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It seems to me that the next question is what happened with information gleaned from the wiretap. Was it shared with anyone outside the investigation of Carter Page?
Great photo for this podcast, Michael.
Here’s another reason that Philadelphia fans don’t deserve successful teams: as your Confession Hotline caller sang,
What the heck are you doing flying on the road?
I think we already know one answer to your second question, since we know that contractors were illegally permitted to search the surveillance database in connection with the steady stream of unmasking requests that was coming from the White House, from a location in the White House very close to the Oval Office.
GREAT interview of David Rivkin. How about you get him together with Seb Gorka and maybe Frank Gaffney, and just turn on the mic – that would be for us freedom-loving hawks a 21st Century Woodstock.
Wow Michael, after a week of listening to you on the Patriot train with both feet and telling us to give in to the inevitable, where was all the crow you promised to eat? The game for me was just like the election. I’m glad the Patriots lost but I wish the Eagles didn’t win either ;) This NeverTrumper acknowledges and is grateful for the good things accomplished by the good people in the Trump administration and wishes that Trump himself would aid them by not being Trump.
Oh and I absolutely loved the way you pointed out that it is possible to think two things about the whole memogate thing. I think the Trump campaign acted stupidly and Obama, Clinton, Lynch, Comey and some others in the FBI and at DOJ were corrupt. I really think Trump should leave Mueller alone and stop the nonsense about the memo vindicating him. I really think all Mueller will uncover is that Trump had some skanky people in his campaign and that Don Jr. is an idiot.
Hee hee… Trump is great. They’re just jealous.
MORE crow? I have to eat MORE? Please–it’s Crow-Free February at my house. Part of the Atkins Diet…
Really good interviews with Rivkin and Cohen. However, I am not sure that Cohen is correct when she says that no reasonable judge would have approved the FISA warrant if they knew about the provenance of the dossier. It is pretty typical for investigators to deal with sources with axes to grind; so bias alone is not disqualifying. Here the FBI apparently had a reasonable basis to be confident in their source and his ability to get information from Russian sources. Yes, the dossier was unverified — but the whole point of the warrant was to verify (or not) the dossier. That being said, the FBI clearly should have provided all the background information to the court. The FBI had a duty of candor. It was appropriate for them to ask for the warrant, but they needed to give the FISA court all the background information so the court could decide whether probably cause had been established.
That absolutely was not the whole point of the warrant. If it were, then anyone could compose a work of fiction and secure a FISA warrant to verify (or not) that work of fiction.
The fact that nothing in the dossier was verified by the FBI – other than the fact that Carter Page traveled to Moscow and did nothing to justify a surveillance – is what would have caused any reasonable judge to deny the request for a warrant. Andrew McCabe admitted that without the dossier, the FBI and DoJ would not have sought a FISA warrant. Since nothing in the dossier was verified by the FBI, they were essentially granted a FISA warrant based on nothing.
That is a stark violation of the Fourth Amendment that every American ought to beware.
Once again, a terrific guest choice in David Rivkin, who speaks coherently and with authority about The Memo, and who, like Mollie Hemingway, wisely keeps the cart planted squarely behind the horse.
You’re on a role, Michael.