The memo's out

[A Theist]

No part of it. What they didn't disclose is that Steele was paid to produce the dossier by the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

I was responding to A Theist who said "they [the FBI] didn't tell FISC that they were using the Dossier as their source".

Whether they didn't disclose who paid is up for debate. The memo says they didn't, but apparently the Democratic one says they did. This has become a game of political he said, she said, unfortunately.

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hmm.  From the memo itself:

4) .... Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrent would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.

and this:

5) The Page FISA application also mentions information regarding fellow Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulous, but there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulous.  The Papadopoulos information trigger the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strozok... 

You are conflating two things: the FISA warrant, and the Russian investigation. The memo states that the Russian investigation began when Papadopoulos got drunk with an Australian diplomat and ran his mouth. The diplomat then reported this to the FBI. A lot of conservatives have been arguing that the Russian investigation began when Steele sent his dossier to the FBI, but that wasn't the case (if we believe this part of the memo).

The FISA warrant came later.

But thanks for the link. I love reading comments from readers. Like this one, which sums up what is wrong with Spying on Americans; which is the WHOLE POINT.

We can argue whether spying on American citizens is right or wrong, but that seems like a separate argument. Unfortunately in the world of espionage, it's a little complicated, because you don't know if an American citizen is working for a foreign power or not, without at least a little spying (or you get really lucky).

I don't agree with how that comment describes this as "spying on a political opponent". The political opponent in this was Donald Trump, and as far as I'm aware (please correct me if I'm wrong, with sources) there was never actually any spying done against Donald Trump himself. The targets of surveillance were people in his campaign, and in every case there was supposedly evidence to suggest that they had been compromised by the Russians.

I disagree vehemently with point 3 of the comment. The integrity of our democracy is paramount, it's more important than partisan politics. If, in 2020, the FBI got word that the Democratic campaign were trying to manipulate voting machines in swing states, do you think the FBI should sit back and ignore it, or investigate and (to use the commenter's phrase) "spy on a political opponent"?

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1. Yes. The memo states that that it "formed an essential part" of the FISA warrants. It was the key element and the foundation for those warrants, which, in its "infancy", had only been "minimally" corroborated by the FBI. It was also testified by former DAG, Bruce Ohr, who had contact with Christopher Steele, that Steele said he was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president". Christopher Steele, a British spy who was trying to undermine our election process along with others within the FBI who also was trying to undermine the Trump campaign and now his presidency. Also, Comey, briefed President Trump on the dossier, calling it, "salacious and unverified". Other sources for FISA warrants, a Yahoo news article that focused on Carter Page's trip to Moscow in July of 2016....and the source for that article, Christopher Steele..."This article does not corroborate the Steele Dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News".  
So yeah, I would say that it was pretty much the basis for the FISA warrants. (bolding mine, for direct quotes from the memo).

See, for me the word "part" is key there. That implies there was other evidence used.

The fact that the dossier had only been "minimally" corroborated is also only relevant if they used uncorroborated parts to back up the FISA application. There is nothing in the memo that states the FBI did this.

The fact that Steele didn't like Trump is also only relevant if uncorroborated parts of the dossier were used to back up the FISA application. Whether someone is a supporter of a candidate or not doesn't change the veracity of claims. Also, playing devil's advocate here, but let's assume Steele believed every claim in his dossier. To him, Trump is compromised by the Russians. So it makes sense that he was passionate about him not being President.

As to the Yahoo News article, yes it uses Steele as a source, but again, it's only an issue if it wasn't corroborated. The memo doesn't state anything about this. It also doesn't state that the dossier and the article were the only pieces of evidence used.

2. If you have a "salacious and unverified" document that is intended to undermine a political opponent and that is only "minimally corroborated", it's not good enough. ( bolding mine, for quotes from the memo).

I hold that it *is* good enough *if* only the corroborated parts were used. I've seen nothing in the memo that suggests they attached the entire dossier as evidence in the FISA application, and doing that would make no sense anyway since most of the dossier wasn't about Carter Page. The dossier is a collection of claims, some are corroborated, some are not. Just because some claims may be untrue does not negate the claims that are true.

3. Yes. The original funding came from a Republican, (McCain ?), but it was abandoned only to be picked up by the Hillary Campaign and the DNC.

...and the memo fails to mention this. You asked for facts that were omitted. That's one. It was omitted (in my opinion) to keep up the narrative that the dossier is nothing but a partisan hit job, when it started out ironically enough within the Republican party.

At the very least it shows a level of incompetence by some higher ups within the FBI and the DOJ who hated President Trump to rush unverified evidence to the FISC to obtain FISA warrants.

Again, there's absolutely nothing in the memo that states "unverified evidence" was used in a FISA application. The memo is very cleverly written, it doesn't outright make that claim, it hints towards it in an ambiguous way, by saying that the dossier was "minimally corroborated". That fact, as I've pointed out, is irrelevant as long as the FBI only used corroborated claims from the dossier in the FISA application.

So really A Theist, you only have to do one thing to change my mind about all of this: show me that an uncorroborated claim from the dossier was used in the FISA application

Find that, and I'll change my mind, condemn the FBI, and write a 1000 word post here about why Trump is a great President. You have my word on that.

1. For me the words, "essential part" are key. That implies to me that the dossier was heavily relied upon to get the FISA warrants. As far as verification of so-called evidence in the dossier what was the corroborating evidence? Could it have been news stories that Steele planted himself, or maybe information that Steele was being fed from the Clinton campaign and from the Obama Justice Department that was possibly contained in a second dossier that Steele, (or possibly authored by Clinton hitman, Cody Shearer), had written? Any possibility that the actual FISA warrants could be released so the public can see what's in them and just what exactly the corroborating evidence was?  Just recently on the news over the last couple of days Senators Lindsay Graham and Chuck Grassley have sent a letter to the DOJ requesting a criminal probe of Christopher Steele.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dossie...le/2648099

2. Yes. The dossier is a collection of claims but what are those claims corroborated with? 

3. It was already common knowledge long before the memo came out that McCain first paid Fusion GPS for dirt on President Trump but he abandoned the dossier only to be picked up by the Clinton campaign. The only hit job I see is coming from the democrats and a few Never Trumper GOP establishment types, like McCain.

4. I'm just going by what Comey said, that the dossier was "salacious and unverified" and that the memo stated it "formed an essential part" for the FISA warrants. I'm going by that until we can see what was in the actual warrants. As far as to what is in the dems' and Shifty Schiff's response to the Nunes memo will be, I imagine that it will be just as partisan as those who are claiming the Nunes memo is.

5. Watched the news this morning and found why the FBI may have been so opposed the releasing of the Nunes memo. The U.S. has an agreement with Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand to share intelligence with each other. Part of that agreement is that they can't recruit an agent from one of the other countries. Contrary to the agreement the FBI hired Christopher Steele as a paid informant. If it's found that Steele was working for the FBI while he was still an MI6 agent there could be serious charges filed.