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FISA court orders DOJ to review flawed surveillance applications and provide names of targets

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court demanded answers about whether FISA applications were invalid after a new Justice Department inspector general report found pervasive issues with the FBI not following fact-checking procedures.

Friday's ruling came days after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a memo showing FISA flaws were not just limited to the surveillance of Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

The findings of Horowitz’s audit released on Tuesday focused on the FBI’s requirement to maintain an accuracy subfile known as a “Woods file." Investigators found serious problems in each of the 29 FISA applications they examined.

“We believe that a deficiency in the FBI’s efforts to support the factual statements in FISA applications through its Woods Procedures undermines the FBI’s ability to achieve its ‘scrupulously accurate’ standard for FISA applications,” Horowitz concluded.

The FISA court was harsher.

“It would be an understatement to note that such lack of confidence appears well-founded. None of the 29 cases reviewed had a Woods File that did what it is supposed to do: support each fact proffered to the Court. For four of the 29 applications, the FBI cannot even find the Woods File,” presiding Judge James Boasberg said. “For three of those four, the FBI could not say whether a Woods File ever existed. The OIG, moreover, ‘identified apparent errors or inadequately supported facts’ in all 25 applications for which the Woods Files could be produced. Interviews with FBI personnel ‘generally have confirmed’ those deficiencies, not dispelled them.”

Boasberg said the wide-ranging problems “provide further reason for systemic concern” about the FBI’s FISA process and “reinforces the need for the Court to monitor the ongoing efforts of the FBI and DOJ to ensure that, going forward, FBI applications present accurate and complete facts.” The judge said, “When problems are identified in particular cases, furthermore, the Court must evaluate what remedial measures may be necessary.”

Horowitz’s memo released this week was a follow-up to his much larger report in December, in which the watchdog criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants for Page and for the bureau's reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier. Steele put his research together at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was funded by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm.

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<FISA court orders DOJ to review flawed surveillance applications and provide names of targets

The judge ordered the Justice Department to provide the court with “the names of the targets” for all 29 applications and to specify which targets and docket numbers correspond with the court applications with no Woods file — and the three of those for which no Woods file may have ever existed. He further ruled that the agency must “assess to what extent those 29 applications involved material misstatements or omissions” and “assess whether any such material misstatements and omissions render invalid, in whole or in part, authorizations granted by the Court for that target in the reviewed docket or other dockets.” The judge asked the Justice Department to prioritize the cases with no Woods file.

In January, Boasberg revealed that the Justice Department decided that, “in view of the material misstatements and omissions” in the filings, the final two of four Page FISA warrants “were not valid” and said the agency was still reviewing the first two.

The FBI told the court it was working to “ sequester” all the information obtained through the Page wiretaps until the completion of a further review of the DOJ inspector general report on the warrants and the "outcome of related investigations and any litigation." FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress he was working to “claw back” information gleaned through the electronic surveillance of Page.

Boasberg also said Friday that, by mid-June, the DOJ must make “a sworn submission reporting on the conduct and results of the assessments” ordered by the judge, “including the basis for assessing that particular misstatements or omissions were not material or otherwise did not render invalid any Court authorization.” At that time, and then every two months thereafter, the judge said the Justice Department must “report on the progress of efforts to account for and ensure the proper maintenance of Woods Files” for every single docket going back to the start of 2015 and “take associated remedial steps” as appropriate.

The judge also required the Justice Department by late May to explain the audits, reviews, and compliance mechanisms the FBI was putting in place and “describe how the government will use the results of accuracy reviews to identify patterns or trends so that the FBI can enhance training to improve performance in following the Woods Procedures or improve policies to help ensure the accuracy of FISA applications.”

The FBI told the Washington Examiner it received the FISA court’s order.

“Maintaining the trust and confidence of the Court is paramount to the FBI and we are continuing to implement the 40-plus corrective actions ordered by Director Wray in December 2019,” the bureau said. “Although the applications reviewed by the IG in this audit predate the announcement of these corrective actions, the FBI understands the Court’s desire to obtain information related to the applications. In line with our duty of candor to the Court and our responsibilities to the American people, we will continue to work closely with the FISC and the Department of Justice to ensure that our FISA authorities are exercised responsibly."

In a rare public order last year, the FISA court criticized the FBI's handling of the Page applications as "antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above" and demanded an evaluation from the bureau. The FISA court also ordered a review of all FISA filings handled by Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer who altered a key document about Page in the third renewal process. He is now under criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham, a prosecutor from Connecticut who was tasked by Attorney General William Barr with investigating the origins and conduct of the Russia inquiry.

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There simply has to be military quantum computers ++ running the chess game before they got the win condition and committed to a plan, dynamic or whatever