by Jordan Davidson at The Federalist
A newly declassified ruling from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court in June demonstrates that the government lied about its legal basis for spying on former Trump campaign official Carter Page.
A newly declassified ruling from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court in June demonstrates that the government lied about its legal basis for spying on former Trump campaign official Carter Page.
The ruling states that the information produced by the FBI’s unlawful investigation into Page was illegally obtained and that it “found violations of the government’s duty of candor in all four applications.” The ruling also orders the government that “it must temporarily retain, and potentially use and disclose, the information collected, largely in the context of ongoing or anticipated litigation.”
Under the court’s 21-page assessment, information obtained by all four of the warrants and applications is invalidated due to its illegal acquisition, unless the Department of Justice is using it “to investigate or prosecute potential crimes relating to the conduct of the Page or Crossfire Hurricane investigations” such as the FBI’s overreach and its violations of FISA.
“The Court is permitting use or disclosure of information obtained from electronic surveillance or physical search of Page only where it has been or can be demonstrated to be necessary to remedy or deter the types of harm,” the ruling states.
It must also be proved that the information is required for a specific need before it can be accessed.
This ruling, declassified on Friday, confirms what the FISA court and the Department of Justice both previously declared in January about the FBI’s investigation: that at least two of the four applications allowing “electronic surveillance and physical search targeting Page” by the FBI were “unlawfully authorized.”
In the January ruling…
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