James Comey, former director of the FBI appeared on Fox News Sunday. Laying claim that FBI was sloppy with respect to how it conducted the FISA warrant on Trump campaign official Carter Page. "I was overconfident in the procedures that the FBI and justice had built over 20 years. I thought they were robust enough. It's incredibly hard to get a FISA. I was over-confident and he's right there was real sloppiness."
Comey went on to lay claim that he still supports the use of the Steele dossier, and when questioned about the relevance of it being a part of a "broader mosaic" into the investigation, he went on to say, he believed the IG report meant, "FBI thought it was a close call until they got the Steele report, put that additional information in and that tipped it over to be probable cause." However, the IG report lays claim that the Steele report was essential to obtaining probable cause into opening a warrant. "As we describe in Chapter Five, the FBI ultimately did not seek a FISA order at that time because OGC, NSD's Office of Intelligence (OI), or both determined that more information was needed to support probable cause that Page was an agent of a foreign power. However, immediately after the Crossfire Hurricane team received Steele's election reporting on September 19, the team reinitiated their discussions with OI and their efforts to obtain FISA surveillance authority for Page, which they received from the FISC on October 21."
Facts later presented themselves that Carter Page was a CIA informant, however that portion was on the FISA application to was changed to indicate that Page was NOT working with the CIA. This information is essential to the renewal of targeted surveillance of Mr. Page.
Horowitz stated that there was either "gross negligence" or intentional conduct on the part of the FBI. There were 17 significant errors uncovered by the inspector general, while James Comey was the director of the FBI. Listed below are a few of the significant errors and omissions of the FBI.
1) "Omitted information the FBI had obtained from another U.S. government agency detailing its prior relationship with Page, including that Page had been approved as an "operational contact" for the other agency from 2008 to 2013, and that Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application."
2) "Included a source characterization statement asserting that Steele's prior reporting had been "corroborated and used in criminal proceedings," which overstated the significance of Steele's past reporting and was not approved by Steele's handling agent, as required by the Woods Procedures."
3) "Omitted information relevant to the reliability of Person 1, a key Steele sub-source (who was attributed with providing the information in Report 95 and some of the information in Reports 80 and 102 relied upon in the application), namely that ( 1) Steele himself told members of the Crossfire Hurricane team that Person 1 was a "boaster" and an "egoist" and " may engage in some embellishment" and (2) the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation on Person 1 a few days before the FISA application was filed."
4) "Asserted that the FBI had assessed that Steele did not directly provide to the press information in the September 23 Yahoo News article based on the premise that Steele had told the FBI that he only shared his election-related research with the FBI and Fusion GPS, his client; this premise was incorrect and contradicted by documentation in the Woods File-Steele had told the FBI that he also gave his information to the State Department."
5) "Omitted Papadopoulos's consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in September 2016 denying that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russia or with outside groups like Wikileaks in the release of emails."
6) "Omitted information from persons who previously had professional contacts with Steele or had direct knowledge of his work-related performance, including statements that Steele had no history of reporting in bad faith but "[d]emonstrates lack of self-awareness, poor judgment," "pursued people with political risk but no intelligence value," "didn't always exercise great judgment," and it was " not clear what he would have done to validate" his reporting."
7) "Omitted information obtained from Ohr about Steele and his election reporting, including that ( 1) Steele's reporting was going to Clinton's presidential campaign and others, (2) Simpson was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media, and (3) Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President."
8) "Failed to update the description of Steele after the information became known to the Crossfire Hurricane team, from Ohr and others, that provided greater clarity on the political origins and connections of Steele's reporting, including that Simpson was hired by someone associated with the Democratic Party and/or the DNC."
So, was James Comey grossly negligent or did he intentionally approve the actions of the FBI with respect to the application of FISA warrants? The final word will ultimately be with the Attorney General William Barr, however, everyone is entitled to their opinion on the issue. We want to know what you think.