The President has finally declassified the House Intelligence Committee Report of FISA Abuses. This report, as short as it is, speaks volumes as to the inherent corruption within our own government. The memo is only 4 pages in length and details the misconstruing of fact in order to obtain a FISA warrant against Carter Page through the use of the ex-British spy Christopher Steele’s DNC purchased dossier on supposed Trump / Russian collusion. The memo validates what we already knew, the dossier is completely unverified and for all intents a virtual work of fiction.
The memo that was released by the government is both damning and vague. It verifies several things that most of us already basically believed. First it admits that the FBI and Justice Department either knew or should have known that it was a worthless compilation of lies and baseless accusations. Not only that, but it unequivocally states, “Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.”
To make matters worse is that fact that the justice department and FBI were either aware or should have been aware that the dossier was purchased by the DNC and Hillary campaign and that it was completely unsubstantiated at the time the warrants were requested. In order to validate the report, the FBI used a Yahoo news story which apparently validated the information in the report. Unfortunately for the FBI, that article was based upon an interview with the dossier author himself. Thus, you have the FBI validating the authenticity of the dossier with an article written from the mouth of Steele himself. This is what I would call circular validation.
In all, this memo should raise quite a few concerns for all Americans, no matter what side of the political aisle you are on. From my perspective it seems that the dossier was the entire basis of the investigation into the Trump administration. Added to this is the obvious disgust towards President Trump that key leaders inside the investigation held.
I understand that everyone will have biases and it is virtually impossible to find investigators within the government who would be completely without their own prejudices, but when you have Steele telling Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr that he, “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” yet none of this bias is expressed to the court when validating the dossier there are very clear questions as to the loyalty of those individuals. To be clear, when I say loyalty, I am referring to their loyalty to the protecting the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
With all of this being stated, the release of this memo is incomplete at best. It would appear that there were abuses of power. The problem is that this memo does not go into enough detail in this regard. It only touches upon the FISA warrants obtained against Carter Page. Alone this memo is a very damning piece of evidence against clear political influences with the DOJ and FBI. I am certain that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Of course, the Democrats quickly attacked the release of the memo. Representative Charlie Dent tweeted, “As I have publicly stated on several occasions, it’s a mistake to release this memo. No Members of Congress-nor their staff-should risk divulging sensitive sources/methods of Intelligence for partisan gain. This sets a dangerous precedent that may have far reaching implications.” Fortunately for Dent, full honesty is never a requirement for public office.
I am not sure that he read the memo as I did, but what I am one hundred percent certain of is that there was no sensitive methodology divulged. I believe that the dangerous precedent that he actually refers to is the transparency of corruption that has now been brought to light. Senator Mark Warner wrote, “The Senate Intelligence Committee will continue our bipartisan investigation into what happened in the 2016 election and the dedicated men and women of the FBI continue to have my full support.”
As with the previous tweet, this one also reeks of partial truths. If he were really dedicated to an open and honest investigation then part of that would include answer questions as to the democratic party’s involvement in purchasing the dossier and demanding answers into the numerous questions that the recently released memo brings up.
However, the tweet of the day would have to be the one from disgraced ex-director of the FBI, James Comey. The day before the release of the declassified memo Comey tweeted, “All should appreciate the FBI speaking up. I wish more of our leaders would. But take heart: American history shows that, in the long run, weasels and liars never hold the field, so long as good people stand up. Not a lot of schools or streets named for Joe McCarthy.”
Really, that is the statement you want to give?
Comey is responsible for the questions that we have both about Clinton and Trump. He failed in an epic manner to instill a sense of integrity into his organization and it was under his leadership that the reputation of the FBI has been so severely tarnished. He was clearly promoted past his capabilities. It was due to his mismanagement that there are so many questions as to whether or not Clinton should have been charged for multiple crimes. Likewise, it was his subordinates who apparently misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) into obtaining warrants against the members of the Trump team.
With that being said, he now wants to step in and speak about weasels and liars? Mr. Comey is one of the weakest and pathetically inept leaders the FBI has ever seen. His lack of oversight (hopefully lack and not willful action) has done great damage to the entire system of law enforcement at the Federal level.
However, maybe there is a silver lining to this after all. It is about time that the government start coming clean to their employers, the American people. Maybe Comey, for all of his maladroitness, did us a favor by putting into motion this whole affair. I believe that we are at a point now where it is going to be very difficult for people to go back and cover up their actions. In this regard I am in full support of the democrats coming out with their own memo expressing where the republicans fell short in their analysis. I hope that this starts an avalanche of information for us to review.
It has been generations since we have had a government that was actually accountable for any action. I am timidly hopeful that the partisan politics will for once lead to a benefit for all of us. Maybe in their attempt to blame the other side or prove one party guilty will lead to the unabashed truth being revealed. Maybe then Trump will actually be able to fulfill the most important of all his campaign promises and drain the swamp.
Of course, it really is us who will be responsible for this happening through using the constitutional power of our votes. If that day ever does come, I will still happily give him the credit.
