Screengrab from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlQUdTk7Alw

Yesterday, the Department of Justice released a heavily redacted version of the FISA warrant used to put former Trump campaign staffer Carter Page under electronic surveillance. There is a lot we don’t know about the warrant but what we do know does not build confidence in the process.

Comey has NOT been telling the truth. He pretended the “dossier” was only a minor part of the warrant application that he signed to wiretap, claiming it was NOT a “critical part of it” and there was a “significant amount of additional material.” Demonstrably untrue.

— Gregg Jarrett (@GreggJarrett) July 22, 2018

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1020888489758425088

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1020889601404211201

FBI makes a big show to federal judge about how it closed Steele out as a confidential source after learning of his disclosures to the press. So what did FBI do? It used DOJ official Bruce Ohr as a back channel to Steele. pic.twitter.com/zrd0nA6TIJ

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 22, 2018

If the redacted portions of the Page FISAs are where the FBI provides proof of dossier's allegations (as ppl in my mentions are hoping is the case) then why is this passage included in all 4 of the FISA apps? It's not "we have proved Steele's claims"; it's "we trust Steele." pic.twitter.com/MJTHfSDRzg

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 22, 2018

And this footnote is in all 4 FISA apps, including the last renewal in June 2017. That's a couple of months after Steele *himself* disclosed he met with Yahoo! News, which published this article. How was FBI unable to figure this out? https://t.co/qCGU5rhYfC

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 21, 2018

FBI represented to a federal judge that investigators knew for certain that Carter Page met w/ Igor Sechin and Diveykin. Except, the FISA app acknowledges this intel came from Steele dossier. And FBI has acknowledged dossier was not verifieid. https://t.co/7ZstgwlVOh pic.twitter.com/NDYvBIhXB0

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 21, 2018

This has been revealed in GOP memos about the Page FISA, but it still astounds me that the FBI did not realize that Christopher Steele was Michael Isikoff's source. That alone raises questions about the quality of FBI's analysis and the decisions that stemmed from that analysis. pic.twitter.com/4himFXvq33

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 21, 2018

Reassuring to know the FBI relies on flimsy, incomplete news stories to win warrants to wiretap US citizens. https://t.co/2p8KpcAO0p and https://t.co/b8MK6ZF8My pic.twitter.com/meJiYUt5AW

— Byron York (@ByronYork) July 22, 2018

At a minimum, in regards to the use of the dossier, the FBI used open source news articles by people who had been briefed on the dossier by Christopher Steele to validate the allegations Steele had made in the dossier. At a minimum, the FBI did not disclose to the federal judge that Steele was being paid to do opposition research at the behest of the Clinton campaign.

And none of this has escaped the eye of the Twitterer-in-Chief:

Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton on being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents. As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of “Justice” and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018

Andrew McCarthy – “I said this could never happen. This is so bad that they should be looking at the judges who signed off on this stuff, not just the people who gave it. It is so bad it screams out at you.” On the whole FISA scam which led to the rigged Mueller Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018

Earlier, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was on Face the Nation and he was asked about the released FISA warrants.

MARGARET BRENNAN: This morning the president is again accusing the Justice Department and the FBI of misleading courts and illegally surveilling his campaign. He’s pointing to these documents that were just released about Carter Page who was a campaign associate and has admitted to having advised the Kremlin at one point. You sit on Senate Judiciary. Is the president wrong?

SEN. GRAHAM: No I think that the whole FISA award process needs to be looked at. The warrant on Carter Page was supported mostly by dossier that came from Michael Steele who is being paid by the Democratic Party to do opposition research and the dossier was collected I think from Russian intelligence services and if you ask the FBI today how much of the dossier on Trump has been verified. Almost none of it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you do say mostly. Not entirely. Therefore was the surveillance justified?

SEN. GRAHAM: No not at all in my view. If the dossier is the reason you issued the warrant it was a bunch of garbage. The dossier has proven to be a bunch of garbage.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So the president is correct?

SEN. GRAHAM: In my view that the warrant, the FISA warrant process needs to be looked at closely about Congress. The main reason they issued the warrant was the dossier prepared by Mr. Steele. They never told the court that he was a paid operative in the Democratic Party. The substance of the dossier to this day is a bunch of garbage.

What this shows and what Graham focuses on, is that the FISA warrant system is broken. Right now, the FISA Court approves 99.97% of all FISA warrant applications. The FISA Court, instead of some hard-nosed bulwark of civil liberties, has become a rubber stamp for the Justice Department to do whatever it wants to do. If a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, the FISA court will slap mustard on that sandwich before allowing the FBI to put it under surveillance.

Unless there is something earth-shattering in the unredacted parts of the warrant, and there is really no reason to suppose it is anything more than what has been revealed, then the FISA warrant on Carter Page has much more to do with Strzok’s “insurance policy” than it does with any legitimate intelligence or law enforcement function. The fact that Page still hasn’t been indicted for anything speaks volumes for the corrupt nature of the FBI’s warrant application.

Adam Schiff was on TV today but unfortunately he was not asked whether the FBI has verified the dossier's allegations about Page. https://t.co/ciQPTjOMC2

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 22, 2018