I bet one element of the December 2016 FISA application to extend the surveillance warrant on Carter Page was his on-video confession at a Moscow conference that he had been (that week) talking with top Rosneft executives in Moscow—the same ones he earlier lied about speaking to.
2/ Remember, the Steele Dossier alleged Page had been speaking to Rosneft executives about stock. Page claimed he hadn't been. He then conceded to Congress that was a lie. But worse, he went back to Moscow to talk to them *again*. I think the FISC would take serious note of that.
3/ Why does it matter? Because when Rosenstein reauthorized the Page surveillance warrant, he likely had evidence from the surveillance relating to Page's December 2016 trip to Moscow, which confirmed Page was having clandestine contact with the same men the Dossier said he was.
4/ In other words, Trump's plot to use Nunes' memo to get Mueller fired is going to backfire. All we'll end up with is significantly more information about how and why Trump hired a long-suspected Russian spy to join his national security team.
Trump is playing with fire here.
Trump is playing with fire here.
5/ And to be clear, we're speaking of Rosenstein reauthorizing a warrant *application*, as any actual *warrant* has to be approved by a judge (in this case from the FISA court). So this was *not* Rod Rosenstein acting on his own, as Trump allies in the House would like to imply.
