The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued a strong rebuke of the FBI’s handling of Carter Page’s surveillance application process and has given the bureau a January 10 deadline to come up with solutions, according to Fox News.
The rare public order from presiding judge Rosemary M. Collyer states, “This order responds to reports that personnel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provided false information to the National Security Division (NSD) of the Department of Justice, and withheld material information from NSD which was detrimental to the FBI’s case, in connection with four applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for authority to conduct electronic surveillance of a U. S. citizen named Carter W. Page,” Collyer wrote.
The order continues, “The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Office of Inspector General] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above. The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable.”
The special order comes days after the release of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report which uncovered 17 “significant errors or omissions” in the FBI’s FISA applications for Carter Page.
UPDATE: The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross points out that Rep. Mark Meadows asked Collyer last year to review the FBI’s FISA applications, however she claimed in today’s order that the court was unaware of the FBI’s omissions until the release of the IG report:
Flashback: @RepMarkMeadows asked FISC Judge Rosemary Collyer in Oct. 2018 to review accuracy of FBI's FISA applications. (Collyer revealed in letter today that court was unaware of many FBI omissions until last week) https://t.co/OSdZULOYvW
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 17, 2019
In the October, 2018 letter Meadows wrote, “Based on our investigation and open source information, the FISC may have not lived up to the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures in approving U.S. citizens targeted without probable cause. We write to encourage you to investigate the possibility that FISA has recently been weaponized for political means.”
UPDATE #2: President Trump responded to the report, tweeting that Collyer’s rebuke means his case was a scam:
Wow! “In a stunning rebuke of the FBI, the FISA court severly chastised the FBI for the FISA abuses brought to light in the recent Inspector General’s Report. There were at least 17 significant errors.” @FoxNews Statement by the Court was long and tough. Means my case was a SCAM!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2019
Read the entire special order HERE.
