DOJ inspector general found Carter Page FISA extensions were illegally obtained, Joe diGenova says

The Justice Department inspector general has determined the three Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant extensions against onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page were illegally obtained, attorney Joe diGenova said on Thursday. In an investigation that began last year, Inspector General Michael Horowitz is examining the Justice Department's and FBI's compliance with legal requirements as well as policies and procedures in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court related to Page as part of a larger counterintelligence probe into Trump's campaign. The inspector general inquiry is expected to be completed in either late May or June, and diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said Democrats on Capitol Hill are working overtime to investigate and discredit President Trump.

"They are doing that as a diversionary tactic away from the inevitable conclusions of the DOJ inspector general, Michael Horowitz, who, by the way, we have learned has concluded that the final three FISA extensions were illegally obtained," diGenova said on Fox Business. "The only question now is whether or not the first FISA was illegally obtained." He pointed to memos, obtained by conservative group Citizens United through open-records litigation, that suggest the FBI might have misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in the first warrant application about an unverified dossier. Horowitz "apparently, as a result of those disclosures … which he was unaware of — the bureau hid those memos from Horowitz — as a result of that they're doing additional work on the first FISA. It may be that all four FISAs will have been obtained illegally," diGenova said.

The dossier, compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, contained salacious and unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia. It was used by the FBI to obtain the authority to wiretap Page, an American who had suspicious connections to the Russians. The first warrant application was submitted in October 2016, after which there were three renewals at three-month intervals, including in January, April, and June 2017. The memos obtained by Citizens United, and shared with the Washington Examiner, show Steele met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11 and admitted he was encouraged by a client to get his research out before the 2016 election, signaling a possible political motivation. The timing of the meeting is notable, as it was 10 days before the FBI used Steele's unverified dossier to obtain the original warrant to wiretap Page.

Senate and House investigators told The Hill they too were unaware of the documents, which were given to and redacted by the FBI, and one member of Congress referred the memos to the Justice Department inspector general. "They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there’s a reason for it," House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said. A memo from the House Intelligence Committee in February 2018 alleged Steele was paid over $160,000 by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm and opposition research group Fusion GPS to "obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump's ties to Russia." The memo also said the FBI never informed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of the dossier's Democratic benefactors or Steele's anti-Trump bias when it applied to spy on Page, who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller over his interactions with Russians but was never charged.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-inspector-general-found-carter-page-fisa-extensions-were-illegally-obtained-joe-digenova-says

Maxine Waters Paid Daughter $50K from Campaign Funds for Accrued Debt

$133,000 in additional debt still owed

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) paid $50,000 from her campaign's coffers to her daughter in recent months to chip away at six figures of accrued debt for an operation that pulls in large sums of money for the congresswoman's campaign committee, Federal Election Commission filings show. Rep. Waters's committee disbursed two payments to her daughter, Karen, in the amounts of $42,000 and $8,000 during the first quarter, which runs from Jan. 1 to March 31. The $50,000 in payments were made to Karen for running a slate mailer, or endorsement mailer, operation from the campaign and were the most paid out by the committee for any activity throughout the first three months of the year. Waters's campaign committee reported $94,000 of debts owed to her daughter in pre-general midterm election filings submitted to the FEC on Oct. 17, 2018. However, this amount shot up $90,000 in a matter of weeks to $183,022.15, the Washington Free Beacon previously reported. Now, Waters's campaign reports $182,383 in total debts and obligations after the first quarter and following the recent $50,000 in payments. An overwhelming majority of this amount—$133,022.15—is marked as debt still owed to Karen, who already directly pocketed $108,000 from the campaign during the midterm elections

The slate mailers are sent out to South Central Los Angeles residents and contain a sample ballot and quote from Waters in support of other California Democratic politicians. The candidates pay hefty sums—sometimes tens of thousands of dollars each—to Waters's campaign from their own committees to be included on the mailers. The operation brought in $400,000 from candidates running for office during the midterm election cycle, including $52,000 from now-governor Gavin Newsom. Waters's campaign received more than 20 separate checks of $10,000 or more from other committees this past cycle. Karen Waters has greatly benefitted from overseeing the slate mailers and has pocketed north of $800,000 over the years, the Free Beacon previously reported.

Critics have filed complaints to the FEC against the Democratic congresswomen over the practice which has netted her daughter lucrative cash. The FEC issued an advisory opinion in 2004 allowing Waters to run the operation from her federal campaign committee. Prior to this, the mailers were operated out of a California committee called LA Vote. The use of slate mailers, which are a common practice in states such as California and Oregon, have come under heavy scrutiny. Waters appears to be the only federal candidate to run a slate mailer operation from a federal committee, according to a search of the FEC's database. Waters's campaign could not be reached for comment on the payments.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/maxine-waters-paid-daughter-50k-from-campaign-funds-for-accrued-debt/

Election Law Expert: ‘No Good Evidence’ Voter Laws Changed Outcomes in Georgia, Florida

PolitiFact knocks Kamala Harris for claiming voter suppression prevented Abrams, Gillum from winning governor's races

An election law expert said Democrats should stop claiming the Georgia and Florida governor's races in 2018 were "stolen" by Republicans, saying there is no evidence to support such a notion. Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine, told PolitiFact that Democrats Stacey Abrams (Ga.) and Andrew Gillum (Fla.) and their allies didn't have proof to substantiate their frequent complaints.

"I have seen no good evidence that the suppressive effects of strict voting and registration laws affected the outcome of the governor's races in Georgia and Florida," he said. "It would be one thing to claim, as some have, that these laws are aimed to suppress the vote and likely suppressed some votes. It is quite another to claim that there is good proof they affected the outcome."

PolitiFact looked into the cases after 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) told the NAACP: "Let's say this loud and clear. Without voter suppression, Stacey Abrams would be the governor of Georgia, Andrew Gillum is the governor of Florida." The fact-checking site elected not to rate Harris's claim on its Truth-O-Meter, stating, "It isn't possible to prove if any election law or policy in either state cost the Democrats their elections." However, it reviewed the evidence and found Harris's claim to be dubious.

In Georgia, Abrams has repeatedly insisted "I won" the race against Republican Brian Kemp, accusing him of systematic voter suppression during his tenure as secretary of state by purging voter rolls and closing rural precincts—the latter was outside his office's purview. Kemp defeated Abrams by nearly 55,000 votes and won a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff. The voter suppression argument centers around Kemp's office removing 1.4 million voters from the rolls between 2012 and 2018. The removals were in accordance with state laws about maintaining accurate records, PolitiFact noted. The race made national news when the Associated Press reported on Kemp's office placing 53,000 voters, many of them African-American, on "pending" status over an "exact match" law based on state and social security records. However, pending applicants could still vote if they provided a valid photo identification at the polls, Kemp's office said. Another knock against Abrams's case: Georgia voter turnout spiked in 2018 compared to the last midterm election in 2014, with 57 percent of registered voters casting ballots in the governor's race. While Kemp was secretary of state in 2016, Georgia starting enacting automatic voter registration when citizens got their driver's licenses.

PolitiFact failed to note that besides Harris, prominent Democrats like Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) have repeated Abrams's claim that the race was stolen by Kemp. Harris relied on a report from the left-wink thing tank Center for American Progress to bolster her claims. PolitiFact wrote it made a "less persuasive" case on Florida, where Gillum lost by 33,000 votes.

Gillum conceded on Election Night to Republican Ron DeSantis, then retracted his concession, then conceded again. In March, he told HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher that, "Had we been able to legally count every one of those votes not just in Florida but also in Georgia, I wonder what the outcome may be." PolitiFact noted in its conclusion that Harris ignored factors that led to Kemp and DeSantis winning their races. President Donald Trump endorsed both candidates, who ran in states Trump carried in 2016. Abrams and Gillum ran on baldly liberal platforms but fell short.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/election-law-expert-no-good-evidence-that-voter-laws-changed-outcomes-in-georgia-florida/