Thread by @PaulSchmehl

NBC argues that there’s nothing wrong with the FISA warrant nbcnews.com/news/crime-cou… Let’s see what they say.

“The Russia investigation wasn't launched because of Carter Page.” That has nothing to do with the warrant. I’m not even sure why they included it, other than to confuse their readers. Who cares how the investigation started? What’s the probable cause for the warrant?

“The so-called dossier formed only a smart part of the evidence used to meet the legal burden of establishing "probable cause" that Page was an agent of Russia.” Of course they go on to NOT list any of the rest of the evidence. Because they can’t.

Then they cite people who say the real information is redacted. This argument will never end until we can see the whole un-redacted version, but right now, their argument is based on ignorance. They simply don’t know, but they want to believe.

“National security experts who have reviewed the document say that even the parts that aren't blacked out contain more than enough information to provide a judge reason to rule that the FBI had probable cause to believe that Page was an agent of Russia.” Trust us. Really?

“Four different judges, all appointed by Republican presidents, signed off on electronic surveillance of Carter Page.” Totally irrelevant. You’re asking us to trust the judges. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. And it looks for all the world like the judges cannot be trusted.

“No judge, however, would grant a surveillance warrant based entirely on hearsay, Figliuzzi said.” Guess what? We’re going to find out if that’s true. Will you apologize when we do? Because it sure looks like that’s what happened.

“The FBI disclosed to the court that Steele was paid by people seeking to discredit Trump. But the FBI viewed Steele as credible.” That’s a flat-out lie.Bald-faced. Here’s what the footnote says:

“The FBI
speculates that the identified U.S. person was likely looking for information that
could be used to discredit Candidate #l's campaign.” The FBI “speculates” is not the same as the FBI “disclosing”. The latter implies positive knowledge. The former implies no knowledge.

For example, if I were to say, I’m disclosing that NBC is a leftist biased non-news entity, would that be the same as saying, I speculate that NBC…? Obviously not. The latter is an opinion. The former implies that I possess proof of the application. NBC would ignore the latter.

But they would certainly demand that I produce the proof of the former. You see how that works NBC? I’m sure you do.

Here’s where we stand at this point. We don’t know all the evidence that was used to obtain the warrant. We do know that the dossier was used as proof that Page was a Russian agent. Unless there’s actual proof of that, the warrant is bogus.

When I was stationed at Treasure Island for training, I sometimes used the bus to go home to Daley City. I never saw feces or needles in the year that I was stationed there. This is beyond appalling. It’s inexcusable.

https://twitter.com/chicksonright/status/1021731525510017024