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READ: The FBI's surveillance warrants for Carter Page

Captain Adverse said:
Well, I just finished reading through the first 40 pages (the rest is simply the scope, intent, and specific requests for authorized surveillance methodologies to be used.)

http://thehill.com/policy/national-...he-fbis-surveillance-warrants-for-carter-page (See Warrant insert, Pages 15 - 16).

It is followed by a series of notes where Steele is identified as having been hired to conduct research regarding Trump’s ties to Russia. The FBI then “speculates” the person who hired Steele was looking for information that could be used to discredit Trump’s campaign. That Steele alleged Page met with Russian businessman Igor Sechin, a close friend of Putin’s, and someone else named Igor N. Divyekin secretly (one wonders how Steele would know of this “secret” meeting) about compromising material Russia had on Trump.

From my reading it seems clear that the testimony of Christopher Steele (Source #1), author of the infamous dossier, was the SOLE source of the allegations in the FISA warrant request that Carter page had engaged in clandestine intelligence gathering activities for Russia. Other references are made to Trump campaign's "suspicious backing off of support for Ukraine," which the FBI considered "evidence of Russian influence," and Page's denials of Russian affiliation when the "story" Steele "leaked" to a news source created all that furor, and the Trump campaigns subsequent attempt to minimize Page's influence in the campaign organization.

The evidence proves that Steele is the only real source for the FISA warrant.
Click to expand...

...and Steele's confidential sources in Russia that he's built over the years. The FBI had worked with Steele before and had verified him and his sources as credible.
 
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NeverTrumpGOP said:
Here ya go:


At this point I want to know who wasn't suspected of being a Russian Spy?
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Interesting. If anyone talks to a Russian or Russian diplomat, they are engaged in spying. I get that. Now where are you going to go from here considering this is done every day by hundreds of government and civilian employees.
 
Moot said:
...and Steele's confidential sources in Russia that he's built over the years. The FBI had worked with Steele before and had verified him and his sources as credible.
Click to expand...

Of course Steele is credible. And, thus far, nothing in the Dossier has been shown to be false.

All the RW whining about him is just smoke and mirrors.
 
calamity said:
Of course Steele is credible. And, thus far, nothing in the Dossier has been shown to be false.

All the RW whining about him is just smoke and mirrors.
Click to expand...

...or a cover up.
 
chuckiechan said:
Interesting. If anyone talks to a Russian or Russian diplomat, they are engaged in spying. I get that. Now where are you going to go from here considering this is done every day by hundreds of government and civilian employees.
Click to expand...
What a load.
Chuckiechan believes a FISA warrant was approved by 3 Republican nominated judges, as requested by the FBI in investigation a matter of national security, simply because someone talked to a Russian or Russian diplomat.

How did our nation come to this.
 
Lutherf said:
It's supposed to sound serious. You don't get the warrant without it sounding serious.

In between the redactions what you get is that the warrant relied on Page's KNOWN meeting and his attempted recruitment by two Russian spies, the dossier and a few news articles based on information we now know Steele leaked to the press. Unless there's something totally "meat and potatoes" in all those redactions we already got most of this information in the Nunez memo and the Democrat follow up.

One thing that does stand out is that it appears the State Department is where this all originated. I can't say that's surprising.

I also like the names on the certification page: Comey, Susan Rice, Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, John Kerry, Ash Carter and a couple I don't recognize. No partisanship in that crew!!! Oh, Sally Yates signed off too.
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Is it normal that such investigations start out at the State Department?

Normally, isn't a crime or espionage suspected, and then an investigation started to see who's behind it? I'd think that the FBI is where these investigation should be originated.

Mycroft said:
Carter Page was never a spy for the Russians. He was a spy for the FBI.
Click to expand...

Which might be why it started at the State Department.

Captain Adverse said:
Well, I just finished reading through the first 40 pages (the rest is simply the scope, intent, and specific requests for authorized surveillance methodologies to be used.)

http://thehill.com/policy/national-...he-fbis-surveillance-warrants-for-carter-page (See Warrant insert, Pages 15 - 16).

It is followed by a series of notes where Steele is identified as having been hired to conduct research regarding Trump’s ties to Russia. The FBI then “speculates” the person who hired Steele was looking for information that could be used to discredit Trump’s campaign. That Steele alleged Page met with Russian businessman Igor Sechin, a close friend of Putin’s, and someone else named Igor N. Divyekin secretly (one wonders how Steele would know of this “secret” meeting) about compromising material Russia had on Trump.

From my reading it seems clear that the testimony of Christopher Steele (Source #1), author of the infamous dossier, was the SOLE source of the allegations in the FISA warrant request that Carter page had engaged in clandestine intelligence gathering activities for Russia. Other references are made to Trump campaign's "suspicious backing off of support for Ukraine," which the FBI considered "evidence of Russian influence," and Page's denials of Russian affiliation when the "story" Steele "leaked" to a news source created all that furor, and the Trump campaigns subsequent attempt to minimize Page's influence in the campaign organization.

The evidence proves that Steele is the only real source for the FISA warrant.
Click to expand...

The information that was used in the FISA warrant didn't come through intelligence channels, it came through the State Department.
The information that was used in the FISA warrant wasn't vetted by intelligence offices and intelligence analysts, having come through unofficial channels for intelligence information.

That's troubling, as it leads to anyway could make up any ****, pass it a diplomat who wouldn't recognize it as ****, and then be used to obtain FISA warrants. That's bad process and that's a problem.
 
This thread is an excellent example of two realities. There’s the facts crowd and then there are trumpies.

The bar for a warrant is low. This one met that bar.
 
Mach said:
What a load.
Chuckiechan believes a FISA warrant was approved by 3 Republican nominated judges, as requested by the FBI in investigation a matter of national security, simply because someone talked to a Russian or Russian diplomat.

How did our nation come to this.
Click to expand...

And that the Clinton dossier was used as the foundation for that claim, but the history of the dossier was concealed from the FISA court by omission.

But the left doesn't care about that. As long as the secret Star Chamber is used against their political enemies, it's all good.
 

"The documents made public on Saturday were heavily redacted in places, and some of the substance of the applications had already become public in February, via the Republican and Democratic Intelligence Committee memos."
​
They're not kidding. You could get through the first warrant in 5 minutes. Black is the de rigueur color.

"The fight over the surveillance of Mr. Page centered on the fact that the F.B.I., in making the case to judges that he might be a Russian agent, had used some claims drawn from a notorious Democratic-funded dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent."​
"some claims"? That, my friends is quite an understatment.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/us/politics/carter-page-fisa.html


Read it yourself. Like I said, the 1st one is a quick read. Apparently the subsequent warrants are built on the 1st and don't say much different. I'll get to them later.

A couple of things stood out.
1) Rather than claiming the FBI had verified the information in the warrant request, they pretty much said Steele (source #1) got it from his sub-sources (unnamed).
That apparently was good enough - we know where Steele got his sources but the warrant didn't say.
2) The warrant claimed ...
View attachment 67236695
We know who the business associates and the law firm are but the warrant request doesn't say.
David Corn said he spoke to Steele before the election. Which may or may not have been before the 1st warrant request. Corn is media. It depends on the October dates of each and it's not clear.
But we do know that Steele was shopping his dossier (in some form) around to get it promoted through circular reporting.

(Dup topic posted today on a new thread (by me) )
 
chuckiechan said:
And that the Clinton dossier was used as the foundation for that claim, but the history of the dossier was concealed from the FISA court by omission.

But the left doesn't care about that. As long as the secret Star Chamber is used against their political enemies, it's all good.
Click to expand...

So it would appear.

But make no mistake, had the roles been reversed, the Republicans would be of the same position, unfortunately.
 
Moot said:
...and Steele's confidential sources in Russia that he's built over the years. The FBI had worked with Steele before and had verified him and his sources as credible.
Click to expand...

The FBI did NOT confirm Steeles sources to be credible, nor could they, since the FBI did not interview them. And seeing as how Carter Page is still walking around a free man, the sources clearly are not credible.
 
calamity said:
Of course Steele is credible. And, thus far, nothing in the Dossier has been shown to be false.

All the RW whining about him is just smoke and mirrors.
Click to expand...

You have things backwards, as usual. It is not up to anyone to prove the dossier false. It was up to the FBI to prove it accurate to the FISA court. It didnt and still hasnt.
 
Moot said:
...and Steele's confidential sources in Russia that he's built over the years. The FBI had worked with Steele before and had verified him and his sources as credible.
Click to expand...

Steele was the contact that set that whole FIFA bribing case into motion. Through his sources he had information of Russian bribing of FIFA officials. He told an FBI agent. It all proved to be true.
 
Redress said:
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/398206-read-the-fbis-surveillance-warrants-for-carter-page



It is the FISA application, it is heavily redacted, and it is about 400 pages. Let the selective quoting by people on every side begin! All 400 pages at the link.
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Well blacked on line on page xyz proves it was the russians colluding with aliens, page xy I refer to blanked out lines 4-7 as proof the world trade center was an inside job!!!!!!


Ok I never read it, just saw heavily redacted and from my experience 90% of anything valuable was eliminated.
 
beerftw said:
Well blacked on line on page xyz proves it was the russians colluding with aliens, page xy I refer to blanked out lines 4-7 as proof the world trade center was an inside job!!!!!!


Ok I never read it, just saw heavily redacted and from my experience 90% of anything valuable was eliminated.
Click to expand...

RNC — Russian National Committee — as we directly saw with Manafort changing the RNC platform to benefit Russia
 
Mach said:
What a load.
Chuckiechan believes a FISA warrant was approved by 3 Republican nominated judges, as requested by the FBI in investigation a matter of national security, simply because someone talked to a Russian or Russian diplomat.

How did our nation come to this.
Click to expand...

Personal lotalty over national loyalty. It seems 30% of the nation was just waiting for a strongman/demagogue. Luckily they latched on to a very incompetent one.
 
Some keep claiming that Trump is a fascist, a strongman (in 3rd world political sense), demagogue, a sexist, a racist, a Nazi, and any number of other emotionally loaded negative labels.

I'm left with the impression that this is little more than the usual name calling from those who don't like the president.

All this commotion over Trump from the left, is that what the nation can expect going forward with every president the left doesn't like?
i.e. any non-leftist radical?

Is this little more than 'appease us, or we'll cause strife and commotion' ?
'Cause isn't that a type of blackmail?
 
eohrnberger said:
So it would appear.

But make no mistake, had the roles been reversed, the Republicans would be of the same position, unfortunately.
Click to expand...

The FISA court is a dangerous unconstitutional court to begin with where they are supposed to do greater due diligence because it actually is a secret court. We don't do secret courts, but terrorist activity has forced us to. But typical of the government, it has "scope creeped" into political intrigue, all done in secret, with the facts "redacted" so as to make the public view meaningless.

What has happened is the court the left once said would be abused by government they now embrace after it's abuse is going after the scalp of "the other guy".

Where are the judges that signed the warrants? I'll tell you. They are sitting there silently while innocent people are bled dry by the FBI legal process, then dumped on the side of the road when they are used up - all with the courts cooperation. So much for "justice". It's time to start all over with FISA courts.

It's worth a quick run through, especially the chart showing how greatly these secret warrants have increased with few refusals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court

Secrecy

Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the court is a "secret court" – its hearings are closed to the public. While records of the proceedings are kept, they also are unavailable to the public, although copies of some records with classified information redacted have been made public. Due to the classified nature of its proceedings, usually only attorneys licensed to practice in front of the US government are permitted to appear before the court. Because of the nature of the matters heard before it, court hearings may need to take place at any time of day or night, weekdays or weekends; thus, at least one judge must be "on call" at all times to hear evidence and decide whether or not to issue a warrant.

A heavily redacted version of a 2008 appeal by Yahoo![14] of an order issued with respect to NSA's PRISM program had been published for the edification of other potential appellants. The identity of the appellant was declassified in June 2013.[15]
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Fletch said:
The FBI did NOT confirm Steeles sources to be credible, nor could they, since the FBI did not interview them. And seeing as how Carter Page is still walking around a free man, the sources clearly are not credible.
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The FBI also intentionally obscured the fact that Steele worked for Perkins Coie, who worked for the Clinton Campaign. I'd be amused at the effort to obscure such links if it wasn't so serious. We're supposed to believe this wasn't a partisan inspired effort? It demolishes credulity. "Straining credulity" is not nearly sufficient.
 
upsideguy said:
...and Christopher Steele is considered on of the world's foremost experts on the interworkings of Russia. His word is expert testimony.

Not to mention that Carter Page had been watched for years.... so, his name on a FISA warrant would have been sufficient.
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No. It isnt. Steele had NO personal knowledge of anything in his dossier. He can testify to nothing. The local high school drop out janitor who actually saw something would have greater credibility in a court of law than Steele.

To get a FISA on an American citizen there needs to be proof that the American was knowingly breaking a law while engaging in clandestine activity for for a foreign power. Had Mr. Page been watched for years, where were all the indictments and prosecutions?
Or is there nothing objectionable to the American government spying on citizens forever because... well just because?
 
Athanasius68 said:
No. It isnt. Steele had NO personal knowledge of anything in his dossier. He can testify to nothing. The local high school drop out janitor who actually saw something would have greater credibility in a court of law than Steele.

To get a FISA on an American citizen there needs to be proof that the American was knowingly breaking a law while engaging in clandestine activity for for a foreign power. Had Mr. Page been watched for years, where were all the indictments and prosecutions?
Or is there nothing objectionable to the American government spying on citizens forever because... well just because?
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Just because politics, maybe?
Just because the administration in question has a history of weaponizing the government and its agencies against its own electorate and political enemies and allies alike?
 
chuckiechan said:
The FISA court is a dangerous unconstitutional court to begin with where they are supposed to do greater due diligence because it actually is a secret court. We don't do secret courts, but terrorist activity has forced us to. But typical of the government, it has "scope creeped" into political intrigue, all done in secret, with the facts "redacted" so as to make the public view meaningless.

What has happened is the court the left once said would be abused by government they now embrace after it's abuse is going after the scalp of "the other guy".

Where are the judges that signed the warrants? I'll tell you. They are sitting there silently while innocent people are bled dry by the FBI legal process, then dumped on the side of the road when they are used up - all with the courts cooperation. So much for "justice". It's time to start all over with FISA courts.

It's worth a quick run through, especially the chart showing how greatly these secret warrants have increased with few refusals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court
Click to expand...

Its the other way around. There is less dilligence in a FISA court. But that is by design. The objective of a FISA court is not to build a criminal case. Its to identify and respond to threats to the country that might be stymied going through the regular court system.
It is against the law to use a FISA court for purposes of building a criminal case.
 
Redress said:
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/398206-read-the-fbis-surveillance-warrants-for-carter-page

It is the FISA application, it is heavily redacted, and it is about 400 pages. Let the selective quoting by people on every side begin! All 400 pages at the link.
Click to expand...

You know what 400 pages tells me? That what they have is weaksause. If they had some actual solid and damning info then they wouldn't need 400 pages. All this is is layers of BS piled on top of each other, just like the report they released showing Russian interference.
 
Mach said:
What a load.
Chuckiechan believes a FISA warrant was approved by 3 Republican nominated judges, as requested by the FBI in investigation a matter of national security, simply because someone talked to a Russian or Russian diplomat.

How did our nation come to this.
Click to expand...

These are Trump supporters, they have no independent thought or critical thinking skills. They believe Trumps lies.
 
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