Thread by @EpochOpinion

Analysis🔎by Jeff Carlson @themarketswork

In a newly unredacted footnote from the @JusticeOIG #IGReport on #FISAabuse, the urgency behind the @FBI obtaining a #FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser @CarterWPage becomes clear. (Thread👇) theepochtimes.com/declassificati…

In the #IGReport, #Horowitz detailed a last-minute flurry of activity that transpired ahead of the issuance of the @CarterWPage #FISA, including a possible intervention from then-Deputy @FBI Director McCabe, to push a seemingly reluctant #DOJ official, Stuart Evans, for approval.

“Footnote 276” was initially redacted in the #IGReport, but was declassified, among other footnotes, following a request from @SenRonJohnson and @ChuckGrassley.

In the declassified footnote, IG #Horowitz elaborated on the urgency behind #LisaPage’s communications with #McCabe:

Another unredacted footnote pertained to the #FISA signoff by then-Deputy AG #SallyYates, which was required to determine “that there is probable cause to believe that the technique is directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.”

During congressional testimony on Aug. 31, 2018, Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel for the @FBI, highlighted the unusual nature of the @CarterWPage #FISA application and the unusual roles of #McCabe and #Yates:

A major problem with the issuance of the @CarterWPage #FISA was that information had been provided to the #FBI indicating that Page had previously worked with or on behalf of another agency, likely the #CIA.

That information, if provided to the Office of Intelligence (OI) or the #FISACourt, would have made it significantly more difficult for the #FBI to claim that @CarterWPage was “an agent of a foreign power.”

https://twitter.com/EpochOpinion/status/1251919099510300673

On Jan. 3, 2017, another section of Executive Order 12333, Section 2.3 Procedures for the Availability or Dissemination of Raw Signals Intelligence Information by the NSA [National Security Agency], was signed into effect by the #Obama administration. assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3283…

#JamesClapper, the @ODNIgov, signed off on Section 2.3 on Dec. 15, 2016, and the order was finalized when AG #LorettaLynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.

The new order allowed for the other #Intelligence agencies to ask the @NSAGov for access to specific #Surveillance simply by…

…claiming the intercepts contain relevant information that would be useful to a particular mission.

Crucially, #Privacy protection of the underlying raw data was specifically bypassed by the order.

As @NYTimes noted at the time, “the new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws.”

On its face, the rule was supposedly put in place in order to reduce the risk that @NSAgov “will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency,” but in reality, it dramatically expanded gov't access to the #Private information of US citizens.

As of Oct. 21, 2016, although it wasn’t known to the public, @CarterWPage met these requirements.

When the order was signed, many wondered at the timing and questioned why there was a pressing need to rush the order during the final days of the #Obama administration.

An equally valid question was why was the order so overdue.

It had been anticipated that the order would be finalized by early- to mid-2016.

Section 2.3 was reported as being on “the verge” of finalization in late February 2016 as reported by the @NYTimes:

Interestingly, the finalized version contained a provision relating to “Political Process” that hadn’t been in place in earlier versions of Section 2.3:

If the above language had been implemented in early 2016 as originally scheduled, dissemination of any raw intelligence on or relating to the Trump campaign to officials within the Obama White House would likely have been made more difficult or prohibited.

In other words, prior to Section 2.3, it appears that greater latitude existed for officials in the #Obama administration to gain access to information.

Once the order was signed into effect, Section 2.3 granted greater latitude to interagency sharing of that information.

On July 27, 2017, @DevinNunes, sent a letter to the @ODNIgov Dan Coats regarding the ongoing #Leaks of classified information and the need for new #Unmasking legislation to address the problem.

Nunes’s letter specifically pointed out officials within the #Obama administration:

Rep. @DevinNunes noted that one particular official within the #Obama administration—almost certainly former UN Ambassador Samantha Power—had made a huge number of #Unmasking request in 2016:

Interestingly, Power has denied that she was the person making the unmasking requests.

“Her testimony is they may be under my name, but I did not make those requests,” @TGowdySC said of Power during an interview in October 2017.

The letter from @DevinNunes also specified that #Obama officials sought information from intelligence reports that was specific to “Trump transition officials”:

Rep. @DevinNunes told Coats that his committee had “found that the Intelligence Community’s U.S. person unmasking policies are inadequate to prevent abuse, such as political spying” and asked for help from @ODNIgov in drafting legislation to fix the issue.

On March 22, 2017, after learning of the #Unmasking of members of the Trump transition team, @DevinNunes gave an impromptu press conference, followed by a more formal press conference later that day.

In an earlier interview, #Obama’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas detailed how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump Team, as well as how the information was disseminated:

Farkas, who penned a Dec. 12, 2016 op-ed against then-President-elect Trump, left the #Obama administration in late 2015 and campaigned for @HillaryClinton’s failed presidential bid.

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