The nation's spy court
has quietly approved a Justice Department request to review information
tied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants that
targeted former Trump campaign associate Carter Page as FBI Director
Kash Patel seeks to hand over more Russiagate evidence to Congress.
At the behest of President Donald Trump, Patel already declassified a host of documents tied to the bureau's deeply flawed and politically-motivated Trump-Russia inquiry known as "Crossfire Hurricane" back in April.
The DOJ’s filings with the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court show that the FBI is looking to hand over further
information about the Crossfire Hurricane scandal following information
requests from the GOP-led House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
Early last month, the DOJ told
the FISA court that it needed to review a host of documents containing
info tied to the FISA warrant against Carter Page, and on June 17 the
secretive spy court signed off on this request.
The Justice Department filed its request with the FISA court on June 6, and the filing was made public on the FISA Court docket on Monday.
Kevin J. O'Connor, the chief of the oversight section for
DOJ’s National Security Division, told the FISA Court early last month
that “the government … seeks an order permitting the use or disclosure
of information acquired from one or more of the four Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act applications targeting Carter W. Page.”
The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
describes itself as "a specialized federal court in Washington, D.C.
that Congress created in 1978 when it enacted the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISC’s primary role is to review executive
branch (“government”) applications for authorization to employ various
means of obtaining foreign intelligence, principally when they are
conducted in the United States or otherwise directed at Americans."
Plumbing the depths of Crossfire Hurricane
The FBI and DOJ “have received requests from members of
Congress for materials related to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane
investigation and the DOJ Office of Inspector General's related review,”
the DOJ filing said,
and “responsive documents are reasonably believed to contain Page FISA
information.” The DOJ said that it was seeking “permission for FBI and
DOJ to disclose, internally within FBI and DOJ, responsive materials
that likely contain Page FISA information, for the purpose of
identifying and redacting all Page FISA information from the material to
prevent disclosure in violation of sections 1809 and 1821 of FISA.”
The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee sent a March letter
to Patel asking him to hand over dozens of transcripts from DOJ
inspector general Michael Horowitz’s investigation into Crossfire
Hurricane, while the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee sent a letter
to Patel the same month asking him to provide a host of information
tied to Russiagate and special counsel John Durham’s inquiry.
Simmering in the background of all of this is the recent publication by Just the News
that CIA Director John Ratcliffe sent a criminal referral to Patel
related to possible illegal acts committed by ex-CIA chief John Brennan,
now an NBC Senior News Analyst, following a review by the CIA that
critiqued the actions taken by Brennan related to the Russiagate
scandal.
FISA court approves a "good faith" review by DOJ
The DOJ told
the FISA court last month that “based on prior reviews of OIG [Office
of Inspector General] transcripts in response to FOIA requests,” it
believed that the material requested by the Senate Judiciary Committee
(SJC) “includes Page FISA information.” The DOJ said that the House
Judiciary Committee (HJC) also “asked for numerous documents likely to
contain Page FISA information.”
The DOJ lawyer said
that the department “is not seeking authority to disclose Page FISA
information to Congress in response to the SJC and HJC Requests” but
rather “the government proposes to review the materials requested by
Congress for the purpose of redacting any Page FISA information that
happens to appear therein.”
The DOJ also said that “the FBI has created a task force of
approximately 25 people who, in coordination with the Office of General
Counsel, will review and redact responsive materials” requested by the
House and Senate.
“The executive branch has an obligation to engage in the
accommodation process by supplying responsive information that is not
privileged or otherwise protected by law,” the DOJ lawyer told
the spy court, adding that “because Page FISA information is comingled
with non-Page FISA information in Crossfire Hurricane materials,
good-faith review required government personnel to access Page FISA
information.”
The DOJ lawyer said
that the “materials requested by SJC and HJC will help guide future
hearings and ultimately determine whether additional reforms of FISA are
needed to prevent future unauthorized collection.”
Marc Elias, a former Perkins Coie lawyer who served as
general counsel for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, played a key
role in the funding and spreading
of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier, including
by hiring the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which then hired
Steele. The dossier was used to obtain FISA warrants against Carter Page.
The Elias Law Group specializes in filing lawsuits designed
to assist Democrats in election-related lawfare, and to obstruct the
implementation of Trump's policies. Open Secrets
reported that his firm received $40,832,771 in the 2024 election cycle
from almost exclusively Democratic Party entities, including the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Adam Schiff for
Senate campaign.
Judge Anthony Trenga, the presiding judge on the FISA court, said in the June 17 order that “the Court finds this argument persuasive as applied to the pending HJC and SJC Requests.”
Trenga was appointed to the FISA court by Chief Justice John Roberts for a term which began in May 2020 and which runs through May 2026. He served
as a Judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of
Virginia following his nomination by President George W. Bush in July
2008.
Trenga also said
that “it is reasonable to interpret” the laws surrounding the FISA
Court “as permitting disclosures of Page FISA information among OIG,
FBI, and other DOJ personnel insofar as necessary to prepare redacted
copies of the requested records in order to avoid further disclosure of
Page FISA information outside of FBI and DOJ.”
Trenga said
that “due regard for the FISA oversight roles of the HJC and SJC weighs
against a contrary interpretation that would stymie production to those
Committees even of suitably redacted records pertaining to cases of
unauthorized electronic surveillance or physical search.”
And the judge ordered
that “Page FISA information may be used by, and disclosed by and to,
OIG, FBI and other DOJ personnel, insofar as necessary for review of
records responsive to the above-described HJC and SJC Requests and
redaction of Page FISA information from the copies of such records to be
provided to the HJC and/or SJC.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., had sent a March letter to Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi noting
that in April 2023 they had requested “unredacted transcripts” from
Horowitz’s investigation into the FBI’s mishandling of the Trump-Russia
investigation, but that those transcripts were never handed over.
The senators noted that there were 165 transcribed
interviews in question, and asked Patel and Bondi to work to remove
redactions from the documents and to hand them over to the Senate after
years of delays.
Inspector General: "Significant errors and omissions" in obtaining warrants against Page
It appears that the FBI and DOJ are now working to make these records available to Grassley and Johnson.
In 2019, Inspector General of the DOJ Horowitz found
egregious flaws with the FBI’s Russia collusion investigation, finding
at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA
warrants against Carter Page. He also criticized the “central and essential” role of Steele’s debunked dossier in the FBI’s politicized FISA surveillance.
Horowitz noted, among other things, that Steele’s FBI
interview “highlighted discrepancies between Steele’s presentation of
information in the election reporting and the views of his Primary
Sub-source” and “revealed bias against Trump.” Horowitz said Steele
source Igor Danchenko “contradicted the allegations of a ‘well-developed
conspiracy’ in” Steele’s dossier.
A report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in 2019 “did not establish” any criminal Trump-Russia collusion, but by then the false narrative had been widely adopted by left-leaning legacy media.
Jordan wants answers on Russiagate saga and Durham investigation
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter last March to Patel arguing
that “the Committee still must fully assess and understand the lengths
to which the FBI went to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”
He asked Patel to hand over a host of documents tied to the false
collusion saga — documents which now-former FBI Director Christopher
Wray had refused to provide.
Jordan’s March letter focused in part on Steele’s
discredited anti-Trump dossier, with the Ohio Republican asking Patel to
hand over “all documents and communications referring or relating to
the so-called Steele dossier or the Crossfire Hurricane investigation” —
including all records tied to the opening, closing, and conduct of the
Trump-Russia investigation; all interviews conducted by the FBI related
to the investigation; and all FISA applications and returns associated
with Crossfire Hurricane.
Jordan’s letter also asked for any and all documents and
transcripts in possession of the FBI which were cited or used by
Durham’s inquiry, as well as “all transcripts and reports of interviews
in the possession, custody, or control of the FBI that Special Counsel
Durham and his team conducted as part of their investigation of
Operation Crossfire Hurricane.”
Manipulation of the FBI under the microscope
Durham’s 2023 report said the launch of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane operation under then-Director Christopher Wray was hugely flawed
and that an “objective and honest assessment” of the facts “should have
caused the FBI to question not only the predication for Crossfire
Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the FBI was being manipulated
for political or other purposes,” but “unfortunately, it did not.”
Durham’s report concluded
that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community
appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their
holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
The special counsel noted that “the FBI ignored the fact that at no time
before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to
corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier
reporting.”
Durham’s special counsel inquiry further undercut the dossier’s credibility and resulted in an indictment against Steele’s alleged primary source, Igor Danchenko, who was revealed to have been on the FBI’s payroll as a confidential human source from March 2017 to October 2020 before he was charged with repeatedly lying to the bureau.
Durham also charged Elias’s former Perkins Coie law partner, Michael Sussmann, also a campaign lawyer for Clinton, who pushed debunked allegations
claiming there was a secret back channel between Russia’s Alfa Bank and
the Trump Organization, and with whom Elias worked closely in 2016.
Danchenko and Sussmann were each acquitted on charges brought by Durham that they lied to the FBI.
Wray responded to the Durham report in the summer of 2023 by downplaying its findings
and arguing to the House Judiciary Committee that “the conduct in 2016
and 2017 that Special Counsel John Durham examined was the reason that
current FBI leadership had already implemented dozens of corrective
actions, which have now been in place for some time,” while Wray
contended that “had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps
identified in the report could have been prevented.”
Jordan’s March letter also asked Patel to hand over “all
briefing documents concerning the Crossfire Hurricane investigation”
which were provided to “the FBI Director or other senior executive
officials, including the President, Vice President, Attorney General,
and Central Intelligence Agency Director” from January 2016 to Trump’s
first inauguration in January 2017.
The Republican chairman also asked the FBI to provide the
document titled “CF–CH Comparison” which was created during the Durham
investigation and which “compared the treatment of the Crossfire
Hurricane investigation and the Clinton investigation.”
Based on the filings with the FISA Court, it appears that
the DOJ and FBI are in the process of responding to all of these
requests from Jordan.
Hillary Clinton purportedly approved plan to conjure ties between Trump and Putin
Durham’s report said that then-President Barack Obama,
then-Vice President Biden, and others were briefed on what Durham dubbed
the “Clinton Plan intelligence”
in the summer of 2016. The intelligence concerned the purported
“approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of
her foreign policy advisers” to “stir up a scandal” against Trump by
“tying him” to “Putin and the Russian hacking of the Democratic National
Committee.”
For her part, Clinton has never admitted or denied involvement, but the Federal Elections Commission fined
Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic
National Committee for failure to disclose that they financed the bogus
Steele Dossier.
Brennan briefed Obama and others on the intelligence, and
Durham noted that “it was also of enough importance for the CIA to send a
formal written referral memorandum” in early September 2016 to
since-fired FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI special agent Peter
Strzok.
“Unlike the FBI’s opening of a full investigation of
unknown members of the Trump campaign based on raw, uncorroborated
information, in this separate matter involving a purported Clinton
campaign plan, the FBI never opened any type of inquiry, issued any
taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical
products in connection with the information,” the special counsel
assessed.
Brennan in the hotseat — and Durham transcripts may reveal more
Ratcliffe released a ”lessons learned" review
of the December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment last week. The
review sharply criticized Brennan for reportedly joining with anti-Trump
forces in the FBI in pushing to include Steele’s baseless anti-Trump dossier
in the assessment. In the review, the CIA also critiqued the “high
confidence” assessment by the FBI and the CIA that Russian leader
Vladimir Putin had “aspired” to help President Donald Trump win in 2016.
Ratcliffe tweeted
last week, in announcing the CIA review being made public, that Trump
“has trusted me with helping to end weaponization of U.S. intelligence”
and that the report “underscores that the 2016 IC Assessment was
conducted through an atypical & corrupt process under the
politically charged environments” of Brennan and Comey.
Brennan was not one of the recipients of then-President Joe Biden's thousands of pardons and grants of clemency. Lying to Congress can be a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which forbids making false statements to the federal government, including Congress, even if not under oath.
The statute of limitations of five years starts to run when
the crime is completed, which is when the false statement is made or
the false document is submitted. Brennan spoke with Durham in August
2020 and testified before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2023,
which could put him in the crosshairs of law enforcement action until
August of this year or until May 2028, respectively.
Whether Congress will get its hands on the raw transcript
of Brennan’s interview with Durham prior to this August remains to be
seen.
The largely declassified CIA review
released last week focused on the ICA about Russia and the November
2016 election. It was put together by the CIA's Directorate of Analysis
(DA) at Ratcliffe’s direction and concluded that “the decision by agency
heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to
fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the
credibility of a key judgment.”
Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
pushed in December 2016 to include Steele's debunked dossier in the
body of the 2016 ICA on alleged Russian meddling. The dossier was
included in a classified annex to the assessment with the agreement of
Brennan and Comey.
Comey also briefed then-President-elect Trump about the
dossier’s most salacious allegations during a meeting at Trump Tower in
January 2017. Neither McCabe nor Comey received pardons from President
Biden.
The new CIA review stated
that “the ICA authors and multiple senior CIA managers – including the
two senior leaders of the CIA mission center responsible for Russia –
strongly opposed including the dossier, asserting that it did not meet
even the most basic tradecraft standards.”
The agency review memo also stated that the CIA’s Deputy
Director for Analysis warned in a December 29, 2016, email to Brennan
that including the dossier in any form risked “the credibility of the
entire paper.”
Brennan chose an anti-Trump narrative instead of solid analysis, review says
The review by the CIA also revealed
that “despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for
narrative consistency over analytical soundness” and that “when
confronted with specific flaws in the [Steele] Dossier by the two
mission center leaders – one with extensive operational experience and
the other with a strong analytic background – he appeared more swayed by
the Dossier's general conformity with existing theories than by
legitimate tradecraft concerns.”
The CIA review memo stated that Brennan ultimately
formalized his position in writing, arguing that “my bottomline is that I
believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”
A spokesperson for the DOJ told Just the News that “we do not comment on ongoing investigations.”
