FBI review indicates Carter Page FISA was especially problematic

WAEXAM:

The surveillance of onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page increasingly appears to have been uniquely problematic.

In response to a Justice Department audit born from that controversy, the FBI released details about more than two dozen Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications, arguing none of its mistakes affected the “validity” of the FISA court’s orders.

This sample indicates that the 17 “significant errors and omissions” found by the DOJ watchdog in the process to obtain warrants to wiretap Page, laid out in a report criticizing the FBI’s reliance upon British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s deeply flawed dossier, was an outlier and gives Republicans who believe Donald Trump’s campaign was unfairly targeted more ammo in the unraveling “Russiagate” controversy.

Following a Justice Department audit that unearthed problems among other spy applications, which led the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to order a deeper review, the FBI said Thursday that for the 29 applications reviewed by the DOJ and FBI, there were an estimated 6,771 factual assertions. “Within these thousands of facts, there were approximately 201 non-material errors found,” the FBI said, including “minor typographical errors, such as misspelled words, and slight date inaccuracies.” The bureau further said, “The DOJ and FBI discovered only two material errors but — most importantly — neither of these errors is assessed to have undermined or otherwise impacted the FISC’s probable cause determinations.” more