The Department of Justice has admitted that it lacked sufficient evidence in two of the four FISA applications to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
With the news on the illegality behind the FISA warrants dropping the same day as the impeachment hearing, I guarantee you there will be a swift acquittal, and shortly there after, indictments are coming, and the foreign governments who spied on us will be held accountable.
— George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) January 23, 2020
This proves what Republicans have been saying for years: There was no legal basis for spying on Carter Page during the 2016 election.
— Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) January 23, 2020
Congress must investigate the origins of this surveillance abuse and reform FISA to protect law abiding citizens.https://t.co/U0lauaZS8y
From the Wall Street Journal:
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department now believes it should have discontinued its secret surveillance of one-time Trump campaign adviser Carter Page far earlier than it did, according to a new court filing unsealed Thursday.
The Justice Department made that determination in a December letter to the secret court that oversees surveillance of suspected foreign spies, acknowledging it may have lacked probable cause to continue wiretapping in the last two of the four surveillance applications it sought against Mr. Page.
The government began the surveillance in late 2016, after he left the Trump campaign, and continued monitoring him until late 2017—ultimately obtaining a warrant and three subsequent renewals. The last two applications were submitted in April and June of 2017. It now has concluded there was “insufficient predication to establish probable cause” in the last two renewals, which authorized about six months of surveillance on the former adviser.
Probable cause is the legal standard to obtain a secret warrant against suspected agents of a foreign power from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret judicial panel that approves such warrants.
- Dr E
