Sigh... I know. Am checking into rehab this weekend.

It's not the same thing, but I generally agree with Kay on this. The point of going back to the beginning of the investigation was to demonstrate that, contrary to the Nunes memo's contention, the dossier was not the sole or even primary justification for the FISA warrant.

So, not only was the court properly notified about the source of the dossier, but also the dossier wasn't the sole issue considered in obtaining the warrant. Therefore, Rep Nunes assertion that the warrant (and apparently subsequent renewals of the warrant) was tainted by improper FBI conduct would seem to have been rebutted successfully.

Rep Nunes' case is not helped by the fact that he apparently admitted that, as of when he wrote his memo, he hadn't even actually read the FISA application that he was attempting to tear apart.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Page had been under investigation (but nothing had been found yet?).

The FBI had previously tried to get a FISA warrant, but had been turned down.

The Steele dossier, was not the only piece of information submitted, but it was the piece that got them over the goal line to get the warrant.

I am surprised at the amount of weight you and Kay are giving the dossier, especially now that we know about how it came about.

Steele was not Jason Bourne, sneaking around Moscow, bugging the Kremlin and stealing secret documents. He was in London getting fed info from his Russian sources.

Now that we know that the Russians were trying to sow discord, and support/attack both Trump and Clinton, I would file the dossier along with the 'dirt on Clinton' that was being shopped to the Trump team as 'fake news'.

It's disconcerting that the domestic surveillance of an American citizen is being taken so lightly. It's supposed to be very hard to do, and only done under extraordinary circumstances. The fact that the FBI gamed the FISA court to obtain the warrant is very troubling.

I'm not placing any particular weight on anything. However, I think it's funny that so many people somehow think the dossier must be faulty or problematic just because it was paid for by a partisan source. Do you think we only get good intel from upright unbiased trustworthy citizens?


Right, because that's how actual intelligence is collected. From sources who may or may not be 100% trustworthy.


Whether that's a "fact" seems very much open to debate at this point.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Source? Sounds like hearsay on your part.


Was this the FISA request that may have included an application to surveil Trump? This speaks to the fact that the FISA warrant approval process is not the rubber stamp many allege.


Source? Seems like speculation on your part. Not least, the fact that Carter Page went to Russia in July 2016 and allegedly met with government officials may have played a major role in the court's granting the subsequent FISA request. By the way, have you seen any of the interviews where Carter Page is asked about this trip to Moscow? He comes across as very unbelievable and shady. That doesn't mean he's guilty, or that the FISA court application process should not be rigorous, but there seems to have been plenty of probable cause to grant a FISA request based on his behavior and notwithstanding the information included in the Steele dossier.


Steele was well known by the FBI and had previously used him in the FIFA investigation, to good effect. He was ex-MI6 and considered trustworthy. Steele himself would not have presumed all the information in the dossier was true. His job was to gather intelligence and pass it on. He felt the information was important enough to alert the FBI. They felt it important enough to include some of it in a FISA warrant. The court agreed that the entire body of evidence presented was sufficient enough to grant a FISA warrant. Remember too that this was someone under a FISA warrant back in 2014.


I'm sure you would.


Again, I would encourage you to view as many of the media interviews given by Carter Page as you can. In all that I have watched he comes across as evasive, shady and not credible. But beyond that, his actions clearly gave the US authorities serious suspicions that he was acting as a Russian agent or in the service of Russia in some capacity. I find it disconcerting that you would object to someone like that being surveilled by US security services.


Complete hearsay to fit your narrative.

it appears efernand is right about the dossier being what put them over the top for getting a warrant, and that Page was well known to the FBI and had been previously investigated. BTW, I heard Trey Gowdy describe his interview with Page as one of the most painful in his career, because Page won't shut up. (I'm thinking Mueller may get that from Trump ;) )
I thought the last paragraph in the memo was hilarious, with using the Strzok change to Comey's memo about Hillary to "extreme carelessness" as proof that Strzok was so honest and harsh on Hillary, when the reality is he saved her from the prosecutable "grossly negligent".

Actually, the Schiff memo claims that it is "correcting the record" when it is doing no such thing. The Nunes memo never had a problem with what started the FBI investigation. It never mentions the issue. It had a problem with what led to the FISA warrant. The Schiff memo changes the subject, acts like it's correcting the record by responding to Nunes' accusation when it's not, and never looks back.


Sure, but... The Schiff memo never says what you are saying now. Here you are giving a full throated defense of using the dossier as a piece of important information for obtaining the FISA warrant. The Schiff memo pretty much runs from the dossier, after pointing out that it wasn't used to start the FBI investigation (thank goodness that got cleared up!). I would have given the Schiff memo points for addressing the Nunes memo had it done what you just did.

It may have been. Or it may have been part of it. Until we see the warrant I'm not sure we can know for sure. Was the first rejected warrant prior to Page's 2016 visit to Moscow? If so, presumably this visit may have contributed to the success of the subsequent warrant.


Indeed. The first warrant may have been turned down because it was seeking to surveil more people, including Trump. The second application sought only to surveil Page, Manafort and Stone.


Some links to Page interviews (he really is like nails on a chalkboard):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU1AmWFIpqU
(see his answer at the 10:00min mark re the question of whether he had ever received a cease and desist letter)
(questions about his July 2016 trip to Russia from 12:00mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBq_ZLsok-8
(see awkward answers around 6-9min mark to questions about meeting with Kislyak at the Cleveland convention (which he earlier said to Anderson Copper was less than 10 seconds "hello" - here he says it was an off the record meeting but can't recall who invited him to that meeting))

and there are many more painful interviews...


Yes that is rather odd. I continue to maintain any wrongdoing by the FBI with respect to the Clinton investigation should be investigated. I would say though, if there was a conspiracy to protect Clinton, then Comey's public statements about the re-opening of the investigation due to the Weiner laptop issue was a strange way to try to get Clinton elected. That one thing could have tipped the election against her.

Checking up on this. Is the denial of the initial FISA warrant on Page really a fact? This seems important as far as determining the role of the dossier and the Yahoo article in all of this, and yet this was never mentioned in the Nunes memo. It's odd Nunes wouldn't use this if it were true.

The Nunes memo implied that the entire premise of the FISA warrant was the dossier. This was patently not true and that was part of the Schiff memo's rebuttal. I don't understand how you're saying that is a fault with the Schiff memo.

My defense is merely that (as Slowguy also said), there was clearly some information in the dossier that worried the FBI and similarly the court. Whether or not the information was 100% factual (we don't know), the FBI and the court both deemed it to be credible enough and worrisome enough, that the warrant was granted.

I'm not sure - I read something here about a prior FISA application being turned down, but only that it "reportedly" happened. Agree it's odd that Nunes' memo didn't refer to it, unless it didn't fit the narrative for some reason?

The exact wording was "formed an essential part of the Page FISA warrant application".

ok. The Schiff memo rebutted that. Until we see the details of the FISA warrant we won't know. And even if it was essential, it doesn't mean the system is corrupt. Is anyone standing here and saying Carter Page should be under no suspicion whatsoever and it's outrageous the FBI wanted a FISA warrant on him (well, apart from efernand)?

No, it didn't. The standards for opening an FBI investigation barely exist (link). The standards for opening a FISA warrant are supposedly very strict. Saying you started an FBI investigation doesn't mean squat.



It's difficult to make this corruption claim without knowing what types of people do and do not receive FISA warrants to be spied upon. We've got no idea what the typical evidence load looks like. I would think a lot of people could look very suspicious. What about all the people giving Hillary Clinton millions of dollars to her "foundation"? (Maybe the Americans dealing with these foreign donors have FISA warrants out for them as well. Like I said, I don't know.)

Are you saying you believe the FBI often opens frivolous investigations?

The FISA application requires a test of reasonable suspicion, but not to the level of "beyond a reasonable doubt" as required to secure a criminal conviction. I would think the body of suspcious evidence against Carter Page would have been sufficient under this test for the court (and apparently the court agreed).

I'm saying that the FBI opens many, many investigations where the existing evidence load would never rise to the level required to obtain a FISA warrant.


The Nunes memo isn't disputing this. I'm not disputing this. Is anybody disputing this?

Right, but that still doesn't mean the FBI didn't have sufficient cause for the Sept 2016 FISA warrant request without the dossier. For one, Carter Page's trip to Moscow in July 2016 may have given such cause, or his meeting with Kislyak at the RNC in Cleveland...