This week Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan sent a letter to New York Democrat Jerry Nadler, insisting the House Judiciary Committee compel Michael Horowitz to testify. Jordan really wants to get the DOJ Inspector General on the witness stand. He wants to hear some direct and candid answers to sharply pointed questions about newly revealed FISA abuse, carried out by deep state operatives in Barack Obama’s FBI.
Jordan wants important answers
“The committee must not allow the FBI’s extraordinary power to electronically surveil Americans to be so haphazardly rubber-stamped with incorrect, unsubstantiated or erroneous supporting information,” he wrote.
The way Rep. Jordan sees it, the rats are guarding the cheese. “The best evidence it’s never going to stop is what happened two weeks ago,” he scolded. “They went to the intelligence community” to brief “Adam Schiff and others on Capitol Hill about Russia trying to influence this 2020 election.” They lied. It turns out “what they told him was inaccurate, it was misrepresented. The same thing they did to him in 2016, they’re trying to do again in 2020.”
Despite vows not to grant a clean extension, the provisions set to expire mid-March were kicked 45-days down the road due to the virus emergency. The problems uncovered Tuesday by the IG’s audit may end up killing the whole FISA system.
“Because of the pervasiveness and seriousness of the FISA application deficiencies,” Jordan notes, “and the pending reauthorization of FISA,” he reminds, “we renew our request that you invite Inspector General Michael Horowitz to testify at a public hearing promptly when the House returns to session.” In political speak that means drag him to the hearing yesterday, so they can interrogate him with a symbolic blow torch.
Sloppy files hide criminal intent
Investigators working with Horowitz spot checked 29 applications the FBI filed for FISA warrants to spy on American citizens, and found serious problems with every one of them.
At best, agents were extremely sloppy in their handling of evidence. At the worst, Obama era deep state operatives within the Federal Bureau of Instigation conspired to illegally wiretap American citizens for political gain.
We already know about one, Carter Page. The new report suggests the corruption ran much deeper. It’s harder to prosecute the crimes when they’re covered by basic sloppy incompetence.
Every file opened with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is required to have a special folder which contains each and every scrap of evidence used to secure every wiretap warrant. Each time the warrant is renewed, the agents are required to go through all the previous evidence to make sure nothing has changed and it’s all still current and relevant. They don’t. It gets much worse.
The watchdog’s really a pussycat
The Justice Department’s Inspector General is supposed to be a watchdog, in charge of keeping everyone following the law. Instead, he’s been more of a “pussycat,” letting serious violations slide with slaps on the wrist and a warning never to get caught fabricating evidence again.
The latest report concerns “files going back 5 years, to October of 2014 in 8 different FBI field offices.” Four of the special evidence folders were lost. Agents admitted that for three of them, they probably never were set up in the first place. Supervisors who were supposed to be checking everything regularly, shirked their duties to the point that anyone could stick anything in the folder and it would appear legitimate. It’s very convenient when widespread sloppiness covers intentional wrongdoing.