[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

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 think the fact that they've stated it, documented it and asked the Republicans to make it public says quite a lot.

"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."

Reasonable here is in context of the FBI's process...which doesn't require information to be proven. The standard is very high which is why to your point above FISA requests are rarely denied.

That's just evasive gibberish. The "dossier" is not a verified document.

It's a collection of items some verified and some not. That doesn't invalidate the entire collection.

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.

I think some of the Dossier was included in the last extension which was signed off on by Trump appointees.

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.

I have no idea how much Steele was paid. His employer was paid a decent amount although I'd assume if you want good quality research it doesn't come cheap.