Since immediately after the lawful election of Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States on November 8, 2016, there has been an organized effort by anti-American Democrats and Republicans and other dregs of society to prevent him from taking office. That effort failed, so they turned their efforts to removing him from office.
Thanks to the diligent and costly efforts of a handful of members of Congress and to a private organization known as Judicial Watch who have remained loyal to the Constitution and the principle of the rule of law, we are getting a clearer picture, albeit a frightening one, indicating that named persons in the very top echelons of the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have committed federal felonies to conceal exonerating evidence and fabricate incriminating evidence that would support the impeachment and removal from office of President Donald J. Trump. Some private authors, notably Peter Schweitzer and Gregg Jarrett, have written excellent books summarizing the evidence docuented in Congressional hearings and FOIA responses to Judicial Watch.
Some time ago the documented evidence showed beyond any reasonable doubt that secret interception warrants and renewals sought by the FBI and DoJ from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) were approved and signed by FISC judges. One particular FISA warrant and three 90-day renewals of it authorized the FBI and DoJ to intercept a US citizen, Carter Page.
The FISC hearings are held in secret and are ex parte proceedings. The FBI and DoJ present evidence supporting their FISA application directly to the FISC judge in a closed proceeding. Because of the secrecy and the ex parte nature of the proceedings, it is the judge’s duty to ensure that the stringent requirements of the FISA law are strictly obeyed. It is well within the FISC judge’s discretion and authority to require the DoJ and FBI to present evidence supporting their sworn statements in the affidavit before issuing the order.
A few honest members of Congress and Judicial Watch who have been analyzing the evidence derived from hearings and investigations and FOIA responses long ago determined that the FBI and DoJ very likely knowingly and intentionally misled the FISC in the Page FISA warrant and renewal applications. That is serious by itself, but it is not the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
The 800-pound gorilla showed up in the Judicial Watch offices in the form of an FOIA response last week to Judicial Watch. This Washington Times article today was headlined FISA court didn’t hold hearings before granting warrants on Carter Page, Trump notes in tweet clearly and succintly states that the FISC judges issued FISA warrants to surveil a US citizen, Carter Page, without even holding a required proceeding and creating a transcript of it. The DoJ has acknowledged that.
How does an honest and competent Federal District Court judge serving as a FISC judge issue a warrant without even conducting a proceeding to have the affiants present to answer the questions the FISC judge is supposed to be asking before issuing the secret search warrant? How is the affiant’s oath sworn?
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton answered that question very succinctly. The FISC “rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump [campaign] team.”
Are the FISC judges lazy? Cowards? Corrupt? All the preceding?
Where are the supposed freedom fighters for civil liberties, the defenders of the First Amendment? Where are the skews media like the New York Times and the Washington Post, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and NPR? Where is the American Civil Liberties Union?
This is not “politics as usual”. It is nothing short of an effort by agencies, officials, and employees of the US government to unlawfully remove the President of the United States from office by fabricating or falsifying evidence which could never be admitted in a criminal trial but would happily be accepted in the political impeachment and removal proceedings of Congress. By underreporting or completely ignoring these illegal actions, the “free press” skews media become witting accomplices.
If the FISC or any other federal district court judge is so corrupt as to issue invalid secret warrants against a private citizen like Carter Page, he or she may well be rubber-stamping federal law enforcement agency affidavits and approving other illegal search warrants without appropriate judicial oversight against other private citizens like you or me.
The further erosion of the rule of law, this time by the judicial branch of government, is the 800-pound gorilla in the room.