Senate Has Held Two Hearings on IG Report of FISA Abuse, House Has Held Zero

Since the release of a damaging Justice Department Inspector General report detailing Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misconduct when applying for surveillance warrants on a former Trump campaign member, the Senate has held two hearings on the report, but the House has yet to hold one.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the DOJ IG report and earlier this week, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held another hearing.

During the hearing, Democrats emphasized the finding that there was no documentary or testimonial evidence of bias found on the part of the FBI in the decision to open the investigation into Page. However, Republicans emphasized the more than 400-page report’s findings of the FBI’s failures, errors, and misconduct in seeking and obtaining the ability to spy on a former Trump campaign member.

Indeed, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which granted the FBI the warrants to spy under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), issued a rare public rebuke of the FBI on Tuesday, calling its actions “misconduct” and demanding reforms by January.

However, the Democrat-controlled House has yet to hold a hearing on the report.

During an interview on Wednesday, CNN’s Dana Bash asked House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) if his committee would start to work on reforming the FISC.

Schiff pledged that he would, but did not indicate there would be any hearings on the matter.

“We’ll have an opportunity to do so with the renewals of the FISA legislation,” he said.

Schiff last year fought the release of a memo by then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) that outlined serious problems he found in investigating the FBI’s use of the FISA process to get surveillance warrants on Page.

Schiff claimed that the release of the memo would indirectly lead to incidents of domestic terrorism. After the White House declassified the memo, Schiff released a counter-memo that claimed the FBI had done nothing wrong.

Schiff’s memo also asserted things that the DOJ IG report found was not true. For example, Schiff’s memo asserted that the FBI’s FISA application on Page made “only narrow use” of information in Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele’s dossier.

The DOJ IG report found that the dossier was “central and essential” to the FBI’s application. In fact, the DOJ IG report found that the FBI could not obtain the initial warrant without the dossier. The report said:

We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order.

As noted above, when the team first sought to pursue a FISA order for Page in August 2016, a decision was made by [the FBI Office of General Counsel], [the Justice Department’s National Security Division’s Office of Intelligence], or both that more information was needed to support a probable cause finding that Page was an agent of a foreign power. As a result, FBI OGC ceased discussions with or about a Page FISA order at that time.

Breitbart News has reached out to Schiff’s office to learn whether he is planning to hold a hearing on the report, but did not receive one by the time of publication.

 

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