thanks to Paul Buhle
Colleen Rowley, retired FBI agent, offers the best insight anywhere so far on the memo and the background:
The Nunez memo raises as many questions as it answers. A main one becomes whether the faulty statements used in the first FISA application to fabricate probable cause ever get corrected in any of the next three renewal applications. I would be surprised if the FBI did not go back to the judge after the first 90 days, which I think would have come after Trump's inauguration, if nothing else to cover their butts, and at least tell the FISA Judge that their main source, Chris Steele, had to be terminated for cause and also correct the part in the earlier FISA application that Isikoff's story served to corroborate Steele's dossier.
The three renewal FISA applications would contain (at least partial) transcriptions of any potentially embarassing or damning conversations that Page had with other Trump Team members and certainly of course, with any Russians. The FBI would of course put the most damning interpretation on any interceptions they use to convince a judge to renew the surveillance. But if I remember right, Page got kicked off the Trump "Pirate Ship" (as Max Blumenthal called it) at about the same time the FISA surveillance of Page began so maybe there aren't very many actual interceptions of Trump Campaign/Transition Team.
Other questions would be whether Clapper-Brennan-Comey's first intelligence briefing of Trump in early January, 2017, included notifying him of the surveillance instituted on Page. (Or maybe Trump got tipped off even before to Page being targeted so that is why they parted ways?)
It will be interesting to see what, if any of this, is revealed by Schiff's memo.
Max Blumenthal and I were on The Real News yesterday afternoon about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p62o9EMWxw .
Coleen R
No comments:
Post a Comment