Thread by @JewhadiTM

The FBI's warrant system for spying on Americans is a mess, the IG report shows nbcnews.com/politics/justi…

The IG report found 17 significant errors or omissions in four applications for surveillance on Page, which, in the end, was portrayed as yielding little relevant information.

"We concluded that the failures… represent serious performance failures by the supervisory and non-supervisory agents with responsibility over the FISA applications," the report says.

"These failures prevented (the Justice Department) from fully performing its gatekeeper function and deprived the decision makers the opportunity to make fully informed decisions.

Although some of the factual misstatements and omissions... were arguably more significant than others, we believe that all of them taken together resulted in FISA apps that made it appear that the information supporting probable cause was stronger than was actually the case."

In the most serious case, a low-level FBI lawyer (hopefully now former FBI and a former lawyer) altered (falsified) an email to make it seem as if Page was not a CIA source, when in fact he was. That key fact might have cast his contacts with Russians in a different light.

The IG report said the FBI relied heavily on a dossier compiled as part of a Democratic-funded opposition research campaign by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, while failing to inform the court that questions had arisen about Steele's credibility.

For example, an FBI source validation review found that Steele, who had worked with the bureau in the past, provided information that was only "minimally corroborated." But the FBI didn't tell that to the FISA court, the report says.

The FBI interviewed one of the sources who made claims about Page in the Steele dossier. The source contradicted some of what Steele had written, but the FBI didn't tell that to the court.

That same source said Steele overstated the level of certainty around the notorious story about Trump's supposed sexual dalliance at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow. The source called it unconfirmed rumor and speculation.

The report said responsibility for the failures extends high up the FBI's management chain.

"That so many basic and fundamental errors were made by 3 separate, handpicked teams on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations that was briefed to the highest levels within the FBI

AND that FBI officials expected would eventually be subjected to close scrutiny, raised significant questions regarding the FBI chain of command's management and supervision of the FISA process."

Wray said that ‘some’ FBI employees ‘could’ be disciplined.

The FBI director for much of the period in question, self-professed Boy Scout and choir boy, James @Comey, focused his public comments mainly on the IG's debunking of Trump conspiracy theories, some of which were aimed at him.

Of course the arrogant little weasel said little about what the IG determined was a significant failure on his watch.

"The report found lots of mistakes — that's really significant and really unfortunate," @Comey said on MSNBC. "But that's why you do IG reports."