Former FBI official sees no excuse for the screw ups that were used to snoop on Carter Page and Trump campaign

Frank Watt:

The report of the I.G.'s findings on the use of FISA in the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation is an outrage. As a 22 year FBI Agent, I have personally conducted multiple investigations using both Title III "wiretaps" and FISA authorized intercepts. From this perspective, I can only see two possible interpretations of the actions of the FBI and DOJ. Either scenario should anger and frighten every fair minded citizen who takes the time to read the report and understand its implications. To comprehend the magnitude of the wrongdoing, consider the following:

First, an American citizen, Carter Page, was targeted by our government for electronic surveillance under FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). Per the Act, his Fourth Amendment guarantee of privacy was judicially "suspended" to allow law enforcement to intercept and monitor his private communications. Ostensibly, the FISA court would allow this intrusion based on presented facts that indicated that Page was participating in an activity that was reasonably considered to be a threat to national security and was, in effect, the agent of a foreign power.

According to the I.G., the determination to surveil Page was based on second hand information provided by a member of a friendly foreign government and bolstered by reporting in the "Steele dossier". Accepting the subjective judgement that the investigation was adequately predicated does not mitigate the disaster that followed.
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The implications of intercepting the communications of a U.S. citizen who is associated with the political campaign of a candidate seeking the presidency rings nearly every "bell" in the FBIs and Attorney General's Guidelines for sensitive investigations. As discussed in the IG report, by regulation, these cases cannot be initiated without the written approval of the Director and the Attorney General. In addition to the approval obviously granted by the Director and AG, the IGs report identified the following additional high level officials who reviewed and approved the Page FISA affidavit: "NSD's Acting Assistant Attorney General, NSD's Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight over 01, 01's Operations Section Chief and Deputy Section Chief, the DAG, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and the Associate Deputy Attorney General responsible for ODAG's national security portfolio."

The suggestion that somehow, seventeen significant errors, omissions of fact, falsehoods, or deliberate misrepresentations made their way into a FISA affidavit/s (accidentally, at the hand of an anonymous case agent) and then were not immediately noted and corrected throughout the course of this exceptional review process is simply not believable. To further strain credulity, we are asked to believe that during the renewal process, which happened THREE times, no one involved in the process noticed that there was no inculpatory evidence being generated by the intercepts. Keep in mind, Page's communications were continuously monitored for approximately eleven months.
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There is more.

These warrants are so intrusive that they also reach the communications of anyone Page was in contact with and it appears they used Page as a means to spy on Trump and his campaign.  Those responsible for misleading the court should be brought to justice and soon.