Published a secret note on the illegal surveillance of the FBI for Trump's entourage

The Congressional Intelligence Committee on Friday issued a secret memorandum accusing the Department of Justice and the FBI of abusing top secret surveillance to spy on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign adviser.

A secret memorandum was prepared for the chairman of the Congressional Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes. President Trump accused the FBI and the Justice Department of political bias and decided to declassify the memorandum.

The document describes concerns about the “legitimacy” of the Department of Justice’s request for spying on former Trump campaign assistant.

USA Today Gathered the basic facts you need to know about the document:

What does the memorandum say?

The memo states that the dossier prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele was "an integral part" of the government's request to listen to Carter Page, who at the time was an adviser on the foreign policy of Trump's presidential campaign.

The document notes that the Department of Justice did not disclose to the court that Steele’s work was funded by the Democratic National Committee, which paid "to get derogatory information about Donald Trump's ties with Russia."

Steele told the Justice Department official, Bruce Ochru, that “he desperately hoped that Trump would not be elected.” Also, the court was not told that the wife Ochra and Steele worked in the same consulting firm Fusion gps.

How can the US government spy on Americans?

The Foreign Intelligence Observation Act (FISA) is a law that allows the US government to intercept Americans for national security purposes.

To enforce this right, the government must convince the judge of the Foreign Intelligence Supervision Court that he has evidence that a person is an agent of foreign intelligence and is collecting intelligence in the US or is engaged in international terrorism.

The memo states that the government began listening to Page in October 2016 of the year and strengthened surveillance three times. One of the requests was approved by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the second by Dana Boenta, who was recently appointed chief lawyer for the FBI director Chris Wrei.

Shouldn't these orders be classified?

FISA applications for surveillance have long been among the most carefully guarded secrets of government national security.

This is one of the reasons why the emergence of a secret memorandum is such an unusual event. Trump declassified the memo on Friday after the intelligence committee voted to release it under classified White House rules. The White House also promised that it would work on issuing a longer memo.

What is needed for filing an application for surveillance of the FISA Act?

Unlike other types of government oversight, FISA applications must be approved by senior FBI officials, as well as by the attorney general, deputy attorney general, or the head of the national security department of the Ministry of Justice.

They must provide enough evidence to explain the “probable reason” that the target is an agent of foreign intelligence and that listening is necessary to gather intelligence information.

An oversight court rarely rejects government applications. But in 2016, the court rejected 34 applications - more than any other year since the creation of FISA in 1978. This is evidenced by the data stored in the Center for Electronic Personal Information.

Is the memorandum the actual proof of the offense?
Not necessary.

Neither FISA nor the federal courts have set clear rules about what information the government must provide about its sources. “Each case is looked at as a totality of circumstances,” says Orin Kerr, a professor at the University of Southern California School of Law.

For decades federal courts have declared that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from leaving “substantial” information when it is used for search and interception warrants. The same principle applies to FISA.

In practice, this means that the application does not specify information that could force the judge to reject it and not give permission to listen.

Carrie Cordero, a former lawyer at the National Security Ministry of Justice, said that FISA statements, for example, in ordinary search warrants, state the reliability of the source. In court, look at how reliable one or another source.

Examples of the manipulation of information about sources of information

In 2012, a Chicago police officer received a search warrant for a woman’s home on the basis that the application indicated that the source saw a woman growing marijuana at home. But the policeman did not mention that the source was the woman’s father in law and helped her grow marijuana, but a few days ago they had a falling out on the funeral of her son.

The US Court of Appeals decided that this information would be irrelevant. "Perhaps the actions of the source were dictated by anger and a desire to see how she was arrested four days after the death of her child, but the fact of growing marijuana was still".

Kerr says informants are often "dubious characters."

Okay, so what is this memorandum about?

In Washington this is certainly an important event, but the attitude depends on who you ask.

A Republican office memo confirmed that Paget was subject to state surveillance and that information from a paid investigator of the opposition played at least a small role in espionage. But he also provided the first official confirmation that Steele's scandalous “dossier” was not the reason for the discovery of the FBI's counter-intelligence investigation, which cast a shadow over Trump’s first year.

On Friday, a few hours before publication, Trump accused senior management and investigators at the FBI and the Department of Justice of politicizing the “holy investigative process in favor of the Democrats and against the Republicans.” When the note was published, Trump told reporters: "I think this is a disgraceful act."

Republicans also seized on the memo's release. “Under FISA, surveillance used for partisan political games is nothing less than an attack on democracy itself,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. — The DOJ and FBI spied on American citizens associated with the Trump campaign based on unverified claims made in a dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Convention. This is disgusting on every possible level."

However, the chief Democrat in the Senate Intelligence Commission, Adam Schiff of California, called the Republican note “a deeply misguided body of discussion topics” that “is full of factual inaccuracies,” aimed at undermining the FBI and the Justice Ministry - and the ongoing investigation of attorney Robert Muller about Russia's intervention in Elections and possible dealings with Trump partners. Schiff is one of two lawmakers of the commission that reviewed the records of the Ministry of Justice, on which the note is based.

Senator Mark Warner, a leading Democrat at the Senate Intelligence Commission, said that “unlike almost every member of the House of Representatives who voted to publish this note, I did read the main documents on which it was based. They simply do not support their conclusions. ”

What do the FBI think?

In an unusual statement this week, the FBI expressed "grave concerns" about "significant omissions of facts that have a key impact on the accuracy of the note." The Department of Justice, in a letter to Núñez, stated that the publication of the note would be "unusually reckless."

However, attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that the issues raised in the note are of "great importance" and that "no department is perfect."

Does that mean trouble for Muller’s investigation?

It remains to be seen. Trump refused on Friday to say if he was sure of Rosenstein, the man he appointed as second deputy of justice.

Rosenstein is following Muller’s investigation into Russia's interference in the elections and possible collusion with Trump’s headquarters colleagues, since the parliamentary session accused him of contacts with the Russians. If Trump uses the note as a reason for refusing Rosenstein, it will almost certainly provoke another round of political turmoil in Washington, and on Friday it was not clear how most of his own supporters would respond to such a move. The session did not take up his question in order to publicly praise Rosenstein.

Sarah Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, said Friday that the note “raises serious concerns about the feasibility of decisions made at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the FBI in order to use the most rigorous state government surveillance of US citizens.”

What role did the FISA Foreign Intelligence Supervision Act play in Muller’s investigation?

The Nunes note did not indicate how important the FISA observation played in the Mueller investigation, and there were several other public clues.

So far, prosecutors working for Muller have charged four people, including Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort and his former national security adviser Mike Flynn. Campaign foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos last year admitted that he had lied to the FBI about his contacts with a man whom he considered connected with the Russian government, who offered "dirt" to Trump's political rival Hillary Clinton. Flynn pleaded guilty to having lied to investigators about his contacts with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions aimed at punishing the Russian government for interfering in the electoral process.

None of the cases mentioned Carter Page, and whether the investigators were declassified at all during the observation. But prosecutors signal that their investigation is ongoing. On Wednesday, they asked the court to once again postpone the Flynn trial, which promised to cooperate with the lawyer’s investigation.

Read also on ForumDaily:

How Russia rules the world-American media

How America learned about the interference of Russian hackers in the elections

Why not all American intelligence officers believe in "Russian intervention"

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