Two Possibilities in Trump Wiretapping, and Neither Is Good

| December 28, 2019

Poetrooper sends us an article penned by a former FBI Agent, who opines on the recent IG report on the Hurricane Crossfire investigation’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to target an American citizen. His article is a chilling discourse on abuse of power and violation of Constitutional rights.

By Frank Watt

The report of the I.G.’s findings on the use of FISA in the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation is an outrage. As a 22 year FBI Agent, I have personally conducted multiple investigations using both Title III “wiretaps” and FISA authorized intercepts. From this perspective, I can only see two possible interpretations of the actions of the FBI and DOJ. Either scenario should anger and frighten every fair minded citizen who takes the time to read the report and understand its implications. To comprehend the magnitude of the wrongdoing, consider the following:

First, an American citizen, Carter Page, was targeted by our government for electronic surveillance under FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Per the Act, his Fourth Amendment guarantee of privacy was judicially “suspended” to allow law enforcement to intercept and monitor his private communications. Ostensibly, the FISA court would allow this intrusion based on presented facts that indicated that Page was participating in an activity that was reasonably considered to be a threat to national security and was, in effect, the agent of a foreign power.

According to the I.G., the determination to surveil Page was based on second hand information provided by a member of a friendly foreign government and bolstered by reporting in the “Steele dossier”. Accepting the subjective judgement that the investigation was adequately predicated does not mitigate the disaster that followed.

Typically, a FISA warrant is issued to target a foreign national and, in general, the resulting intercepts come largely from overseas communications. FISA generally requires a lower evidentiary threshold than a “Title III wiretap” (used to intercept and monitor communications in domestic criminal matters). To use a FISA surveillance against a US citizen is a somewhat exceptional step. Basically, it negates Constitutional protections afforded to all Americans based on the judicial determination that the citizen is acting as an agent of a foreign power.

Because electronic surveillance (wire tap) is so intrusive, it is rightfully subject to intense judicial scrutiny. Additionally, because the evidence gathered in its use is singularly effective, law enforcement in general, and the FBI and DOJ in particular, scrupulously protect the integrity of the process. No law enforcement officer of any worth would stand before a judge and swear to an affidavit that he or she suspected was not completely true and accurate. No competent supervisory chain of command would permit that to happen. To risk the loss or restriction of that invaluable tool would be unacceptable.

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Based on what we are told by the I.G., there are only two possible conclusions that can be reached regarding the official conduct of those responsible for infringing on Carter Pages Constitutional freedoms:

The first is that the hand selected team of investigators, attorneys, and Senior Executive Service officials with decades of law enforcement, administrative, and judicial experience were abject failures at a task that they were hired to perform. Speaking from personal experience, in FBI, DEA, and state and local wire tap investigations, the slightest omissions, misstatements, and clerical errors are routinely identified and corrected by the street agents and line prosecutors who do these investigations for a living. To believe that a “varsity level” team, with unlimited time, support, and resources, somehow inadvertently overlooked seventeen major omissions, misstatements, and/or outright falsehoods, is simply not believable.

The second possibility is that nearly everyone who significantly participated in obtaining FISA coverage on Page knowingly and deliberately operated outside the law to one degree or another. The reasons behind the decision to do so are irrelevant. The particulars regarding the seventeen I.G. findings are startling, taken individually. It’s difficult to see how any of the individual omissions or misstatements could have happened accidentally. Viewed collectively, the apparent intentionality is nearly impossible to reconcile as anything but corruption.

Read the entire article here: American Thinker

The author is a 1983 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He served for over 22 years as an FBI special agent, supervisory special agent, and FBI SWAT team leader.

Thanks, Poe.

Category: Donald Trump, Guest Post, The Constitution

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5th/77th FA

Big Brother is, and has been, alive and well. George Orwell is going, “Told you, told you.” If there is anyone who thinks that they are secure “in their homes and papers”? And that goes doubly so for your communication devices. The abject corruption of our government reads like it is straight out of the old KGB Handbook. The apathy of the general public on this subject is really sad. As posted on these very pages so many times, the average citizen has gone along, to get along. Just as many looked the other way as Hitler’s Gestapo hauled millions off to concentration/murder camps. If the powers that be will do this to take down powerful rich people they consider enemies, what will they do to the average person?

This is just one more example of the deep seated corrupted power brokers that fear Trump giving our Republic back to Patriotic Americans. All of this because that murderous trash from hell didn’t get “her turn.”

Torch? Pitchfork? Rope?

Awaiting the seagull to refute this post with his drivel.

ArmyATC

I prefer hot tar, feathers, rail.

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

Bring out all the Torch, pitchfork carrying village extras from Frankenstein if they are still around.

Roh-Dog

Patrick Henry could not be reached for comment.
https://www.history.org/Almanack/life/politics/giveme.cfm

Mason

What’s really sad here is that this is literally far, far worse than the Watergate scandal and you hear it completely dismissed as a conspiracy theory in the MSM. This was just the last obscene abuse of government against American citizens who politically opposed them by the Obama administration.

thebesig

The Democrats on Democrat scandals… Nothing to see here, move right on along. Then they come down with impeachment over a non-scandal, over something done by a Democrat but not by the guy that was impeached. Democrats on social media are passing a meme around asking Presidents to raise their hands if they didn’t get impeached.

These leftists refuse to see the lack of validity of an impeachment vote, and the lack of validity of their “But Obama didn’t get impeached” when the Democrats impeached based on their emotions, feelings, desire for control while ignoring actual Democrat crimes.

We’re dealing with an opposition that cares more about what they think is moral and right rather than what is moral and right.

Mason

Too true. Biden now says that he won’t testify to the Senate because there’s no legal basis for it. Nevermind this whole thing starts with him.

He also claimed the administration he was a part of didn’t obstruct congress like the current one. Nevermind Holder being held in contempt of congress for refusing to honor Congressional subpoenas.

Anonymous

It was a “threat to our whole political system” when Nixon’s campaign tried to bug the Democrat campaign headquarters, but Democrats using the FBI to surveill the GOP campaign is cool or something…

Ex-PH2

“…the hand selected team of investigators, attorneys, and Senior Executive Service officials with decades of law enforcement, administrative, and judicial experience were abject failures at a task that they were hired to perform.”

Well, golly gee whiz, why are these bozos still employed at all?

How is this any different from the wiretaps and other abominable crap foisted on American citizens during the Vietnam War? It’s not like it’s anything new, you know, it’s just “now” and done by careless clowns who think they can do whatever they wish and get away with it.

Since there’s so much crap going on in the electronics world, a very good friend of mine and I used to end our long phone calls with “F— you, f00k you very much, whoever’s listening in on this shit, you blockhead. Stop wasting my tax money and get a real job, you incompetent asses.”

The unpleasantness of this is that, without this ridiculous brand of paranoids – trying to find something wrong because you hate someone to pieces – is that there are people who do want to destroy this country from within, and who discuss it online or by phone, but we don’t hear about them very often because they aren’t prominent.

rgr769

I just read last week that the spying effort on Trump apparently began NLT early April, 2016, when an SDNY FBI agent sent a national security letter (NSL) to several electronic service entities (cell, internet, and phone companies) to gather all of Carter Page’s meta data, so they could obtain all his electronic communications with anyone. Then the whole op was transferred to the 7th Floor of FBI HQ in the District of Criminals. Guess who was on the 7th Floor–Comey, McCabe, and Peter Struczk. I would bet the FBI was illegally spying on numerous people connected with the Trump campaign going back to late 2015. One also has to wonder whether there was illegal surveillance of other Republican presidential candidates before Trump won the nomination. The FBI has a long history of illegal “black bag” jobs going back to the 1930’s.

Mason

Since Trump was always presumed to not win the nomination and not win the election, I would find it impossible to believe they weren’t watching everyone.

Slow Joe

I don’t understand why they keep calling it wire tap.
There are no wires being tapped.

Is it so the dinosaurs understand what the author is talking about?

What’s so hard to understand about electronic surveillance?

JA

That Khrushchev had Beria shot did not change the malevolence and evil of the NKVD and KGB. It only let them know that he was in charge of the Evil Empire once known as the USSR. You tell us you carried the water of these criminals for 22 years. Apparently, you are proud of your career with the FBI. Its a star on your resume that earns you kudos and applause. Well, I’m here to tell you that you are just as bad and evil as those you now expose for you carried out their orders for 22 years. You were a foot soldier in their malevolent machinations and you, Mr.Watt, are as responsible as they. The FBI is no better than MS-13 in suits and ties, and in reality far, far worse. Let me ask you a question, Mr. Watt, do you really and truly believe these were the first and only criminal acts committed by the leadership pf the FBI and the DOJ. Do you believe this corruption began and ended with the coup against our President and the unlawful spying on his campaign? Do you really believe the FISA Court judges were blind to what was being done? You know and I know that your criminal organization has imprisoned and ruined tens of thousands of men and women for no other reason than they had offended the evil devils who infest the government. Lets put it all on the table, Mr. Watt, and tell the world just how completely corrupt the DOJ and FBI are. Sydney Powell had the guts to expose it all. If you do that then I’ll believe you. You could be an expert witness to testify how corrupt the FBI has become and that its reports and accusations should not be even admitted to evidence let alone believed by a jury or judge. It is the obligation of a Christian to forgive those who are truly repentant of their sins and evil acts, but first, you have to be truly repentant. YOu are not, Mr. Watt, no more repentant that the NAZI criminals… Read more »