President Trump Releases the House FISA Memo
Now begins the investigation into the DOJ and FBI and their handling of the infamous anti-Trump dossier.
(Note: On Monday, Mark Alexander will provide an update on the findings in the House FISA Memo.)
After weeks of speculation, President Donald Trump authorized the declassification and release of the controversial FISA memo. And after analyzing the memo contents, it is clear why the Democrats and some Justice Department officials were adamantly opposed to making it public.
In short, the memo put forth the evidence we assumed it would — that the DOJ and the FBI used the dubious anti-Trump dossier, created by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, and known to have been paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, to gain authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Act — FISA) Court to run electronic surveillance on Trump aide Carter Page. According to the memo, the DOJ and FBI withheld key information about the dossier’s origin and funding from the court in obtaining its FISA warrant. So how about releasing that FISA application?
Maybe the most damning piece of information regards a statement on record made to the House Intelligence Committee by the recently “retired” FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in December 2017. He testified that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.” Translation: Opposition research from the campaign of the party in power was essential to gaining surveillance capability against the campaign of the challenging party.
Since much of what the memo claims has long been rumored, in one sense its release may feel a bit anticlimactic. But important names have been named, such as former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI Deputy Director McCabe.
The can of worms has now been pried open, and this is officially a scandal. How deep do the roots go? We’ll see as the real digging begins. This is exactly why the DOJ, FBI and Democrats have been so adamant about preventing the memo’s release. It’s important to note that Congress doesn’t work for the DOJ or the FBI, rather it has oversight over those agencies. Yet the FBI has been stonewalling Congress while leaking info to the mainstream media, as it sought to both insulate itself from oversight and control the narrative surrounding Russiagate.
When officials from the nation’s highest law enforcement agency engage in politically calculated actions rather than strictly focusing on enforcing the law, then injustice will result. This politicization must be weeded out, for the good of the country at large. It is time for the appointment of a second special prosecutor to investigate the activities of Barack Obama’s deep state operatives in the FBI and DoJ. It is now clear that there was “collusion,” but it was between Hillary Clinton, the FBI and the Russians.
(Edited.)