Marc Thiessen says Trump's critics are damaging US institutions
FBI abuse of the FISA court breaks the bond of trust with the American people, says Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen, Washington Post columnist.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is the “perfect example” of how President Trump's adversaries have become the enemies of democracy, Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen said Monday.
“What [the FBI’s] done essentially in trying to pursue President Trump is they’ve damaged the bond of trust between the government and the secret court that we need, and that's going to harm our national security,” Thiessen, a former White House speechwriter, said in an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
Thiessen was reacting to the findings detailed in Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 476-page report. The watchdog said he found no "documentary" evidence of political bias surrounding either the launch of the Trump-Russia investigation or efforts to seek the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early stages of that probe. Still, Horowitz’s report revealed there were at least 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the Page FISA applications.
In blistering testimony earlier this month, Horowitz declared a “failure” by the entire “chain of command” involved in the FBI’s initial Trump-Russia investigation and called out “basic and fundamental errors” at the bureau while stressing that his newly released report on the probe does not "vindicate" anyone.
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Thiessen pointed out on Monday morning that “the FBI lied to the FISA court about evidence in order to get a warrant to pursue Carter Page.”
“Last week, the head judge of the FISA court, Rosemary Collyer, issued a blistering order to the FBI accusing them of falsifying information, withholding information that was detrimental to their case,” Thiessen said. “And in one case intentionally misleading the court by altering an email that withheld information that Carter Page had been a CIA source. This is incredibly damaging to the court because the court functions, by necessity, in secrecy.”
“We depend on the FISA court for our national security, to obtain warrants about imminent terrorist threats," he added. "If there is a terrorist that our intelligence community thinks may be planning an attack and it could be happening quickly, they go to the FISA court to get a warrant.”
“And what the judge said in her order was that because of the FBI's misconduct, they are now calling into question all of the intelligence that they have information that they have put in, all of their FISA applications, including in terrorist cases,” Thiessen continued.
Last week, Collyer had ordered the Justice Department to identify by January 10 what steps it was taking to correct problems with the FISA warrant process. The FBI had promised to work with DOJ to comply. The FISA Court presiding judge has sent another directive to the Justice Department, ordering officials to identify previous surveillance requests from an FBI lawyer linked to the 2016 warrant from Page.
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In an order unsealed Friday, Collyer asked the Justice Department to identify steps to ensure the accuracy of those filings and whether the unnamed DOJ lawyer was ever disciplined.
“She wants the FBI to explain how are you going to fix this and why shouldn't we call into question every order that you’ve given us,” Thiessen said on Monday, adding that he thinks there is another problem.
“Because it’s a secret court, there is a bond of trust not just between the government and the court, but between the court and the people,” Thiessen said on “Fox & Friends.”
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“We are depending on the fact that these judges are going to take into consideration all evidence, and the FBI is going to be honest in its interactions with the court," he said. "And because we now know that the FBI intentionally misled the court. Then that means people are going to call into question whether or not this court should continue to exist.”
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Bill Mears contributed to this report.
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