Thread by @DawsonSField

@mentions@EmptyWheel is missing the big revelation.

While the indictment is vague on what non-public data was being accessed to spy upon Donald Trump during the campaign, it is almost certainly connected to this April 2017 ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
#Spygate

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1438612056698150912

Let's first look at what the indictment says...
Sussman represented IC-1 in Feb. 2015 in a matter with an agency, likely to be FBI.
I believe this matter was gaining access to non-public information from FBI.

IC-2 employees queried non-public data to spy upon Trump & his associates.

TE-1 then brough in University-1 & Researchers 1 & 2.

Their missionL spy upon Trump & find information to please VIPs.

The University was negotiating a contract with Agency-1, likely the FBI, to get large quantities of non-public data.
Tea Leaves (O-1) & TE-1 were going to sell the data to the Uni with Agency-1 paying them to analyze it.

As a 'proof of concept' IC-1 gave the Uni access to the non-public data that the IC-1 gained access to from a US government office as part of a sensitive relationship with the US govt.

O-1, R-1 & R2 used non-public data that IC-1 had been granted access to to protect the US from cyberattacks, to instead spy upon Trump & his associates.

R-1 conducted an about query for "mail1.trump-email.com" almost certainly using that access to Agency-1 data provided to IC-1.

If this all sounds familiar it is!

This FIS Court opinion & order covers a very similar incident.
On 3/9/17 an audit of an FBI office, almost certainly the Washington Field Office, found that an organization consisting of mostly contractors had been given access to FBI's raw FISA database.

dni.gov/files/document…

I believe it is FBI's Washington FO because on that same day, Lisa Page texted Peter Strzok to inform him of a huge "f up" at WFO that Andrew McCabe was dealing with.

The contractors were given access to FBI raw FISA data to provide analytical assistance to the FBI.
But were given access far beyond what was necessary.

FBI closed this specific access on April 18th 2016.

This access was ruled to be illegal by the FIS Court! FBI notified the court on 10/4/16 that it was investigating whether other similar accesses had been set up.

The date is uncertain on this one, but a private agency working for another government agency had been given similar access by FBI. These contractors were installing a software tool but FBI could not explain why it gave them access to raw FISA data.

FIS court wanted more information on these violations.

Here's the kicker, the date the improper access was given is redacted. But the access was intentional with a Memorandum of Understanding approved by unnamed or unknown FBI lawyers.

I don't have a source handy, but guess who was Associate Director In Charge of the Washington FBI Field Office in early 2015? Andrew McCabe.
Who was his counsel assigned to provide him lawyerly opinions? Lisa Page.

What are the odds that the same people dealing with the F up at WFO are the same people who were running it when the FISA access was granted?
Did McCabe, Page & Sussmann negotiate FISA access for IC-1 & TC-1?
In an similar story to IC-1s access to do about queries on FISA date?

And how did the story end?
With Admiral Rogers of the NSA reporting the illegal about queries to the FISC in October of 2016. The same day the @carterwpage's FISA was signed using data from Sussman's contractor Fusion GPS!