What have agents from the Department of Justice and the FBI discussed with Senate and House committee members about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Carter Page and “other members of the Trump campaign?”
That question is now being asked in a Freedom of Information lawsuit by Judicial Watch against the government agencies.
The suit was filed after the DOJ and FBI both failed to respond to requests for any records of communications between DOJ officials and members of and staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the committees’ attempts to acquire the applications and renewals for FISA warrants against Carter Page and any other members of President Trump’s presidential campaign. Judicial Watch also seeks records relating to or forming the basis of the FISA warrant applications and renewals from June 1, 2016 to the present.
The Washington-based watchdog on governmental activities explained that over the last year, the DOJ and FBI “have withheld or stonewalled on documents about the FISA court warrants targeting of the Trump campaign, Spygate documents, the Clinton-DNC anti-Trump dossier, the genesis of the Obama’s Trump-Russia investigation, the Clinton email investigation, and anti-Trump FBI text messages.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said “the Deep State doesn’t want Congress, Judicial Watch or the American people to see the full extent of its abuses targeting the Trump campaign and now President Trump.”
Judicial Watch reports it has about two dozen active lawsuits “relating to the DOJ coverup of the abuses and the stonewall of Congress related to the year-long Mueller investigation into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election.”
A memo several months ago from GOP members of the House Intelligence Committee detailed surveillance abuse by the government during the campaign,
The report concluded the “minimally corroborated” “dossier” produced at the request of the Clinton campaign “was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s application for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.”
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., wrote to the presiding judge at the FISA court, Rosemary Collyer, asking for transcripts of “any relevant FISC hearings associated with the initial FISA application or subsequent renewals related to electronic surveillance of Carter Page.”
She replied that the FBI and DOJ have the documents.
Then the Hill reported the DOJ “agreed to allow additional access by the House Intelligence Committee to view four surveillance applications” against Page.
But the public still has been kept out of the loop.
Judicial Watch has tried other avenues, including a lawsuit against the DOJ for transcripts of hearings before the FISC, a case against the DOJ and FBI over FISA warrant application information, and a lawsuit against the DOJ over text messages between FBI official Peter Strzok and bureau attorney Lisa Page.
“Strzok reportedly oversaw the FBI’s interviews of former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn; changed former FBI Director James Comey’s language about Hillary Clinton’s actions regarding her illicit email server from ‘grossly negligent’ to ‘extremely careless;’ played a lead role in the FBI’s interview of Clinton; and is suspected of being responsible for using the unverified dossier to obtain a FISA warrant in order to spy on President Trump’s campaign,” Judicial Watch said.
There also were demands for communications between the FBI and former British spy Christopher Steele, the creator of the anti-Trump “dossier,” and others.
