FBI says FISA request forms will now ask whether target was government source

One of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reforms undertaken by the FBI is implementing more stringent requirements for asking whether a possible target has been a source for the U.S. government. The change was revealed following a related guilty plea in U.S. Attorney John Durham’s inquiry into the Russia investigation. Dawn Browning, the acting general counsel for the FBI since July, submitted a declaration to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that was made public Monday. The filing said that updated FISA request forms, specifically related to requests for business records and the use of pen register and trap and trace devices, “include a number of improvements,” including “questions about whether the target or subject of the request was previously interviewed by, or served as a confidential human source, asset, or operational contact of, the FBI, any other government agency, or a foreign government.”

Durham collected his first guilty plea on Wednesday from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted to a false statements charge for altering a CIA email in 2017 that helped justify the continued FISA wiretapping of onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page by fraudulently adding that Page was "not a source" for the agency, when the CIA had actually told Clinesmith and the bureau on multiple occasions that Page was an “operational contact” for them. Browning argued in the court filings that “the FBI remains committed to ensuring that FISA applications it submits to this Court are accurate and complete.” The FBI’s top lawyer said the bureau’s new request and verification forms, once implemented, will “require case agents and their supervisors to affirm the accuracy and completeness” of their FISA applications. Clinesmith, 38, who worked on the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server as well as on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane inquiry and special counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the Trump-Russia inquiry, admitted that he falsified a document during a court hearing last week after Durham had submitted a five-page criminal information filing to the federal court noting Clinesmith was being charged.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz made it clear in a December report that this specific FISA flaw went beyond just Clinesmith, noting that the FBI’s “failure to provide accurate and complete information” to the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence on Page's prior relationship with the CIA was “particularly concerning because” the DOJ attorney handling the case “had specifically asked the case agent in late September 2016 whether Carter Page had a current or prior relationship with the other agency” and had been told Page’s relationship was “dated.” But Horowitz said this was “contrary to information that the other agency had provided to the FBI in August 2016, which stated that Page was approved as an ‘operational contact’ of the other agency from 2008 to 2013.” Horowitz said that “Page's status with the other agency overlapped in time with some of the interactions between Page and known Russian intelligence officers that were relied upon in the FISA applications to establish probable cause” and noted that “Page had provided information to the other agency about his past contacts with a Russian Intelligence Officer, which were among the historical connections to Russian intelligence officers that the FBI relied upon in the first FISA application (and subsequent renewal applications).” Horowitz said the other agency “assessed that Page ‘candidly described his contact with’ Intelligence Officer 1 to the other agency” but that “the FBI relied upon Page's contacts with Intelligence Officer 1, among others, in support of its probable cause statement in the FISA application."

The DOJ watchdog's report also criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Page and for the bureau's reliance on the Democrat-funded, discredited dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele. Declassified footnotes from Horowitz’s report indicate that the bureau became aware that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation, and FBI interviews show Steele’s primary subsource undercut the credibility of the dossier.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fbi-says-fisa-request-forms-will-now-ask-whether-target-was-government-source

Joe DiGenova: Brennan appears to be a witness against Comey in Durham inquiry

Former FBI Director James Comey appears to be at the center of the criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation, according to former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova. Over the past few days, former CIA Director John Brennan was interviewed by U.S. Attorney John Durham's team at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, after which his longtime aide said he was told he is not a "subject or a target" of a criminal investigation, and Comey told CBS News on Sunday that he "can't imagine" being a target of the inquiry. During an appearance Monday on WMAL's Mornings on the Mall show, diGenova, a lawyer whose work was caught up in the Ukraine-impeachment controversy, surmised that Brennan is now a witness against Comey. "I don't know whether he's a target or not. I can't concede to the fact that he isn't given that Kevin Clinesmith guilty plea last week. But there's no doubt that Comey is at the center of the investigation," he said. "The fact that he has not been interviewed and the fact that the FBI, it is obvious, is now the central focus of the Durham investigation." DiGenova, a vocal Trump defender who makes weekly appearances on the radio show to offer his take on Justice Department matters and other legal developments, said he doesn't doubt the statement released by Nick Shapiro, Brennan's former deputy chief of staff and senior adviser, which noted that Brennan praised Durham for the "professional manner" he and his team conducted the interview.

"The fact that Brennan's representative said that he was interviewed for eight hours at the CIA by Durham and was told that he was not a subject or a target — I have to believe that. I can't imagine his spokesman would make a false statement about the nature of his relationship Durham, which Durham could quickly correct," DiGenova said. "I'm assuming that Brennan is free, and as a result of that, he has become a witness against James Comey," he added. "Not willingly, but I think he's been forced to become a witness. And I think it's pretty clear right now that what they are doing is, they're following up on Bill Barr's prescription, which is not every abuse of power is a crime. And that is what Brennan got the benefit of."

In his weekend interview with Face the Nation, Comey defended the conduct of the FBI during its investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He also chided Durham's so-called investigation of the investigators being overseen by Attorney General William Barr. "Given that I know what happened during 2016, which was a bunch of people trying to do the right thing consistent with the law, I'm not worried at all about that investigation of the investigation. Next, I'm sure will be an investigation of the investigation of the investigation. They just want to have an investigation to talk about," Comey quipped. DiGenova isn't the only one to express the belief that the FBI is coming under increasing scrutiny as Durham's review nears its end. "There are more things coming out with the Durham report that show the FBI's primary concern is its own reputation," former Rep. Trey Gowdy said last week.

Last week, Durham snagged his first guilty plea from former FBI lawyer Clinesmith for doctoring an email during the process of the bureau seeking a court's permission to renew an order to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser. He is also examining the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the election, which Brennan and Comey helped put together. Other leading officials at the FBI during the Russia investigation and possibly top brass at the Justice Department might be in Durham's crosshairs as he examines their approval of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications, which relied on a flawed dossier from British ex-spy Christopher Steele. One person mentioned by diGenova was Bill Priestap, the FBI's former head of counterintelligence, whom Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham has said he believes gave misleading information to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2018 about the reliability of Steele's research and will refer to Durham's team.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/joe-digenova-brennan-appears-to-be-a-witness-against-comey-in-durham-inquiry

>>10413298

Thinking it's a trap for Brennan..and I have no doubt that he would have no problem giving statements against Comey as long as he thought, it kept him in the clear. Generally Brennan's attorney's would negotiate terms on his testimony while he is under oath.

>>10413343

Bingo, exactly.

>>10413362

Obama…