Finally! FISA Judge Slams Obama Officials, FBI, DOJ in Biting Letter Regarding Trump ‘Dirty Dossier’

A police detective from Eden Prairie, Minnesota is said to have lied when he sought a search warrant for a drug case.  As a result of the cop’s mendacity more than 30 cases he worked on — or assisted with —  must be dismissed, according to a report from Hennepin County, Minnesota Attorney’s Office.

David Brown, chief deputy County Attorney, said during a news briefing that the cases had been charged but not completed as yet. That is the date Eden Prairie Police Detective Travis Serafin filed with the court a search warrant affidavit that was falsified by him.

“The fair trial of a defendant depends on complete truthfulness by everyone involved,” the County Attorney’s chief deputy said. “That did not happen here.”

As a result of the falsely obtained warrant, more than 30 criminal cases were dismissed or in the process of being dismissed because Det. Serafin was a prime witness. Another.11 cases in which Serafin was more of a peripheral witness led to the defense lawyers being contacted by prosecutors..

Of those cases, one involved the man who are in prison. Timothy Holmes, who was the subject of the investigation where the falsified search warrant was used.

Under Minnesota state and federal law prosecutors have an obligation to reveal to a defense lawyer if a police officer the county attorney’s office would call to testify in a particular case has been disciplined for something that could relate to their credibility.

The above is merely one case of hundreds of cases in which local and state police officials used false or questionable material to obtain search warrants. However, when discovered, the guilty police officer or prosecutor would be fired, lose his or her pension and benefits, and possibly end up in prison.

But apparently federal law enforcement personnel are not held to the same standard as is the case of the anti-Trump federal officials who used bogus documents to attain a warrant to electronically eavesdrop on a Trump connected Republican named Carter Page.

In the midst of the Democrats in House of Representatives sending to the U.S. Senate so-called articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, the presiding judge at the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, Judge Rosemary M. Collyer on Tuesday sent out a biting letter accusing the FBI and others of falsifying an affidavit in order to surreptitiously obtain a search warrant.

In her released letter, Judge Collyer describes briefly how the Deep State officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used a questionable report candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party paid for. The report allegedly written by a former British intelligence officer (from MI6) was filled with inaccuracies, mendacious statements, and grotesque scenarios. The officials who read it knew it was nothing but salacious gossip, out-and-out fabrication and unproven allegations against GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But even though all involved in the “Trump coup” knew the so-called “dirty dossier” was useless as evidence, they “put lipstick on the pig” and passed it off as a valuable piece of evidence.

Some of Judge Collyer’s key points state:

This order responds to reports that personnel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provided false information to the National Security Division (NSD) of the Department of Justice, and withheld material information from NSD which was detrimental to the FBI’s case, in connection with four applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for authority to conduct electronic surveillance of a U.S. citizen named Carter W. Page. When FBI personnel mislead NSD in the ways described above, they equally mislead the FISC.

In order to appreciate the seriousness of that misconduct and its implications, it is useful to understand certain procedural and substantive requirements that apply to the government’s conduct of electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), codified as amended at 50 U.S.C. §§ 1801-1813, governs such electronic surveillance. It requires the government to apply for and receive an order from the FISC approving a proposed electronic surveillance. When deciding whether to grant such an application, a FISC judge must determine, among other things, whether it provides probable cause to believe that the proposed surveillance target is a “foreign power” or an “agent of a foreign power.”

An electronic surveillance application must “be made by a Federal officer in writing upon oath or affirmation.” § 1804(a). When it is the FBI that seeks to conduct the surveillance, the Federal officer who makes the application is an FBI agent, who swears to the facts in the application. The FISC judge makes the required probable cause determination “on the basis of the facts submitted by the applicant.” § 1805(a)(2) (emphasis added); see also§ 1804(c) (a FISC · judge “may require the applicant to furnish such other information as may be_ necessary to make the determinations required by” Section 1805) (emphasis added). Those statutory provisions reflect the reality that, in the first instance, it is the applicant agency that possesses information relevant to the probable cause determination, as well as the means to potentially acquire additional information.

The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the OIG report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above. The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable. The FISC expects the government to provide complete and accurate information in every filing with the Court. Without it, the FISC cannot properly ensure that the government conducts electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes only when there is a sufficient factual basis.

THEREFORE, the Court ORDERS that the government shall, no later than January 10, 2020, inform the Court in a sworn written submission of what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that the statement of facts in each FBI application accurately and completely reflects information possessed by the FBI that is material to any issue presented by the application.

In the event that the FBI at the time of that submission is not yet able to perform any of the planned steps described in the submission, it shall also include (a) a proposed timetable for implementing such measures and (b) an explanation of why, in the government’s view, the information in FBI applications submitted in the interim should be regarded as reliable.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, pursuant to FISC Rule of Procedure 62(a), that the government shall, no later than December 20, 2019, complete a declassification review of the above-referenced order of December 5, 2019, in anticipation of the FISC’s publishing that order. In view of the information released to the public in the OIG Report, the Court expects that such review will entail minimal if any redactions.