Horatio Parker
Veteran Member
Amber Phillips of The Fix gives a nice summary of all the problems with the memo (See 6 key takeaways from the GOP memo alleging FBI bias in the Russia investigation). Here is the list of "outstanding questions" that she came up with:
- Given this seems to be THE key point of the memo — the FBI relied on a politically motivated document to spy on a U.S. citizen — its description of how important the Steele memo was to the FBI's surveillance of Page is vague. How much is “an essential” part of the application? The FBI officials have told my Post colleagues that the memo was far from the only piece of intel it used to get a court to spy on Page.
- Does who funded dossier really matter to the court? The company behind the dossier testified to Congress that Steele’s report isn’t fake, was not politically motivated and did not set out with the intention to smear Trump, least of all to find collusion.
- It's not immediately clear how [Steele's contact with the media] impacts the information that made its way into the FISA warrant.
- It's an open question whether Steele's bias matters if the information he provided was sound. Talking about how the FBI got the information is a distraction from what agents found, Jens David Ohlin, a dean at Cornell Law University, told The Fix earlier this week: “Consider an analogy. Say there’s a murder in a small town and the police aren’t making any progress. In frustration, the family of the victim hires a private investigator who turns up evidence and gives it to the police. What should the police do? Answer: They should act on it if there’s something there.”
- Unless House Republicans are alleging the entire FBI was biased against Trump, it's not clear how this impacts the FISA application that ultimately let them spy on Page. Strzok was a key member of the team investigating Russia interference in the 2016 election, but he was reassigned after the FBI discovered these texts.
- The memo has yet to answer why Trump's handpicked head of the FBI disagrees [with its conclusions].
You (and Nunes) missed an essential element:
The original FISA warrant on Page was obtained well before the FBI was even aware of the "dossier". The Rethugs are complaining about it being the basis for the FOURTH renewal of that warrant. For their case to have merit, four separate judges would ALL have to be remiss, including the judges who had never heard of the Steele dossier.
It's 100% phony baloney, cooked up for and by the Cheato Regime, and delivered by their pet Congressional butt-boy.
Another point is, just who has been spying on the FBI? Especially when we're talking about misuse of intelligence resources.