FISA Warrants against Trump -- Who? When? How?

I'm kicking myself for not knowing this and not being able to find the answer for myself, so I'm turning to ATS and the ATSers who have been paying attention... or just have a better memory than me.

When and how did the FISA applications and warrants against Team Trump become public knowledge?

Who first revealed their existence?

Who first reported on them?

When?

And for a bonus question, is it reasonable to suspect and/or assume that there may be more that we do not yet know about? Or no?

I need skooling! Help!!!

originally posted by: Boadicea
I'm kicking myself for not knowing this and not being able to find the answer for myself, so I'm turning to ATS and the ATSers who have been paying attention... or just have a better memory than me.

When and how did the FISA applications and warrants against Team Trump become public knowledge?

Who first revealed their existence?

Who first reported on them?

When?

And for a bonus question, is it reasonable to suspect and/or assume that there may be more that we do not yet know about? Or no?

I need skooling! Help!!!

I understand it was the "Nunes Memo" that first revealed the FISA Warrants, Feb. 2018. Then, the DOJ released the redacted versions, July 2018.

a reply to: Boadicea

In the first week of January 2017 BuzzFeed leaked what McCain had passed them and the FBI files that are now known as the Steele Dossier.

Just days later on the 10th of Jan I think it was The Guardian reported:

"The Guardian has learned that the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (FISA) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. The FISA court turned down the application, asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus. According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation. "

I think this was the first we heard of them.

www.theguardian.com...

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Last week, Senator Lindsey Graham met with Attorney General Barr and discussed how to roll-out the "Bombshell" FISA Abuse report, later this month.

Immediately after that meeting, Graham sent I.G. Horowitz/AG Barr a letter, requesting that 9 categories of documents related to FISA Abuse and Russia-Trump witch hunt, be declassified and published ASAP.

Letter from Graham to Barr/Horowitz: twitter.com...

Senator Graham is also requesting that the DOJ interview former President Barack Obama. He was the initiator of what's now known as SPYGATE/RUSSIAGATE.

a reply to: Identified
a reply to: MykeNukem

Thank you both so much! That gives me something to work with and more key words to plug in...

One of the things I'm wondering/speculating about here is that there are more such FISA warrants which were uncovered during the investigation, and that's why Barr et all don't want the full documents released.

I probably should have mentioned that in my OP, eh?

Thank you again. I'll work with that and see what more I can find.

a reply to: Boadicea

I think it is the logical conclusion from the investigation into if trump tower was tapped.


It was not tapped... the Russian ambassador was tapped..


From there the broad strokes became public.. including the existence of the warrant to investigate carter page..


The warrant itself has never been released, but trump claims it was fraudulent...


Well trump could declassify the warrant and prove his case tomorrow..


Or even better, yesterday..


So why hasn’t trump proved his claim??


Because it is not true and declassifying it would only prove he is a liar.

a reply to: carewemust

Awesome!!!

Then we should see the actual documents and it be settled once and for all..

If trump is telling the truth it will be obvious and those who committed crimes will be charged and such...


If trump is lying his people will come out and say “all of this is super troubling, but nothing that rose to the level of anything criminal.” And no one will be held accountable..


One thing is FOR SURE...


There is zero chance trump lets someone commit felonies against him and doesn’t care for any accountability..

a reply to: Boadicea

Lol they don’t want the full documents released for the exact same reason trump did not declassify them a year ago..


Because they don’t say what he has been pretending and the actual evidence is ATLEAST embarrassing..

There is no scenario where trump has proof this was all a witch hunt the whole time and has just chosen not to release it and not to use it or prosecute the perpetrators..


That is literally the silliest thing I have ever heard..


It is funny no one wants to make a gentlemens(ladies in your case) bet for bragging rights with me about the end result...


I would literally bet any amount of money or cool points that I can tell you exactly what the end result will be.

Trumps cronies will come out and claim the “the actions of the fbi (Comey/McCabe /muller/strock/whoever) were super troubling, but we are not gonna charge anyone or hold anyone accountable at all..”


Why will they not charge anyone??


BECAUSE THAT WOULD ACTUALLY REQUIRE THEY PROVE THEIR CASE...

You can make “troubling” comments with zero evidence.

a reply to: carewemust

Letter from Graham to Barr/Horowitz:

twitter.com...

Thank you for the link -- much appreciated! I totally missed that last week.

Senator Graham is also requesting that the DOJ interview former President Barack Obama. He was the initiator of what's now known as SPYGATE/RUSSIAGATE.

Yes!!! It's about damn time!!!

Kinda surprising what a pitbull Graham has become. A very welcome pitbull!!! But who woulda thunk it?

a reply to: JustJohnny

It is funny no one wants to make a gentlemens(ladies in your case)...

LOL! Thank you for your thoughtfulness, but "Gentleman" is good enough... I've been called much MUCH worse!

But to the gist of your comment, there is another possibility, as Trump himself has asserted: "Leverage." Could be we're in for quite the October 2020 surprise.

We shall see.

a reply to: carewemust

One of the comments at the Twitter link:

Corrupt Robert's ACTUALLY APPOINTED EVERY ONE OF THOSE FISC JUDGES. NOW IT MAKES ALL THE SICK SENSE IN THE WORLD!

I have wondered about that too. That much more insidious and sinister if true.

originally posted by: Boadicea
a reply to: Identified
a reply to: MykeNukem

Thank you both so much! That gives me something to work with and more key words to plug in...

One of the things I'm wondering/speculating about here is that there are more such FISA warrants which were uncovered during the investigation, and that's why Barr et all don't want the full documents released.

I probably should have mentioned that in my OP, eh?

Thank you again. I'll work with that and see what more I can find.

The only FISA warrant information related to the Russia-Trump investigation that has been released so far is the Carter Page warrant. You can read the text of it here:

www.lawfareblog.com...

As I understand it, the original request to the FISA court named 3 other subjects in addition to Carter Page, but the judge required the FBI to minimize the intrusiveness of the investigation, so the warrant that was finally approved was limited to Page.

I have a friend who worked at one of the three letter agencies for quite a few years and one of his jobs was to help write and support FISA warrant requests. There was almost nothing about the process that he could/would talk about, but I did pick up a few tidbits of information that probably most members of the general public don't appreciate.

First, the whole purpose of the FISA process is so that the capabilities of the intelligence community (IC) can be used to investigate US citizens who are acting on behalf of a foreign power. The agencies of the US IC have no law enforcement function and they are prohibited by law from targeting US citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights. That means that even if the IC had obtained secret information that some US citizen had committed a crime, they can not simply give that information to Law Enforcement Organizations for use in a court of law. The exception to this is if/when a US citizen is acting as an agent for a foreign power. If the IC/FBI can convince a FISA judge that an individual is acting as a foreign agent, then the capabilities of the IC can be used to investigate that individual as a counterintelligence (CI) subject. You should note that a CI investigation is NOT a criminal investigation. The Carter Page FISA warrant clearly makes that claim to the FISA judge. The objective of a CI investigation is to figure out what harm the foreign power is trying to inflict on the US and eventually defeat that effort. That may or may not involve bringing criminal charges against someone. Carter Page makes a big deal out of the fact that he was investigated under the FISA warrant but never charged with anything criminal. There is nothing illegal, unethical, or unusual about that. The warrant clearly states that it was NOT a criminal matter. It was an attempt to figure out what the Russian motives were. Of course, if criminal activity is uncovered during a CI investigation, it can be referred to a grand jury for possible prosecution.

I don't have any inside information or anything, but I suspect that that is exactly what happened with Paul Manafort. He had an even longer history than Page of working the agendas of foreign powers (Ukraine, for example). He may very well have been the subject of a FISA warrant investigation that turned up the financial crimes for which he was prosecuted. Which brings up another point: in an average year, there will typically be hundreds of FISA warrants granted. The Carter Page warrant is the only one that is known publicly to be related to the Trump-Russia investigation, but I would be astonished if it was the only one. FISA court deliberations almost always involve information that is classified at the TS/SCI level, and for that reason almost nothing is ever released to the public. The fact that even one FISA warrant was released boggles the mind of my friend who worked on them. It is practically unprecedented. So yes, there are almost certainly other FISA warrants that we don't know about (and maybe never will).

Having a FISA warrant against a subject means that any of the capabilities of the IC can be used to gather information on that subject. For example, Signals Intercepts (SIGINT) can be screened on an ongoing basis to see if the name or address of the subject comes up. This would include collecting new phone conversations, email, social media, and diplomatic communications. It also includes going through the big NSA data farm in Bluffdale, Utah to retrieve past communications going back years.

Not all surveillance requires a FISA warrant or requires the NSA. For example, the FBI (and probably other agencies) can and probably does routinely intercept phone conversations from foreign diplomats. That does not violate any US law. If those foreign diplomats happen to be talking on the phone to a US citizen, that fact will be noted, but the identity of the US citizen will be masked so that the raw intelligence can be passed around the IC without revealing any personally identifying information. If the identity of the individual becomes important for a particular investigation, senior executive branch officials can get the identity of the US contact unmasked. That is apparently what happened with Mike Flynn. Routine telephone surveillance intercepted ambassador Kislyak speaking with Flynn in December 2016. National Security Adviser Susan Rice requested that his identity be unmasked and that is how the DOJ knew that Flynn was lying to the FBI when he denied having had conversations with the Russians prior to the inauguration.

a reply to: Boadicea

Im working on a post about this, to drop in a few days, sent a first draft to grambler, will send you it also in a message if you wish. it's rather long and focuses on Wikileaks and the Alfa story.

a reply to: Boadicea

John Brennan is a bigger player than James Comey in this case, he ordered the ICA, and made the allegation that the interference he discovered was to help trump and hurt Hillary even though the NSA vehemently disagreed with him.

Here's a quote from my research:

The Mueller report parrots the Intelligence Community Assessments claim that Russia aimed to help Trump, even though the ICA states "It is not intended to imply they have evidence that shows something to be a fact", The ICA was not an assessment by 17 individual intelligence agencies, an assertion that Hillary made after Trump won the election, it is believed to primarily to be the work of John Brennan at the CIA.

A March 2018 report from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee says that Brennan personally oversaw the entire ICA process from start to finish. In December 2016, the GOP report recounts, President Obama "directed Brennan to conduct a review of all intelligence relating to Russian involvement in the 2016 elections.
The resulting ICA "was drafted by CIA analysts" and merely "coordinated with the NSA and the FBI".
The GOP report observes that Brennan's CIA analysts were "subjected to an unusually constrained review and coordination process, which deviated from established CIA practice."

The Brennan-run process may have also excluded dissenting views from other agencies. Jack Matlock, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, has claimed that a "senior official" from the State Department's intelligence wing, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), informed him that it had reached a different conclusion about alleged Russian meddling, "but was not allowed to express it." An INR spokesperson declined a request for comment.

Brennan was the first to alert President Obama of a Russian interference campaign, and subsequently oversaw the U.S. intelligence response.

President Obama personally quashed a proposed bipartisan commission of inquiry into alleged Russian interference that would have inevitably subjected Brennan and other top intelligence officials to scrutiny.
According to the Washington Post, in the aftermath of the November election, Obama administration officials discussed forming such a commission to conduct a sweeping probe of the alleged Russian interference effort and the U.S. response.
But after Obama's then chief-of-staff, Denis McDonough, introduced the proposal, he: began criticizing it, arguing that it would be perceived as partisan and almost certainly blocked by Congress. Obama then echoed McDonough’s critique, effectively killing any chance that a Russia commission would be formed.

Senator Graham is also requesting that the DOJ interview former President Barack Obama. He was the initiator of what's now known as SPYGATE/RUSSIAGATE.

Yes!!! It's about damn time!!!

Kinda surprising what a pitbull Graham has become. A very welcome pitbull!!! But who woulda thunk it?

I think the Cavanaugh hearing pushed him over the edge. He has shown flashes of toughness in the past but it was overshadowed by his wishy-washy voting record for a long time.

You have it all figured out, don't you. Right! Even less than I do. You have a direct line into Trumps mind. Good for you. I BELIEVE YOU BROUTHER.
a reply to: JustJohnny

a reply to: Boadicea

Lindsey Graham had a decades-long close relationship with Trump-hater, Senator John McCain. Graham was the subservient in their relationship.

McCain is now gone and Senator Graham is free to be his own man, 100%.

a reply to: carewemust

originally posted by: carewemust
Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Last week, Senator Lindsey Graham met with Attorney General Barr and discussed how to roll-out the "Bombshell" FISA Abuse report, later this month.

Immediately after that meeting, Graham sent I.G. Horowitz/AG Barr a letter, requesting that 9 categories of documents related to FISA Abuse and Russia-Trump witch hunt, be declassified and published ASAP.

Letter from Graham to Barr/Horowitz: twitter.com...

Senator Graham is also requesting that the DOJ interview former President Barack Obama. He was the initiator of what's now known as SPYGATE/RUSSIAGATE.

Today, President Trump also backed Lindsey Graham's call for Attorney General BARR to declassify the Spygate documents and materials.

Former FBI Director James Comey responded by telling FBI Director Christopher Wray (and 2 other top DOJ officials) to "Stay True to Your Mission".

Source: theconservativetreehouse.com...

Is that "mission" to get rid of President Trump, using any means available? Comey is still DANGEROUS. (IMO)

a reply to: 1947boomer

Wow. Very interesting and very much appreciated -- thank you!

I was aware of some of this, but certainly not all. As I recall, there was quite a bit of unmasking going on that was not explained or otherwise justified -- beyond "Trump bad." I believe it was Samantha Powers who denies the unmasking attributed to her.

I will have to read through your comment again to absorb and process... and definitely thank you again!