Everything anyone needed to know about the motives and intents of fired Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson is evidenced by his releasing a political statement tonight protesting his termination.

Atkinson doesn’t write a “letter”, his diatribe is not addressed to anyone, it is just a political “statement” designed to be exploited by the same people, for the same intents, as his prior ICIG work product.  This transparently political effort is ridiculous.

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…The recent IG report outlining Atkinson’s gross incompetence in the FISA scandal, vis-a-vis the 42 DOJ-NSD Accuracy Reviews, is the atomic shield against the political narrative….

President Trump has sent a letter to congress giving them 30-days advance notice and informing them of the removal of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson:

The necessary, albeit politically controversial, move comes about two months after President Trump assigned Ric Grenell to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Grenell is ultimately the acting boss of the overall intelligence community. It is likely DNI Grenell provided some key insight into the sketchy background activity in/around Atkinson’s office, and the overall intelligence apparatus writ large.

Additionally, former congressman Mark Meadows is now President Trump’s Chief-of-Staff; and Meadows has been a critic of those within the intelligence apparatus who attempted a soft-coup twice: Once by special counsel (Russia investigation) Robert Mueller; and once by impeachment (Ukraine investigation) using CIA operative Eric Ciaramella and NSC operative Alexander Vindman.

Also, in the recent FISA review by the OIG the DOJ inspector general specifically identified issues with the “accuracy reviews” conducted by DOJ-NSD chief legal counsel.  Who was that former DOJ-NSD chief legal counsel?  That would be current ICIG Michael Atkinson…

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Things are getting interesting, potential ramifications are growing, as the FISA Court responds to the latest information from the DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG).

After a review of 29 FISA applications, from eight FBI field offices, the OIG informed the FBI and DOJ that none of the surveillance applications were compliant with the Woods procedures. Meaning zero applications had FBI evidence to support the validity of the claims within the FISA warrants.  That’s a very big problem if those FISA warrants were used to gather evidence used to prosecute the 29 targets of the applications.

In a FISC order released today [pdf here] presiding Judge James Boasberg is ordering the FBI to identify who those targets were; and asking the DOJ to explain what they did with the evidence gathered as a result of the fraudulently obtained FISA warrants.  Big.

[pdf here]

If evidence obtained by execution of a fraudulently obtained warrant was used in the prosecution of any of those targets; there’s a possibility those cases will be reopened.

Considering the twenty nine applications from the OIG go back to 2015, there’s a lot of potential for some downstream consequences not only for those 29 applications, but also for all FBI FISA applications with a similar level of neglect.

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I’m not exactly sure what the federal violation is considering the man was selling the face masks; but the FBI determined he was ‘hoarding’ his supply, and arrested him for price gouging. The FBI confiscated 80,000 face masks from his “stash” of supplies.

New York – Baruch Feldheim, 43, is facing charges of assault and making false statements to the feds on Sunday outside his Borough Park home where he allegedly peddled and stored massive amounts of N95 respirator masks, federal officials said.

Feldheim is also accused of price-gouging. On March 18, he’s suspected of selling a New Jersey doctor about 1,000 of the masks for $12,000, a markup of roughly 700 percent, authorities said.

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After the DOJ Offfice of Inspector General (OIG), Michael Horowitz, presented his December 2019 findings of the FISA application used against U.S person Carter Page, the gross deficiencies and intentional fraud were so extensive the IG said he was going to review a sample of FISA applications to identify if the fraud and abuse was widespread.

The OIG began reviewing FISA applications from eight field offices (the proverbial “rank and file”).  The OIG selected 29 FISA applications from those field offices over the period of October 2014 to September 2019.  Additionally, every field office and the DOJ-NSD generate internal “Accuracy Reviews”, or self-checks on FISA applications; so the OIG inspected 42 of the accuracy review FISA files to determine if they were compliant.

The results were so bad the IG produced an interim memorandum to the DOJ and FBI [pdf link here].  Within the 17-page-memo the IG notifies Attorney General Bill Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray that all of the claimed FISA processes, in every field office, are grossly deficient, and in most cases there is zero compliance with FISA standards.  The IG memorandum is presented before the IG even looks at the specifics of the non-compliance.

Below is the report/memorandum.  Additionally I am summarizing the stunning top-lines identified by the IG memo:

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Almost everyone who researched the substance behind Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller’s heavily promoted Russian indictments knew the underlying claims were centered on the thinnest of evidence.

A few Facebook memes were used to accuse Russian company Concord LLC of violating FARA and FEC election laws.

In July,2018, Robert Mueller asked a federal judge in Washington for an order that would protect the handover of voluminous evidence to lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting LLC, one of three companies and 13 Russian nationals charged in a February 2018 indictment. They are accused of producing propaganda, posing as U.S. activists and posting political content on social media as so-called trolls to encourage strife in the U.S.

Indeed, to an incurious media, a Russian catering company posting Facebook memes might sound like a good justification for a vast Russian election interference prosecution; however, when Concord & the accused Russians show up in court and request to see the evidence against them, well, the prosecutors might just have a problem.  It’s that problem that dogged the Mueller prosecution since 2018.   Today, predictably and finally, the DOJ dropped the nonsense case (full pdf below):

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The House Rules Committee previously released the text of proposed changes to FISA (full pdf).  The “deal” is intended to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  However, key Senators and President Trump say not enough being done to change it.
The current FISA authorities expire on March 15th; it looks like they will lapse as Mitch McConnell tries to regroup for a possible vote next week.  McConnell was forced to delay consideration past the expiration date after Senators Mike Lee (R), Rand Paul (R) and  Ron Wyden  (D) said they would object.

WASHINGTON DC – President Trump told Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Thursday that he does not support a House-passed surveillance bill— raising fresh questions about the fate of the legislation.
A spokesman for Lee confirmed the conversation and that the president told the Utah Republican that he does not support the House legislation. Officials speaking for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The House Rules Committee is releasing text of proposed changes to FISA (full pdf below).  The “deal” is intended to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.
[scribd id=451141467 key=key-Jw0Ie6bFOBTwiIulOvCo mode=scroll]
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(House Rules Link pdf)

In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020.

~ Something has to happen this week ~

AG Bill Barr traveled to Capitol Hill today for meetings with House and Senate leadership.  However, Tom Fitton is correct in this interview.  Nothing currently being called “reform” is going to address abuse when those who abused the system are not held accountable.

An assembly of government reports and public records now indicates a political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid 2012.  After an initial attempt to exploit IRS records, the legal tool used to access the NSA database was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations & gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of four to six years.

The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, became the primary process only after a previous DOJ effort ran into trouble. The established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26, 2017, helps explain the details.
I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report (full pdf below) because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an “institutional lack of candor” in responses to the FISA court.  Very specifically, the court outlined how the Obama administration was continually lying to the court about both their activity, and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons’ private information. These violations continued for multiple years throughout Obama’s terms.
Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer’s brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes outlined. The complexity also helps the media avoid discussing, and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the issues. So we’ll try to break down the language.
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