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| Home Front: Politix |
| The story (On the Obammer FISA Warrant) so far |
| 2017-03-05 |
| An explication of the nothingburger that is the FISA wiretap case In the run-up to the election Louise Mensch and others broke the story that the Obama Justice Department and federal law enforcement authorities had obtained a Trump-related FISA warrant in October following the denial of an earlier FISA warrant request the previous June. On its way out the door the Obama administration trashed the “minimization” procedures protecting the privacy of American citizens caught in the FISA net. Andrew McCarthy raised a red flag in the troubling NRO column “FISA and the Trump team.” Earlier this week the New York Times reported the involvement of Obama administration officials in disseminating the information obtained along the way. Breibart has posted a useful timeline with links, as has the Conservative Tree House site. In his NRO column today, Andrew McCarthy provides this summary of events to date as part of his inquiry into the “recusal” of Attorney General Sessions from something or other this week. Here is an excerpt: While the commentariat was rending its garments over the mere prospect that Trump might have his political adversary, Hillary Clinton, investigated if he won the election, Obama was actually having Trump investigated. To rehearse briefly, in the weeks prior to June 2016, the FBI did a preliminary investigation, apparently based on concerns about a server at Trump Tower that allegedly had some connection to Russian financial institutions. Even if there were such a connection, it is not a crime to do business with Russian banks — lots of Americans do. It should come as no surprise, then, that the FBI found no impropriety and did not proceed with a criminal investigation. What is surprising, though, is that the case was not closed down. Instead, the Obama Justice Department decided to pursue the matter as a national-security investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In June, it sought the FISA court’s permission to conduct surveillance on a number of Trump associates — and perhaps even Trump himself. It has been reported that Trump was “named” in the application, but it is not publicly known whether he (a) was named as a proposed wiretap target, or (b) was just mentioned in passing in the application. Understand the significance of this: Only the Justice Department litigates before the FISA court; this was not some rogue investigators; this was a high level of Obama’s Justice Department — the same institution that, at that very moment, was whitewashing the Clinton e-mail scandal. And when Justice seeks FISA surveillance authority, it is essentially telling that court that there is probable cause to believe that the targets have acted as agents of a foreign power — that’s the only basis for getting a FISA warrant. In this instance, the FISA court apparently found the Obama Justice Department’s presentation to be so weak that it refused to authorize the surveillance. That is telling, because the FISA court is generally very accommodating of government surveillance requests. Unwilling to take no for an answer, the Obama Justice Department came back to the FISA court in October — i.e., in the stretch run of the presidential campaign. According to various reports (and mind you, FISA applications are classified, so the leaks are illegal), the October application was much narrower than the earlier one and did not mention Donald Trump. The FISA Court granted this application, and for all we know the investigation is continuing. There are two significant takeaways from this. First, a FISA national-security investigation is not a criminal investigation. It is not a probe to uncover criminal activity; it is a classified effort to discover what a potentially hostile foreign government may be up to on American soil. It does not get an assigned prosecutor because the purpose is not to prove anything publicly in court — indeed, it is a major no-no for the Justice Department to use its FISA authority pretextually, for the real purpose of trying to build a criminal investigation. More at the link |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #26 Comey needs to be removed. |
| Posted by: Eohippus Cheamp5121 2017-03-05 21:24 |
| #25 Don't tell me....it happened, but he couldn't prove 'intent'. Have we been down this road before? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-03-05 18:36 |
| #24 Oh Fuuuuudge....: Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claim |
| Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 2017-03-05 17:41 |
| #23 I will be most upset. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-03-05 16:30 |
| #22 Oh trust me on this one Vlad would play those cards in a heart beat if it would result in less hostility between us and Russia. I really don't think Vlad wants another Cold War. I think the empty suit administration wanted it for the graft they could generate on contracts for weapons systems. I also think they decided to use this on Trump when it wasn't working on Vlad. If Trump does get a full blown investigation, a LOT of people will go to jail, Clapper, Rhoades, Lynch, ValJar, and most of the democratic leadership. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2017-03-05 15:59 |
| #21 I would dearly love to see the bank records from the 1970s of top radical groups and operatives, including John Kerry and Obammer's former terrorist buddy. I'm sure Vlad has them - you might not like his price. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-03-05 14:33 |
| #20 @#19: Yup...winner take all. |
| Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 2017-03-05 14:29 |
| #19 Former DNI Clapper said today there was no FISA national-security investigation. And further, if there had been one "at that level" he would have known about it. Something big is gonna give on this one way or the other. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2017-03-05 14:18 |
| #18 Remember this?: Bill Clinton’s Tarmac Visit With Loretta Lynch Is Looming Larger and Larger |
| Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 2017-03-05 14:13 |
| #17 Who would investigate? An Obama appointee? |
| Posted by: jvalentour 2017-03-05 12:38 |
| #16 The Donks are calling for an investigation of Russia connections. Let's do have a "real" investigation and get to the bottom of this. I have a feeling it would end up driving a stake in the black hearts of the Donks. I would dearly love to see the bank records from the 1970s of top radical groups and operatives, including John Kerry and Obammer's former terrorist buddy. |
| Posted by: badanov 2017-03-05 11:17 |
| #15 The Donks are calling for an investigation of Russia connections. Let's do have a "real" investigation and get to the bottom of this. I have a feeling it would end up driving a stake in the black hearts of the Donks. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-03-05 10:00 |
| #14 A timeline. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-03-05 09:30 |
| #13 #3 I read somewhere that Hilary's IT guy was going to be indicted, maybe that's the diversion. But things have clearly gotten out of hand. |
| Posted by: jvalentour 2017-03-05 07:39 |
| #12 Pity the poor Russians. They get all the blame but none of the benefit for their alleged nefarious deeds. Pity the poor Russians. They had to make the hard choice between somebody who, at least promises, to restore their old enemy the USA and a demented witch who was bound to start WWIII. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-03-05 03:43 |
| #11 Remember when Obumba was elected, I advised everyone in the 'burg to read Milovan Djilases "The New Class"? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-03-05 03:40 |
| #10 Final para of Wesley Pruden 'Wash Times' editorial from yesterday's Burg: The Democrats call their scorched-earth attacks on the new president “the resistance.” But it is accurately described as “an insurrection.” They’re determined to destroy a duly elected president of the United States, by resignation or impeachment if they can, and if that doesn’t work, maybe something more sinister will be employed. We’ve never before seen anything like this. We’re sailing in uncharted water. Link |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-05 02:12 |
| #9 Well, it is pretty much out in the open that Obastard is running the process out of his fancy Kalorama digs according to the NYT which said the goal was to impeach or force the resignation of Trump before the next election cycle. The fact that this clear definition of what the defeated party is doing is not being blasted over the air ways in red letters ten feet high is enough for me. This is a dangerous slippery slope for the donks and if they are not careful and don't watch their 6 this entire thing can and will blow sky high and it will expose the duplicity of the media and the democrats in how they view government and elections...as if the corruption of the last regime wasn't enough. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2017-03-05 01:34 |
| #8 Certainly may answer the question about General Mike Flynn's conversations being discovered and monitored. Obama held no friendship for either Putin or Trump. Both men had similar views on Obama. The 'evil Russian hacker' theme appears to be a sort of Foggy Bottom manufactured honey trap or fishing expedition, with FISA being a tool of discovery. Marching as many Trump people past the Russians as possible, then publicizing it, appears to be the objective. Enter the one time, aspiring fiction writer Ben Rhodes: Wiki bio: In a controversial profile in the New York Times Magazine, Rhodes was quoted "deriding the D.C. press corps and boasting of how he created an 'echo chamber' to market the administration's foreign policy," including the international nuclear agreement with Iran. Emphasis added. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-05 01:14 |
| #7 Pity the poor Russians. They get all the blame but none of the benefit for their alleged nefarious deeds. |
| Posted by: badanov 2017-03-05 01:10 |
| #6 The Nixon Watergate Scandal also involved monitoring political opponents. The term Watergate, by metonymy, has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included such "dirty tricks" as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides also ordered investigations of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Watergate Wikipedia.org The possible use of the NSA to illegally monitor many others domestically and internationally is what Obama may be trying to cover up. This may be the tip of the iceberg. |
| Posted by: Ebbitle Omererong4352 2017-03-05 01:00 |
| #5 This is all a simple understanding! They (the Democrats) just wanted to know how to properly and securely configure an email server.... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2017-03-05 00:59 |
| #4 #3 The entire effort is a diversion. What are they (the Obama Shadow Gov't) attempting to mask, to hide? Posted by: Besoeker Foolish over reach by an arrogant administration. Rhodes is arrogant. Looked a little further into the FISA court numbers... During the Obama administration out of 7,876 FISA request that only 3 requests were denied and 1 of these was a request to wire tap the Trump campaign. What were they doing - tapping an active campaign? |
| Posted by: Tennessee 2017-03-05 00:45 |
| #3 The entire effort is a diversion. What are they (the Obama Shadow Gov't) attempting to mask, to hide ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-05 00:40 |
| #2 Wiretapping is the surreptitious electronic monitoring of telephone, telegraph, cellular, fax or Internet-based communications. Wiretapping is achieved either through the placement of a monitoring device informally known as a bug on the wire in question or through built-in mechanisms in other communication technologies. Enforcement officials may tap into either for live monitoring or recording. Packet sniffers -- programs used to capture data being transmitted on a network – are a commonly-used modern-day wiretapping tool. A variety of other tools, such as wiretap Trojans, are used for different applications. whatis.techtarget.com Trump organization most likely have IT people who setup and maintain on site email, web and telecommunications servers and equipment and do not use third party hosting and email services. If someone is trying to gain access to voice and electronic data, they will have to monitor traffic to and from the firewall at Trump Tower. It would be difficult to get past a good firewall, unless they were able to get a Trojan piece of software behind the firewall, and have it send out hard drive data to a listening IP address that belonged to the regime. This is probably why they went to FISA. The firewall was successful causing some desperation as Trump gained a lead on Hildabeast and the only way to monitor anything for hopefully some dirt was through FISA. They took the risk and expect Hillary to be caught up in this. |
| Posted by: Gleretle Splat8314 2017-03-05 00:31 |
| #1 The fact that the June FISA request was denied is significant and under reported. Check this out - out "Over the entire 33-year period, the FISA court granted 33,942 warrants, with only 12 denials – a rejection rate of 0.03 percent of the total requests." This is a scandal. |
| Posted by: Tennessee 2017-03-05 00:30 |