Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
They certainly did in their response to the memo which is classified.
Well, until we know what the Dems meant by mischaracterized, their statement is of no use. And since the memo was declassified, why would responses to it be classified? And if those in-committee responses are still somehow classified, explanations given outside of the official committee briefs need not be classified. Democrats whether from the committee or not, can give personal opinions about how the memo mischaracterizes.
I believe the FISA standard is just that it has to be reasonable not that is has to be verified.
"Reasonable" is too vague and subjective to be used as a standard to allow intrusion of 4th Amendment rights. The standard is much higher than merely being reasonable: "Known as Woods procedures after Michael J. Woods, the FBI Special Agent attorney who developed this layer of approval, DOJ verifies the accuracy of every fact stated in the application. If anything looks unsubstantiated, the application is sent back to the FBI to provide additional evidentiary support – this game of bureaucratic chutes and ladders continues until DOJ is satisfied that the facts in the FISA application can both be corroborated and meet the legal standards for the court."
Steele is a known reputable source and of lot of the Dossier has proven to have merit. But it also certainly sounds like there were many pieces of evidence used to justify the warrant according to those who have read it.
That's just evasive gibberish. The "dossier" is not a verified document.
He already was under surveillance and the warrant had been renewed three times I believe. For that to occur they would have to have shown the previous warrants were producing valuable information and/or bring new evidence.
Again, I don't know of which warrant you are referring to. There was an application for a warrant to surveil Page, just prior to the one under discussion, that was not allowed. Which, according to your statement, should have been allowed if the previous warrants (if they existed) were producing valuable information or bringing new information. When the "dossier" was submitted as evidence on the next try, the warrant was granted.
Another factor to consider is how all this came about. Steele was concerned there was a real crime going on and contacted the FBI himself.
|
Conjecturing motivation which seems sketchy to begin with could well be considered as mischaracterization. Did he on his own volition, out of some idealistic compulsion, go about digging up dirt? We can't know that, nor is it relevant to the accuracy of the "dossier." We do know that he was paid a great deal of money to do it.