FBI Apologizes for Deceiving FISA Court in Order to Surveil Carter Page
Promises to increase training and oversight to avoid future problems
The FBI’s shocking deceptions in obtaining FISA warrants against then-candidate Trump’s foreign-policy adviser Carter Page have decimated what remained of their reputation and destroyed public trust.
While former FBI director James Comey defends the deceptions that took place under his watch and instead said his FBI was “sloppy,” the current FBI director Christopher Wray has apologized to the court in a public filing (link to pdf).
A chastened F.B.I. told a secretive court on Friday that it was increasing training and oversight for officials who work on national security wiretap applications in response to problems uncovered by a scathing inspector general report last month about botched surveillance targeting a former Trump campaign adviser.
In a rare unclassified and public filing before the court that oversees wiretapping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, the F.B.I. also said it would extend its overhaul to requests for orders permitting it to collect logs of its targets’ communications and other business records — not just wiretaps of the contents of phone calls and emails.
“The F.B.I. has the utmost respect for this court and deeply regrets the errors and omission identified by” the inspector general, wrote the F.BI. director, Christopher A. Wray, in a statement included with the filing. He called the conduct described by the report “unacceptable and unrepresentative of the F.B.I. as an institution.”
FISA court appoints David Kris, former Obama-era national security leader at Main Justice, as amicus counsel: https://t.co/cX8PTEgPs5
— Mike Scarcella (@MikeScarcella) January 10, 2020
This is who the FISA Court appointed to assess FBI proposals to clean up their FISA act.
A vocal @DevinNunes critic and apologist for FBI misconduct.
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) January 11, 2020
Included in the FBI’s filing were the fixes that it proposes to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again.
The NYTimes continues:
The new filing, which detailed 12 steps, like enhancing checklists for preparing filings, added granular detail. It came in response to an unusual public order last month. Rosemary M. Collyer, then the presiding judge on FISA court, ordered the F.B.I. to propose fixes to its process by Jan. 10 to ensure the problems would not recur.
“The frequency with which representations made by F.B.I. personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other F.B.I. applications is reliable,” Judge Collyer wrote.
On Jan. 1, Judge James E. Boasberg took over Judge Collyer’s role on the FISA court. He will now have to evaluate whether the proposed changes are sufficient to restore the judges’ confidence in the factual affidavits F.B.I. officials submit or if more is necessary.
It is not clear whether Judge Boasberg will take such potential steps as appointing a “friend of the court” to critique the F.B.I.’s proposal before he issues any order.
Additionally, the proposal includes using the shockingly dishonest Page filing as a teachable moment for future FBI FISA requests.
Wray, who took over the FBI more than a month after the fourth and final Page FISA had been approved, said that one remedy he plans to implement will be to use the Page FISA as a case study in training sessions that FBI personnel will be required to undergo.
“FBI personnel will be instructed on the errors and omissions that were made in the Carter Page FISA applications and associated processes,” Wray said.
The training will include a test “to confirm that personnel understand the expectations and the materials,” as well as certification for FBI employees who have completed the training, he added.
Wray set April 30 as a deadline to complete the training.
It seems to me that a quick memo to all relevant FBI personnel would be sufficient: “Do not falsify emails or other documents to obtain FISA warrants; do not withhold exculpatory information on the target; do not lie, break the law, or otherwise bring shame on the FBI.” But they knew all that at the time and did it anyway. Because Orange Man Bad.
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Comments
So, a nice little apology keeps them from being prosecuted?
I am afraid it will work.
As the RED QUEEN would say
(isn’t that Bernie Sanders?):
“OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!”
Only when the American public finally votes in people known for their honesty and willingness to push through the bs of the swamp.
Don’t hold your breath.
The prtoblem is that Trump cannot pick an ethical AG
Yeah. But shouldn’t we at least let Durham be heard from on the issue before we go full-on cynical about it?
Contemporaneous to this was Hillary and her myriad security breaches as SoS and thereafter, and DOJ’s decision to let her skate. Wasn’t Trump going to lock her up? It’s like whack-a-mole.
Didn’t Trump announce after the election that he wasn’t going to prosecute her?
This is all on AG Barr now.
If PDJT is re-elected, these people will be toast, Barr or no Barr.
I hope they are toast, but fear they may skate.
Write AG Barr:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Or use the DOJ website:
https://www.justice.gov/doj/webform/your-message-department-justice
Under color of law, these criminals need to be prosecuted.
All harm… no foul. No accountability. Bureaucrats… royalty where the whipping boy is the private citizen. We have seen treason and sedition rewarded…lying and deception ignored. Why even bother with phony laws on the books about security. Being a government agent is a pass on all things…. just like being KGB. Now there is no difference. This stains a whole bunch of people who otherwise might be trusted…”respect” out of fear not admiration.
Apology Accepted
https://youtu.be/ttPwA8hitoY
Mistakes were made.
“Some people did some things…….”
Be nice if they had to pay out of pocket instead of out of taxpayers pockets.
People need to go to prison and Carter, General Flynn and Papadapoulous Need to not only have all criminal charges banished, but must be paid huge amounts of monetary damages
Enough prison time and monetary Claims to shake our foundations
Intentional acts are hardly mistakes
Only when outed, then they are mistakes.
Compared with Mark Felt, Comey is a piker.
Oh, great.
So that means General Flynn can also apologize and that’s it?
What about Roger Stone?
Can I skip on my taxes and then apologize too?
Can Epstein apologize? Never mind, he has cremated himself.
There was a time when the FBI was one of the nation’s most respected law enforcement organizations. Today it is a tool of Deep State. Today’s FBI has far too many “special agents” (aka pencil pushers) like Peter Strzok.
“There was a time…”
They have always been a dishonest agency. Always. From the very beginning. Hoover.
Yes there once was a time when it was believed the J. Edgar Hoover was an honest man. Then I once believed in the Tooth Fairy.
Apology not accepted.
Stupidest idea EVER.
Resign!
Barr: prosecute, dammit!
Barr prosecute? That’s funny!
Is there anyone who knows of a SINGLE prosecution of a democrat since AG Barr was appointed?
FBI chief Wray does not seem upset over FISA abuse / lying under oath to Federal Judges… Fire all the Obama holdovers
What the American people need from the FBI right now is not a few meek apologies from law-enforcement personnel who did things they *knew* were illegal and did them anyway.
What we want and need is a pile of (metaphorical) skulls.
Everybody who signed one of these questionable warrants, *everybody* who placed pen to paper in support of these needs to be summarily removed from their position while awaiting the resolution of their criminal case. From FBI agents to Judges, small to the tall.
Then every one of them needs interviewed by *neutral* Justice Department investigators, on tape, under oath. Refusal to do so results in immediate summary dismissal. No more of this “I contributed the limit to Hillary’s campaign but I’m able to maintain my neutrality in a criminal investigation of her.” No.
Forget the damn Iranians. We know where America’s enemies are.
Ain’t that the truth!
Bill Clinton was the second worst thing EVER to happen to our country. He corrupted the young by example with his sexual exploits of employees right in the Oval Office. (Oral sex among the very young became quite the trend soon after.)
His sick wife hillary became the biggest crook and traitor in American history (dwarfing Benedict Arnold), until a cypher calling himself ‘barack hussein obama’ was foisted upon us the the left/media/islamic cabal.
With only 8 years separating the debacle of bill clinton (and the tentales of his diseased wife spreading like a cancer, the debacle of a corrupt traitor like ‘barack’ was too much.
The appearance of PDJT on the scene during the election of 2016 was nothing short of a miracle, and we were smart enough to elect him.
But the clinton/obama damage to our young, the corruption within our government, media and educational instututions is just too great. It was like a disease as horrible any flesh-eating disease. Having bush/rove as a buffer was like not having a buffer.
We might be still breathing from the necrosis of clinton/obama, but we will never be whole again: too many parts of our colletive body have been cut away. Worse, we are STILL rotting from within.
The struggle now is to survive with the Bill of Rights intact. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Much worse.
See: Virginia, where the first shots of the next civil war will be fired.
Incrementally we chip at the foundation of our Republic, the rule of law. william jefferson clinton bald faced lied under oath in a legal proceeding, suborned purgery along with a bunch of other crimes. These were all proven beyond any reasonable doubt. But 50 or so fine US senators decided political were much more important than the rule of law, and it’s been downhill ever since, at least from my timeline here on Earh. We have a “chosen” class which can lie to the fbi, congress, and whoever the heII else they want to with impunity, while others face jail time for doing the alleged same thing. I’ve been hearing many from the political class say “No one is above the law.” I think they are misreading how the American people are interpreting these words. (Inb4 “clinton impeachment is ancient news!)
Clinton isn’t the right precedent because according to the mores at the time, whatever he did consensually with Monica was their business, and Hillary’s problem. I still sort of feel that way. It was the wrong thing to be asking a president about under oath.
This is much different. The general conduct here has always been wrong, often punished by execution. Even if that highest penalty doesn’t apply in our system, it means these are serious crimes that would obviously be prosecuted.
When the Nixon administration tried to wiretap the Dems, the perpetrators were prosecuted, and the President was made to resign. Now it’s been shown and admitted that the Obama administration wiretapped the Trump campaign by lying to the Stasi-like FISA secret court. Still, nobody seems to tarnish Obama or Biden.
It seems like the Dems can get away with just about anything, including wiretapping, blackface, sexual assault, and corruption, with a simple mea culpa if and when they get caught. Yet the Republicans are supposed to resign for much lesser accusations.
Regret ≠ apology
so when do the appropriate parties get charged with perjury?
Barr has already ignored IG criminal referrals on Comey and McCabe for lying!
The credibility of Barr is on a knife-edge.
It will be heartbreaking if he turns out to be a rat.
People need ‘training’ to know you can’t lie to a fucking FISA court. Are you kidding me?
This is freaking George Costanza from Seinfeld.
“George you had sex with the cleaning lady on your desk.”
“Was that wrong? I gotta plead ignorance here, if somebody had TOLD me that it was frowned upon I wouldn’t have done it.”
You don’t need ‘training’ or ‘oversight’. The agents that did it need to be fucking fired and prosecuted. And Wray needs to be gone YESTERDAY.
Doesn’t matter, The agents who broke the laws knew what they were doing, all the ‘new training’ and rules now aren’t worth a damn. The FBI clearly is ‘above the law’ and we can’t tolerate them and expect to keep our Republic.
Fire or jail all the FBI employees including this Wray clown and we can begin to clean up this mess. Close down that corrupt agency.
So what happens to investigations and prosecutions that resulted from this crime?
We’re just the ignorant and powerless public, the citizenry who deserve nothing but what the elected AND UNelected decide to give us. We deserve and receive neither honest service nor transparent candor. Don’t believe it? Pay attention! Those in our government have PLAINLY told us so already through word and deed. NONE of this is news.
I appreciate everyone who wishes me well. I am eternally in my own mind capable of everything. When I am a broken down old down old cripple barely capable of making it from the sofa to the door.
Do not feel sorry. I think I figured out a way to make things fair.
The FBI used the Steele dossier to renew the Carter Page warrant three times after it knew Steele was unreliable. Apologies and training can’t fix this problem . What is needed are firings and prosecutions.
No mystery. I sold my house at a deep discount. It irked me that the first 2 movers rejected the job because of the unsanitary conditions.
The last cleaning woman I hired threw the garbage in the back yard instead of the garbage can because that is how they do it in Lebanon
In any case the buyers are under no illusions.
Thomas More could use a little support right about now…
You can “enhance” all the checklists and “add granular detail” you want, but you still have to be able to trust the senior people in the Bureau to oversee the process. In the matter of the Page FISA warrant, the processes and procedures weren’t the problem, rather it was those senior people in the Bureau who corrupted it or allowed it to be corrupted.
As Judge Collyer pointed out what other FBI filings (FISA warrant applications or not) may have been fraudulently or corruptly made? And how can anyone be certain?
Wray has been director for two and a half years and has watched all the corruption be exposed and is just now getting around to (allegedly) doing something about it? And that training is going to consist of telling their agents they shouldn’t do things like that?
The corruption that has been exposed during this sad affair will taint the Bureau for years. The blame for that can be laid squarely at the feet of the corrupt senior executives at the FBI, DOJ and the Intelligence Community as a whole for placing themselves above the citizens they are supposed to serve and the Constitution they are supposed to protect and defend.
I am very interested in kindness. Having been bound to a walker I couldn’t even pick up after myself. But I can be repaired.
And when I am you can be Goddammwd sure I will look out for people going through this s**t.
Purge the entire top management tier. Start with Wray.
Careers need to end in jail time over this.
How does that old saying go….
“Beg forgiveness rather than ask permission”
I say the heck with that make them all do some time.
Does anyone realize how ludicrous it is to say:
we will provide additional training to stop
SWORN FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS
from committing ADDITIONAL FEDERAL FELONIES ???
So this means that if the FBI ever catches me engaged in serious criminal activity, an apology and a promise to do better will make it all better. Cool!
Write AG Barr:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Or use the DOJ website:
https://www.justice.gov/doj/webform/your-message-department-justice
Lets be honest here, the FBI lied to the FISA court deliberately not to get to Page, but to get to Trump.
We don’t want apologies, we want accountability and consequences for illegal behavior! We want the FBI and the rest of government to be held to the same legal standards as us peons. We want our elected officials to stop exempting themselves from the laws that they’vbehaviour! Is that really too much to ask?
“regrets the errors and omission”? This is total bullshit. The FBI purposely lied and misled the FISA court and everyone involved needs to face the music just as I would have to under the same circumstances. I’ll hold my breath.
Welcome to the banana republic! We officially have secret kangaroo courts used by the American Schutzstaffel.
When it all goes to hell target the educators and the fourth estate first, then eat your left wing neighbors with a bit of Sweet Baby Rays barbecue sauce.
Eat enough and we’ll have America back.