Shocking Illegality of FBI’s
Warrant To Spy on Carter Page

by Bruce Director

[Print version of this editorial]

July 22—A heavily redacted version of the FBI’s request for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Carter Page, was released July 21, confirming what had already been widely reported, that the FBI’s sole pretext for initiating surveillance of Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign, was British intelligence’s infamous Steele dossier, which was paid for by Trump’s Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton.

The gravamen of the scandal—that the Obama FBI and Justice Department would take action against their political opponents on behalf of a foreign power (Britain)—had already been presented in the House Intelligence Committee’s report earlier this year. Nevertheless, the FISA warrant application, when viewed in the context of the DOJ Inspector General’s report, and the insane backlash against President Trump’s summit with President Putin, lays bare for the American people to see, exactly how corrupt, Obama, Comey, Strzok, McCabe, et al., are.

The application states categorically that Page was a knowing agent of Russia seeking to influence politics in America. The sole basis for the allegation cited in the application is the Steele dossier and news reports based on leaks of the Steele dossier by Christopher Steele himself. Though the FBI knew that the dossier was paid for by the Clinton campaign, it told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) only that there was “speculation” that the funders of the report were seeking to gather dirt on a campaign.

Of particular note is the “evidence” of Russian interference in U.S. politics cited on page 21 of the application: that Trump’s campaign “worked behind the scenes to make sure Political Party #1 platform would not call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Political Party #1’s foreign policy leaders in Washington.” Also cited are news articles criticizing Trump for taking a “milder” tone regarding Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea.

Using a political debate about the platform of a political party to justify the intervention of the national security apparatus of the government to control that debate, is as egregious a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as can be found.

Furthermore, the London/Obama Ukraine operation was at the center of the British Empire’s strategy to weaken Russia, provoke confrontation, and prevent cooperation between the United States and Russia—now being pursued by Trump, with much opposition from Britain and its operatives in the United States. The central role this played in the FISA warrant application shows that this wasn’t a matter of “partisan” politics, but of grand strategy.

President Trump addressed this in several tweets this morning: “Source #1 was the (Fake) Dossier. Yes, the Dirty Dossier, paid for by Democrats as a hit piece against Trump, and looking for information that could discredit Candidate #1 Trump. Carter Page was just the foot to surveil the Trump campaign. . . . ILLEGAL!”

And again: “This is so bad that they should be looking at the judges who signed off on this stuff, not just the people who gave it. It is so bad it screams out at you. On the whole FISA scam which led to the rigged Mueller Witch Hunt!”

His third tweet was: “Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton on being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents. As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of ‘Justice’ and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!”

And finally, “I had a GREAT meeting with Putin and the Fake News used every bit of their energy to try and disparage it. So bad for our country!”