I haven’t been paying attention to this story so I know none of the details. Is this basically what happened?
Trump won the election.
Some people were so unhappy about Trump’s win they thought “Maybe we can get the results of the election thrown out.”
So they manufactured false evidence to get a FISA warrant to investigate Trump hoping to find genuine evidence to have the election results thrown out.
And now the whole endeavor has come to light.
Are those the broad brushstrokes of this story? Or do I have something wrong?
In brief, the version of the story that Trump asserts:
Late in the campaign, the FBI misled a judge to getting a wiretap on the Trump campaign.
This was done due to the political bias of the FBI, to damage Trump and/or his campaign to some extent.
The memo asserts that the FBI used a dossier that started off as political opposition research as the main evidence supporting the application for the warrant.
In brief, the version of the story that the FBI press release and Democrats are saying:
The memo ignores that there was other evidence used to obtain the warrant.
What that other evidence is has not been publicly discussed.
Would you be interested in buying some land in Florida? Or how about a bridge? I have an really nice–nearly new–bridge in the New York City area I can sell you, real cheap.
The memo does in fact discuss other evidence that was used to obtain the FISA warrant: A September 23, 2016 Yahoo News article by Michael Tsikoff on Page’s trip to Moscow. What the affiants did not disclose to the FISC was that the article, which was used to try to corroborate some of Steele’s allegations, was based on information Steele himself provided to Tsikoff. The affiants claim in the application that Steele himself did not directly supply the information to Yahoo News, although Steele himself has admitted in British court documents that he met with Yahoo News in September, 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. Perkins Cole was aware of this because they hosted at least one meeting with Steele and Fusion in Washington, D.C. where the matter was discussed.
I should be clearer: the Trump side of this is asserting that Steele, though various means, whether dossier or media interviews, is the main source of the information used in the warrant. Your post itself embraces this view.
The FBI statement and the Democratic views assert that other sources of evidence were used, with the strong implication that Steele had nothing to do with that other evidence, which is alleged to be suppressed in this memo.
It started before Trump won, and was done as insurance against his win. And they didn’t exactly manufacture the evidence, they just presented it without revealing material facts about that evidence that may have affected its veracity, or that the sources involved were somewhat more than questionable. And no one suggested that it would be or could be used to “throw the results of the election out”. Possibly they were hoping for something to use against Trump during the election, or to impeach him after, if he was elected. But the election was too shortly to ensue to give much chance of that, IMO.
Much of the issue is that the digging for dirt on Trump started with a Republican big wig before the primaries, but was picked up and funded by the Clinton campaign, and it was that information that formed much of the basis for the FLISA warrant.
Unsubstantiated dirt dug up by Democrats, paid for by Democrats, and used to spy on a Republican under a Democratic administration in its last days. Swap the parties, and see if that makes any difference. If it does, that’s too bad. Again, IMO.
The Steele dossier was deemed an essential part of the initial, and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page.
The FBI considered Steele to be an unreliable informant, in that he broke the rules he agreed upon with the FBI by leaking information about his informant status to news media
The FISC was NOT informed:
That Steele had told ADG Ohr that he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not becoming president.” This was reported by Ohr to the FBI at the time and is reflected in official FBI documents, but his animus towards Trump was not reported to the FISC.
ADG Ohr’s wife, who was employed by Fusion GPS to prepare the opposition research material for the Hillary campaign, provided all her work material to the FBI. (it is not stated if this was later used in the application.)
The Steele dossier had NOT been corroborated at the time of the initial FISC application, and that any attempts to corroborate it were in their “infancy”.
After Steele was terminated as an informant by the FBI for cause, a source validation report of the information he provided was performed by an independent unit within the FBI and described it as only “minimally corroborated”. The dossier was described by then Director Comey as “salacious and unverified” to President Trump.
The DOJ was aware of the political motivations (both Hillary’s and Never Trumpers’) at the time of the initial application, but did not disclose it.
The application does not disclose that the FBI paid Steele for the information, or that he was also paid by the DNC and the Hillary campaign for the same information.
FISA applications, because of the heightened risk of abuse to civil liberties, require inclusion of relevant inculpatory AND all potentially exculpatory information for the court to consider. This was clearly not done.
And, given how many Democrats declared that release of this information would compromise national security - what information in it was so damaging to national security?
Page was no longer part of the Trump campaign when the FBI obtained a FISC warrant. The entire memo is a load of horseshit that doesn’t exonerate Trump et al. in the slightest, and makes Nunes look even more like a whiny partisan hack, which I didn’t think was possible after his late night White House collusion escapade.
“That’s it? Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what? DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.”
It, uh, does make a difference, because the democratic party isn’t co-operating with a hostile foreign government. I don’t even understand what you’re trying to say here - are you saying “both sides are the same so I’m sure the democrats are coordinating with the Russians/would coordinate with the Russians too?” - is that your inflexible response to literally any accusation?
Carter Page has been under FISA surveillance since 2013. This is not something that started with the Steele dossier. Trump has surrounded himself with people we know to be paid agents of Russia. Page, Manafort, and about a dozen other names, so obviously our wiretaps of Russian agents are going to involve Trump.
“Swap that parties, see if that makes any difference” - what does that even mean? Yes, it makes a difference, because the democrats haven’t surrounded themselves with agents of Russia. Even understanding that your only purpose in the world is to try to find “GOTCHA YA, DEMOCRATS!” moments, I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at here.
Also, while we’re here, for the purposes of history, would you like to go on record as either saying that the whole Russia-Trump thing is totally made up partisan bullshit that’s totally baseless, or that it’s okay because everyone coordinates with the Russians? I’d like to revisit that answer in a few months.
According to this story, Steele approached the FBI with his dossier before the election. Then, the FBI reached an agreement in principle to pay him to continue the work, just as the FBI reportedly paid him to investigate a FIFA corruption scandal.
According to this article, that agreement in principle was cancelled after the dossier came to light around January 2017.
It would seem odd to me that if the FBI thought he was an unreliable source, that they would even entertain paying him after his work on the FIFA case. If the FIFA case turned out poorly, I would imagine the FBI would tell him to take a hike. But everyone knows about the FIFA scandal today, so it would seem to make sense that if the FBI extended an offer to pay him for work on the Russia thing, they must have been fairly satisfied with his previous work.
It sure seems to be that the only ones criticizing Steele’s work are defenders of Trump generally. Coincidence?