IG report confirms Schiff lied, Nunes vindicated

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. (Official photo)

Since the release of his April 2018 memo alleging serious abuse by the Obama FBI in obtaining warrants to surveil the Trump campaign, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes has been vilified by media who seized on Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff's counter memo.

But the report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz affirms Nunes' contention that the salacious and unverified Steele dossier was essential to securing the warrants. And it verified many other assertions by Nunes and his staff, including that the FBI did not reveal to the FISA court that the dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Further, the IG report released Monday, notes the Federalist's Mollie Hemingway, shows seven major points in Schiff's memo to be false.

Schiff, now the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, falsely claimed:

FBI and DOJ officials did not omit material information from the FISA warrant.
The DOJ "made only narrow use of information from Steele’s sources about Page’s specific activities in 2016."
In subsequent FISA renewals, DOJ provided additional information that corroborated Steele’s reporting.
The Page FISA warrant allowed the FBI to collect "valuable intelligence."
"Far from 'omitting' material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims, DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele's background, credibility, and potential bias."
The FBI conducted a "rigorous process" to vet Steele's allegations, and the Page FISA application explained the FBI's reasonable basis for finding Steele credible.
Steele's prior reporting was used in "criminal proceedings."

Horowitz found not only that Obama officials omitted critical material information from the FISA warrant, they willfully doctored evidence.

Horowitz says in the executive summary of his report: "We found that the FBI did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page in Steele's reporting when it relied upon his reports in the first FISA application or subsequent renewal applications."

When Nunes' report was released, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow called is "a sad trombone for Trump," and Washington Post writers dismissed it "a joke and a sham."

"The memo purports to show that the process by which the FBI and Justice Department obtained approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to conduct surveillance on former Trump adviser Carter Page was deeply tainted," the Post article says. "It does this by straining every which way to suggest that the basis for the warrant was the so-called ‘Steele dossier,’ which contains Democratic-funded research by former British spy Christopher Steele."

But the IG confirmed the FBI's efforts to secure a warrant to spy on Page were dropped due to lack of evidence until Steele delivered his dossier. And at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Horowitz said the dossier was used as "primary evidence" to obtain the warrants.

James Clapper, Obama's director of national intelligence, said on CNN in April 2018 that the Nunes memo was a "blatant political act." And Obama CIA Director John Brennan told Politico the memo was "exceptionally partisan." Politico claimed the memo "makes no sense."

A U.S. News and World Report article said the Nunes memo "was a bad joke from the start," insisting Page was a dangerous agent of Russia.

"If the GOP's defense of Page is puzzling so is its targeting of Steele, an accomplished British former spy with an expertise in Russia and Vladimir Putin," the article said.