The FISA Memo by the House Intelligence Committee Chairman was recently declassified and the Democrats are furious saying the memo is incomplete, full of lies and half-truths. Before it was released the FBI, Justice Department, Democratic members of congress and much of the main stream media argued that the memo should not be made public, because it endangered national security. But after reading it, those claims are baloney. It does make you wonder what the FBI and DOJ are hiding.

The memo alleges abuses by top officials of the FBI and the Justice Department in their desire to spy (listen in and record / tap phone calls, read emails, texts, and other types of observation) on a US Citizen, which requires a special warrant.  Their target was Carter Page who for nine months was a foreign policy advisor for the Trump Campaign.  The memo detailing some of the alleged FISA abuses was prepared by congressional staff and is the result of the many hearings by the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee.

With what has been disclosed, if backed up by other facts, is an outrage, and an assault on our country’s freedoms. It looks like some people at the top of the FBI withheld vital information from a FISA court Judge in relation to a requested FISA warrant.

They failed to inform the judge on the initial FISA request and three subsequent renewal requests that the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary campaign requested and fully paid for the Trump dossier. This is important because Anthony McCabe testified before the committee that the FBI wouldn’t have been able to secure the FISA Warrant without the dossier.

If they had informed the Judge that the dossier was actually an opposition research document paid for by the opposing candidate and her party the Judge would have laughed them out of the court.  The FBI also provided a Yahoo news article to the Judge as a separate source that would further corroborate the dossier.   They withheld from the Judge that the source of the Yahoo news story was also Christopher Steele, the same person who wrote the dossier.  This is called circular reporting and the FBI executives withholding this from the Judge actually shows intention of misleading the Judge to make him think they had two sources when they knew they only had one, Mr. Steele.  The FBI had disconnected from Steele as an informant at this point because they knew that he was leaking the dossier to Yahoo and other media outlets.

When renewing the warrant they didn’t tell the Judge that they had essentially fired the informant that provided the information that was the key factor in their request for Warrant.

If true the people who are accused should stand trial for their offences against the American people. If convicted they should do prison time, no special treatment.

However, the best thing to do is to have everything released, redacted where necessary to protect sources, getting all this out in the open.  This is preferable to relying on whispers and leaks from “anonymous sources” or speculation by political hacks or bias newscasters.

Any information that the special prosecutor investigating Trump should be turned over to the congressional committee. In addition, The Department of Justice Inspector General has been working on a report about any FBI political bias in favor of Hillary Clinton when she was under investigation for tens of thousands of emails, some classified, on her private server. This information should also be turned over to Congress and the American People.

The only branch of our government that has legal oversight of the FBI executives and the DOJ is Congress.  The only real answer is transparency so it is up to them to release all the documents, memos, and transcripts. The claim that it hurts our national security is phony. What has been alleged so far has done more harm to our country, than releasing some names.  This is subversion from the inside and is extremely dangerous as it erodes and rots our republic by our most trusted people and agencies.

Past FBI Director Comey wrote: “……{memo} destroyed trust with intel community, damaged relationship with FISA  court,  and  inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen…:”  No James Comey, your leadership did these things when you signed off three of the four FISA warrant requests.