[National Review] They took extraordinary measures in a shaky case involving Trump but refused to help FBI investigations involving Hillary and the DNC.In the heat of the fall campaign, the commentariat got its knickers twisted over Donald Trump’s vow that, if elected, he’d have his Justice Department appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, his political rival.
How remarkable, then, that the media is so indifferent to the revelation that, at the very same time, the Obama Justice Department was actively conducting an investigation of Trump. As I recounted in Wednesday’s column, the FBI reportedly had suspicions that Trump, or at least members of his "team," might be violating financial and banking laws. Upon poking around, the Bureau determined there was no "nefarious purpose" in the connection of a server in Trump Tower to at least one bank.
Yet the case was not dropped upon the finding of no criminality. Instead, apparently because the bank or banks involved were Russian, the matter was pursued as a national-security investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Indeed, the investigation may well be ongoing. Reporting indicates that surveillance warrants were sought from the FISA court in June and October 2016. The first one is said to have "named" Trump himself (we don’t know if that means the government was targeting Trump for surveillance, or if his name was merely mentioned in the FISA application). That application was apparently so lacking that the FISA court refused to authorize it, even though that court is generally quite accommodating of government requests to conduct secret searches and eavesdropping. The court is reported to have granted a narrower application in October -- one that appears not to have named Trump. The court’s proceedings are secret, so this reporting cannot be confirmed.
Perhaps someday Star Chamber proceedings will be opened to public scrutiny.