[Redstate] Last week, it was reported that Admiral Mike Rogers, who served as Director of the National Security Agency under President Obama, has been cooperating with U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal inquiry into the origins of the Trump/Russia collusion investigation. This was big news for two reasons.I wrote about the first reason in a recent post, in which I called Rogers the "Unsung Hero." He was one of the few Obama administration officials who actually had integrity, a man who noticed that something was amiss and acted. It was this man who traveled to Trump Tower on November 17, 2016, to brief then-President-elect Donald Trump that communications from the building were being tapped. He did not notify his superior, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, beforehand.
Later that day, the Trump transition team announced they were moving their operations to a new location in New Jersey. Within days, the Washington Post reported that "James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter had recommended the removal of Mike Rogers from his NSA position." Rogers was not fired, for obvious reasons.
The second reason predates the FBI’s application to the FISA Court for a warrant to spy on Carter Page by a couple of years, but in light of IG Horowitz’s report, this story becomes even more relevant. Rogers discovered that American citizens were being spied upon and drew attention to the abuse of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the Obama administration. According to former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova, Section 702 allows the government to essentially weaponize the NSA’s ability to collect data and surveil private U.S. citizens.
Used as intended, it has been a useful law enforcement tool. Abused as it had been by Obama administration officials up until Rogers’ discovery in 2014, it became a weapon. DiGenova said, "For more than four years before the election of Donald Trump, there was an illegal spying operation going on by FBI [private] contractors ‐ four of them ‐ to steal personal information, electronic information about Americans and to use it against the Republican Party."
In a Christmas Eve interview with WMAL radio station (audio below), diGenova explains how the FBI’s efforts to cover up the 702 spying brought us "Crossfire Hurricane." Rogers discovered it and reported it to the FISA Court and said "she" stopped it (I assume "she" refers to FISC Judge Rosemary Collyer). DiGenova says it led to the "crescendo of activity by Comey, Clapper, and Brennan. It led to the so-called Crossfire Hurricane investigation to cover-up the previous spying that had been going on."