Silence of 'the lambs': The deafening quietude of the FISA court and John Roberts thehill.com/opinion/white-…
The issuance of a so-called FISA warrant authorizing the FBI to spy on Carter Page, was momentous and unprecedented, permitting a Democratic-run Justice Department to obtain communications inside the duly-elected GOP nominee’s campaign during its final weeks before the election.
What do the FISC judges and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, the ultimate judicial disciplinarian, think about what happened?
After all, the FISC issued not 1, but 4 warrants allowing the FBI to monitor Page for nearly 9 months into Trump’s presidency.
After all, the FISC issued not 1, but 4 warrants allowing the FBI to monitor Page for nearly 9 months into Trump’s presidency.
This week, Rep. Mark Meadows, who along with Rep. Jim Jordan, has driven the once reluctant House leaders to dig for much of the aforementioned evidence, sent his own missive to U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer. She is chief judge of the FISC.
His letter asked the obvious question: As a separate and equal pillar of government from Congress and the executive branch, does the judiciary have concerns with the FBI’s and DOJ’s conduct?
“Based on our investigation and open source information, the FISC may have not lived up to the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures in approving U.S. citizens targeted without probable cause,” Meadows wrote.
“We write to encourage you to investigate the possibility that FISA has recently been weaponized for political means.”
It is not unprecedented for the usually secretive court to speak. In recent years, it has released documents — usually self-reported violations from DOJ and the FBI — so the public can see when the process has been abused.
The FISC is one of the only courts in America where the accused gets no representation, and the public gets no visibility.
For that reason, the DOJ and FBI are supposed to be held to a higher standard of making sure judges see “the good, the bad and the ugly” about evidence so the court can protect the accused.
But a troubling whisper has begun inside the Justice Department. “FISAs aren’t required to include exculpatory evidence,” one official told me on background in a recent text message.
That emerging sentiment should alarm all of us, no matter our political stripe.
That emerging sentiment should alarm all of us, no matter our political stripe.
A court that excludes legal representation for the accused almost certainly will fail to protect civil liberty if it isn’t allowed to see proof of innocence or evidentiary flaws.
For those reasons, the silence of the FISC and Chief Justice Roberts is deafening. Enough concern has been raised about the Russia case for the judiciary to offer us an explanation.
