The release of the document, with three subsequent applications to renew the surveillance, was extraordinary and historic. In the four decades that FISA has been in effect, it's not clear that any application for surveillance has ever been released. Materials related to FISA operations and legal process are among the most highly classified and closely guarded. The New York Times, USA Today, and the James Madison Project all sued for release of the materials.
The publication is also sure to fuel the political fight between Republicans and Democrats over the propriety of the surveillance and how it was legally justified. Republican lawmakers have accused the Obama Administration, which sought the surveillance order in October 2016, of relying on a controversial dossier of then-candidate Donald Trump's alleged connections to Russia to support the surveillance order. The document, compiled by a former British intelligence officer, was used as political opposition research by Democrats. But the author, Christopher Steele, also shared his findings with the FBI because he was concerned that Trump may have been compromised by Russia.
Members of the House Intelligence Committee have sparred for months over the Page surveillance. Republicans, who previously released some details about the application, had accused the FBI of relying too much on the Steele dossier, which they painted as politically motivated and uncorroborated. But Democrats countered that the FISA application relied on more information than what Steele provided. And they said Steele had been a reliable source of information to the FBI in the past.
The application shows that the FBI portrayed Steele to the court as a trusted source. The FBI also disclosed that his work was on behalf of a client who was likely looking for politically damaging information about Trump. Republicans had accused the bureau of failing to notify the court of the dossier's political origins.
Much of the more than 400 pages of applications is redacted, making it impossible to know all the evidence that the FBI presented.
Meanwhile, Trump has vented about a secret recording taped by his former lawyer Michael Cohen and seized by the FBI, calling both actions "inconceivable" and maintaining that he did nothing wrong. Trump tweeted that it was "inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer's office ... Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client ... The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!"
New York is a "one-party consent" state, meaning that in general, it is legal to record a conversation as long as at least one party agrees, even if that person is the one doing the recording. In addition, Trump's lawyers have not claimed the recording is a privileged lawyer-client conversation.
Cohen is being investigated for potential bank and election-law crimes. The recording was among the records seized in an FBI raid in April.
- Washington Post, AP
