Posted on 05/23/2019 1:08:12 PM PDT by Mount Athos
A former top lawyer for the FBI described to lawmakers the unusual way the surveillance request targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page was handled by top leadership at the Justice Department and FBI, according to a transcript released this week.
In front of a joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Aug. 31, 2018, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson said she was normally responsible for signing off on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications before they reached the desk of her superiors for approval. Anderson said the linear path those applications typically take was upended in October 2016, with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates signing off on the application before she did. Because of that unusual high-level involvement, she didnt see the need to second guess the FISA application.
The Page FISA application was filed by the Justice Department and FBI with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in October 2016. A surveillance warrant was granted and three renewals were subsequently approved. The FISA application relied heavily on unverified research in British ex-spy Christopher Steele's dossier on President Trump's ties to Russia, which was compiled through his employment with opposition research firm Fusion GPS with funding from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm.
Anderson said all FISAs need to be signed off on in the FBIs National Security Law Branch, where she was assigned at the time. Anderson said she was the Senior Executive Service approver for the initiation of the Page FISA, including determining whether there is legal sufficiency.
But Anderson stressed in this particular case, I'm drawing a distinction because my boss and my boss boss had already reviewed and approved this application. She emphasized this one was handled a little bit differently in that sense, in that it received very high-level review and approvals informal, oral approvals before it ever came to me for signature.
Anderson said that FISA approvals are typically tracked in a linear fashion and that someone in the Senior Executive Service is the final approver on hard copy before a FISA goes to the director or deputy director for signature. She said the Page FISA was approved outside regular procedures.
"Because there were very high-level discussions that occurred about the FISA," Anderson said she believed that meant the FISA essentially had already been well-vetted all the way up through at least the Deputy Director [McCabe] level on our side and through the DAG [Yates] on the DOJ side. Yates had already signed the application by the time it made it to Andersons desk.
The publicly available Page FISA documents show then-FBI Director James Comey also signed off on it.
Because the FISA application had already been approved at such high levels, Anderson said she did not look at the Page FISA application with much skepticism. I wouldn't view it as my role to second-guess that substantive approval that had already been given by the Deputy Director [McCabe] and by the Deputy Attorney General [Yates] in this particular instance," she said.
Asked why this FISA application was different, Anderson said she believed the sensitivity level of this particular FISA resulted in lots of very high-level attention both within the FBI and DOJ.
The General Counsel [Jim Baker] personally reviewed and made edits to the FISA, for example, Anderson said. The Deputy Director was involved in reviewing the FISA line by line. The Deputy Attorney General over on the DOJ side of the street was similarly involved, as I understood, reviewing the FISA application line by line.
Baker recently defended the FBIs handling of the FISA process, saying we took [the dossier] seriously but we didnt necessarily take it literally and did not treat it as literally true in every respect. Baker also said, I am not going to go into details with respect to what investigative steps we actually took to try to validate it. Former FBI Director James Comey still referred to the dossier as salacious and unverified even in 2017.
Anderson stressed that McCabe, Yates, and Baker all played key roles in reviewing the Page FISA. My approval at that point was really purely administrative in nature. In other words, the substantive issues the FISA had already substantively been approved by people much higher than me in the chain of command," Anderson said.
Anderson said it typically would not have been the case that people such as McCabe and Yates would sign off on a FISA application before she did.
"That part of it was unusual, and so I didn't consider my review at that point in the process to be substantive in nature," Anderson said. "In other words, there were smart lawyers, high-level people on both sides of the street who had reviewed and signed off on the application, the details of the application. And so I was simply signaling, yes, this package is ready to go forward."
Anderson said the seal of approval from such high-ranking FBI and DOJ officials meant that her signature on the FISA application was mostly perfunctory.
Anderson cast doubt on whether Comey would usually read a full FISA application, considering he could receive more than a dozen in a given day. And so, yes, the director or deputy director, if he signs the FISA, you know, relies on others, Anderson said.
Even in normal circumstances, Anderson said she likely would not read the full FISA application before signing off on it unless there were an issue that was identified by the cover note," due to time constraints.
Anderson admitted she did not read the Page FISA the day that she signed off on it but noted shed read it at some earlier point in time.
The FBIs handling of the Steele dossier has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks, and there are at least three federal investigations into alleged FISA abuse and other matters related to the way the FBI and DOJ conducted the Trump-Russia investigation.
I just looked up the word ‘fraudulent’ in my dictionary.
“Unusual” was NOT listed as a synonym.
Come on.....it’s ALL part of the SCAM INVESTIGATION!!! Carter PAGE IS A SPY!
If it goes over our head as this did, I don’t think many people would have questioned it.
It rests on the people who did approve it.
I hope they get what they deserve.
It’s been under scrutiny since we knew about it several years ago. They just want it to seem like it was just uncovered. That’s a bald faced lie, and they’re trying to pass it off.
Carter Page is a douche bag puppet of the Deep State wing of the FBI who is STILL PRETENDING he was set up. Carter is a LIAR who sold his soul to the Deep State so he could feel important as a secret agent man. Camera whore Carter is a sell-out and a loser who belongs in prison.
Before the inauguration in Jan. 2017, some people began to see what the O administration was doing, but they were not in power yet, while those in charge in O’s doj/state/intel, either because of treason in some cases, or stupidity/laziness in others, were not doing their jobs. And after the inauguration it has been excruciatingly slow because of Bush, Clinton, and O holdovers.
Thanks for the mention.
I haven’t followed all of it closely.
Having followed other things like Foster’s Death, I gave up trying to learn the detail only to be shot down by bureaucrats.
What a crock!
She is attempting to justify rubber stamping the warrant by arguing that it had already received enough scrutiny from higher-ups!
But that is like saying a lead detective shouldnt bother investigating or studying the forensic evidence in a murder, if the Mayor and District Attorney have already decided whos guilty.
I sure hope the Republicans on the committee didnt let her get away with this bald-faced lie.
Even if he deserves to rot in jail, Id rather see him skate if it means going after the big fish.
I dont expect Obama or Clinton to serve time - but I do expect history to record their shameful acts.
If Richard Nixon can be publicly shamed for all time for whatever he was supposed to have done, Ill be damned if Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton will be glorified as saints after what they have done, just because they are Democrats.
If I were just perfunctory, you'd only be required to stamp it or check a box. Sigs are required where accountability is critical, such as where the rights of others are at stake. If your superiors' signatures aren't enough to make it legal by themselves, then their sigs should not be enough to persuade you to blindly sign off.
If this were truly unusual, who among us would not be more curious than "usual"- and given the sensitivity and timing, who among us would not be more acutely aware of the need to be very careful about covering all the bases before signing anything "unusual?"
Either it wasn't unusual due to poor management and she did it out of habit ... Or it was unusual, and she decided her allegiance was to her superiors instead of doing her job as a public servant with an eye out for the rights of the citizen ... either way she should expect to be held accountable.
Some “top lawyer.”
IOW - they told her to sign the damn thing but don't bother varifying the legality....
“What an unlucky guy.”
I, for one, don’t buy his innocent babe-in-the-woods behavior. I think he was in deep, knew exactly what waas going on, and was a willing participant.
Amen! X 2.
Although I do expect Obama and Clinton to serve time and/or be executed for treason. If they don’t, we have no country.
The more of this crap I hear about, the more angry I get when Hannity spews his 99.9% of the FBI are honorable people. They aren’t. One of them gave him his cute little 50-cent lapel pin, and that’s all it took to get him to tell that particular lie every day of the week.
Although I do expect Obama and Clinton to serve time and/or be executed for treason. If they dont, we have no country.
The angry part of me really wants that, but I believe President Trump and AG Barr will handle this in a different way.
They will lay all the facts bare and heap shame upon Obama and his minions for everything they did. They will call it exactly what it was; gross abuse of executive powers and agencies, conspiracy to commit election tampering and treason. But they will stop short of sentencing, even issuing pardons if necessary, and let the voters decide which political party they trust going forward.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates signing off on the application before she did. Because of that unusual high-level involvement, she didnt see the need to second guess the FISA application.
I think it was either:
“Hey, what are you two up to?” “We’re trying to frame the President.” “Really? Awesome. Do you want some help?”
OR
“Hey, what are you two up to?” “Mind your business”. “Ok”
I think it’s the former.
p
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