assassinate Castro with an exploding cigar has evolved. But such abuses of the past are not dead, just dormant, hopefully.
Secrecy will always lead the weak-minded to push their power when they can. Any evidence of that kind of abuse must be condemned without partisan bickering and grandstanding.
Oversight of an FBI and CIA, not to mention the leader of an executive branch, must be continuous and thorough in a well-ordered democratic state.
8
@Gowan McAvity
Did you mean J Edgar Hoover (instead of Herbert Hoover)?
5
@cec Yes, thanks.
I have to say it is concerning. I remember during the height of the War on Terror, when Pentagon lawyers made the argument that skirting the law and allowing "enhanced interrogation techniques" was necessary to protect national security, and we for the most part allowed it to go forward because of fear that Islamic fundamentalists represented an existential threat and must be fought by any means necessary.
Fast forward twenty years later, and we are faced with a similar "existential" threat that calls for extraordinary measures.
I do not want to go down that rabbit hole again: we cannot allow the justice system to be hampered in any future prosecutions against the president or his confederates by the questionable means it used to gather the evidence. If we want to do this right, we need to do it by the book.
12
@Alejandro Garcia Those things passed in the moment then are still here, nothing's been shut down, merely enhanced and made more thorough against targets.
At the time, the quote tossed around I believe was from the head of Stalin's secret police, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”. Concerns today seem just silly, Americans got what they wanted, they just didn't realize they no longer wanted freedom.
3
Those in the field argue that rules of the court and the act of taking a case before a trier of fact will "balance" any "thumb on the scales" employed in obtaining a warrant, approval of surveillance or levels of probable cause. Maybe so. Stopping terrorists, containing spies, shutting down criminal operators requires extraordinary effort and can stress constitutional provisions, but it's hard world. Oversight and public debate is important, though I worry far too many citizens lack the educational foundation and working knowledge to debate it with insight. Sadly in this age of Trump there will be a reservoir of opinion, even if disconnected from fact or understanding.
5
No matter how the media tries to spin this I don’t really believe that any rational American could believe this FBI investigation was not politically motivated.
It just so happened that the people at the FBI responsible for this investigation just innocently texted back and forth about their hatred for Donald Trump and how they would stop him from becoming president.
All loyal Americans should be ashamed of themselves if they are not demanding that these FBI folks be indicted and imprisoned no matter how they feel about the President personally because this will happen to your favorite candidate in the future if an example is not set deter this behavior in the future.
43
@John Gilday so a government official isn't allowed to have any opinion whatsoever on their political preference? Has your job ever told you that you have to eliminate any personal opinions in order to get the job?
18
@John Gilday
The media is not spinning in this case. The IG, A republican pick, spent 18 months, viewed thousands of texts, records, and hundreds of interviews, and came back with a informed judgement. The Trump administration relys on this report to talk about the FISA abuses but then says the conclusions Horowitz are wrong. If he is wrong in his conclusions about bias then why is he right about FISA abuse. The facts show that he is right about both. There were FISA abuses. The Steele dossier was not the primary starting point of the investigation. Page and Struck were not the primary decision makers. Obama did not order wiretaps. There were FBI agents who hated Clinton and texted each other about it. And Manafort, Stone and the rest of the people in or going to jail are spending their time there because they are guilty.
17
@John Gilday fair enough. And I'll assume that you are on the side of laws being applied fairly suggesting that you feel those who used government equipment (phones, computers) to voice their objections about HC are also indited and imprisoned.
So, unless you're just referencing those who voiced opposition to Trump, we're in agreement as long as those political pronouncements were reflected in their actions as government officials. I'm not sure there is an existing code of conduct that says political opinions cannot be expressed via government equipment thus the reason for the guilt to be determined by official actions reflecting prejudicial behavior (such as amending an email, which should be a criminal prosecution IMO).
3
Senator Graham's current animus toward the FISA process is likely the product of something other than principles. FISA has been opposed by civil libertarians since its inception. Because it is secret, speedy and largely non-appealable, its errors are rarely subject to correction (if even detected). And because it is run by humans, it is fallible.
The inevitable tension between civil liberties and FISA comes down to how much individual liberty should be sacrificed in the name of national security. So now, Senator Graham, how do you draw the line? It's so much easier said than done, and when complaints against FISA are used to minimize or distract from foreign threats, one must wonder at the good faith of anyone making such a complaint.
Carter Page was the only FISA surveillance target who was not charged with a crime. He was the only one whose surveillance had process problems. So has an injustice been done here? If to anyone, it would be Carter Page, not President Trump. A whole lot of Republican crocodile tears are being shed over FISA.
17
We already know from Snowden several years ago than virtually all FISA warrants are rubber stamped from the Fed Supreme Court no less. The fact the Obama administration was completely OK with that situation strongly suggests that nothing is going to change no matter what party is governing at the federal level. Depressing situation. What happened here with Carper Page wont move the needle about FISA warrants. Our federal govt clearly likes FISA warrants broadly applicable without proof and quickly rubber-stamped.
13
Respect your government, if they deserve it. Work with your government, if you can but never, never trust your government.
12
These warrants have always been iffy but the very Republicans squawking now were just fine with them when they were trampling on the rights of sometimes innocent citizens.
23
All of the Republican arguments to exonerate Trump’s behavior over the last 3 years are kids’ arguments. Trump’s own excuses are a kid’s argument.
The FISA warrant was improper. This does not make the entire Mueller investigation improper, whatever Trump and AG Barr say.
AG Barr, btw, is acting like Trump’s personal attorney instead of the country’s. Any concerns about that, Citizen?
2
There's an old saying that a good prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich. Sounds like our current national security architecture can get a domestic wiretap with the same level of impunity.
10
"Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Democrats. In January 2017, the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Steele’s own primary source, and he contradicted what Mr. Steele had written in the dossier." -- What else is there to be said?
16
Did he contradict everything in Steele’s dossier? Because from what I’ve read, most of it has been confirmed.
1
This article paints a devastating picture of what is happening under FISA. If such a high profile case can be conducted in such a slipshod manner, what about all the cases we never hear about?
Indeed, Mr. Page seems to have been subject to a level of deceit and duplicitous to such an extent that makes it extremely difficult to accept it was not somehow partisan in nature.
It's all there, right in this article.
He meets with Russians and then tells the CIA every time he does, because that's the agency you tell when it comes to foreign spying.
Does the FBI mention this to the FISA judge? NO! They used it against him to get the FISA warrant.
I won't sleep easily based on this information and no American should.
22
@Americus were you not aware of Cheney's illegal authorization of phone communications gathering of all US citizens by the NSA even when high level NSA officials objected through proper means and then resorted to being whistle blowers? Cheney made sure they paid the price and even while they were not criminals he had the FBI invade their homes and harass them using typical authoritarian methods.
So when you say 'partisan' which party are you thinking of?
Oh, yeah, Cheney approved the continuation of waterboarding. An iteration of the barbaric witch trial by dunking.
Remind me which party Cheney was associated with.
And then there's the Patriot Act ...
And now you can't sleep easily? Ignorance is bliss ... too bad about the wake up call.
5
@Chuck Your whataboutism changes nothing about what happened today. Nice try
5
@Chuck
If only the American people had access to the surveillance records on Bush and Cheney........
1
But we all knew that. Not that I'm condoning it. National Security Intelligence always plays dirty. Thanks to Edward Snowden.
8
DOJ employees should be barred from further FISA application work, or possibly prosecuted for misrepresentations to the court, if they participated in the inaccurate FISA applications to surveil Carter Page. Audits of FISA applications in other investigations should be conducted to determine if a systemic problem exists with the FISA process. More than likely, reforms are needed to provide greater assurance that FISA judges are presented with exculpatory evidence in addition to incriminating evidence. The desire to investigate and eventually prosecute a crime cannot subvert the duty of candor to the court and to uphold the the impartial administration of justice.
7
May Edward Snowden please come home now?
138
Do you remember what Snowden said?
Something along the lines of “even if you think Obama will never misuse this power, the infrastructure is here the second someone more nefarious wants to”
Well as it turns out, the Obama Admin did misuse these surveillance powers and now someone more nefarious *is* in power, and he’s shown he’s willing to use the power of the state for his own benefit. Yikes. Maybe it is time for Snowden to come home.
13
It's vitally important that the investigative and truth-finding elements of government be scrupulous and dependable. This appears to shine a first light into these structures and processes, and further auditing should be pursued. There's just no more important area for strict observance of accuracy and disinterested, full-disclosure practice.
7
I am thankful that news and documentary evidence about an important issue will be reported even when President Trump’s administration happens to be a factor in ripping the mask off the making of a police state.
The Deep State permanent security bureaucracy was around before Trump and will be here after him. Anything that curbs it’s power, such as Congressional and judicial action contra spying on American citizens in violation of the Bill of Rights, is welcome.
38
@Michael Hoffman
Sen. Blumenthal and other Democrats tried repeatedly to get reforms made to the FISA process in 2013 but the Republicans voted most of them down. Now they have decided to be SO indignant! When what you call "the Deep State" (which no one ever seems to properly define so who knows what that actually means) serves the Republicans, they like it. When it becomes a useful punching bag, they punch it. Consistent, serious policy around this would be so refreshing!
46
@Michael Hoffman the report is indeed welcome and vitally important. And while there will always be corruption in most organizations that does not constitute Deep State ... it may in fact exist but with Hoover gone the potential for organized, corrupt behavior has diminished greatly ... still there will be individuals who abuse their powers and they should be dealt with severely no matter what office they hold, FBI agent or president of the USA.
3
@Michael Hoffman No such thing as a deep state. That's conspiracy theory madness, friendo
2
Trump and his Republican lackeys are arguing that Mr. Page was an innocent, deliberately investigated by the " deep state " to discredit Trump. Irregularities, and what seems to be excessive zeal in the Page investigation, indicate that Trump's accusation is not obviously spurious.
But the fact that the FBI cuts corners in a great many of its cases weakens the Trump allegation, because, statistically, there is an excellent chance that Page was not singled out. His case was not atypical, at all.
Trump alleges he is persecuted, more than anyone else in history, with zero evidence. When his case may not be entirely groundless, he and his people pounce. But they pounce, anyway, when his accusations are not only false, but when they are glaringly delusional.
This sloppy and over zealous behavior by the FBI disturbs those who value justice. Trump isn't one of them.
27
@Matt
The wiretapping of Mr. Page did not start until after the Trump campaign had been informed that he was a potential Russian asset, the press had leaked the potential for problems with Mr. Page, AND Trump had kicked Mr. Page out of his campaign. One of the things that got FBI to suspect that Trump himself may also be a Russian asset was the fact that he didn't get rid of Mr. Page until weeks after the FBI briefing and only when the press got wind of this. We still have to ask why someone knowing that a potential Russian spy was in their campaign didn't kick them out until it became common knowledge and political liability.
21
@Ivan Ah, but it was all a lie. Page wasn’t a Russian spy. Puts a different light on Trumps distrust of the intelligence agencies.
2
Secret processes.
Secret courts.
Secret rulings.
Secret wire taps.
Secret FISA applications.
Secret black op sites.
Secret renditions.
Secret programs.
Secret rules.
Secret agents.
All of these (and more) secrets since 9/11. How can we the people know what’s happening and hold our leaders and institutions accountable now since there’s so little daylight in a world of secrets?
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@Brett B As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, I would gladly give up some privacy to remain safe. I would also like to have treasonous politicians who work with Russians to cheat in an election investigated with secret warrants. Just sayin
26
@Brett B - to start with, we can support those who, like Manning and Assange, seek to throw light on the dark corners of government.
17
@lololove112000
As a New Yorker who had good friends and neighbors killed on 9/11 I'd feel much better if we knew the truth about the events on that day.
Instead we had a rushed clean up that seemed designed to destroy evidence, an underfunded and sloppy 'investigation' that was determined not to look to close (part of which still remains classified) and explanations which defy the laws of physics.
Investigations into so many crimes stopped with the 'destruction of evidence' on that day. The neo-cons got the 'new Pearl Harbor' they wanted - and with it the freedom to do as they wanted in the Middle East.
So many questions... so few answers...... Though after almost 20 years it is now clear that Building 7 did not collapse from burning office furnishings. Not much coverage of those reports.
9
Kinda ironic that the author chides the FBI for withholding information that might weaken their argument/conclusions, then doesn’t point out that Steele’s investigation was actually initially funded by a conservative newspaper.
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Thank you for pointing that out. I was going to make that comment. Reports about the Steele dossier almost inevitably omit the detail that it was conservatives who initially funded the research. They backed off only when Trump became the front runner for the Republican nomination (or secured the nomination - I can’t remember which).
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@AB No it wasn't. Steele didn't show up until the DNC and Hilary campaign took over the conservative paper's contract.
19
@AB & Kay, you are both incorrect. Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that eventually commissioned the Steele report, was initially funded by conservative opponents of Trump. After Trump clinched the GOP nomination, Fusion GPS was hired by Democrats, and only then did they get involved with Steele.
28
Talk about reverse deja vu. After the Mueller report Trump claimed total exoneration based on the relatively secondarily stated “No Collusion.” Now after Horowitz’s, Dems will claim the same based on the similar sole statement of “No Bias,” totally disregarding everything else. Like Yogi said, deja vu all over again. What prescience.
8
Except Democrats aren't totally disregarding everything else.
7
@John Doe I only heard Amy Klobuchar try to put lipstick on that No Bias pig about 50 times today during her 5 minutes of fame that sadly..is not playing well in Iowa, New Hampshire or anywhere else.
Horowitz finally had enough and added...it was the OPENING only...and they couldn't get any evidentiary or testimonial evidence to confirm bias..or deny bias existed.
This is setting up quite well for a whole slew of criminal referrals coming from Durham.
Watch out. Democrats are going to unload both barrels at Durham and Barr.
Their only hope to kill this thing was convincing the Senate to vote to impeach.
That's long gone too...as will the House Majority Nancy Pelosi has enjoyed the past year.
She's toast. The D's are toast..and folks just need to accept the fact that Trump will leave under his own power in 2024 when he's done with his 2 terms.
12
@Erica Smythe where did you get the idea that the 'only hope' was to convince the Senate to impeach Trump?
Another good reminder: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
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@Seth EIsenberg We don't have a democracy. Thank God.
We have a Republic with representative democracy.
Big difference, though you wouldn't know it by the # of Democrats screaming to get rid of the Electoral College and packing the courts and nationalizing healthcare and every other publicly traded corporation.
I'm not sure where Sanders and Warren got the idea people were cool with Marxism.
We have ample evidence that Marxism flat out doesn't work, and can point to AOC, Ilhan Omar (Keith Ellison before her) and a few others as not knowing their back side from a hole in the ground.
Republic = Republicans.
Democracy = Democratics
4
@Erica Smythe you might want to spend some time learning about the differences between Marx's ideas about communism and socialism. And of course it's good to know how socialism today is practiced along side capitalism in various countries (neither Russia nor China practice socialism). And then hone any arguments you fancy to explain how the public services in the USA work, whether water, motorways, fire department, etc, that require taxed monies to operate.
And, unless you're simply being dishonest, this will help you to understand that neither Sanders or Warren promote Marxism.
Taking these steps will help when you want to talk with the adults about some of the other issues you've heard about.
5
"I’d hate to lose the ability of the FISA court to operate at a time probably when we need it the most,” Mr. Graham told Mr. Horowitz. “But after your report, I have serious concerns about whether the FISA court can continue unless there’s fundamental reform.”
Fundamental reform meaning no investigating his buddy Trump.
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@Brian I think the Judicial Branch is going to have to weigh in on this with an investigation of their own.
They cannot stand by why the very genesis of their being (impartiality) is called into question.
If these people are immune from the Durham/Barr investigation, then SCOTUS should appoint their own special counsel to investigate.
The nation needs to be made whole after this whole charade has been exposed.
It's 100x worse than Watergate...and nobody who pays for the NYT seems to care.
9
If Senator Graham’s bleatings ever had any validity, they have lost whatever was there for now and for the future.
12
My God. The lunacy of your position is obvious to any rational person.
No one is saying the FISA process shouldn’t be improved, but if you think this invalidates the entire Mueller investigation (and the Ukraine extortion attempt), you’re very sadly mistaken.
9
Activists on the left have complained for deacdes about the FISA process. Only now that a rich (maybe) white dude who happens to be president-by-mistake gets his fingers pinched have the massive faults in FISA that represent a dog-and-pony show that "breeds abuse" are finally getting an extensive airing.
If Trump's supporters, inside Congress and outside, don't like it, then they should work to change or even abolish FISA.
[massive silence ensures]
I thought so.
They sure don't like it now that Trump is the target, but I betcha Trump least of all actually would want to do away with FISA as it exists, because it seems to excuse or cover-up virtually every abusive practice the US government engages in under its surveillance authority protected by FISA against any real oversight.
The last thing a president who fears enemies lurking and constantly plotting against him needs is a tool like FISA.
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@Mike They're using FISA warrants right now on Joe and Hunter Biden and Joe's brother.
You didn't think this would end with Trump, did you?
Someone has to answer for that $1.5 billion hedge fund investment the Chinese government made in Joe Biden's family. We can't have a Presidential candidate literally being "owned" by a foreign power.
This is why the FISA court exists.
To spy on the Biden's and leak to the NYT and WaPo.
You don't have a problem with that, do you?
7
@Erica Smythe Huh?
Two things:
1) Can you please source this 1.5 billion$ hedge fund the Bidens have?
Never seen anything about that.
Would like to learn more.
2) "We can't have a Presidential candidate literally being "owned" by a foreign power."
Oh the irony of this statement.
It's exactly what we have today.
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@Mike There's that and the Utah facility that was called a turn-key tool for a dictator where they gather mass data to mine later if someone becomes of interest.
Political rivals are always interesting.
4
This IS partisan politics. Democrats historically have challenged the expansion of surveillance powers due to It's impact on civil rights. Republicans have pushed for more surveillance and are only complaining now that their cohort is getting caught in criminal acts.
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White people crime is so interesting. It has its own set of rules to ignore the rules applicable to everyone else.
22
Adam - who was President when FISA was enacted? Which party controlled the House? The Senate? Take off your team regalia a moment and see FISA and the Patriot Act for what they are: Un-American.
33
@Adam If the point of your post is to call out hypocrisy, then you should mention the fact that Dems suddenly have little interest in challenging the FBI's documented mishandling of the FISA applications; is that because it only hurts Trump and his supporters? For the past 2 days we've heard nothing but congratulatory remarks about how the FBI has been "vindicated" because Horowitz couldn't find a smoking-gun admission that the agents were out to hurt Trump. At least the Repubs, like Graham today, are questioning their past support for the FISA process.
22
I'll bet there have been thousands of defendants who have been treated the same way. It's unfortunate that Trump gets to be the one who call the process unfair and is justified. But it will only give them a talking point for a week on Hanity. I'm very happy they fudged the rules to open THIS investigation. Trump deserves to be investigated all the time.
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@Gdevo But he’s rich and privileged. How dare anyone think he has impure motives!
7
@Gdevo Then you won't object to the same process used to investigate the Biden's and their Ukranian and Chinese financial ties.
What was China buying with a $1.5 billion hedge fund investment in Team Biden? I'm sure even the guys at Goldman Sachs who lost that deal are scratching their heads asking the same question.
Glad we're square on that.
Even if the fudge the rules...yes?
Sadly..he's your only guy who can win...and he's being spied on by the FBI, CIA and NSA.
Is impeachment far behind if he makes it to the finish line?
My money is on Hillary Clinton burying him once and for all and trying to take his place.
I will pay good money to see her go down in flames one final time.
We good?
7
You sound delightful.
No evidence has been presented regarding your claims of a 1.5B hedge fund contribution to “Team Biden.” Nice rumor mongering, though.
7
"Civil libertarians" implies that Libertarians care about civil liberties, which they do not. Please don't confused Republicans/Libertarians with people who defend civil liberties, like the ACLU.
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@Randall You are basing your statement on what facts or examples?
2
If the reasons to get a FISA approval for surveillance was flawed or 'illegal', do the people who pled quilty on charges arriving from the surveillance have legal standings to have the charges vacated and be released from prison?
16
@D Hoffman Carter Page is likely going to win a $500,000,000 lawsuit against the U.S. Government.
How does he get his reputation back?
This works one of two ways to deliver justice.
He gets paid (with our money) or people go to prison.
Door #3 is he gets some money (still our money) and people still go to prison.
8
@D Hoffman Right, ha ha.