Hillary Clinton Donald Trump
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On Friday, President Donald Trump authorized the release of the controversial FISA memo, which details the alleged abuses by the FBI and the Department of Justice having to do with secret surveillance in the Russia-Trump collusion investigation.

Trump's decision was highly controversial after many Democrats warned it was inaccurate and politically charged.

The memo covered four key points as discovered by the Washington Examiner:
  • The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page.
  • Andrew McCabe confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information.
  • The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials, but excluded from the FISA applications.
  • DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to DOJ information about Steele's bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) summarized the alleged abuses best in a tweet saying, "FBI takes 'salacious and unverified' dossier to secret court to get secret warrant to spy on a fellow American, and FBI doesn't tell the court that the DNC/Clinton campaign paid for that dossier. And they did that FOUR times."


But there was one part of the memo that could become the most damning in the document, and it has to do with Hillary Clinton and the DNC. On page four of the memo, it states:
The "dossier" compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump's ties to Russia.

Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts, even though political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.
If true, it would mean that, despite being aware of Clinton and the DNC's involvement, this detail was not disclosed when filing the FISA warrant application. Such a disclosure could potentially have an impact on the secretive FISA court's decision.