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Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) just made the significance of the FISA memo that was released Friday crystal clear, and it only took him about one minute. The Florida congressman told Fox News’ Harris Faulkner that he’s been “waiting a long time to stitch together” this “fact pattern.”

This is, of course, somewhat common fare by this point in the arc of Trump's presidency. Faced this week with storylines he doesn't like -- questions about the Niger attack, controversy over a phone call he placed to the widow of one of the soldiers lost in that attack, Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Capitol Hill facing questions about Russian meddling in the election -- he aims to change the subject via his Twitter feed. And he often does so by lobbing out a conspiracy theory with only the loosest ties to the factual world.

Only hours after Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a previously-classified memo alleging “abuses” in the FBI’s use of government surveillance, FBI Director Chris Wray sent an internal video to employees of his agency, telling them that, “Talk is cheap,” and, “The work you do is what will endure. "I wanted to take a moment to reach out in person, given all that's been going on as of late,” Wray said in the video message, described to ABC News by one FBI official." “You've all been through a lot in the past nine months, and I know it's often...

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff had a very different message for Russians in 2013 than he has for Americans today.Then, he was advocating for more transparency when it came to the U.S. government spying on Americans and foreigners.Today, not so much.During a 2013 appearance on RT, which is controlled by the Russian government, Schiff said we wanted more transparency, which RT characterized as efforts to “inject more oversight into the NSA’s surveillance programs and the top secret FISA court.”The RT anchor introduced Schiff as “one of those members of Congress leading the effort.”In July 2013, Schiff told the...

President Trump’s explosive allegation that former president Barack Obama wiretapped him is based on — what? We’re still waiting for the evidence. In the meantime, Trump earns Four Pinocchios

The memo is as troubling as expected, here’s a disturbing summary.

A FISA court judge has grounds to hold Department of Justice officials including Bruce Ohr in contempt of court for making misrepresentations about the sources of information used to obtain a surveillance warrant against a Trump associate, a former judge and Republican congressman said.

The Democratic Party, mainstream media, and thousands of political operatives in our federal government have spent the past year-plus sabotaging the peaceful transfer of power. They seek to undermine our republic by replacing our elective process with a permanent bureaucracy of elitists controlled by Democrats, regardless of whom we elect. This is the government Patrick Henry feared, and James Madison tried to prevent. "Federal employees worried that President Donald Trump will gut their agencies are creating new email addresses, signing up for encrypted messaging apps and looking for other, protected ways to push back against the new administration’s agenda," Politico...

… To spy on Americans through a FISA court, the FBI must show the target is an “agent of a foreign power,” not merely in contact with a foreign power. (That spy would be Carter Page. - poster) There is a key distinction being overlooked, perhaps conflated, by many who are reviewing the recently released HPSCI memo as it relates to the outlined targeting of U.S. individual Carter Page. In the HPSCI outline it specifically notes the targeting of U.S. individual Carter Page was NOT a FISA Title VII search request. Title VII is FISA(702), the incidental collection of U.S....

Democrats have staged a series of “media stunts” to prevent the public learning how FBI and Justice Department officials used Democratic-funded rumors to justify federal surveillance of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, says a press statement from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The HPSCI statement says the top Democrat on the intelligence oversight committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, and his allies tried to block, hide and stifle the revelations of improper 2016 surveillance by the FBI and the Department of Justice: •HPSCI Ranking Member [Rep.] Adam Schiff has been a ceaseless opponent of the Committee’s attempts to collect and share...

The Democrats and the media spent a week lying to the American people about the “memo.” The memo was full of "classified information" and releasing” it would expose “our spying methods." By “our,” they didn’t mean American spying methods. They meant Obama’s spying methods. A former White House Ethics Lawyer claimed that the Nunes memo would undermine "national security." On MSNBC, Senator Chris Van Hollen threatened that if the memo is released, the FBI and DOJ “will refuse to share information with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees." Senator Cory Booker howled that releasing the memo was "treasonous" and might...

We The People led by our courageous President Donald Trump have achieved a giant step forward against the Deep State. I am sure they are in silent shock among themselves, but soon they will stir with their excuses, but there are none. Meanwhile, the memos written By James Comey are secretly lying in the shadows. Literally, they are lies, and they need to be exposed. “As it prevails here, the Comey Memos, at least for now, will remain in the hands of the Special Counsel and not the public,” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said Friday in a...

(1) This shows me that the Nunes FISA memo is strategic distraction. Trump expected to release Nunes memo without redactions, White House says Trump will declassify the controversial four-page memo that reportedly details surveillance abuses by the Department of Justice and FBI, and... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-expected-to-release-nunes-memo-without-redactions-white-house-says/article/2647799?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20News%20Alert&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20News%20Alert%20-%2002/01/18&utm_medium=email (2) Here's what was said earlier. (3) And THIS was said. (4) These reports all contradict each other. THAT means that Nunes's memo is NOT the real story. (5) The memo was written by Republicans. AND it's a summary. So it has no real weight. (6) Why all the hype? To distract. (7) What are they...

TEL AVIV — A four-page House Intelligence Committee memo alleging abuse of surveillance authority raises immediate questions about the decision by former FBI Director James Comey to brief Donald Trump and then-President Barack Obama on the contents of the infamous, largely discredited 35-page anti-Trump dossier. The memo relates that in early January 2017, prior to Trump’s inauguration, Comey briefed then President-Elect Trump and Obama on the dossier even though months later Comey would label the dossier as containing “salacious and unverified” material. Critically, the memo relates that, after dossier author Christopher Steele was terminated months earlier as an FBI source,...

The memo appears to confirm suspicions that a FISA court warrant targeted Carter Page based on information in the dossier funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign. What we have long suspected (see, e.g., here and here) has now been confirmed: The Obama Justice Department and the FBI used the unverified Steele dossier to convince a federal court to issue a warrant authorizing surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser. Confirmation came in the much-anticipated memorandum released today by the Republican-controlled House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The memo states that the Obama administration concealed from the court that the dossier was commissioned...

If anyone knows how to get the essence of an issue into 280 characters or less, it’s James Woods. America continues to process Friday’s release of the Nunes memo, a document that shows FISA warrants were obtained to spy on individuals associated with the Trump campaign based on – not hard evidence – but the now discredited Steele opposition research dossier, which was essentially a campaign smear piece authorized and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. And yet, Democrats continue to pretend that Russians are a “threat to our Democracy.” As usual, the conservative actor...

Synopsis: Well the FISA memo is out and he desperate Dems are howling at the moon that this is a shameful attempt to undercut the Mueller investigation just when he’s on the verge of slamming the cuffs on President Trump. I mean, there are actually people in this country who believe this. And among the international audience who relies more on the MSM and less on us, probably the majority still thinks Mueller is about to indict the President. But Mueller, himself, knows the curtain has come down on his moment of glory. Why? Because he’s had to postpone sentencing...

And here are some salient points: * DOJ and FBI failed to mention in their FISA application that it was based on opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, even though this apparently was known to the FBI. The application apparently tried to mislead the FISA court by saying that Steele “was working for a named U.S. person”–the memo doesn’t tell us who that person was–but not disclosing Fusion GPS or Glenn Simpson, let alone Hillary Clinton and the DNC. This appears to be a deliberate deception of the court The memo leaves much unsaid. The...

We told you so! Mueller's toast. Nunes is a hero and Trump . . . well, he's a genius. What a grand day for liberty-loving patriots and a dour day for the fetid and olid Deep State. Bwahahahahaha! The Nunes FISA memo release accuses senior officials at the DOJ of inappropriately using biased opposition research into then-candidate Trump to obtain surveillance warrants on transition team members as part of the federal investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia, ZeroHedge reports. According to the document, information from the the so-called Steele dossier was "essential" to the acquisition of surveillance warrants on...

On the same day the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released the Nunes memo showing the FBI relied on the salacious and unverified Trump dossier to obtain a surveillance warrant on Carter Page, a federal judge ruled to withhold the Comey memos. The memos, authored by former FBI Director James Comey, are about his nine private conversations with President-elect and President Trump. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ruled in favor of the FBI’s request to keep the Comey memos secret, also sits on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The FISA Court is the same court that approved the...