IG Report Proves James Comey Blatantly Misled FISA Court in Warrants Used Against Trump Campaign

0
2055
james Comey
Photo Courtesy of Rich Girard via Creative Commons License

James Comey’s signature is affixed to the first three FISA warrants that were issued to spy on the Trump campaign.

As such, he is ultimately responsible for the information that was used to support the warrant and the claims made on the warrant itself.

The IG report has proven on at least 17 instances, information was omitted or misleading.

The Opening of Crossfire Hurricane

Crossfire Hurricane was the operation name given to the investigation of the Trump campaign based on statements made by George Papadopoulos.

The IG report contends the investigation was launched properly based on its standard, which the IG admits is a very low threshold.

Even conceding the investigation was launched properly, what went on from that moment forward was far from proper conduct by the FBI.

Christopher Steele

At the heart of the FISA warrants was the Steele Dossier. The FBI misled the FISA courts in saying that Steele had been a previously reliable source and that the information in the dossier had been corroborated.

According to the IG report, that was not the case.

The FBI failed to properly vet the information Steele was providing and he was not considered to be a regular source of reliable information as the FBI had contended in the warrant application.

Additionally, in the third FISA warrant, negative information that would have clearly hurt Steele’s credibility was omitted. 

Blatant Omissions and Inaccuracies

The Executive Summary of the IG report stated, “Our review found that FBI personnel fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure that all factual statements in a FISA application are ‘scrupulously accurate.'”

Now, if you have been listening to James Comey on CNN, these were small errors and people are human, after all.

Sorry, but as the Director of the FBI, he was responsible for making sure mistakes like this did NOT happen.

The first FISA application had a total of seven omissions and/or inaccuracies.

While I believe all seven would have significantly influenced the FISA court to NOT approve the warrants, I want to concentrate on two of them for our purposes here, which will show just how biased Comey was throughout this investigation.

First, the fact that Carter Page was a CIA agent was completely omitted from the report. This is important because Carter’s previous contact with the Russians was a central theme to show collusion. Had the FBI mentioned that Page was a CIA operative, it would clearly have shown he had these contacts due to his work with the government agency, NOT to collude with Russians for the sake of rigging our election. 

The second problem is that the FBI portrayed that information provided by Steele had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.”

That statement grossly overstated Steele’s prior role with the FBI, nor was that statement approved by Steele’s handling agent (per the Woods procedures, this is mandated).

If you have not yet read the report, I strongly suggest that at the very least, you read the executive summary.

I promise you, it will open your eyes to the blatant abuse by James Comey in his effort to take out Donald Trump.

Clearly, had Comey followed guidelines and procedures, operation Crossfire Hurricane would have been shut down in its early stages. Instead, Comey and his investigators manipulated information to ensure they could spy on Trump in an effort to end his candidacy and when that failed, to have him impeached.

To see the full IG report, click here.