The IG Report Is a Huge Blow to the FBI's Credibility. Why Is It Being Treated Like Vindication?

[Muda69]

https://reason.com/2019/12/09/ig-report-fbi-fisa-carter-page-trump-media/

Quote

The Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General released its highly anticipated report on the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign's Russia connection on Monday.

Make no mistake: The report chronicles serious wrongdoing with respect to the FBI's surveillance of Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, and is ultimately a damning indictment of the the nation's top law enforcement agency. All Americans should have serious concerns about the FBI's respect for constitutional principles, ability to carefully evaluate conflicting information, and its competency in general.

Many in the media have focused on the fact that the IG report failed to turn up any evidence that the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign's possible connections to Russia was politically motivated. The Washington Post's key takeaway was that the report amounted to a "triple rebuke" of the president and his allies. CNN's article led with "conspiracy theories debunked" and called the Russia probe "legal and unbiased," before conceding "serious mistakes" that the network predominantly attributed to a "low level FBI lawyer." In general, the Trump-critical mainstream media has treated the faltering of the most fervent pro-Trump partisans' conspiracy theory about a deep state coup as some kind of full acquittal of the FBI. It's not. The IG report is a chronicle of massive government wrongdoing.

As Scott Shackford explained in his post on this subject, the report by Michael Horowitz found 17 "serious performance failures" relating to warrants obtained by the FBI through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment (FISA) courts for the purposes of monitoring Page. The FISA warrant, which was reauthorized three times, contained false and misleading information about Page. It omitted that he had previously disclosed his Russian contacts to a government agency; it overstated the government's confidence in the Christopher Steele dossier and ignored Steele's own doubts about one of his sources; it declined to mention that Page had said he and Paul Manafort had "literally never met"; and in general it ignored information that rendered unlikely the theory that Page was a Russian asset.

These are alarming failures. They undercut the government's position that FISA courts are a sufficient guardian of Americans' civil liberties, and that the FBI is capable of responsibly exercising the vast powers granted to it. No one should feel confident that a court would block the FBI from engaging in surveillance, even if the information was flawed or faulty.

And yet the FBI and its cable news surrogates essentially spent Monday afternoon and evening taking a victory lap. The agency itself led the charge: A spokesperson for the FBI said the report "does not impugn the FBI's institutional integrity. It doesn't doubt—or propose any changes to—the FBI's mission or our core values. It doesn't criticize—or even question—the brand that this organization has earned over 111 years."

On CNN, Erin Burnett uncritically interviewed FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who expressed great pride in his organization. "I know we didn't do anything wrong," he told her. "What we did was our job. I've known all along that we did the right thing." MSNBC had more of the same, with host Ari Melber interviewing David Kelley, an attorney for former FBI Director James Comey. The FBI's wrongdoing was mentioned, but only as an afterthought. Over and over again, the main story was the wrongness of Team Trump, and the absence of evidence that the FBI was ideologically motivated to work against the president.

So it was all lies. No treason. No spying on the campaign. No tapping Trumps wires. It was just good people trying to protect America. https://t.co/9nurCaIBq2

— James Comey (@Comey) December 9, 2019

 

Trump and his supporters were dead wrong to attribute to malice what is better explained by stupidity. But the latter is no less troubling, and it would be terrific if the media would spend more time holding the G-men's feet to the fire. It would also be terrific if Republicans could channel their momentary frustration about government surveillance programs into some sort of sustained pushback against civil liberty violations. Alas, the PATRIOT Act has been repeatedly reauthorized along mostly bipartisan lines.

Yep, police state.   And power "we the people" granted to the federal government they will never willingly relinquish,  as evidenced by the anti-freedom PATRIOT Act.

 

[swordfish]

T.E.R.M.  L.I.M.I.T.S.

[Howe]

Democrat super hero and confirmed liar, Robert Mueller pissed away $40,000,000 of taxpayer money and was supposed to be investigating the Russiagate hoax.

 

[gonzoron]

5 hours ago, swordfish said:

T.E.R.M.  L.I.M.I.T.S.

With no grandfather clause. Start fresh.

[Impartial_Observer]

15 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

With no grandfather clause. Start fresh.

I say we start in November!

[swordfish]

Seriously, all we heard was "Horowitz did not find "documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions" to launch the investigation."  That's the main headline.  OF COURSE he wouldn't find any documents or get anyone involved to admit to bias.  For him to state he  found no evidence of bias with  Peter Strzok or Lisa Page is silly.  

Tomorrow's testimony by Horowitz in Lindsay Graham's Senate Judiciary Committee  will be  very telling.

[Impartial_Observer]

When talking about government, deciding between conspiracy and incompetence I usually side with incompetence. But 17 instances of incompetence when it comes to the FISA warrant is a bit hard to swallow. Particularly when you listen to Comey describe the consummate professionals at the FBI. Some might argue the FBI is the standard by which corruption is judged.

[gonzoron]

3 hours ago, Impartial_Observer said:

When talking about government, deciding between conspiracy and incompetence I usually side with incompetence. But 17 instances of incompetence when it comes to the FISA warrant is a bit hard to swallow. Particularly when you listen to Comey describe the consummate professionals at the FBI. Some might argue the FBI is the standard by which corruption is judged.

What are the 17 instances of incompetence? Missing commas?

5 hours ago, swordfish said:

Seriously, all we heard was "Horowitz did not find "documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions" to launch the investigation."  That's the main headline.  OF COURSE he wouldn't find any documents or get anyone involved to admit to bias.  For him to state he  found no evidence of bias with  Peter Strzok or Lisa Page is silly.  

Tomorrow's testimony by Horowitz in Lindsay Graham's Senate Judiciary Committee  will be  very telling.

More circus. Dodge, deflect, deny.

[Impartial_Observer]

1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

What are the 17 instances of incompetence? Missing commas?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/09/ig-report-review-fbis-fisa-warrant-russia-probe-released/1499906001/

[gonzoron]

7 hours ago, Impartial_Observer said:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/09/ig-report-review-fbis-fisa-warrant-russia-probe-released/1499906001/

That's about as clear as mud.

What's astounding to me is the number of Republicans and Trump Groupies who think it's ok for Russia to control our elections. They should really rethink their loyalty to America.  It's time to make the United States safe for Democracy, traitors, not turn it over to the Commies.

Edited December 11, 2019 by gonzoron

[Howe]

27 minutes ago, gonzoron said:

That's about as clear as mud.

What's astounding to me is the number of Republicans and Trump Groupies who think it's ok for Russia to control our elections. They should really rethink their loyalty to America.  It's time to make the United States safe for Democracy, traitors, not turn it over to the Commies.

What's astounding to me is the number of libtards who continue to blame Trump for Russian interference when the Great Hussein administration was responsible for securing our elections in 2016. Russia has not been communist for nearly 30 years.

Tell me again how all 17 intelligence agencies agreed the Russians hacked the DNC servers and the forensic analysis conducted by the FBI.  

LOL!

[swordfish]

1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

That's about as clear as mud.

What's astounding to me is the number of Republicans and Trump Groupies who think it's ok for Russia to control our elections. They should really rethink their loyalty to America.  It's time to make the United States safe for Democracy, traitors, not turn it over to the Commies.

[Impartial_Observer]

1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

That's about as clear as mud.

What's astounding to me is the number of Republicans and Trump Groupies who think it's ok for Russia to control our elections. They should really rethink their loyalty to America.  It's time to make the United States safe for Democracy, traitors, not turn it over to the Commies.

FISA warrants are serious things in my opinion. This isn't police going down the local judge getting a warrant to search a guy's house who's selling weed to his friends. 

Can anyone tell us how many votes were changed due to foreign meddling in the 2016 election? The basis for the FISA warrants was the Steele dossier which was acquired by a former British spy from Russian sources and paid for indirectly by the HRC campaign. 

I have no doubt our elections have been influenced for many years by many actors foreign and domestic. Not much different than the way I'm certain we have been meddling in elections around the world. If you feel so inclined I would suggest you take a listen to Joe Rogan's Podcast with Matt Taibbi, a writer with Rolling Stone. Far from a conservative voice, but the podcast gives a nice glimpse into the 2016 election  and why journalist, at least in his circle were not surprised about the outcome. I would argue our own press is more culpable in influencing the outcome of our elections than anyone. Take ANY event nationwide, and you can easily predict the spin that any given news source is going to play on their newscast. Furthermore both parties are certainly responsible for rigging the game in their favor. There's a reason why third party candidates can't get any traction, it's a duopoly, it's a business, it's Coke vs. Pepsi, Apple vs. Google, Boeing vs. Airbus, etc. 

I'm not OK with our elections being tampered with and I'm far from a Trump groupie or apologist. But as has been pointed out, all of this tampering even with surveillance of the Trump camp, it happened under BHO's watch. See duopoly above.     

[BARRYOSAMA]

43 minutes ago, swordfish said:

Says the guy posting two articles from Breitbart....Sad

[Muda69]

James Comey Asked the American People To Trust the FBI. Why Should They?: https://reason.com/2019/12/15/james-comey-fox-news-chris-wallace-ig-report-fbi/

Quote

In an interview with Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that his agency made "significant mistakes" during the course of its investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. But he defiantly insisted that his critics—including and especially Fox viewers—were wrong to have ever doubted the FBI's motives.

"The American people, especially your viewers, need to realize they were given false information about the FBI," said Comey, referencing an idea promoted by President Donald Trump and his most ardent supporters that the investigation was part of a politically motivated effort to take down the administration.

In response, Wallace asked pointedly, "Would you agree the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court was also given false information by the FBI?"

Comey conceded that this was the case.

It was a methodical evisceration of the fired FBI chief, who attempted to downplay his own mistakes and contextualize previous statements he made that no longer hold up in the wake of Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report. Horowitz chronicled the FBI's appalling failures during its handling of the Russia probe, including 17 incidents of "serious performance failures." Wallace raised three key issues with Comey, who tried and failed to explain them away.

First, Wallace pointed out that Comey had previously described the Steele dossier—a key piece of evidence used by the FBI to secure a FISA warrant for Trump campaign advisor Carter Page—as "part of a broader mosaic of facts" against Page. According to the Horowitz report, this was spin on the part of Comey: In fact, the Steele dossier was the fundamental component of the warrant. Comey haggled with Wallace about the definition of "broad mosaic of facts" but was essentially unable to rebut the charge that he had underplayed the dossier's importance after its accuracy came under scrutiny.

Second, Comey expressed ignorance regarding the specific actions of his underlings, in an attempt to claim that he may not have known exactly at what point FBI agents came to doubt the dossier's conclusions. This should be a black mark for him even if it is accurate.

Third, he had no explanation for why or how new information about Page—including that he had reported his contacts with Russians to the CIA—was misrepresented in the warrant.

Comey said these mistakes were unacceptable, and that his previous assertions that the FBI did everything correctly were "overconfident."

"I was wrong," said Comey. However, he maintained that ultimately the report had vindicated the FBI because the more outlandish conspiracy theories of a deep-state-orchestrated coup were not deemed credible.

Hanlon's razor—Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity—certainly applies here, and that's a lesson Team MAGA should take to heart. But that's not a vindication of the FBI. If Comey's broader plea to the American public to continue placing trust in the nation's top law enforcement agency falls on deaf ears, he will have no one to blame but himself.