No, he said he believed the FISA warrant wouldn’t have been authorized without it. Big difference.
Carter Page has been on the FBI’s radar since 2013. Further, as Page officially severed ties with the Trump campaign in September 2016, it’s difficult to see how they could use him as an excuse to spy on the Trump campaign via a FISA warrant issued in October 2016.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, when you’re talking about this Steele memo, you are not saying that it was the sole piece of evidence used to justify these four authorizations of the surveillance warrant. Are you?
REP. GOWDY: No. It was not the exclusive information relied upon by-- by the FISA court.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Would it have been authorized were it not for that dossier?
REP. GOWDY: No. It would not have been.
OK, but all I’m saying is that the warrant being discussed here was originally issued in October of 2016, and that it was followed by three 90-day extensions.
"Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, one of the four authors of the GOP memo released Friday, told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that he believes a surveillance warrant for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page would not have ever been authorized without the existence of the controversial “Steele dossier.” [emphasis mine]
Fair enough.
Well, I provided his direct quote, so I don’t know what to tell ya.
edit for link:
The problem, of course, is that Gowdy has no way of knowing for certain what the judge would have done absent the dossier. Thus, while he might sincerely believe that to be the case, it cannot be considered a statement of fact. Only the person who granted the warrant (ie, the judge him/herself) has the standing to make such a declaration.
That’s fair, and it wasn’t my intention to suggest that I believed Gowdy to be endowed with psychic powers.
I just figured that his 6 years as a federal prosecutor, tenure as 7th Circuit Solicitor, the fact that he had actually read the application and underlying material, as well as your acknowledgement that his opinion on this material is “particularly compelling” would make his belief that the application would not have been approved worth highlighting.
It is worth highlighting.
I’m preparing to give a talk later in the week so I haven’t had much time for following this topic. In fact, responding to this is me procrastinating doing the writing I should be doing. Ha.
As we wait for the Democrat memo release…
Looking through a glass darkly…
I was looking around the web a little yesterday. It looks like the WSJ, and the Manhattan Institute’s CJ are mostly among outliers in reporting that there may be more problems emerging about the FISA process and exactly what was disclosed about the Steele Dossier. At least from the reputable conservative sources I’ve seen, they aren’t saying anything about the end of the Mueller investigation on the basis of the memo.
The Hill printed an article about possible violations of the FISA process yesterday. Possible Woods violations.
I often read Bret Stephens, formerly a writer for the WSJ, now of the NYT. He called the memo a nothingburger. Believe me, people like Kim Strassel who writes Potomac Watch at the WSJ is NOT calling it a nothing. Her article yesterday was called Did Steele Really Snooker The FBI? If anyone wants to read it, I’ll post.
So… My take on this. Disclaimer. I have zero experience working for the FBI. Haha. I haven’t seen anybody back up the idea that it’s going to stop the Mueller investigation, or that it’s “vindicated” Trump to use his words.
I’d be very curious about what was disclosed about the Steele Dossier on the FISA application. If people lied to the FBI about the Steele Dossier, failed to disclose things about the Steele intel and origins, if Steele lied to the FBI about leaking/ disclosing his information to the press in Oct 2016 and earlier, or if the FBI failed to know this kind of thing? It seems very, very strange that someone with Steele’s background would have this kind of intelligence and be talking to Mother Jones about it right before the election, unless it was at the request of his employer, the DNC. For me, that’s a big red flag. It’s not something someone who is assisting with an FBI investigation of a serious matter would do if they want to be credible, IMO.
I don’t know if we’ll ever know what really happened. I doubt it. So much of this is classified, will be heavily redacted if it is released. A lot of this is likely to remain unverified, which isn’t the same thing as untrue, but it’s not exactly satisfying either. There’s no reason for us to believe that the Russian’s weren’t involved in providing some disinformation through these intermediary sources. Maybe we’ll see Chuck Grassley’s referral be declassified.
I don’t know how much this was covered elsewhere. From yesterday in the WSJ -
"Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley on Monday released an unclassified version of his recent letter to the Justice Department urging a criminal investigation into Christopher Steele, and it raises more questions about the credibility of the dossier that Mr. Steele generated in 2016.
The unclassified version is heavily redacted, consisting of 14 readable paragraphs. It nonetheless provides new details about the FBI’s application to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order against former Trump official Carter Page in October 2016, a request that relied on the Steele dossier. The referral letter says Mr. Steele may have lied to the FBI and that the FBI provided false information to a FISA judge.
The FBI fired Mr. Steele after the ex-British spy talked about his interaction with the bureau and his dossier for an Oct. 30, 2016 Mother Jones article. Yet the referral notes that in subsequent sworn court filings in Britain, Mr. Steele said he also briefed reporters in “late summer/autumn 2016,” including the New York Times, Washington Post and Yahoo News. Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson, who hired Mr. Steele and was retained by the Hillary Clinton campaign, has confirmed these briefings.
Yet according to the Grassley referral, this conflicts with “classified documents reviewed by” his committee. In other words, the FBI’s application for surveillance, filed October 21, 2016, led the court to believe that Mr. Steele wasn’t talking to the press and working a political angle. Such an admission might have derailed the surveillance order."
End quote from article -
As far as destroying our nation’s institutions, meaning the DOJ and the FBI?
The WSJ ran an article today about the history of the FBI. They wiretapped MLK in 1963, approved by then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. At the time, there were “many high quality sources that warned of Black domestic terrorism” cited to justify what we’d all now call embarrassing overreach. J Edgar Hoover approved the surveillance of suspected Russian sympathizers and their families for years, even after these activities showed no credible evidence. Not a high point, but a good example about how “being on the FBI’s radar for years” doesn’t mean you’re guilty.
Anyway, if we have a situation where the FBI was lied to about the Steele Dossier, or trusted something that turns out to be full of disinformation and half-truths from intermediary sources? If this turns out to have any real bearing on this? Then, we’ll survive that. It’s better that we know it. I don’t think being curious about that makes anyone a partisan tribalist, or indicates that we’ve drunk the Trump twitter Kool-aid or anything of the sort. Why wouldn’t we want to know?
"The central, and most damaging, accusation in the memo published Friday by House Republicans is that the FBI failed to disclose the bias of one of its sources when it applied to wiretap Carter Page. “Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding [British agent Christopher] Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior and FBI officials,” charged the memo. That was hardly explosive, or the kind of damning failure that would send people to prison or be worse than Watergate, as Trump defenders charged. But it was something. If true.
It’s not true. As the Ellen Nakashima reported, the application to wiretap Page did disclose that one of the sources of intelligence to generate suspicion that Page might be acting illegally came from a political source. It was mentioned in a footnote on the FISA application. Nunes was asked about this on Fox & Friends. He did not deny the point. Instead he insisted that it wasn’t good enough because the disclosure was merely a footnote. “A footnote saying something may be political is a far cry from letting the American people know that the Democrats and the Hillary campaign paid for dirt that the FBI then used to get a warrant on an American citizen to spy on another campaign,” the distinguished Republican explained." [emphasis mine]
You are justifying the intentional erosion of faith in our criminal-justice and national-security institutions–an erosion being propagated not because these institutions have proven to be corrupt, but rather because they are investigating a criminal autocrat who would tear our country apart rather than take responsibility for his own actions.
If that were true, then why does this whole hullabaloo hinge upon a document (the Steele Dossier) that is essentially a salacious piece of fiction?
Just my opinion- The public support for what amounts to iconoclasm is backlash against the growth of the surveillance state. There has been a growing dis-ease with the invasive nature of these bureaucracies.
First, this “hullabaloo” in no way hinges on the Steele document. To quote Republican Congressman (and Intel Cmte member) Trey Gowdy, “There is a Russia investigation without a dossier." (I posted a more complete quote from him on this subject upthread.)
Second, the Steele dossier can be divided into two components: the parts that have been corroborated (which is a significant portion of it), and the parts that have yet to be corroborated. And while certain parts are undeniably salacious, to call even those sections “fiction” at this juncture is simply unjustified.
There is undoubtedly a portion–a minority in my opinion–of the country that is deeply troubled by the intrusiveness of the state. I would even acknowledge that there is a subset of that minority that is so troubled by this intrusiveness that they consider Trump’s buffoonery, dissembling, and anti-American impulses an acceptable price to pay for defanging the surveillance state. But I have to push back against the notion that most Trump supporters and/or abettors are motivated in this manner.
I’m aware that there are two separate issues at hand. It does appear to be becoming a two tier shell game though.
Sorry, can’t hang in there with you on that. Its water from a tainted well. Even if parts can be corroborated, what is their relevance to a criminal investigation? IMHO, the guy did a da Vinci Code style hit piece, paid for by Clinton.
Mmmmm, maybe. I think we give different weight to this sentiment. The intel community has done plenty and been exposed quite a bit in the last few years. They’re looking more like pre-reform IRS than ever, and there weren’t many people that would deny that they needed a good comeuppance.
By that logic, are all govt investigations with a political motive being the strongest (cough cough benghazi) also tainted?
Was an investigation into the neglect of policy and procedure, review and revision- that directly led to peoples deaths,a responsibility that falls directly under the purview of the SOS, politically motivated?
I watched quite a bit of those hearings. That wasn’t a political hit. It was an investigation into the negligence of the SOS to secure an embassy which had an impact on her political face.
Absolutely? Dozens of Republican congressmen have gone on record agreeing with that? How is that even a question anymore?
And since you’ve read all the Trump/Russia stuff you’re on board with an investigation into the impact of a foreign hostile nuclear superpower on our highest level campaign after the IC at large both here and abroad has confirmed Russia fucked with our election, right?
Sorry. Must have missed what people were writing while I was watching what actually happened. Granted, Gowdy and Schiff fucking spit roasted her, but if you get past the partisan difference and look at what was being asked, you will see that the Benghazi hearings actually did need to happen.
If they can conclusively prove that Trump colluded with Russia to tamper with an election then I want to see Trump get a train pulled on him by the Aryan brotherhood.
edit: You have to (not really) acknowledge that there is a world of difference between “Russia messed with our election” which could be considered a foregone conclusion, and “Trump colluded with Russia to win the election”.
They are relevant to an investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election.
If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me as to what your point was in dragging up the tainted history of the FBI.
How can you know that? Furthermore, with Steeles dubious track record, how can you be sure of the direction that said intel would take in an investigation of this nature, if it were valid?
With the joy of hindsight, we see the only purpose of any real substance the entire series of Benghazi investigations ever provided was purely and 100% political. Someone who was never going to go down for anything didn’t go down for something. Shocker. Almost like a lot of people called it
That wasn’t the question, but thanks for the visual lol.
Of course there is. But in the series of trying to squash people from stepping on Trump the POTUS, they’ve also squashed any attempt to actually find out what Russia did and inform the public. The end result is the same, which is why the difference serve much of a purpose to me
You seem to be confusing purpose with result.
You ever neglect policy or procedure at work and have to answer for it?
Yeah, it’s just like that.
Result: She looked like a negligent asshole. Which she should have. Whether or not she lied is immaterial to the fact that she actually did ignore and neglect a series of protocols, and that negligence did,in fact lead to the deaths of several people.
There is a back story to that whole mess that you seem to be missing, which is that as SOS it was her duty to periodically review the security needs of our embassies, which she did not do. The lie stuff was just a consequence of her dropping the ball for a year prior.