A new DOJ report blows a huge hole in Trump's FBI conspiracy theories -- and exposes a much bigger
scandal.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/a-new-doj-report-blows-a-huge-hole-in-trumps-fbi-conspiracy-theories-and-exposes-a-much-bigger-scandal/
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“While our review of these issues and follow-up with case agents is still ongoing—and we have not made materiality judgments for these or other errors or concerns we identified—at this time we have identified an average of about 20 issues per application reviewed, with a high of approximately 65 issues in one application and less than 5 issues in another application,” he wrote.
This suggests the Page application may not even be close to the most egregious misuse of the FISA process. And as Ben Wittes of Lawfare noted:
It’s worse even that that sounds. The reason is that Horowitz calls his “initial review . . . consisted solely of determining whether the contents of the FBI’s Woods File supported statements of fact in the associated FISA application; our review did not seek to determine whether support existed elsewhere for the factual assertion in the FISA application (such as in the case file), or if relevant information had been omitted from the application.” In other words, “our review was limited to assessing the FBI’s execution of its Woods Procedures, which are not focused on affirming the completeness of the information in the FISA applications.” In short, there are very likely errors that would not show up in this initial screen—including, for example, if the information in the Woods File were itself incorrect.
There were other problems too: “About half of the applications we reviewed contained facts attributed to CHSs [confidential human sources], and for many of them we found that the Woods File lacked documentation attesting to [key] requirements.”
As Wittes noted, it’s not clear yet how substantial these errors are to the case for surveillance. But given their ubiquity, there’s little reason yet for optimism. Sloppiness in law enforcement is rarely a sign of otherwise scrupulous actions. And FISA, in particular — given its encroachment on civil liberties and lack of transparency — is supposed to be the most pristine of all law enforcement work.
So while Republicans have been screaming for years about an anti-Trump cabal in the FBI, it appears they’ve been completely ignoring — along with the rest of the government — the potential of something much worse: A virtually unchecked federal surveillance authority running amok, regardless of the target.
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