Even FBI Scamming FISA

During much od\f the time span between Trump's Inauguration on January of 2017, key law enforcement leaders have insisted they were not wrong in pursuing counterintelligence surveillance warrants targeting the Trump campaign begining during the 2016 election. They have elaborated, that if mistakes were made, they were unintentional process errors not an effort to deceive the judges. Many of these errors were blatant falsehoods "accidentally and incidentally" backed by the unverifiable "Russia Dossier". But in an easily-overlooked paragraph in a recent edict, U.S. District Judge James A. Boasberg, the new chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), targeted and spotlighted the excuses and blame-shifting of these senior Obama administration FBI and DOJ officials. In a mere 21 words, Judge Boasberg provided the first salvo in his judicial declaration blasting the FBI for misleading the court, not just with technical process errors. Boasberg wrote, "There is thus little doubt that the government breached its duty of candor to the Court with respect to those applications". The no-fault mantra has been repeated by everyone from President Trump's former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who insisted the DOJ took its responsibility to submit "admissible evidence, credible witnesses" very seriously, to the ex-FBI Director James F.E. Comey, who declared in recent days that it was "nonsense" to suggest the F.B.I. opened a probe without good cause. A few of these defenses — including a notation about repairing process suggested by current F.B.I. chief Christopher Wray — have persisted even after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a damning report in December of 2019 spoting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page as being shot-through-and-through with mistakes, including 17 examples of misconduct, misinformation or outright falsehoods. Judge Boasberg made headlines in early March for an order that suspended all FBI and DOJ lawyers involved in the Russia collusion case from appearing before his court until it is determined whether they engaged in misconduct. Now that the FISA Court knows which ones are responsible, perhaps a selected nun will spank their hands, ha ha. Of far greater long-term significance was hthe judge's language putting responsibility for FISA abuses squarely on senior officials, like Comey and McCabe instead only lower-level agents and lawyers who filled out the warrant applications. Judge Boasberg wrote, "The frequency and seriousness of these errors in a case that, given its sensitive nature, had an unusually high level of review at both DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have called into question the reliability of the information proffered in other FBI applications". To paraphrase, the judge is concerned that the bad conduct of the FBI may taint other cases affecting others' civil liberties. Judge Boasberg placed F.B.I. chief Christopher on notice while praising him noting that process fixes alone won't suffice. He wrote,"The errors the OIG pointed out cannot be solved through procedures alone ,DOJ and the FBI, including all personnel involved in the FISA process, must fully understand and embrace the heightened duties of probity and transparency that apply in ex parte proceedings." Indeed, Judge Boasberg's ruling was far more than a temporary suspension of FBI personnel's participation in the FISA court. It is the first and only judicial finding in the Russia hoax case that the FBI greatly misled America's intelligence court and that blame must be taken up by federal law enforcement's top leaders, even though many of them have spent most of the last three years trying to dodge and escape accountability. All those including Judicial Watch - who have pleaded with the FISA court for years to aggressively rebuke the conduct in the Russia case, Boasberg's ruling was a welcome forward progressional move and a first effort to put a long awaited end to the endless excuse-making. Naturally critics are expecting more consequances, including prosecutions or disciplinary action. Meanwhile, those who led the FBI and DOJ through that tempest tossed period of deception — James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as well as former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Rosenstein — must accept this new reality. They are "shaking in their boots that the proverbian nun with a ruler will humiliate them like shcool children for their misdeeds in fooling the FISA court with lies. A judge has made it official and formally concluded that his court was misled by the applicationa Comey and McCabe oversaw and signed.