Opinion| Investigative journalist John Solomon has been doing yeoman’s work in shedding light on the DOJ/FBI abuse of the FISA warrant application process that allowed the Obama-era FBI to conduct surveillance on members of the Trump campaign.
Yesterday, Solomon dropped a bombshell about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s history of FISA court abuse.
In 2002, then-FBI director Robert Mueller was forced to appear before the FISA court (FISC) to explain the large number of cases where the FBI omitted exculpatory evidence that they had in their possession regarding their targets.
House investigators became aware of the FISC summoning Mueller to explain the abuses during testimony from Trisha Anderson, the FBI’s Principal Deputy General Counsel. Anderson recently stepped down.
Anderson:
“It preceded my time with the FBI but as I understood it, there was a pattern of some incidents of omission that were of concern to the FISA court that resulted in former Director Mueller actually appearing before the FISA court.”
“Some incidents?” According to Solomon’s sources, Muller was summoned to appear before the FISC “to address concerns about extensive cheating on FISA applications.”
Anderson went on to say:
“My understanding is he committed to the court to address the problem and then that the series of reforms that we implemented, including the use of the Woods form, were the direct result of his engagement before the FISA court.”
The Woods Procedure was adopted to “ensure FISA warrant applications were accurate and did not omit material information.”
As we have come to learn, no procedure works as it is intended to if the people charged with adhering to it choose to ignore it, instead.
What makes these revelations so astounding is Mueller’s apparent indifference to the FISA abuse that appears to be at the core of the two-and-a-half year long investigation of President Trump’s alleged relationship with Russia.
At this time we have yet to learn of a predicate crime that would justify either the initial investigation by the FBI or to later warrant the appointment of a special counsel.
If there had been a reasonable predicate, it then becomes difficult to explain why Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has refused to release the charging documents and scope memo authorizing Mueller’s appointment.
Common sense tells us that, at this point, the allegations of Trump-Russia collusion is at least as damaging to the body politic as if it were true.
Adding to the concern, there has been no indication from the special counsel that his team of investigators even care about the fact the FBI appears to have violated the Woods Procedures since it appears that two of the surveillance warrant were issued months after the special counsel had been appointed.
We have long believed that the FBI had become a political weapon, much in the manner that the IRS had become corrupted into one. As information has come to light over the past two years, we have learned nothing that changes our suspicions. We have only become sure of our initial suspicions.
Democrats have made it abundantly clear that their strategy is divide Americans as they effort to reclaim raw political power, truth be damned.
Mueller (Democrats like to remind us he is a registered Republican) has done the bidding of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama dating back to the early years of the Obama administration (see Uranium One).
And, now defending the FISA abuse that is closely tied to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
If Mueller walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Perhaps a special counsel, given the same broad latitude that Mueller has been given, can actually drain this swamp.