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The Memo for Dummies
There is a lot of confusion out there about The Memo and its significance. There shouldn’t be because this really isn’t very complicated. I’m going to explain it simply so that even our more august yet occasionally mystified podcast hosts and hostesses can get it.
We have something called a FISA Court. This was created back in the 1970s, in response to Congressional allegations of abuse carried out by our intelligence agencies. The Court exists to assure that we have some control over the reach of our intelligence agencies, and to hold them accountable. Why do we need that? Because the government has to spy on people to keep us safe, but giving the government the authority to spy on people is inherently risky. So that authority has to be controlled, and that’s the function of the FISA Court.
What The Memo alleges, and what has yet to be refuted, is, most bluntly, that the Clinton campaign paid for a salacious document — the Steele Dossier — to be created attacking its political foe, Donald Trump; that this document, though its charges were unconfirmed, then became a critical element in a request, brought before the FISA Court by the FBI, to spy on people associated with the Trump campaign; and that the Court was informed neither of the fact that the Clinton campaign commissioned the document nor that there was no substantiation of the document’s truthfulness — worse, the Court was misled, by the FBI, into believing that there was independent confirmation of the document, when in fact there was not.
As a consequence, US intelligence agencies were authorized by the incumbent administration to spy on the campaign of the opposition party candidate during a historically contentious and critical national election.
It gets worse, but you don’t need more. All you have to know is that there are credible allegations that, in spite of the protections supposedly provided by the FISA Court, one administration was able, under incomplete and false pretenses, to spy on the opposition’s political campaign during the presidential election.
This isn’t about Mueller. This isn’t about Nunes. This isn’t about Schiff. This isn’t about Trump. This isn’t about Obama. This isn’t about Clinton. This isn’t about Russian collusion. This isn’t about how the press is going to spin it, or what it will do for our respect for institutions. This isn’t, as the smart people over at Need to Know like to say, about “a failure to follow ‘best practices.'”
This is about the FBI spying on a political campaign.
There’s nothing subtle or ambiguous here if the allegations in The Memo are true. When the Court having the ultimate duty to prevent abuse of our intelligence services is asked, during an election season, for permission to spy on the opposition candidate’s campaign, all sorts of alarms should sound. Of all the possible requests, this should be the most problematic, and the most troubling, and the one for which the highest standards should be upheld by the Court.
So when we’re told, by the New York Times, that the Court was informed that the Steele Dossier had “political” connections behind it, but that the Court was not told that it sprang from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, that should prompt us to ask, immediately: What? Did the Court not ask what “political” connections meant, in this context? Or did the Court ask, and the FBI decline to provide a factual response? Just what happened here?
Democracy dies in darkness, as they say. It’s time to shine some light on the FISA Court and find out what happened during the campaign. There is nothing in this matter that shouldn’t be unclassified, if necessary, to answer that question.
Published in Politics
Great post!
But this is like explaining to members of the Congressional Black Caucus that more employment opportunities for black men is a good thing. They won’t say it outright, but that’s not in their interest. Their interest is having these folks dependent and angry at Republicans.
People, ostensibly on the right, who dismiss the Memo as insignificant aren’t stupid, they have their own interests in mind – they are simply employing propaganda to protect them.
Thank you.
When we argue, we are rarely trying to change the minds of the ostensible target audience. We’re talking to the room.
“We will have the most transparent administration ever” was what I think the Man said.
As I recall — and we’re talking about Obama here — he didn’t say that wouldn’t require a whole lot of subpoenas.
The Congress that passed the FISA legislation made the same mistake the founders did: they set one part of the government to keep watch on another part of the government.
The founders were geniuses, and the checks and balances are exactly what we need. It isn’t perfect — it can’t be. But I can’t imagine a better system, and neither could they.
I understand that Henry. I’m just telling the room that if they are perplexed at how someone can get things so wrong, so distorted and so ignorant of the basics behind our Constitution, to consider the simple but shocking theory that they are outright liars and traitors.
How much truth actually came out of that man’s mouth?
It works as long as the separate bodies have differing goals. It breaks down when they have the same goals.
I recall hearing that the work on the “dossier” was originally started, and paid for, by one of the rivals during the primaries. Do I have it right? (Could someone provide a link or source of this, if I, indeed, remember it correctly?)
This is a pure speculation on my part, but it seems plausible. The Memo states on p. 2 that “[…] The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named U.S. person[…]“Could it be that “a named U.S. person” was identified in the application as the original Republican sponsor? The implication is that, if the judge thought that “the dossier” was the work product on behalf of a Republican, it is less of a concern than if it were from the opposing party.
AFAIK, Steele was not in the mix until the Democrats stepped in to fund the project. There was an initial relationship between Fusion GPS and a Republican group that I still feel is relevant. I’m trying to find a Washington Free Beacon piece that I recall about this.
A couple of thoughts.Okay, only one thought.By the time of the application in October, Fusion GPS/DNC/Clinton were funding the memo work. If the FBI referenced anyone else in the application, while failing to identify the current and primary sources of funding (i.e., Fusion GPS/DNC/Clinton), then I think that would be particularly dishonest.
My sentiment exactly. I was bugged by the reference to the “named person” on the first read of the memo. Why not say who this was?
In a mean time I found this NYT story that says that the original sponsor of the dossier was The Washington Free Beacon.
See here.
Bulls eye, @henryracette, especially the third paragraph synopsis of the primary memo allegations. The FBI should not have been using the dossier at all, to any degree, not as support in any legal proceeding, and especially not in one associated with political campaign involved in national elections.
I’ll give US intelligence the benefit of the doubt and assume they have never interfered in this manner before with a political campaign/election. Which brings up the question, why did they and two points in answer:
There’s a cautionary tale here. With such diametrically opposed world views at play, strong and sustained support is necessary to accomplish anything, but beware crossing the anything goes rubicon into obeisance.
Who gets it?
Mollie Hemingway. She’s the first person I’ve heard on a Ricochet podcast speak clearly and sensibly on this matter.
Listen to her on this Michael Graham podcast, beginning at the 22:20 mark.
Yep. Fulminations about the memo’s effect on Trump and the investigation are beside the point, and really a diversion. We had a Latin fest here a couple of days ago, so forgive me, but the memo is clearly in the category of res ipse loquitur.
Thank you for this excellent summary; beautifully written.
I have had a spectrum of thought on this mess ranging from deeply perplexed to blood-vessel bursting outrage.
You have distilled it down to the key issue. Thanks again.
The Democrats and the media are all right with the ends justify the means. Hating Trump ils all that matters.
Great article.
I expect this does see pure sunshine eventually.
I’d also love to see Glenn Simpson’s of paid phony journalists.
The Clinton Campaign and elements within the FBI colluded with Russia to obtain salacious allegations in order to obtain a warrant to spy on an opposition campaign resulting in an investigation into collusion with Russia by the said same elements within the FBI on the campaign they illicitly spied on.
And all of this is in the public record.
This is a great explanation. Thank you.
It’s interesting to contemplate how this would have played out if Clinton were president. There would be no investigation, no matter how much Republicans clamored for it. She would have sufficient control of the FBI to squelch it. And as others have said, the hatred toward Trump is so great that the Democrats would simply have congratulated themselves had they won.
This would have been a dangerous precedent. It would give way too much power to incumbent presidents facing reelection.
No matter what else comes of this, that is the number one issue. We were told this could not happen. That FISA would not be used to spy on American citizens, that it would only be used for the most severe cases of threats to the country. Like terrorists.
But is it not clear and proven it was used for much more than that?
How ironic that it was just reauthorized a couple weeks ago!
On a side note, I’m very curious about the evidence against Carter Page. He has apparently been under scrutiny of FISA warrants since 2013. Either he is a traitor and Russian agent, or a decorated patriot who has been harassed and slandered while his constitutional rights were being violated. I don’t claim to know which, but it is important.
We have a right to know.
Imagine the story told by those bank records Nunes fought hard for and finally got thanks to a judge.
Cogent & succinct.
The hatred of Trump seems closely linked to —indeed, interdigitated with— the beatification of Obama, and the combination just seems bonkers. This is going to be fascinating history to read one day.
Still wondering how History will judge the first black president and his strange relationship with the first female almost-president.
The current Democrat line is that the FBI disclosed the political bias of the dossier. So…a FISA judge was okay with the FBI spying on a Trump campaign advisor during a presidential election based on Democratic Party oppo research? Is that supposed to make me feel better? So I guess the left is A-okay with us doing the same to them? Somehow I doubt it.
This reminds me of the old Clinton three step:
According to CNN,
“The Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported after the memo’s release that the FISA court was aware of political motivations behind the dossier.”
Terrific. So the court was told “hey, this is a skanky bit of political dirt; can we please surveil an American citizen?” and the court said “sure, why not! After all, this is Trump we’re talking about.”