And here's a lot of the problem with secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts, which I believe to be unconstitutional. In an admission in court documents on Thursday evening, the Department of Justice admitted that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held zero hearing on the four warrants to spy on former Trump campaign part-time advisor Carter Page.
The response came as a result of government watchdog Judicial Watch's Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, which sought the court to force the DOJ to provide the following information.
- order Defendant to conduct searches for any and all records responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request and demonstrate that it employed search methods reasonably likely to lead to the discovery of records responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request;
- order Defendant to produce, by a date certain, any and all nonCase exempt records responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request and a Vaughn index of any responsive records withheld under claim of exemption;
- enjoin Defendant from continuing to withhold any and all non-exempt records responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request;
- grant Plaintiff an award of attorneys’ fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred in this action pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E); and
- grant Plaintiff such other relief as the Court deems just and proper.
The Department of Justice previously released to Judicial Watch the heavily redacted Page warrant applications. The initial Page FISA warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election.The DOJ filing is in response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit for the FISA transcripts (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-01050)).
In February, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a memo criticizing the FISA targeting of Carter Page. The memo details how the “minimally corroborated” Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.
Judicial Watch recently filed a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking the transcripts of all hearings related to the surveillance of Carter Page.
“It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Perhaps the court can now hold hearings on how justice was corrupted by material omissions that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC, a conflicted Bruce Ohr, a compromised Christopher Steele, and anti-Trumper Peter Strzok were all behind the ‘intelligence’ used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team.”It's not just disturbing, it's criminal and every judge on the FISA court should be impeached and then brought up on charges of conspiracy in the matter, along with all those others named, but will we see any of that? Nope, because the system is seeking to cover for itself.