dChan
Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 8:36 p.m. No.167531   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Friday, February 2, 2018

 

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/timeline-house-intelligence-committee-chairman-all-nunes-thats-fit-print

 

Intelligence Committee Chairman: All the Nunes Thatā€™s Fit to Print (LawFare)

 

(Photo: Flickr/Latvian Foreign Ministry)

The furor over the classified memo prepared by House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes has reached a fever pitch now that the memo has been released. The memo has become a matter of great partisan contention in recent weeksā€•as has the congressman behind it. But this is not the first time that Nunes's behavior has been called into question. Rather, this caps more than a year of unusual behavior from himā€”behavior that caused consternation from his colleagues in both parties, as well as the intelligence community.

 

We thought it would be useful to list that behavior all in one place. So we put together a timeline.

 

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Nunes served relatively quietly on the Trump transition team, first drawing attention for comments and behavior that cast doubt on the impartiality of his committeeā€™s Russia probe. In the spring of 2017, following the president accusation that Trump had been wiretapped by the previous administration, Nunes held a series of unusual press conferences in which he expressed concern over improper ā€œunmaskingā€ of Trump transition officials. After reporters discovered that Nunes had received from the White House the ā€œunmaskingā€ information on which he claimed to have briefed the president, Democrats and watchdogs organizations raised concerns over Nunesā€™s leadership that forced him to informally recuse himself from the House intelligence committeeā€™s Russia investigation. Nunes recused himself from the HPSCI probe pending a House ethics investigation, which cleared him in December 2017.

 

Nunes returned to the public eye in mid-January 2018, when he announced that his staff had prepared a classified memo documenting alleged government abuses of surveillance authority. Pursuant to a procedure detailed in House rules, the memo was released to the public following signoff from the intelligence committee Republicans and the president. Committee Democrats, led by Ranking Member Adam Schiff, have repeatedly expressed their concerns over the memoā€™s veracity and described it as ā€œhighly distorted spin.ā€ The FBI has also expressed concern ā€œabout material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memoā€™s accuracy.ā€

 

Below is a timeline of Nunesā€™s actions regarding the Russia investigation, as well as possible abuse by law enforcement and intelligence officials in that connection. The statements come from reports in major news organizations, press conferences and releases by Nunes himself.

 

Nov. 11, 2016: Nunes announces his appointment to the Trump transition team, advising on the appointments of cabinet members and other administration leadership.

 

Feb. 27, 2017: The Guardian reports on evidence that Michael Flynn had communicated with Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. In response, Nunes gives a statement to reporters saying:

 

As of right now, I donā€™t have any evidence of any phone calls ā€¦ That doesnā€™t mean they donā€™t exist, but I donā€™t have that. And what Iā€™ve been told by many folks is that thereā€™s nothing there ā€¦ I want to be very careful that we canā€™t just go on a witch-hunt against Americans because they appear in news stories.

 

In response to Nunesā€™s statement, Schiff gives a counter-press conference criticizing Nunes for disclosing information: ā€œWhen you begin an investigation, you donā€™t begin by stating what you believe to be the conclusion.ā€

 

March 4, 2017: Trump posts a series of tweets alleging surveillance of his communications by the previous administration:

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 8:56 p.m. No.167533   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Friday, February 2, 2018

 

Release of Nunes Memo reveals for first time that Fusion GPS political Opposition research (Paid for by Hillary for America/DNC) was used to justify the Carter Page wiretap along with Michael Isikoff Yahoo News article based on the same opposition research

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 9:16 p.m. No.167535   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

Friday, February 2, 2018

 

[THEY] cause Stock Market to tank ā€œ666ā€ points

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/02/582809604/dow-plummets-more-550-points#:~:text=The%20Dow%20closed%20at%2025%2C520.96,weekly%20performance%20in%20two%20years.

 

Dow Drops 666 Points In Sharp Sell-Off((NPR.ORG))

Avie Schneider3-Minute Listen

 

Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 666 points amid signs that interest rates are heading higher.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Updated at 6:01 p.m. ET

 

Major stock indexes dropped sharply Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average tumbling 666 points amid signs that wage growth is finally picking up.

 

The 2.6 percent drop in the Dow came as the Labor Department reported that 200,000 jobs were added to the economy last month, which was stronger than expected, and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1 percent ā€” the lowest since 2000.

 

But worries about inflation grew when the report showed that average hourly wages grew 2.9 percent from a year ago ā€” the largest increase since June 2009. Yields for 10-year Treasurys hit four-year highs Friday.

 

All this sets the stage for the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates, with the next hike expected in March. That would make credit cards, car loans and mortgages more expensive.

 

The Dow closed at 25,520.96, and Friday's 666-point drop was the sixth-worst ever. The index is still up more than 3 percent since the year began. But with a loss of about more than 1,000 points since Monday, it was the blue chip index's worst weekly performance in two years.

 

Among the stocks in the Dow, Apple fell 4.3 percent Friday, Exxon Mobil lost 5.1 percent, Chevron was down nearly 6 percent and Goldman Sachs dropped 4.5 percent.

 

Other major stock indexes fell about 2 percent Friday. The broader S&P 500 slid 60 points, to 2,762.13; the Nasdaq index lost 145 points, closing at 7,240.95.

 

Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust, says Friday's employment report shows the economy continues to have a lot of energy.

 

The higher wage growth and potentially higher inflation "might then lead the Federal Reserve to raise their interest rates more rapidly than the market is comfortable with," he told NPR's John Ydstie.

 

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that the wage gains have investors wondering "are we going too fast? Are we going to see more inflation? ā€¦ Then you have these big tax cuts taking effect, which means people could be spending more. The government's going to have to borrow more ā€” what's that going to mean?"

 

But, he says, "The stock market was really due to come down anyway. We have these corrections. They're normal. You can't have stocks rising at these levels all the time."

 

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Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 9:37 p.m. No.167536   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

>>163413, >>166387,

 

Friday, February 2nd, 2018(Article date, having hard time finding exact date it sold..)

 

https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/rothschild-family-sells-large-austrian-hunting-estate-87753

 

Rothschild Family Sells Large Austrian Hunting Estate(mansionglobal.com)

The wooded property, known as Langau, is nearly as large as Manhattan

 

BY BECKIE STRUM

|

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON FEBRUARY 2, 2018

|

MANSION GLOBAL

 

The hunting lodge was built in the 1970s.

KLAUS BISCHOF

 

The Rothschilds have sold an Austrian hunting estate almost the size of Manhattan that the storied European banking family has owned for 143 years.

 

The 5,412-hectare parcel, known as Langau, was part of a massive swath of mountainous, densely wooded property Baron Albert von Rothschild, of the familyā€™s Austrian line, bought in the southern part of Lower Austria in 1875. He set about restoring the forests depleted by Viennese loggers while building up his own forestry and gaming enterprises, according to the Rothschild family archive.

 

Rothschild heirs Nancy Clarice Tilghman and Geoffrey R. Hoguet, who live in the United States, sold Langauā€”which includes two power plants and a grand Tyrolean-style lodgeā€”to the owners of a paper manufacturing firm, Prinzhorn Holding, in what is being heralded as a historic European land sale, Austrian brokerage Bischof Immobilien GmbH announced on Wednesday.

 

While the brokerage has not released the final sales price, Austrian media reported the Rothschild heirs sold the property for ā‚¬90 million (US$112.35 million).

 

 

The land spans over 5,400 hectares.

Klaus Bischof

Cord Prinzhorn, chief executive of the eponymous paper and packaging company, beat out a number of other bids for the wooded property, as the family intends to hold the estate for the long-term, according to Bischof Immobilien CEO Klaus Bischof, who handled the deal. An email sent to Prinzhorn Holdings was not immediately returned.

 

More:Luxury Real Estate Runs Hot and Cold in Europe

 

Mr. Bischof told Bloomberg that it was the biggest deal heā€™d closed in his 25 years in the real estate business.

 

Over the past century, world events have buffeted Langau and its ownership. Nazis confiscated the land in Lower Austria from the Rothschilds during WWII, during which the familyā€™s homes and palaces in the area were destroyed, according to the Rothschild archives.

 

Langau, the size of which is one square mile smaller than Manhattan, was kept in the family though Russian occupation, which meant they could not access the property until 1952.

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 9:49 p.m. No.167540   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

Friday, February 2, 2018

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/politics/trump-fbi-memo.html?action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=66460495&pgtype=Homepage

 

House Republicans Release Secret Memo Accusing Russia Investigators of Bias((NYTimes.com)

 

 

0:00/1:23

THE NUNES MEMO VS. THE SCHIFF MEMO

There are now two memos agitating Washington. One from Representative Devin Nunes and one from Representative Adam B. Schiff. Feeling confused? Youā€™re not alone.

 

Itā€™s a tale of two memos. One from Republican Representative Devin Nunes. And one from Democratic Representative Adam Schiff. First, the Nunes memo. In 2016, the F.B.I. and Justice Department applied for a warrant to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser. The now declassified Nunes memo asserts that officials relied on information from former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, without adequately explaining to the judge that Democrats had financed the research. Trumpā€™s allies say the Nunes memo shows that the F.B.I.ā€˜s Russia investigation was politically biased in its early stages. President Trump cleared the way for its release. Democrats, including Adam Schiff, have proposed their own currently classified memo at the same time so the public can judge both together. It apparently explains why various points in the Nunes memo are wrong or misleading. For example, sources say the information from Steele was only one thread in a tapestry of evidence from various sources that the Nunes memo ignored, exaggerating its relative importance. But Republicans made the Nunes memo public without simultaneously making the rebuttal Schiff memo public, too. It seems to be an attempt to shift focus away from the Russia investigation itself and toward what theyā€™re trying to argue is the real scandal: the investigators.

 

Video player loading

There are now two memos agitating Washington. One from Representative Devin Nunes and one from Representative Adam B. Schiff. Feeling confused? Youā€™re not alone.

By Nicholas Fandos, Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage

Feb. 2, 2018

WASHINGTON ā€” House Republicans released a politically charged memo on Friday that accused F.B.I. and Justice Department leaders of abusing their surveillance powers to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser suspected of being an agent of Russia.

 

The memo alarmed national security officials and outraged Democrats, who accused the Republicans of misrepresenting sensitive government information through omissions and inaccuracies. President Trump declassified it over the objections of the F.B.I., which had expressed ā€œgrave concernsā€ over its accuracy in a rare public break from the White House.

 

The three-and-a-half-page memo, written by Republican congressional aides, criticized information used by law enforcement officials in their application for a warrant to wiretap the former campaign adviser, Carter Page, and named the senior F.B.I. and Justice Department officials who approved the highly classified application.

 

But it fell well short of making the case promised by some Republicans: that the evidence it contained would cast doubt on the origins of the Russia investigation and possibly undermine the inquiry, which has been taken over by a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. The Page warrant is just one aspect of the broader investigation.

Instead, the document confirmed that contacts between a former Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, and Russian intermediaries were a primary factor in the opening of the investigation in July 2016.

 

The memo was outlined in news reports in recent days as Republicans pushed for its release. Several details show that it reflects a line of attack circulating for weeks in conservative news media outlets, which have been amplifying a narrative that the Russia investigation is the illegitimate handiwork of a cabal of senior Justice Department and F.B.I. officials who were biased against Mr. Trump and set out to sabotage him.

 

READ THE NUNES MEMO, ANNOTATED

A previously secret memo released on Friday claims that F.B.I. officials abused their authority and favored Democrats in the early stages of the Russia investigation. Read our reportersā€™ annotations.

 

Representative Devin Nunes of California, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, portrayed the memo as recounting an ā€œalarming series of eventsā€ in which intelligence and law enforcement agencies were ā€œexploited to target one group on behalf of another.ā€

 

One of its chief accusations centers on the inclusion in the warrant application of material from a former British spy, Christopher Steele. Mr. Steele was researching possible connections between Russiaā€™s election interference and Trump associates, but the application to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge did not explain that he was partly financed by the Democratic National Committee and lawyers for Hillary Clintonā€™s presidential campaign, the memo says.

ā€œNeither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the D.N.C., Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steeleā€™s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior D.O.J. and F.B.I. officials,ā€ said the memo, which was written by committee staff members.

 

But a 10-page Democratic memo written to rebut the Republican document says that the F.B.I. was more forthcoming with the surveillance court than the Republicans say. The F.B.I. told the court that the information it received from Mr. Steele was politically motivated, though the agency did not say it was financed by Democrats, according to two people familiar with the Democratic memo.

 

Notably, the Republican memo does not assert that Mr. Steeleā€™s information was the fountainhead of the broader Russia investigation as many Republicans and conservative media commentators have insinuated.

 

By a party-line vote, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee voted to release their memo this week and rejected Democratsā€™ appeal to make public their own still-classified memo at the same time. Democrats have accused Republicans of suppressing evidence that would correct what they say are mischaracterizations.

Video

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

0:00/0:28

TRUMP ON MEMO: ā€˜A LOT OF PEOPLE SHOULD BE ASHAMEDā€™

President Trump declassified the highly controversial Republican memo on Friday, despite a plea from the F.B.I. not to release it.

 

The memo was sent to Congress. It was declassified, Congress will do whatever theyā€™re going to do. But I think itā€™s a disgrace whatā€™s happening in our country. And when you look at that, and you see that and so many other things, whatā€™s going on. A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. So I sent it over to Congress. They will do what they are going to do, whatever they do is fine. It was declassified. And letā€™s see what happens.

 

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President Trump declassified the highly controversial Republican memo on Friday, despite a plea from the F.B.I. not to release it.CreditCreditā€¦Eric Thayer for The New York Times

ā€œThe sole purpose of the Republican document is to circle the wagons around the White House and insulate the president,ā€ Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said on Friday.

The Republican memo does not provide the full scope of evidence the F.B.I. and Justice Department used to obtain the warrant to surveil Mr. Page, and it is not clear to what extent the application hinges on the material provided by Mr. Steele. In December 2017, the Republican memo said, Andrew G. McCabe, then the deputy director of the F.B.I., told the House Intelligence Committee that no surveillance would have been sought without Mr. Steeleā€™s information.

 

But the people familiar with the Democratic memo said that Republicans had distorted what Mr. McCabe told the Intelligence Committee about the importance of the information from Mr. Steele. Mr. McCabe presented the material as part of a constellation of compelling evidence that raised serious suspicions about Mr. Page, the two people said. The evidence included contacts Mr. Page had in 2013 with a Russian intelligence operative.

 

Mr. Pageā€™s contacts with the Russian operative led to an investigation of Mr. Page that year, including a wiretap on him, another person familiar with the matter said.

 

Mr. McCabe told the committee that the decision to seek a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was also prompted by Russiaā€™s attempts to target Mr. Papadopoulos, by a trip Mr. Page took to Moscow in July 2016 and by the Russian hacking of Democratic emails that appeared to be aimed at harming the Clinton campaign, the two people familiar with the Democratic memo said.

Among the handful of other details in the memo was that the application also cited a September 2016 article published by Yahoo News. It cited unnamed sources saying that government investigators were scrutinizing Mr. Pageā€™s links to Russia.

 

CONFUSED BY ALL THE NEWS ABOUT RUSSIA? WE ARE HERE TO HELP

Most of the news about Russia falls into one of three categories, which we break down.

 

Mr. Steele was later revealed to be a source for the article, and the memo suggests that law enforcement officialsā€™ inclusion of it in their warrant application means they were using the same source twice but presenting him as separate sources.

 

ā€œThis article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News,ā€ the memo said, underlining the assertion.

 

Mr. Schiff deemed this claim to be one of several serious mischaracterizations, saying the article was not used to corroborate Mr. Steeleā€™s material.

It was more likely to have been included ā€œto show that the investigation had become public, and that the target therefore might take steps to destroy evidence or cover his tracks,ā€ said David Kris, a FISA expert and former head of the Justice Departmentā€™s National Security Division in the first term of the Obama administration.

 

The Republican memo said the initial FISA warrant for surveillance of Mr. Page was approved by James B. Comey, then the F.B.I. director, and Sally Q. Yates, then the deputy attorney general, both of whom Mr. Trump later fired.

 

The warrant was renewed three times, which was required every 90 days, meaning Mr. Page was under surveillance for about a year. At various points in the renewals, other law enforcement officials who signed off included Dana J. Boente, now the general counsel of the F.B.I.; Mr. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director who resigned under pressure this week; and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel and has been a target of the presidentā€™s displeasure over the Russia inquiry.

 

Under Justice Department regulations, Mr. Rosenstein oversees Mr. Mueller and is the only person who can fire him ā€” and only if he finds that the special counsel has committed misconduct. Mr. Rosenstein has repeatedly said he would refuse any order to fire the special counsel without such a finding, and that he has seen no sign of misconduct.

Asked at the White House on Friday whether he would fire Mr. Rosenstein in light of the Republican memo ā€” a move that would enable him to put someone else in charge of Mr. Mueller ā€” Mr. Trump cocked his head suggestively and said, ā€œYou figure that one out.ā€

 

Pressed on whether he had confidence in Mr. Rosenstein, the president would not answer.

 

The Republican memo also highlights Bruce Ohr, then an associate deputy attorney general, who has been attacked in conservative news media outlets in recent weeks because his wife, Nellie Ohr, worked as a contractor with FusionGPS, the opposition research firm that hired Mr. Steele. Mr. Ohr also met with Mr. Steele himself. The memo says the Ohrsā€™ relationship with them ā€œwas inexplicably concealedā€ from the intelligence court.

 

The memo does not mention that Mr. Ohr worked on counternarcotics, not counterintelligence. It does not allege that he played any role in the Russia investigation or the wiretap application.

 

The document also notes that the FISA application mentions Mr. Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty last year to lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with people connected to the Russian government. The memo said there is no evidence that Mr. Papadopoulos conspired with Mr. Page.

 

But Mr. Schiff said that the Justice Department was instead providing the court ā€œwith a comprehensive explanation of Russiaā€™s election interference, including evidence that Russian agents courted another Trump campaign finance adviserā€ as ā€œthe context in which to evaluate Russian approaches to Page.ā€

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement on Friday that he would evaluate the Republicansā€™ criticism of the Justice Department.

 

ā€œI am determined that we will fully and fairly ascertain the truth,ā€ he said.

 

In a message to F.B.I. employees on Friday, Christopher A. Wray, the bureauā€™s director, said he stood behind the agencyā€™s employees.

 

ā€œYouā€™ve been through a lot in the past nine months, and I know itā€™s often been unsettling, to say the least,ā€ he said. ā€œAnd the past few days havenā€™t done much to calm those waters.ā€

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 10:14 p.m. No.167547   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Monday, February 5th, 2018

 

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/internal-fbi-documents-show-white-house-lied-about-comey-firing-610c0c780dda/

 

Internal FBI documents show White House lied about Comey firing((archive.thinkprogress.org))

Comey was widely loved by the bureau rank-and-file, not the "grandstander" Trump claimed.

 

Feb 5, 2018, 11:53 am

When President Trump decided to fire former FBI director James Comey in May, the White House swiftly moved to damage-control mode.

 

ā€œHeā€™s a showboat. Heā€™s a grandstander,ā€ Trump told NBCā€™s Lester Holt at the time. ā€œThe FBI has been in turmoil. You know that, I know that, everybody knows that.ā€

 

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, attempting to buff up the presidentā€™s claims, said sheā€™d talked to more than 50 FBI officials and employees in the 48 hours following Comeyā€™s firing, all of whom, she said, were jubilant about the presidentā€™s decision.

 

ā€œThe president knew that Director Comey was not up the task,ā€ she said. ā€œHe wanted somebody that could bring credibility back to the FBI. That had been lost over these last several months.ā€

 

The rationale behind Trumpā€™s firing of Comey has since been widely debunked and ridiculed. Now, newly revealed internal documents from the FBI show just how far off the White House was in its claims.

 

I got more than 100 pages of internal FBI correspondence from the week of the Comey firing. It all shows one thing: the White House was lying. It also tells a fascinating story about the Bureauā€™s reaction. https://t.co/VBkVn1Kgiw

 

ā€” Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 5, 2018

 

A trove of emails was acquired over the weekend by Lawfare Blog, which had submitted four Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in June for ā€œcommunications to the workforce from senior FBI leadership regarding Comeyā€™s firing.ā€ The more than 100 pages of internal emails they got back showed that the FBIā€™s rank-and-file were shocked by the firing of a widely-respected director.

 

ā€œThe first reaction the documents reflect is simple shock, confusion and disbelief,ā€ Lawfareā€™s Nora Ellingsen, Quinta Jurecic, Sabrina McCubbin, Shannon Togawa Mercer, and Benjamin Wittes wrote. ā€œThe words ā€˜unprecedentedā€™, ā€˜tumultuousā€™, ā€˜shockā€™ and ā€˜surpriseā€™ appear in a great many of the emails.ā€

 

According to Lawfare, many members of various FBI field offices went out of their way to deliver gifts to the former director in the wake of his dismissal. The special agent in charge of the Minneapolis field office, Richard Thornton, shared an anecdote about how Comey made it a practice to thank his local law enforcement escort while traveling ā€” even in Los Angeles after finding out he had been fired.

 

ā€œYou could see him take the time to greet and speak to the motorcade escort policeā€¦ In spite of him just finding out he had been fired as the Director,ā€ Thornton wrote in one email. ā€œHe demonstrated his appreciation and respect for the FBIā€™s law enforcement partners.ā€

 

At the time, the bureau also released a rare statement from then-Acting Director Andrew McCabe about the Comey firing, in which he implored his staff to ā€œhang in there.ā€

 

ā€œAs men and women of the FBI, we are at our best when times are tough,ā€ he wrote. ā€œPlease stay focused on the mission, keep doing great work, be good to each other and we will get through this together.ā€

 

McCabe resigned last week, after being targeted by Trump and accused of political bias.

 

 

 

Together, these emails show an agency shocked and struggling to cope with the increasing politicization at the hands of Trump and House Republicans, rather than a bureau upset and demoralized by Comeyā€™s leadership, as both the president and the White House suggested in the immediate aftermath.

 

The politicization appears likely to continue in the wake of Rep. Devin Nunesā€™ (R-CA) supposedly ā€œshockingā€ intelligence memo, which was made public on Friday and alleges that the Justice Departmentā€™s ongoing Russia investigation has been tainted by political bias. Over the weekend, Republicans and the White House alike suggested that the memo ā€” which focuses on a surveillance warrant requested by the FBI to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page ā€” proved there was corruption at the highest levels of the department and that the Justice Departmentā€™s investigation was simply a witch hunt intended to undermine Trumpā€™s election victory.

 

As many on Capitol Hill and beyond have since noted, the memo fails to mention any of the underlying documents and research which led to the surveillance request. It also does not take into account the fact that Page was previously known to the FBI due to his many communications with Russian individuals over the years.