WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has disclosed a previously top-secret set of documents related to the wiretapping of Carter Page, the onetime Trump campaign adviser who was at the center of highly contentious accusations by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee that the F.B.I. had abused its surveillance powers.

[Read the documents here.]

Democrats in February rejected the Republican claims that law enforcement officials had improperly obtained the warrant, accusing them of putting out misinformation to defend President Trump and sow doubts about the origin of the Russia investigation. But even as Republicans and Democrats issued dueling memos characterizing the materials underlying the surveillance of Mr. Page, the public had no access to the records.

On Saturday, those materials — an October 2016 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Mr. Page, along with several renewal applications — were released to The New York Times and several other news organizations that had filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to obtain them.

“This application targets Carter Page,” the application said. “The F.B.I. believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government.” A line was then redacted, and then it picked up with “undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in violation of U.S. criminal law. Mr. Page is a former foreign policy adviser to a candidate for U.S. president.”

Mr. Page has denied being a Russian agent. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

The documents were heavily redacted in places, and some of the substance of the applications had already become public in February, via the Republican and Democratic Intelligence Committee memos.

Visible portions showed that the F.B.I. in stark terms had told the intelligence court that Mr. Page “has established relationships with Russian government officials, including Russian intelligence officers”; that the bureau believed “the Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” Mr. Trump’s campaign; and that Mr. Page “has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.”

The spectacle of the release was itself also noteworthy, given that wiretapping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, is normally one of the government’s closest-guarded secrets. No such application materials had apparently become public in the 40 years since Congress enacted that law to regulate the interception of phone calls and other communications on domestic soil in search of spies and terrorists, as opposed to wiretapping for ordinary criminal investigations.

The fight over the surveillance of Mr. Page centered on the fact that the F.B.I., in making the case to judges that he might be a Russian agent, had used some claims drawn from a notorious Democratic-funded dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent.
The application cited claims from the dossier that Mr. Page, while on a trip to Moscow in July 2016, had met with two senior Russian representatives and discussed such matters as lifting sanctions imposed on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine and a purported file of compromising information about Mr. Trump that the Russian government had. (Mr. Page has denied those allegations.)

Republicans portrayed the Steele dossier — which also contained salacious claims about Mr. Trump apparently not included in the wiretap application — as dubious, and blasted the F.B.I. for using material from it while not telling the court that the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign had funded the research.

But Democrats noted that the application also contained evidence against Mr. Page unrelated to the dossier, and an unredacted portion of the application discussed efforts by Russian agents in 2013 to recruit Americans as spies. It has previously been reported that Mr. Page was one of their targets, although any discussion of Mr. Page’s interactions with them is still censored.

Mr. Page has denied being a Russian agent. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

The documents were heavily redacted in places, and some of the substance of the applications had already become public in February, via the Republican and Democratic Intelligence Committee memos.

Visible portions showed that the F.B.I. in stark terms had told the intelligence court that Mr. Page “has established relationships with Russian government officials, including Russian intelligence officers”; that the bureau believed “the Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” Mr. Trump’s campaign; and that Mr. Page “has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.”

The spectacle of the release was itself also noteworthy, given that wiretapping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, is normally one of the government’s closest-guarded secrets. No such application materials had apparently become public in the 40 years since Congress enacted that law to regulate the interception of phone calls and other communications on domestic soil in search of spies and terrorists, as opposed to wiretapping for ordinary criminal investigations.

The fight over the surveillance of Mr. Page centered on the fact that the F.B.I., in making the case to judges that he might be a Russian agent, had used some claims drawn from a notorious Democratic-funded dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent.
The application cited claims from the dossier that Mr. Page, while on a trip to Moscow in July 2016, had met with two senior Russian representatives and discussed such matters as lifting sanctions imposed on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine and a purported file of compromising information about Mr. Trump that the Russian government had. (Mr. Page has denied those allegations.)

Republicans portrayed the Steele dossier — which also contained salacious claims about Mr. Trump apparently not included in the wiretap application — as dubious, and blasted the F.B.I. for using material from it while not telling the court that the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign had funded the research.

But Democrats noted that the application also contained evidence against Mr. Page unrelated to the dossier, and an unredacted portion of the application discussed efforts by Russian agents in 2013 to recruit Americans as spies. It has previously been reported that Mr. Page was one of their targets, although any discussion of Mr. Page’s interactions with them is still censored.


Mr. Page has denied being a Russian agent. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

The documents were heavily redacted in places, and some of the substance of the applications had already become public in February, via the Republican and Democratic Intelligence Committee memos.

Visible portions showed that the F.B.I. in stark terms had told the intelligence court that Mr. Page “has established relationships with Russian government officials, including Russian intelligence officers”; that the bureau believed “the Russian government’s efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” Mr. Trump’s campaign; and that Mr. Page “has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.”

The spectacle of the release was itself also noteworthy, given that wiretapping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, is normally one of the government’s closest-guarded secrets. No such application materials had apparently become public in the 40 years since Congress enacted that law to regulate the interception of phone calls and other communications on domestic soil in search of spies and terrorists, as opposed to wiretapping for ordinary criminal investigations.

The fight over the surveillance of Mr. Page centered on the fact that the F.B.I., in making the case to judges that he might be a Russian agent, had used some claims drawn from a notorious Democratic-funded dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent.
The application cited claims from the dossier that Mr. Page, while on a trip to Moscow in July 2016, had met with two senior Russian representatives and discussed such matters as lifting sanctions imposed on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine and a purported file of compromising information about Mr. Trump that the Russian government had. (Mr. Page has denied those allegations.)

Republicans portrayed the Steele dossier — which also contained salacious claims about Mr. Trump apparently not included in the wiretap application — as dubious, and blasted the F.B.I. for using material from it while not telling the court that the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign had funded the research.

But Democrats noted that the application also contained evidence against Mr. Page unrelated to the dossier, and an unredacted portion of the application discussed efforts by Russian agents in 2013 to recruit Americans as spies. It has previously been reported that Mr. Page was one of their targets, although any discussion of Mr. Page’s interactions with them is still censored.

Democrats argued in February that the F.B.I. had told the court that the research’s sponsor had the political motive of wanting to discredit Mr. Trump’s campaign. They argued that it was normal not to specifically name Americans and American organizations in such materials. The released documents show that portion of the filings.

The application shows that the F.B.I. told the court it believed that the person who hired Mr. Steele was looking for dirt to discredit Mr. Trump. But it added that based on his previous reporting history with the F.B.I., in which he had “provided reliable information,” the bureau believed his information cited in the application “to be credible.”

The applications largely avoided using names; renewal materials noted that they would continue to refer to “Candidate #1” by that description, for example, even though he “is now the president.”

The renewal applications from 2017 told the court in boldface print that the F.B.I. had severed its relationship with Mr. Steele because he had shared some of his claims with a news organization in October 2016, contrary to the F.B.I.’s “admonishment” to speak only to law enforcement officials about the matter. But they said the bureau continued to assess his prior reporting as “reliable.”

The final two renewal applications also contained two additional pages describing a letter Mr. Page sent to the Justice Department in February 2017 accusing the Clinton campaign of spreading false information about him.

The unredacted portions of the original application and the three renewal applications are otherwise largely identical, so it is not visible whether the F.B.I. told the court that it was gaining useful intelligence from the wiretap of Mr. Page as it asked for extensions. But the length of the applications grew significantly each time, indicating that new information was being added: They were 66 pages, 79 pages, 91 pages and 101 pages, respectively.

The materials also revealed which Federal District Court judges signed off on the wiretapping of Mr. Page: Judges Rosemary Collyer, Michael Mosman, Anne C. Conway and Raymond J. Dearie. All were appointed by Republican presidents.

As has been publicly known from the February congressional fight, the application also contained a description of a Yahoo News article from September 2016 that discussed the investigation into Mr. Page’s Russia ties. It is now known that Mr. Steele was a source for that article.

Republicans at the time claimed the F.B.I. had misleadingly used it as corroboration for Mr. Steele’s claims, while Democrats said that was false and that it was instead included to inform the court that Mr. Page had denied the allegations.

The section of the application that describes the Yahoo News article is titled “Page’s Denial of Cooperation With the Russian Government to Influence the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.”

Since February, even as Mr. Trump and his allies have continued to portray the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt,” it has produced indictments of two dozen Russians and Russian government officials for efforts to covertly manipulate American social media and for hacking and releasing Democratic emails during the campaign.

Noting that the original application and its three renewals were approved by senior law enforcement officials in two administrations and by federal judges, for example, Representative Jerrold Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, portrayed the threat from Russia that the F.B.I. was investigating as real and severe.

“Anyone aware of these facts would recognize that these applications were necessary and appropriate,” Mr. Nadler said. “Those who say otherwise are trying desperately to protect President Trump from a broader investigation that must be allowed to take its course without interference.”

While applications for criminal wiretap orders often become public, showing what the government’s basis was for seeking it, the government until now has refused to disclose FISA materials even when using evidence gathered through such wiretaps to prosecute people.

But in February, Mr. Trump — over the objections of law enforcement professionals — took the unprecedented step of lowering the walls of secrecy around such materials to enable House Intelligence Committee Republicans, led by Representative Devin Nunes of California, to disclose their three-and-a-half-page memo, which sought to portray the surveillance of Mr. Page as scandalous.

In addition to invoking Mr. Trump’s declassification to seek disclosure of the underlying materials by filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department, The Times also petitioned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to unseal the materials itself. The court has not responded to that request.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...arter-page-fisa.html

412 pages redacted.

just started reading it.

some powerful stuff here

Ties Steele, the dossier, Glenn Simpson, and the Sept Yahoo news story to the FISA application. (they don't use the specific names but by this time it is clear who the people are)

I wonder who the FBI SSA is who initiated the application ? (name redacted)

SSA = Supervisory Special Agent

probably not Strzok (I think he had a diff title at this time)

It says that Carter Page is an agent of a foreign power. The status of the target was determined from info provided by the State Dept.


The Sept 2016 Yahoo news story by Isikoff is described.

James Comey signed the original application for the FBI and Sally Yates for DoJ.

document is hugely redacted

Judge Rosemary Collyer signed for FISC (orig warrant)

look like the first extension is also here

so far, everything Nunes and Grassley have said about this looks to be true. Big caveat though: lots of redactions

Yes! "The FBI does not believe that Source #1 directly provided this information to the identified news organization that published the Sept 23rd News article"

Source #1 = Steele
Sep 23 news article = Isikoff Yahoo News article


Isikoff has publicly admitted that Steele gave him the info for the article


first extension signed by Comey, Sally Yates, and FISC Judge Michael Mosman

Recognizing by far most of the doc is redacted, from what is shown it reads that the dossier material was credible because of past experience w Source #1 (presumably Steele)

Important point: nothing so far violates what Adam Schiff said about the only part of the dossier in the warrant was the parts about Carter Page.

second extension signed by James Comey, Dana Boente, and FISC Judge Anne Conway


third extension signed by McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, and FISC Judge Raymond Dearie

There may be some big surprises in the huge amt of redactions, but from what is provided, Grassley and Nunes are hot on the trail.




Source #1 = Steele
identified U.S. person = Glen Simpson

U.S based law firm = Perkins Coie

Candidate 1 = Donald Trump

The identified person never advised source 1 of the motivation behind the research. Believe that ? Simpson had Steele brief multiple news media in Sep and Oct 2016 on the dossier

But he never advised of the motivation ?

We now know the FISC court was lied to.





Note that even w all the redactions, it is clear now that Rod Rosenstein signed a FISA warrant that had several falsehoods in it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

sure would like to see this FISA application unredacted.

The application says Source#1 (Steele) received info from the sub-source(s), described herein,

The "described herein" part appears to be blacked out

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

good old Adam Schiff goes on the attack

http://thehill.com/homenews/ho...o-misrepresented-and

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Saturday that the release of documents related to the surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser show that Republicans “misrepresented and distorted these applications” in their claims of bias at the Department of Justice.

“These documents affirm that our nation faced a profound counterintelligence threat prior to the 2016 election, and the Department of Justice and FBI took appropriate steps to investigate whether any U.S. persons were acting as an agent of a foreign power,” Schiff said in a statement. “FBI and DOJ would have been negligent had they not used all the tools at their disposal, including Court-authorized FISA surveillance, to protect the country.”

pure BS

Thanks for cutting through the cobwebs, sdy.

Marco Rubio

“I don’t believe that them looking into Carter Page means they were spying on the campaign. I also don’t believe it proves anything about collusion or anything like that. I think Carter Page is one of these guys, we never would have heard of him before all this, but that was on their screen even before the campaign.”

“I don’t think they did anything wrong. I think they went to the court and got the judges to approve it and laid out all of the information and there was a lot of reasons unrelated to the dossier for why they wanted to look at Carter Page. And Carter Page was not a key member of the Trump campaign, and the Trump campaign has said that.”

Rubio is a member of the Senate Intel comm.

"I don’t think they did anything wrong. I think they went to the court and got the judges to approve it and laid out all of the information"

How about lying to the court, Marco?

This is all going to make for a great movie some day.

But that's as far as it's ever going to go.

The released warrant shows who is authorized to certify the request for the information to be gained by the FISA warrant

Not all of these people have to sign; it appears it only requires one of these people to sign this sheet.

Lots of speculation as to why all the dates are redacted (day only, not month & year), aside from the ones of the FISA cleft certifying the copies.

quote:

Lots of speculation as to why all the dates are redacted (day only, not month & year)

Not too much help, but the indicators on the right of the page show the FOIA reason for the redaction.

b1-1 Information that is classified to protect national security.

b3-1 Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law.

b7A-1 Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings

Armed with this warrant, what was the DOJ/FBI able to do?

What did they do? Listen to his phone calls? Read his e-mails? Pick through his garbage? Put a bug in his house/hotel room? A tail?

How did that impact the campaign, given his noninvolvement?

quote:

Armed with this warrant, what was the DOJ/FBI able to do?

Not clear what the answer is.

Pages 47 to 52 of the warrant are titled "Specific Authorities Requested"

It is all blacked out.

I think the specific details would be spelled on pages 47-52.

Also described on blacked out pages 69-76 by Judge Collyer.

It could potentially include going to companies and getting historical cell phone, email, texts, facebook, etc info.

There is also the possibility of monitoring the internet for specific search items.

But it is just guessing w/o reading the redacted parts.

There was an "about" capability where they could capture not only communications "from/to"
Carter Page, but also any communications that mentioned Carter Page (independent of who sent/received). I think "about" has been suspended by NSA.

comment about the hand written date of 3/17/17 on page 54.

Senator Grassley wrote in a letter that he was provided a copy of the warrant on 17 Mar 2017.




xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

adding

in the same Grassley ltr of 4 Jan 2018, he writes that the first Carter Page FISA warrant was 21 Oct 2016.

Odd coincidence. If I did the counting correctly, 90 days would end on 19 Jan 2017.

One day before the Donald Trump inauguration.

Sen Grassley provided the FISA warrant dates in one of his letters.



original 21 Oct 2016
first extension 12 Jan 2017
second extension 7 Apr 2017
third extension 29 Jun 2017