Q&A of the Day – Why didn’t the FISA court catch the errors cited in the IG Report
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: Where or who are the FISA judges that where fooled 4 times. Why are these judges not held accountable for their stupidity?
Bottom Line: On back of IG Michael Horowitz's report the spin is in and extensive. Here are a few key facts. The report is 476 pages, depicts 17 specific acts of misconduct, specifically cited the Steele Dossier as the central evidence provided to the FISA court leading to the surveilling team Trump. Much of the news media and reporting jumped straight to the summary rather than considering the facts in report. How many reporters, pundits, etc. - read the report before discussing it in empirical terms?
Importantly, all of the facts I’ve shared with you stemming from my “30 Count Indictment” introduced on February 2nd, 2018 remain intact. It’s ultimately Special Prosecutor John Durham, who publicly disagreed with the summation opinion of Horowitz about intent, that matters. It’s clear criminal indictments are coming as part of Durham’s investigation. But to your point. What about the FISA court’s role in this?
First, the FISA court is as close to a rubber stamp as you’re going to find. That probably plays a role in what happened here. The FISA court was created in 1978 to handle the most sensitive requests by intelligence agencies. From 1978 through 2018 here’s the FISA court’s scorecard:
- 41,222 requests made of the court
- 40,688 approved
That’s 98.7% of requests approved. In other words, it would have been highly anomalous for the FISA court not to issue the surveillance requests. Something else that jumps out about those numbers is that we average several requests per day and several granted requests per day. I’m not sure if that’s good, bad or just is,but I think most people would be surprised at how common this process happens to be. And without any additional knowledge about why specifically the FISA court allowed these requests to be granted, it’s safe to say that they generally trust the Intelligence and Justice Department officials who sign off on the requests and make the case. That’s honestly the tragedy here. Shouldn’t all of us as Americans be able to trust the FBI director and top-level Justice Department officials? Without cause not to trust them at the time, I understand why the court erred in its decision. It’s why it's important we have accountability from Durham.
As for the FISA justices themselves, they’re all appointed by the Chief Justice, John Roberts. I know opinions can be mixed about him, but he’s clearly not someone who has displayed an inherently leftist judicial philosophy.