Two of the FBI’s four applications for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on a Trump campaign adviser lacked probable cause and should not have been issued in the first place.
That’s the stunning admission by the Justice Department, contained in a recent court filing with the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington.
What’s more, the FBI made “material misstatements and omissions” in those two warrant applications, according to the Justice Department, and the agency isn’t using information from any of the four warrants now.
Before dissecting how we got here, it’s important to note that this forthright admission by the Justice Department cuts against the story concocted by the Democrats about the legal merits of the Russia investigation.
In a 2018 memo titled “Correcting the Record: The Russia Investigation” and sent to all House members when Democrats were in the minority, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asserted: “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”
But they did.
Turns out the FBI and Justice Department did abuse the FISA process, omit material information, and subvert justice, and the DOJ now has admitted it.