The long anticipated–and by many feared–release of the House Intelligence Committee majority’s letter on the origins of the Carter Page FISA warrant came out today. From the pre-release wailing, rending of garments, and gnashing of teeth over the grave threat that it posed to national security, one would have thought it would have contained nuclear launch codes and shocking revelations about Area 51. In fact, it was anticlimactic, and demonstrated what any sentient being should have been able to figure out: that the FBI and DOJ relied upon the dodgy, fundamentally tainted Fusion GPS/Steele/DNC dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Page–and hence on others in the Trump campaign.
Anticlimactic, but damning and disgusting nonetheless. Particularly given the revelation that Andrew McCabe, erstwhile deputy director of the FBI, admitted under oath that but for the dossier, the FISA warrant would never have been sought in the first place. It was clearly pivotal, despite all of the desperate attempts in the media and among Congressional Democrats over the last few days to insinuate that Page had long been on counterintelligence radar. (This actually cuts the other way–if the pre-dossier evidence against him was so strong, why wasn’t he under surveillance until after the dossier was obtained?)
The essence of the memo (just described) doesn’t really require much discussion. Those facts speak for themselves. A few details do deserve some comment.
One is the use of a tactic that I have mentioned as being characteristic of KGB methods (though they are no doubt a staple of all intelligence services): planting “information” in a media source as a way of laundering it, enhancing its credibility, and getting it into circulation. The typical use of this technique is to get the planted information (or disinformation) into the media foodchain so that it gets disseminated more widely. Here the use of the technique was far more sinister. It was recycled through a friendly journalist (Michael Isikoff) who was then cited as corroboration in the FISA application.
The memo leaves some wiggle room for the FBI and DOJ to claim that they didn’t know that Steele had approached Isikoff, but this requires them to claim that they can’t add 2 and 2: once they read the Isikoff article, knowing what Steele had told them they had to have known that Steele was the source. (Steele apparently tried to craft a cover story by pointing the FBI to a report containing similar information prepared by Clinton crony Cody Shearer–thereby providing a possible alternative source for the Isikoff story.) Furthermore, within a few weeks the FBI learned that Steele was talking to journalists, and they fired him–yet they did not inform the FISA court about that their initial application was tainted in their applications for renewal. (I further note that since the FBI fired him–that means they hired him!)
And the renewals brings up another issue: one of the signatures on at least one renewal was Rod Rosenstein’s. You know, the guy who appointed Mueller and who is overseeing the independent counsel investigation for DOJ because of Session’s recusal. What the holy F? Rosenstein’s involvement in the FISA process, which is deeply embedded in the Russia investigation, means that he is conflicted as hell. He should have had nothing whatsoever to do with the appointment of the Special Counsel, and nothing to do now with overseeing him. This is particularly true since Rosenstein’s knowledge must have included the fact that the original warrant was the fruit of a poisoned tree, and that he failed to disclose that to the FISA court.
James Comey’s fingerprints are all over this as well. I can’t wait to hear his deep exegesis on the ethics of swearing to a court about the veracity of “salacious, unverified” (his words!) info produced by a rabid partisan and paid for by a presidential campaign to get a warrant to spy on Americans. And to the ethics of withholding material information from the FISA court.
This last is particularly and disgustingly ironic given that one of the FBI’s objections to the release of the memo was that it omitted relevant facts. I can’t imagine what omitted fact would reverse the conclusions that flow from those that are included. Putting that aside, the FBI’s objections give a new meaning to chutzpah.
The pre-release shrieking about the memo was beyond hysterical. Among the most hysterical claims (made by Leon Panetta and others) was that a release of the memo would unleash a Constitutional crisis.
Just how would the Chief Executive’s declassification of a document about the actions of parts of the executive branch constitute a Constitutional crisis? The President holds ultimate classification authority, and is responsible for the execution of the laws and the conduct of executive branch departments, agencies, and employees. Disclosing information about the misbehavior of executive branch officials does not represent a Constitutional crisis: if anything, it is the misbehavior of those officials during a presidential election that raise the issue of such a crisis.
Some of the reporting and commentary on this issue has been utterly incredible (in many senses of the word). For example, Trump overruled current-FBI director Wray’s objection to releasing the memo. The WaPo framed this as “Trump defies Wray.” Um, who the hell works for whom? If there is defiance going on, it is Wray’s going public with his objections to the actions of his Constitutional superior. Wray should have raised his objections in private to Trump, and if overruled (as he was, in the event), kept his mouth shut in public, or resigned–and then kept his mouth shut. To lobby publicly (and disingenuously, by raising national security concerns) in an attempt to pressure his superior into doing something is beyond the pale.
Or should be, anyways. But one thing that this entire sordid episode has demonstrated is that the bureaucracy generally, and the intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies in particular, consider themselves an independent power, a co-equal–superior actually–branch of government, the Constitution be damned. Trump is deemed the usurper. Indeed, it is clear that many senior members of the FBI, DOJ, and the intelligence community considered it their right to intervene in the election in order to prevent Trump’s election, and failing that, to kneecap his presidency. And virtually all of the political class in the US is on their side. This is the real Constitutional crisis.
You should view this as a Constitutional danger regardless of your partisan leanings. For ask yourself: would you like the same to be done to your guy (or gal)?
It is also disgustingly ironic that in a fervid controversy about the alleged intervention of the Russian siloviki into an American election reveals that high-ranking American officials in control of the vast powers of US law enforcement and intelligence used siloviki methods (including most likely disinformation planted by Russian siloviki!–you can’t make this up!) in an attempt to influence an American election and then to cripple the winner of that election when their original plotting failed
Indeed, the Russian siloviki have it going for them that they aren’t nauseatingly sanctimonious about their skullduggery–refreshingly cynical is more their style. James Comey and others cannot say the same.
And if you think the siloviki analogy is overwrought, consider the not-so-veiled threats expressed on the pages of the WaPo and NYT and by politicians and political pilot fish (e.g., Ben Rhodes) about how dangerous it is to confront the FBI. Further proof that this rogue influence must be tamed.
Trump showed stones in confronting the FBI and the political class. But perhaps this just demonstrates that he has a strong survival instinct. He knows that he is in a knife fight for his political life–and perhaps his freedom and fortune–and it seems that he has decided that compromise is impossible so escalation is necessary.
This is not the end. This is at most the end of a beginning. For the acknowledgement that the FBI and DOJ–and the Obama administration–used under false pretenses a dossier paid for by a political campaign and assembled by rabid partisans to obtain permission to spy on an American just raises other questions. Who other than Page was spied on? Were their names unmasked? What use was made of the information obtained from the Page surveillance? By whom?
Given the Herculean effort required to get the memo released, I doubt that these questions will be answered, and if they are answered, it will only happen in after a political brawl that makes the fight of the last few weeks look like childs’ play. The siloviki and their political handmaidens play rough, and play for keeps.