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BREAKING: The Trump administration is preparing a draft proclamation to declare an emergency at the border and has identified $7 billion in funds to build a wall - CNN
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/426856-fbi-lawyers-dual-hats-raise-questions-in-russia-probe Ex-FBI General Counsel James Baker was both a conduit of Hillary Clinton-tied evidence in the Russia case and a reviewer of the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that targeted a Trump campaign adviser days before the 2016 election.
And, by his own admission, both roles Baker played in the case were aberrations.
Baker told congressional investigators he considered himself a FISA expert but did not routinely review agents’ applications for the sensitive spy warrants. But he said he asked to see the evidence supporting the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page.
“I knew it was sensitive,” Baker told lawmakers last year in testimony that has not yet been publicly released. His motive, he said, was that “I wanted to make sure that we were filing something that would adhere to the law.”
“I was aware, when the FBI first started to focus on Carter Page, I was aware of that because it was part of the broader investigation that we were conducting,” he explained. “… I don’t want to see it at the end, like, when it is about to go to the director of certification because then it is hard to make changes then.”
“My recollection is that I read the factual part of the initiation of the Carter Page FISA,” he said. “So the section that I was focused on is what is the probable cause.”
Normally the evidentiary submission for a FISA warrant goes through a special process known as a Woods Procedures review to make sure it is verified, accurate and up to the standards expected by the FISA court judges.
When asked whether his review was abnormal, Baker answered, “Yes.”
Okay, so the FBI’s chief lawyer jumping into an unusual role on a sensitive case might be intriguing for inside-the-beltway folks but not necessarily alarming, unless there is more.