Republicans on the House intelligence committee asked President Trump
last month to declassify key sections of the surveillance warrant
application for ex-campaign aide Carter Page, according to a letter
obtained by Fox News.
The heavily-redacted application outlining the
justifications for surveiling Page, which was approved and renewed
several times by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), was
released over the weekend after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“Because DOJ (Department of Justice) and FBI continue
to obstruct the Committee's investigation, it is time to put the facts
in the public domain,” the letter, dated June 14, states.
The 13 Republicans on the committee, including
committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., state in the letter that
the declassification should be consistent “with the need to protect
intelligence sources and methods,” adding that the declassification will
“enable the public to understand the DOJ's and FBI's basis for
obtaining the FISA warrant and three subsequent renewals.”
The Republicans highlight two sections of the document
as key to understanding whether FBI and Department of Justice followed
proper procedures when they obtained the authority to surveil Page on
October 2016.
FBI TOLD FISA COURT SEVERAL TIMES THAT CLINTON-FUNDED SPY WASN'T SOURCE FOR MEDIA REPORT
A key part of the government's application to the FISC
to surveil Page was an unverified dossier containing salacious
allegations about President Trump. The dossier was opposition research
paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign.
“... [W]e respectfully request that you declassify and
release publicly, and in unredacted form, pages 10-12 and 17-34, along
with all associated footnotes, of the third renewal of the FISA
application on Mr. Page," the letter states. "That renewal was filed in
June 2017 and signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein."
The letter states, that on its face, the bureau’s reliance on the dossier appears to violate strict, internal FBI rules.
“The Committee's investigative findings include DOJ's
and FBI's use of an unverified dossier of memoranda that was not
subjected to proper U.S. government verification and was not handled
according to FBI procedures," the letter says.
It adds: “The FBI’s own Domestic Investigations and
Operations Guide (known as the DIOG) prohibits the FBI from using
unverified material to obtain a warrant under FISA. The unverified
allegations in the dossier were nevertheless presented to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to obtain a FISA warrant and
three renewals on Mr. Page. DOJ also presented a news article that was
sourced from the author of the dossier.”
That is an apparent reference to a September 2016 Yahoo
News article about intelligence officials probing Page as a possible
Russian operative.
Based on the weekend document release, the Yahoo News
article was presented to the surveillance court as an independent
intelligence stream justifying the surveillance of Page.
FISA DOCUMENT RELEASE SHOWS FBI MAY HAVE USED 'CIRCULAR REPORTING' TO JUSTIFY SPYING ON TRUMP CAMP
But London court records show that contrary to the
FBI's assessments that were presented to the FISC, ex-spy Christopher
Steele briefed Yahoo News and other reporters in the fall of 2016 at the
direction of Fusion GPS -- the opposition research firm behind the
dossier.
The lawmakers also advised the President they have
requested the senior judge who oversees the FISA surveillance court “to
conduct an investigation into DOJ's conduct in obtaining the FISA
warrant and renewals."
The Justice Department and the White House did not
immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News about the
letter or whether the president is considering or has rejected the
request. The FBI declined to comment.
Earlier this year, the House intelligence committee
also called on Trump to declassify their FISA memo summarizing the
warrant application for Page and subsequent renewals, which he did.
Democrats, who later released their own memo, called
the declassification a danger to national security at the time, with the
FBI issuing a rare public statement that the bureau had grave concerns
about material omissions, they believed, impacted the memo’s accuracy.
Rosenstein also voiced reservations on the basis of endangering sources and methods.