[Washington Examiner] The recently released transcript of Department of Justice lawyer Bruce Ohr’s congressional testimony confirms what conservatives have long been saying: The DOJ and FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process to obtain a court order to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Page served as a volunteer foreign policy adviser for then-presidential candidate Trump from March 2016 until he stepped away from the Trump campaign in late-September 2016, following a Yahoo News report that U.S. intelligence officials were investigating alleged meetings between Page and senior Russian officials. Shortly after Isikoff’s article ran, the DOJ and FBI filed the first of four FISA applications, seeking court approval to surveil Page. The FISA court granted all four surveillance requests.
While the FISA applications remained sealed before the secret FISA court, in early February 2018, then-House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes, R-Calif., released a four-page memo detailing abuse by the DOJ and FBI in seeking to surveil Page. Then-House Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., soon countered with his own memo, which did nothing to dispel concerns. Later, the four FISA applications themselves were released which, though heavily redacted, added to the mosaic of abuse.
Related: Washington Examiner - DOJ inspector general confirms yearlong investigation into FISA abuse is still active |