The FISC was deceived in six material ways:
Judges were not told that Clinton’s campaign and the DNC had paid for the information used in the warrant application;
Judges were not told that the FBI’s source, Steele, had lied;
Judges were not told that Steele had a known bias against Trump;
Judges were not told that the FBI’s evidence was unverified;
Judges were not told of exculpatory evidence suggesting the innocence of Page; and
Judges were not told that the wife of a senior DOJ official had cultivated some of the Clinton-funded opposition research used by the FBI.
Those deceptions remained largely hidden until July 21, 2018, when the Justice Department, under pressure, released 412 pages of heavily redacted documents that had been used by the FBI and DOJ to gain warrants to spy on Page both before and after the 2016 presidential election.64 The first application was signed by FBI director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. They vouched for the veracity of their representations to the court, the authenticity of the documents cited, and the credibility of their sources. Comey and Yates swore under penalty of perjury that their information was “true and correct” and that they were adhering strictly to the requirements of the FISA law.65 Believing that the FBI director and the deputy attorney general were being honest and forthright, a FISC judge issued the first warrant on October 21, 2016, to wiretap Page and gain access to his electronic communications. They included texts and emails that Page exchanged with members of the Trump team during the campaign and afterward. When he sought the warrant, Comey’s FBI was still desperate to confirm the allegations in Steele’s “dossier.” But under FISA and FBI regulations, confirmation or corroboration was required before the warrant was sought, not after. That the FBI did not do, rendering its warrant application defective and its actions lawless, if not criminal.
In 2003, new rules were instituted by the FBI called the “Woods Procedures,” named for the top FBI official who created them.66 They were written to ensure that false evidence could not be used to gain a warrant to surveil. Verification was the necessary predicate. No application could be sought unless a source was credible and the FBI independently corroborated the information he or she provided. Those meticulously detailed procedures were established under the leadership of none other than Robert Mueller, who was the director of the FBI at the time. He had been forced to appear before the FISC in 2002 because the FBI had been caught frequently employing false information to conduct surveillance.67 Inaccurate applications had reportedly been filed in more than seventy-five FISA cases, which represents an astonishing level of corruption and abuse of power. In essence, the Bureau had been lying to the judges and cheating on the rules. Mueller promised comprehensive reform with a new set of procedures to be scrupulously followed. They were not, at least in the case of Carter Page.
The “Woods Procedures” are memorialized in the FBI’s stringent set of internal rules called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG), which every FBI agent and official must rigorously follow. The relevant passage reads as follows:
The accuracy of information contained within FISA applications is of utmost importance. Only documented and verified information may be used to support FBI applications to the court.68
The operative phrase is “Only documented and verified information may be used.” What does it mean? The DIOG offers comprehensive instructions to insure that all applications presented to the court are “thoroughly vetted and confirmed.”69 It is not enough to simply rely on a “source” who passes along information. The information itself must be vetted.70 This is where the FBI and DOJ were derelict. Before seeking a warrant, they were warned that Steele was a compromised and dubious source who was politically biased against Trump and his campaign. Indeed, he was fired by the FBI for leaking and lying about it.71 This made him unreliable and his information inherently suspect. Moreover, Steele was not even a “source” in the true sense. He witnessed nothing. Instead, he “purveyed” hearsay information from supposed sources that were anonymous.72 He was nothing more than a conduit. An analogy can be made to computer science and the concept of “garbage in, garbage out.” If a “source” conveys garbage information to the FBI, the Bureau is not allowed to simply repeat that garbage to the FISA court to obtain a warrant to surveil someone. If it does, the result is a “garbage” warrant that was unlawfully secured. The FBI has a duty to investigate and corroborate the information to determine that it is not “garbage” before submitting it to a judge.
Nonetheless, the politically motivated opposition research financed by the Clinton campaign and the DNC that the FBI relied on for the Page surveillance was not verified when Comey and Yates signed their application insisting that it had been verified. Nowhere in the warrant materials is there an indication that the FBI had vetted or confirmed anything.73 Comey all but admitted to that when he testified publicly in June 2017.74 When he testified privately, he was reportedly even more candid, confessing “that the FBI had not corroborated much of the Steele dossier before it was submitted as evidence.”75 Six months later, when Trump fired him, Comey conceded that it was still not verified. His deputy, Andrew McCabe, made the same concession to Congress when questioned.76
Although many sections were blacked out, it is abundantly clear that the first application was drawn almost exclusively from the “dossier.” Absent Steele’s document, there was little or no evidence to justify a warrant to spy. That was confirmed by McCabe when he testified “that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steel dossier.”77 The Senate Judiciary Committee, which had previously reviewed the FISA application, also concluded that the “dossier” had comprised the “bulk” of the FBI’s request for a warrant.78 Democrats such as Representative Adam Schiff insisted that that was completely wrong. He wasn’t alone. On a tour to hawk his book and profit from his own misconduct, Comey claimed that there had been a “broader mosaic of facts” other than the “dossier” that was used for the warrant.79 That turned out to be completely untrue. Once the FISA application was made public, there it was in black and white.
Page after page of the application repeated Steele’s allegations against the Trump campaign and Carter Page. It was nearly identical to what the ex-spy had written in his specious document: that is, that Page had met secretly during his Moscow lecture with Sechin and Divyekin and that lifting sanctions had been discussed in exchange for helping Trump get elected. The FBI knew that Page had denied that those meetings ever took place, and the Bureau had developed no evidence to the contrary. The FBI leadership didn’t care.
Worse, Comey pretended that the news report by Isikoff had been independent corroboration of the “dossier.” The application he signed had cited the Yahoo! News story as validating information extracted from a source that was separate from Steele. It was not. Isikoff admitted that Steele had been his source, and the ex-spy confirmed the same. So the FISA application had only one source, not two. The FBI knew that because Isikoff’s attribution made it obvious where he had gained his information: from Steele. Equally troubling is how the FBI was willing to rely significantly on an anonymously sourced news story as a justification for violating an American’s Fourth Amendment rights.
In all four of the FISA applications to spy on Page, the FBI and DOJ represented to the FISC that Isikoff’s story was a secondary and autonomous confirmation of the evidence derived from Steele’s “dossier” and that the ex-spy had not been the reporter’s direct source. Look closely at what the FBI told the court:
The FBI does not believe that Source #1 [Steele] directly provided this information to the identified news organization that published the September 23rd News Article.80
At roughly the same time the FBI first made this false representation to the FISC in October 2016, Bureau agents learned that Steele had, in fact, been talking to the media and sharing his “dossier” with them in direct violation of their r
ules and agreement with him. He had then lied about it to the FBI. Under its strict policy, the agency was forced to fire him. It couldn’t be swept under the rug. Too many people, especially journalists, knew that Steele was sedulously feeding his document to the media, and that was obvious from the reporting. Yet Comey and Yates did not alert the FISA court that Isikoff’s story should no longer be considered independent corroboration of Steele. Over the course of three remaining warrant applications, the FBI maintained its deception to the judges. Comey, Yates, and others involved in the application had a legal obligation to correct the record. They did not. Instead, they perpetuated the falsehood to keep their surveillance of Page going.
The FBI’s misconduct got worse. As it knew that Steele had been lying, he was no longer a reliable and credible source. That did not deter either the FBI or the DOJ, although it should have. Instead of fully telling the FISC the truth about Steele’s leaks and lies, the government kept covering it up and advising the court that Steele was “credible” when he was not. The initial application assured the FISC that the FBI knew of no “derogatory information pertaining to [Steele].”81 That was untrue. Later applications admitted that the ex-spy had leaked information to the media, but the FBI kept insisting that he was still “credible.”82 At no point was the FISC told that the Bureau’s main—and only—source had blatantly lied. Importantly, Steele’s credibility should not have been the focus at all. He had assembled the information in his “dossier” based on multiple hearsays from anonymous sources. Therefore, “it is their reliability the FBI should swear to, not Steele’s. [author’s italics]”83
Comey’s FBI neglected to advise the court that Page had once assisted the Bureau and the CIA in its 2015 prosecution of Russians who had tried to recruit Page years before he joined the Trump campaign. The application omitted this critical information and the fact that Page had not been charged. He had instead served as a cooperating witness who was instrumental in helping the government succeed in achieving convictions that brought down a spy ring.84
All of that was important exculpatory information that the FBI and the DOJ had a legal obligation to disclose to the FISA judges. They were duty bound to inform the court. Before petitioning the FISC, the FBI was required to exhaust all “normal investigative techniques.”85 That would include talking to Page, who had asked Comey for an interview. In retrospect, it seems evident that Comey wasn’t concerned about Page as an American with constitutional rights. He was a useful tool who would become collateral damage.
Hiding the “Dossier’s” Sketchy Origins and Connections with the Clinton Campaign
One of the most egregious defects in the Comey-Yates FISA application was how the FBI and the DOJ deliberately hid from the court the origins of their so-called evidence. As we now know, it was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The FBI knew it, but the judges did not. Comey and Yates camouflaged the fact that the “dossier” was a shady political document and the malignant forces that commissioned it. Cryptic references were buried in two of the application’s footnotes that intentionally disguised specific names and identities.86 Steele’s partisan funding by Clinton and the DNC should have been clearly and deliberately highlighted for the court. Assuming the judges even read the veiled details in footnote 8, for example, they would have had to be telepathic to comprehend that it was Clinton and Democrats who were financing an attack on her rival’s campaign and that the whole thing had been conjured up by a former British spy who was either inventing anti-Trump and anti-Page material or relying on Russian hearsay or disinformation, or both.87 The court was being “played.”
There was no valid reason for obscuring that vital information. The FISC operates in secret, with no opposing side present. Why not name names? Why shroud identities—unless, of course, doing so would diminish the chances of the court’s approving the wiretap? The political motivations and funding were crucial and indispensable facts. The judges deserved to be given a clear and honest version of how the evidence had been obtained. Had they been told the undissembled truth, the judges would have instantly recognized that it was nothing more than a “hit job” by a political opponent and that the FBI/DOJ was aiding and abetting the effort. The wiretap warrant would surely have been rejected.
Those machinations underscore just how sneaky and misleading government officials like Comey were in their misrepresentations to the court. Comey and Yates knew they could mask the truth and get away with it, given how often the FISC had approved their paper submissions. Clearly, the Clinton campaign and Democrats were the driving force behind the “dossier” that was used by Comey’s FBI to spy on her political opponent and investigate the Trump campaign. Yet the director appears to have covered up the FBI’s interactions with Steele. After investigating the matter, the Senate Judiciary Committee accused Comey of having provided it with an account that was “inconsistent with information contained in FISA applications.”88 No surprise there, considering Comey’s well-documented history of evasions and obfuscations.89
The FBI’s most unconscionable and self-incriminating act was its attempt to bribe Steele to substantiate his phony “dossier.” In early October, Steele’s FBI handler met with him in Rome and offered $50,000 if the ex-spy could somehow produce evidence that verified his hearsay allegations.90 That was astonishing on two levels. First, it establishes persuasive evidence that the FBI had no confidence whatsoever in the flimsy document and knew that it could never be relied on to pursue its improbable conspiracy theory. Second, the FBI was so desperate to implicate the Trump campaign in Russian “collusion” that it was willing to buy proof of it. Though it is true that the government will compensate informants, Steele had already been on the FBI payroll for many months. He was also being paid by the Clinton campaign and the DNC for the same work. That tantalizing $50K “bonus” created the inevitable risk that Steele would compose additional fiction to pocket even more cash. The money was reportedly never paid because Steele couldn’t possibly corroborate his fabrications and/or Russian disinformation.
At that point, the FBI should have fed the “dossier” into the nearest shredder. But it didn’t. Why? Michael Doran, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense and senior director of the National Security Council, penned a lengthy story for National Review, explaining it this way:
Because without Carter Page who appeared in the Steele dossier—without the Marvel Comics villain, there existed no credible intelligence pointing to a criminal conspiracy between Trump and Putin. If the investigation was to be sufficiently broad to dig up dirt on Trump, it had to include the fanciful allegations against Page. These, however, were impossible to corroborate—because they were fictive.91
A mere nine days before the FBI and the DOJ applied for their surveillance warrant to spy, internal text messages obtained by Fox News show that the two agencies were bickering over the “potential bias of a source pivotal to the application,” likely Steele.92 The same texts suggest that John Brennan’s CIA was involved. Though a Justice Department lawyer was reticent about the warrant, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe at the FBI were determined to gain court approval to spy, regardless of whether they had probable cause to do so. Reporting by Fox’s Catherine Herridge and Gregg Re revealed that McCabe and Page were circulating anti-Trump blog stories, including one by a Comey friend, that averred that the GOP presidential nominee was “among the major threats to the security of the country.”93 Their bias was laid bare in other texts disparaging a prominent Republican lawmaker, Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who was delving into the FBI’s incomprehensible decision to clear Clinton of mishandling classified documents in her email case.94
The dearth of plausible evidence did not dissuade the FBI from appropriating Steele’s cooked-up novel as it moved forward. Evidence was concealed, and the judges on the FISC were deceived. The FISA warrant was secured. Spying on Carter Page began, and a backdoor entry into Trump campaign electronic communications and documents was o
pened. Nothing of value was ever found. In its applications to spy, the FBI had declared with confidence that “Carter Page is an agent of Russia.”95 He was no such thing. The FBI well knew it. Comey’s true target in his counterintelligence operation was not Page, but Trump.
Comey and Yates signed the first two applications to surveil in October and January 2017. Comey and Acting Attorney General Dana Boente signed the third application in April. Deputy FBI director (and temporarily acting FBI director) Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein signed the last renewal in June 2017. Rosenstein’s decision to sign the final FISA application was, as before, based on unverified information. This is especially troubling, given what he later said at a forum in Washington:
A FISA application is actually a warrant, just like a search warrant. In order to get a FISA warrant, you need an affidavit signed by a career law enforcement officer who swears the information is true . . . And if it is wrong, that person is going to face consequences. You can face discipline and sometimes prosecution.96
Rosenstein’s words seemed to frame a prophetic indictment of his own wrongful actions, as well as those of Comey, Yates, McCabe, and Boente. They all swore under oath that the information was true and accurate. They knew the opposite was true. They were acutely aware that the FBI had spent months trying in vain to verify the evidence that they vowed was verified. The front page of each application they signed is entitled “Verified Application.” It affirmed that the information submitted to the FISC was “verified.”97 It was not.
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