AG Bill Barr Wants FISA Reauthorized Without Reforms

Kelleigh Nelson

Under the president’s spying program, there are no checks and balances. There is no outside review of the legality of this brazen infringement on the civil rights and liberties of the American people. Undeterred by the public outcry, the president [George Bush] vows to continue spying on American citizens. —Justice Samuel Alito

No system of mass surveillance has existed in any society, that we know of to this point, that has not been abused. —Edward Snowden

Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide, is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say. —Edward Snowden

The “dossier” compiled by Christopher Steele, on behalf of the Democrat National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign, formed an essential part of the Carter Page Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, which never existed. Russian ties are all on the democrat side.

Hillary and the DNC hired a foreign spy to concoct the fake dossier on candidate Trump. They gave that fake dossier to the Obama DOJ and FBI, and they knew the dossier was fake and politically motivated, but that didn’t stop them.

Barack Obama’s former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, used the FISA court search warrants as a lay up for Robert Mueller’s investigation, in effect a bureaucratic coup d’etat to take Trump down.

They presented the fake dossier to the FISA court to get a wiretap on candidate Trump. The DOJ and FBI didn’t tell the FISA court the dossier was fake and from Trump’s campaign opponent. The court was defrauded into ordering wiretapping of the Trump campaign, and worse yet, they don’t seem to care.

Hillary and Russia

Talk about a suck up to communist Russia for money…Bill Clinton made $500,000 for a speech sponsored by a Russian bank involved with Uranium One. Hillary paid for a dossier that came from Russians to try and win an election and pushed U.S. companies to participate in Russia’s weapons stealing “Skolkovo Project.” The Clinton Foundation received more than $150 million while she was in office, and she signed off on Russia’s acquisition of 20% of America’s uranium assets.

This project was a 2010 program headed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to help Moscow develop a “Russian Silicon Valley.” It may instead have drawn some of America’s biggest tech companies into “industrial espionage” – even advancing the country’s military and spying operations, according to a new report by Clinton critic Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute, one of the finest investigative journalists in America. “There are serious national security questions that have been raised,” the report said.

There was an abuse of the powerful tools of intelligence used to spy on people. FISA is supposed to be used on terrorists, business records and wiretaps on targets who frequently change their phone numbers, but was used against an opposition candidate, and a president-elect, and his entire team. It was done not only under false pretenses, but with the help of Hillary Clinton. They used Carter Page as a pretext to spy on everyone in the Trump campaign. The dossier was filled with Russian lies, propaganda, and salacious details that were never true.

And that dossier was corroborated, we now know, by a long-time Clinton ally and sycophant in the highest ranks of the DOJ, in the FBI. Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, top counsel to former Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe were at the nexus of everything. Despite no longer having their jobs, they are free, and Strzok is even suing the FBI to get his job back.

FISA Court Investigation

The FISA court justices themselves need to be investigated for choosing Obama lawyer David Kristo oversee FISA reform oversight. The FISA Court selected the longtime defender of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation to be its adviser in overseeing the FBI’s implementation of reforms following the Justice Department’s watchdog report on FISA.

Congressman Devin Nunes told Fox News contributor Sara Carter, “It’s a ridiculous choice. The FBI lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and to help make sure that doesn’t happen again, the FISC chose an FBI apologist who denied and defended those lies. The FISC is setting its own credibility on fire.”

James Boasberg, the presiding judge over the FISC, appointed Kris to serve as the court’s amicus curiae — a position which is supposed to provide impartial advice to the court. Nunes said, “The court must be trying to abolish itself … He picks one of the guys who was essentially covering up for the dirty cops.”

FBI Agent Stephen Somma

Agent Somma has been identified and faulted for some of the most significant problems laid out in the Justice Department’s inspector general report on FISA abuse against a Trump campaign associate. He has been singled out in the report as being “primarily responsible for some of the most significant errors and omissions in the FISA applications.”

Somma was involved in multiple aspects of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. According to the IG report, he was the FBI agent who initially sought a surveillance warrant against Carter Page. Somma pushed for a FISA warrant “almost immediately” after the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, the IG said.

Presentation of any such unverified material to the FISA court to justify a wiretap would appear to violate crucial procedural rules, called “Woods Procedures,” designed to protect U.S. citizens. Every single person who signed FISA warrants hated Trump. Comey allegedly signed three of the FISA applications on behalf of the FBI. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly signed one and former Attorney General Sally Yates, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein each reportedly signed one or more. Link

The DOJ watchdog found 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the FBI’s applications to the FISA court to wiretap Page, who was under suspicion of being an agent for Russia. He was never charged with any wrongdoing.

IG Horowitz showed that Somma omitted significant information provided by confidential human source Stefan Halper — known as “Source 2” in the report. Halper met with and recorded Page in October 2016, before the FBI filed its first FISA application.

Halper graduated from Stanford in 1967 and earned a PhD from Oxford in 1971. He worked for three Republican administrations, Richard Nixon’s, Gerald Ford’s, and Ronald Reagan’s and was once married to the daughter of the CIAs director of intelligence, Ray Cline. Halper’s family ties to the agency won him a leadership position in a dirty trick’s operation targeting a presidential campaign. (The Plot Against the President by Lee Smith)

Barr Wants FISA Reauthorization

AG Barr has spent most of his time taking control of anti-trust probes into big tech companies rather than getting to the bottom of the rot and corruption within the entire intelligence community. He recently took the unprecedented step of requiring any future investigation of a presidential campaign to get approval from him and the director of the FBI. Trouble is, neither William Barr nor Christopher Wray seem trustworthy.

The AG wants a clean FISA reauthorization because he says he will not abuse it, and can make his own changes to suit President Trump.Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell agree with him. Really? No changes? What about the next administration?

Graham said that Barr promised to internally clean up the mess that happened in 2016. We should all feel so assured now, especially since Barr dropped the probe into Hillary, Comey and McCabe.

Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham sound like they’re big fans of status quo, letting the Deep State roll with political corruption and they’ll take everyone’s word for the fact that it won’t happen again.

The FBI lied to the FISA court 17 times, mislead the court 17 times and spied on a fellow American citizen. Yet, Barr is agreeing that the ability to spy on Americans is beneficial to the safety of Americans. Apparently, he likes Brennan’s secret surveillance system. McConnell says these tools have been overwhelmingly useful according to our “intelligence advisors” and that when the Senate deals with these expiring provisions that they’ll continue to have them in law.

Senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul have spared with Barr who told Senator Lee his criticisms of surveillance laws are dangerous. Senator Paul said American citizens should not be subject to secret FISA courts.

The greatest affront to Bill Barr is not the corruption in the entire intelligence community resulting in the greatest political scandal in our history. No, the great affront to Barr seems to be none other than his own boss, the President, and he made sure mainstream media heard his complaints.

Documented FISA Abuse

Inspector General Horowitz documented an appalling abuse of FISA in his 434-page report exposing the many ways the FBI had manipulated the court in order to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. Horowitz made it clear that reform is needed.

The Democrats want to ignore the report that exposed their collusion narrative and was promoted and accepted by the rogue FBI. Adam Schiff and Gerald Nadler don’t even want to acknowledge the Horowitz report. The intel community hasn’t held a single hearing on this huge scandal. Republicans want a panel of outsiders to critique FISA applications, whereas the democrats would leave it as is and have even rejected penalties against those who willfully or recklessly mislead the court. Political abuses of surveillance will not be reined in by the Democrats.

Barr believes the three expiring provisions need to remain as they were enacted after 9/11 as he says they would prevent future attacks. This does nothing to stop the use and abuse of FISA for political gain.

Senator Paul was at the White House on March 3^rd, and the President made it abundantly clear to him that he will NOT accept a clean reauthorization of the Patriot Act without significant FISA reform.

Necessary Reforms

Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-OH) believe reforms are absolutely necessary. Jordan asked, “Why would every Republican not consider that these courts were a political weapon in the hands of the Deep State and the radical Democrats who control the House?” This is why they want it reauthorized as is, so they’re not disarmed.

Republicans started the markup on FISA on February 26^th. Jordan believes the House Republican Congress is strongly in favor of reforms to the court. He said, “If the process is abused, there must be penalties for the FBI personnel who bring the FISA warrant. There also has to be some mechanism in place so that there is an advocate there for the individual who is the target of the FISA warrant. We think that’s just fundamental, so we can’t just reauthorize this, we have to make some changes.”

The House Judiciary Committee has some amendments to the FISA court they believe will accomplish a citizen advocate, with penalties in place. There are a number of senators who understand that it cannot simply reauthorize the FISA. The FISA court does some very legitimate things, but we need the reforms and changes in place that protect fundamental liberties and what happened to the president.

There is a total whitewash across the spectrum, whether it’s the FISA courts or the FBI personnel involved. People previously involved cannot apply for FISA warrants now, but that’s not good enough. If you make a false statement on a FISA application, you should be prosecuted for perjury as that’s the only way to ensure the integrity of the process. A FISA application doesn’t get reviewed by anyone, there’s no defense lawyer, and prosecutors have a bias. What Comey and his gang of rogue FBI agents did was completely undermine the credibility of FISA. And once again I have to ask why there are no charges against Hillary, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohrs, etc.

President Trump has made it clear he does not want any future president to go through what he has been through because of the abuse of the FISA court.

Giuliani Wants Hearings

Three elements of the FISA law are going to sunset on March 15^th, 2020.We have a House and Senate that after watching what that court, and the FBI and the Justice Department did to the President of the United States, are still willing to reauthorize it without reform.

Rudy Giuliani says there should be a hearing about the FISA abuses so that Congress knows the kind of reforms that are necessary. The Hillary Clinton case was a complete fix. “All the people you could have used were given complete immunity and the prosecution never tried to ‘turn’ them on her, but with the so-called ‘investigation’ with Trump, nearly every witness was punished in one way or another. Weissman tortured Manafort, kept him in solitary confinement for months in order to turn him, but it never happened.”

Sidney Powell is fighting to prove Lt. General Michael T. Flynn never lied to the FBI agents who set him up, and neither did he ever lie to Vice President Pence.

Roger Stone was set up by an Obama judge who allegedly allowed a jury filled with Democrat Trump haters to be seated and disallowed a venue change. Judge Amy Berman Jackson is herself a Democrat Obama appointee.

Conclusion

Emmet Flood was the interim White House Counsel after Don McGahn left. What he said last spring in his letter to the Attorney General is pertinent. “Remember this, if they can do it to a President of the United States, imagine what they can do to you and I. That’s the fundamental issue. This double standard where there’s one set of rules when your name is McCabe, Comey, Strzok or Page, or Hillary Clinton, (just to name a few) but a different set of rules for us regular Americans, cannot stand. This is the first real opportunity we have to fundamentally change things and protect basic liberty. That’s what we’ve got to make sure happens.”

And yet, Barr wants FISA reauthorized in full.

E-Mail Kelleigh Nelson: proverbs133@bellsouth.net