The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Inspector General Report on FISA Applications

The" Inspector General Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation" has been released. As I expected this report has the shortcomings that I explained in my Chirp on “Inspector Generals”. However, it is comprehensive but not complete. Much has been said and written about this report, and as usual, it is being hyped by each side of this issue. The most reasonable statement on this issue is the “Statement by Attorney General William P. Barr on the Inspector General's Report”. The United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, John H. Durham, is currently doing a more thorough investigation with information and testimony not available to the Inspector General. It is his findings that should be the basis for a full understanding of what occurred.

My comments on the IG Report are on the misunderstandings of what the report concluded. The IG report states that “we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision” is a limiting statement. I would not expect that he would find documentary or testimonial evidence, as intelligent persons who are involved in nefarious or perhaps illegal activities rarely write or testify to their misdeeds. To determine their intentions, you need to examine the scope of their actions to try to determine the motivations for their actions. This is, hopefully, one of the things that US Attorney Durham is doing. The Inspector General was able to obtain information from current and former FBI and Justice Department employees, but many other people, but not all persons, who were involved in these questionable activities that were not part of the FBI or Justice Department were not subject to nor interviewed by the Inspector General. It is also a fact that no Intelligence Agencies leadership or personnel were interviewed by the IG, and other reporting has indicated that they played an indirect part in this FBI investigation. There is also a concern that foreign governments and their intelligence agencies also indirectly assisted in the FBI investigation. Of course, the IG was not able to interview foreign governments or foreign personages in preparing this report. Also, because the activities of other  agencies are outside the IG jurisdiction, they did not seek to obtain records  from them that the FBI never received or reviewed, except for a limited amount of State Department records relating  to Christopher Steele. Or, as the report stated in its Executive Summary on the OIG Methodology:

"The OIG examined more than one million documents that were in the Department's and FBI's possession and conducted over 170 interviews involving more than 100 witnesses. These witnesses included former FBI Director Corney, former Attorney General (AG) Loretta Lynch, former Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Sally Yates, former DAG Rod Rosenstein, former Acting AG and Acting DAG and current FBI General Counsel Dana Boente, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI General Counsel James Baker, and Department attorney Bruce Ohr and his wife. The OIG also interviewed Christopher Steele and current and former employees of other U.S. government agencies. Two witnesses, Glenn Simpson and Jonathan Winer (a former Department of State official), declined our requests for voluntary interviews, and we were unable to compel their testimony.

We were given broad access to relevant materials by the Department and the FBI. In addition, we reviewed relevant information that other U.S. government agencies provided the FBI in the course of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. However, because the activities of other agencies are outside our jurisdiction, we did not seek to obtain records from them that the FBI never received or reviewed, except for a limited amount of State Department records relating to Steele; we also did not seek to assess any actions other agencies may have taken. Additionally, our review did not independently seek to determine whether corroboration existed for the Steele election reporting ; rather, our review was focused on information that was available to the FBI concerning Steele's reports prior to and during the pendency of the Carter Page FISA authority.

Our role in this review was not to second-guess discretionary judgments by Department personnel about whether to open an investigation, or specific judgment calls made during the course of an investigation, where those decisions complied with or were authorized by Department rules, policies, or procedures. We do not criticize particular decisions merely because we might have recommended a different investigative strategy or tactic based on the facts learned during our investigation. The question we considered was not whether a particular investigative decision was ideal or could have been handled more effectively, but rather whether the Department and the FBI complied with applicable legal requirements, policies, and procedures in taking the actions we reviewed or, alternatively, whether the circumstances surrounding the decision indicated that it was based on inaccurate or incomplete information, or considerations other than the merits of the investigation. If the explanations we were given for a particular decision were consistent with legal requirements, policies, procedures, and not unreasonable, we did not conclude that the decision was based on improper considerations in the absence of documentary or testimonial evidence to the contrary."

I would encourage all to read the Executive Summary of the IG Report to fully understand why the IG Report is damming on the FBI and its leadership as to the actions they undertook in this investigation. The predicates for opening an FBI investigation of a presidential campaign were thin. The manner in which the FBI conducted the investigation was also questionable. The FBI use of Undercover Employees (UCEs), Confidential Human Sources (CHS), how the electronic eavesdropping was obliquely done, and the altering of official records is very questionable. The IG Report can lead all fair minded people to question the integrity of the FBI in its ability to conduct a fair an impartial inquiry of any political personage. The FISA court abuses are particularly chilling. The IG conclusions of abuses of the process of submitting false and/or misleading evidence, not properly verifying evidence, or the lack of exculpatory evidence submissions to the FISA court are an assault on the freedoms and liberties of all Americans, not to mention a violation of "Justice and The Rule of Law in America". The IG Report also calls into question the legitimacy of the FISA Court if it can be manipulated in the manner that the FBI had done. At the very minimum, the FISA Court should call for prosecutions of those people who submitted false and/or misleading evidence, unverified evidence, or lack of exculpatory evidence to the FISA Court. To not do so demands a full Senate investigation of the FISA Court for possible and necessary reforms of the FISA Court, but not a House investigation as the House has shown an inability to conduct an impartial investigation of anything regarding President Trump.

All Americans need to be ensured that their Freedoms and Liberties cannot be abused by a FISA Court and that all involved in a FISA Court proceeding are following the Rule of Law, or the FISA Court should be abolished.