President Donald Trump is calling for an end to the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller after it was revealed that the FBI knowingly used unverified information and misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to spy on the Trump campaign.
“They should drop the discredited Mueller Witch Hunt now!” President Trump wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Former FBI Director Mueller was appointed Special Counsel in May 2017 to continue the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections after President Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey.
Declassified surveillance records, however, show that the FBI’s investigation was tainted with political bias, calling the entire investigation into question.
The documents reveal that the FBI in its application for a FISA warrant on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page knowingly relied on information that was paid for and ordered by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The FBI furthermore left the FISC, which needs to approve FISA warrants, in the dark on the origins of the information, failing to mention it came from a political opponent.
The information used by the FBI as the core of its FISA application came from former British spy Christopher Steele who had been hired by Fusion GPS, which had been hired by the Clinton campaign and DNC through their law firm Perkins Coie.
A series of memos produced by Steele, known as the “Steele dossier,” which have since become public, relies almost exclusively on Kremlin-linked sources. The claims contained in the dossier are wild and unverified and to date have not been corroborated.
Despite admitting under oath that the FBI’s assessment was that the dossier was “salacious and unverified,” Comey himself signed off on the FISA warrant.
FISA warrants are among the most intrusive ways a person can be spied on. It includes the spying on all digital communications, such as emails and telephone conversations, as well as access to bank records, and other personal information. It also allows for the use of wiretaps and the placing of other recording devices.
FISA warrants can also be used for retroactive surveillance, meaning that communications captured by the NSA under Section 702, which includes nearly all digital communications, could also have been accessed.
While the FISA warrant was obtained on Page, it is highly likely the FBI used the warrant to spy on other members of the Trump campaign, including potentially Trump and his family members, as well.
Under the so-called two-hop rule, FISA warrants allow for the spying of individuals within two degrees of separation from the original target. Meaning that everyone Page was in contact could be spied on, as well as anyone who was in contact with the people that Page was in contact with.
It is unclear how the FBI used the information it obtained by spying on the Trump campaign and whether it was distributed improperly.
The FBI, however, has had problems with its handling of American’s communications obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
A declassified top-secret FISC report, released in April 2017, revealed systematic abuse by the FBI in handling sensitive data.
According to the report, the FBI had provided access to raw 702 data obtained under the FISA to private contractors in violation of procedures intended to safeguard the data. In some cases, the contractors maintained access to the 702 data even after their work for the FBI was concluded.
Bias of Investigators
The Department of Justice Inspector General found a strong anti-Trump bias among some of the key people involved in the FBI’s investigation, and later the Mueller investigation.
Text messages obtained by the DOJ IG showed FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who was the lead agent on counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russian interference, texting to high ranking FBI lawyer Lisa Page that they would stop Trump from becoming President.
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page texted Strzok in August 2016.
“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded.
Both Page and Strzok went on to become part of Mueller’s investigation. Strzok was fired by Mueller’s team after the IG discovered over 10,000 text messages sent between him and Page showing a bias in favor of Clinton and against Trump. Two weeks before Strozk’s firing, Page left Mueller’s team.
No Evidence of Collusion
To date, no evidence to support the claim that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential elections has surfaced.
An over one-year long investigation by the House Intelligence Committee concluded in April this year that there was no evidence to support the claims of collusion.
Indictments issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller so far have either been for crimes unrelated to the election campaign, as in the case of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort who was charged with money laundering charges that predated the Trump campaign, or relate to Russian nationals who allegedly used social media or hacking to interfere with the elections.
Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein said that no Americans were knowingly communicating with the Russian nationals.
Mueller’s team reportedly informed President Trump’s lawyers in March that he is not a criminal target himself in the Russia investigation.
From The Epoch Times