Anti-Trump FISA application followed unusual approval path

Washington ExaminerIn front of a joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Aug. 31, 2018, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson said she was normally responsible for signing off on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications before they reached the desk of her superiors for approval. Anderson said the “linear path” those applications typically take was upended in October 2016, with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates signing off on the application before she did. Because of that unusual high-level involvement, she didn’t see the need to “second guess” the FISA application.

So what is the takeaway here? Well, first, the FISA application clearly followed an unusual, top-down, very much not "by the book", dare I say political process. By the time it reached Trisha Anderson's desk, who would normally see it first, it had already been approved "informally" by McCabe and Sally Yates had already signed it.

McCabe is infamous for his pro-Hillary involvement in the Hillary email investigation, and for this anti-Trump involvement in the Trump investigation, and also for the $500,000+ in campaign donations his wife received from Hillary-linked donors while all this was going on.

Yates is infamous for getting herself fired over a relatively trivial policy position during the early Trump administration. It suffices to establish her anti-Trump bias.

Anderson clearly admits she didn't do her job to review the FISA because her superiors had already signed off on it.

Second point. Remember Susan Rice's last minute email to herself saying Obama said to do it all "by the book"? This is the last firewall before this scandal reaches Obama. "He said to do it all by the book!" This is clearly not by the book.

Third... whether we believe her that she didn't look at the application or not, she signed off on it. That makes her complicit. It's not the informal approvals that matter. It's her signature.

This entry was published Thu May 30 06:47:18 CDT 2019 by TriggerFinger and last updated 2019-05-31 04:48:23.0. [Tweet]

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