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It Gets Worse
[Powerline] Our former FBI agent reader writes to take issue with Byron York’s assertion that the FBI wiretapped Carter Page in 2013. He says it’s much worse than that and that this is almost certainly what happened:

Back in 2013 the FBI was listening to its standard, ongoing, FISA coverage of all things Russian. They were NOT investigating or wiretapping Page. The FBI was investigating and wiretapping Russians. It had no idea who Page was. By listening to Russians, however, the FBI discovered that Page was in touch with Russians.

What they would have done next is standard operation procedure in the counterintelligence world: they did some background on Page, contacted him, and got him to cooperate against those Russians. Anyone who read the court filing in the resulting case‐including the Russians‐would have had no trouble figuring out that Page had been cooperating with the FBI.

The likelihood that the Russians almost certainly knew all this‐and we know they characterized Page as an "idiot"‐makes the notion that all of a sudden in 2016 they were using Page as some sort of master spy even more absurd than it already was on its face.

Bear in mind, the FBI can’t get a FISA warrant on a US Person just for talking to Russians. They have to show probable cause that the US Person is engaged in "clandestine intelligence activity" (i.e., real "spy stuff") on behalf of the Russians. That’s not something that can ordinarily be established by a phone conversation or two since, by the very nature of the thing, "clandestine intelligence activity" is kept ... clandestine.

Color me skeptical in the extreme that anything of the sort was presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. So I’d say there’s probable cause to believe that we haven’t heard the last of this, and it’s not going to get better.

Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal article that includes a link to the complaint in the case against the Russians, the case in which Carter Page was caught up: "Former Trump Aide Carter Page Was on U.S. Counterintelligence Radar Before Russia Dossier." I’m not the only one thinking along these lines. Bill Jacobson is spot on at Legal Insurrection:

Carter Page Was The Excuse, Not The Reason.
More at the link.
Posted by: Deacon Blues 2018-02-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=507397