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Originally Posted by Pete F.
Barr stated, “The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.”
Note what Barr did not say. He did not say that launching the investigation was illegal. Nor did he say the FBI violated any internal policy. Instead, he relied on his own opinion that the evidence was insufficient to justify the investigation. His hindsight does not make the investigation illegal or improper.
He stated that “the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.” This statement overlooks facts contained in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report documenting contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia. He neglected to mention Trump’s negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow, the June 2016 meeting with Russians at Trump Tower in New York to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton, and Manafort’s meeting with Konstantin Kilimnik in August 2016 to share polling data on battleground states. Barr’s omissions tend to make him sound more like a defense attorney for Trump than the Attorney General of the United States.
Just keep defending Putin's Puppet and his lackeys.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
The IG report said that. What? Barr didn't have to. The IG report said there were serious mistakes by the DOJ in seeking to suspend the constitutional rights of an American citizen.
Is that true, or is it false?
I don't work at the DOJ, I have no idea how common it is to commit serious mistakes when seeking to suspend the rights of a citizen. I hope it's not standard practice. If it's not, and I presume it's not (since overseeing the DOJ is a big part of Obama's job), why so many mistakes in this one case? Was there anything special about spying on the Trump campaign, that motivated the DOJ to make serious mistakes in its quest to get permission to spy on them?
Or did Obama's DOJ routinely make a large number of serious mistakes when making applications to the FISA court? I have no idea, neither does anyone here...
Which is it? Did Obama's DOJ routinely make a large number of serious mistakes when applying for FISA warrants, meaning there was nothing special about this case?? Or did they normally go by the book, but screw up big time when it came to Carter Page? That's a very, very key question.
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Just why is it as you say with great emphasis....Key?
While it is important in the world of FISA and rights, to the investigation it was inconsequential and did not result in anything. There were many other things discovered and if there had been less obstruction perhaps more would have been found.
FISA is a precious trust and an inspector general report identifying even carelessness that leads to serial misstatements in FISA applications is a serious matter that needs to addressed. And some of the conduct he describes may involve deliberate misconduct too.
None of them involves the sort of misconduct or errors that will reasonably bear the weight Trump and his defenders have put on the notion that something was rotten at the bureau. Not only were these errors not political, but they took place at the lower levels—individual agents and an attorney. What’s more, Horowitz does not even find that the conduct rendered the FISA applications defective—a point on which he does not weigh in.
If I were Carter Page, I would read this report with some grim satisfaction; Page has a right to be pissed off. The inspector general has, after all, concluded that serious errors took place in seeking Page’s surveillance orders. But that’s about as far as it goes. The errors were not political. They were not part of some coup. And in any event, the Page FISA applications did not end up being all that important. None of the indictments that Mueller handed down were driven by evidence collected in surveillance of Page, who was never charged with anything. The issues Horowitz raises are important because the integrity of the FISA process is so important. But no aspect of the integrity of the Russia investigation turns on the questions Horowitz raises about the Page FISA applications.