I’m not sure what the DOJ is talking about. It had confirmed that Carter Page was a Trump supporter. What more was needed?
The Justice Department now believes that at least two of its four secret surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page lacked probable cause.
That striking admission was disclosed in a Jan. 7 judicial order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that was declassified Thursday. Presiding FISA Judge James Boasberg wrote that “DOJ assesses that with respect to the applications in Docket Numbers 17-375 and 17-679, ‘if not earlier, there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.’”
What probable cause was there ever?
It’s good to hear, belatedly, that Clinton campaign opposition research and that same research run through Yahoo News, don’t represent probable cause.
Of course that’s two out of four. And the order does little to remedy the original causes. The solution is a series of bureaucratic measures that treat this as a structural problem, rather than a specifically targeted abuse of authority.
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