- Jun 6, 2007
- 852
- 483
- 910
No one seems to be having the right conversation on renewal of FISA. President Trump is absolutely correct the use of this Act to get a warrant to conduct surveillance on a staff member of a Presidential campaign is outrageous and should never ever happen again. Allowing this abuse of power threatens our democracy allowing the government to conduct unjust surveillance on a Presidential campaign puts that campaign in a weaker position to win the White House makes that campaigns road to the White House harder which subverts our democracy a Presidential candidate and that candidates supporters have a legitimate expectation that Presidential elections are about policy and the character and experience of the candidate powerful people in the country that hold the reins of law enforcement power in the country should not be able to use the law enforcement system to interfere in Presidential elections on behalf of any candidate!
The problem in the Carter Page warrant abuses is there was not sufficient safeguards in the system to catch and block the abuses. The 2016 election FISA abuse call for two major changes to the law basically what needs to take place is that the system needs to recognize that when warrants pertain to a Presidential elections they are threatening our democracy and everyone involved should be damned sure you have probable cause that a crime was committed to get that warrant. So first the system should be changed that for warrants for a Presidential candidate, a President or "their staff", not only does the Director of the FBI have to sign off on the warrant application but also the Attorney General of the United States has to sign off. Directors of the FBI tend to be types of people that intensely follow the letter of the law they seem to be people that have difficulty with the concept that the spirit of the law is the higher priority; Attorney Generals seem to have better judgment in that area maybe because their job requires them to use prosecutorial discretion often. A good Attorney General would have looked at the Carter Page case and seen it for what it was an extremely weak case what they had was a bunch of hearsay a diplomat heard someone in a Presidential campaign was working with the Russians a former foreign intelligence officer heard something to that same end a good prosecutor would have concluded that their case did not meet the level to justify the very serious act of conducting surveillance on a Presidential campaign!
Secondly, the system should be changed so that for FISA warrants for Presidential candidates, the President or their campaigns, "two" Judges on the FISA court have to approve the warrants and sign off that the government has probable cause in the respective case. If this threshold existed for the Carter Page case one can almost be assured that the abuse would not have been as bad as it was; the FBI not only got one warrant on their flimsy evidence but they got that warrant renewed with no significant additional evidence. If the system had a two Judge check almost certainly one of the Judges would have concluded this makes no sense to renew this warrant there is no persuasive reason to keep doing this surveillance. Also, if there is a two Judge check on these types of warrants one would assume that the obvious competent Judicial question would have been asked which was; you FBI are asking me to approve a warrant to conduct a surveillance on a staff member of one of the two major political parties of the United States this is a really serious matter when this comes into public light and it will this is America we have a transparent form of government is there anything involved in this case that will embarrass the Judiciary of the United States that will tarnish the reputation of this court. The FBI agents would have had to say yes you know Judge that this dossier that was part of the evidence in the warrant application, the production of that dossier was paid for by the Democrat nominee for President of the United States campaign the dossier was generated as a consequence of Ms. Clinton's campaign pursuit for opposition research on Donald Trump. With that none of us would be talking about this issue because a prudent Judge would conclude I am not trusting the contents of the dossier you guys have to independently verify everything you want to use in the dossier, warrant application denied!
The problem in the Carter Page warrant abuses is there was not sufficient safeguards in the system to catch and block the abuses. The 2016 election FISA abuse call for two major changes to the law basically what needs to take place is that the system needs to recognize that when warrants pertain to a Presidential elections they are threatening our democracy and everyone involved should be damned sure you have probable cause that a crime was committed to get that warrant. So first the system should be changed that for warrants for a Presidential candidate, a President or "their staff", not only does the Director of the FBI have to sign off on the warrant application but also the Attorney General of the United States has to sign off. Directors of the FBI tend to be types of people that intensely follow the letter of the law they seem to be people that have difficulty with the concept that the spirit of the law is the higher priority; Attorney Generals seem to have better judgment in that area maybe because their job requires them to use prosecutorial discretion often. A good Attorney General would have looked at the Carter Page case and seen it for what it was an extremely weak case what they had was a bunch of hearsay a diplomat heard someone in a Presidential campaign was working with the Russians a former foreign intelligence officer heard something to that same end a good prosecutor would have concluded that their case did not meet the level to justify the very serious act of conducting surveillance on a Presidential campaign!
Secondly, the system should be changed so that for FISA warrants for Presidential candidates, the President or their campaigns, "two" Judges on the FISA court have to approve the warrants and sign off that the government has probable cause in the respective case. If this threshold existed for the Carter Page case one can almost be assured that the abuse would not have been as bad as it was; the FBI not only got one warrant on their flimsy evidence but they got that warrant renewed with no significant additional evidence. If the system had a two Judge check almost certainly one of the Judges would have concluded this makes no sense to renew this warrant there is no persuasive reason to keep doing this surveillance. Also, if there is a two Judge check on these types of warrants one would assume that the obvious competent Judicial question would have been asked which was; you FBI are asking me to approve a warrant to conduct a surveillance on a staff member of one of the two major political parties of the United States this is a really serious matter when this comes into public light and it will this is America we have a transparent form of government is there anything involved in this case that will embarrass the Judiciary of the United States that will tarnish the reputation of this court. The FBI agents would have had to say yes you know Judge that this dossier that was part of the evidence in the warrant application, the production of that dossier was paid for by the Democrat nominee for President of the United States campaign the dossier was generated as a consequence of Ms. Clinton's campaign pursuit for opposition research on Donald Trump. With that none of us would be talking about this issue because a prudent Judge would conclude I am not trusting the contents of the dossier you guys have to independently verify everything you want to use in the dossier, warrant application denied!
