Was the FBI justified in spying? Consider that the FISA application was based in part on the Steele dossier.It is a fact that in October 2016 the FBI wiretapped Carter Page, who had earlier been a short-term foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. The bureau's application to a secret court for that wiretapping is public. It is heavily redacted but is clearly focused on Page and "the Russian government's attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election." Page was wiretapped because of his connection with the Trump campaign.Some critics have noted that the wiretap authorization came after Page left the campaign. But the surveillance order allowed authorities to intercept Page's electronic communications both going forward from the day of the order and backward, as well. Investigators could see Page's emails and texts going back to his time in the campaign.So there is simply no doubt that the FBI wiretapped a Trump campaign figure. Is a wiretap "spying"? It is hard to imagine a practice, whether approved by a court or not, more associated with spying.That alone is enough to back up Barr's remark. But it is also known that the FBI engaged at least one informant, a professor named Stefan Halper, to penetrate the Trump campaign. The New York Times recently reported, "Agents involved in the Russia investigation asked Mr. Halper, an American academic who teaches in Britain, to gather information on Mr. Page and George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign foreign policy adviser."Halper went beyond Page and Papadopoulos, also contacting and seeking information from Trump campaign aide Sam Clovis. "It was not clear whether Mr. Halper had the FBI's blessing to contact Mr. Clovis," the Times said.The Halper case is more evidence that "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. At least in the cases of Page and Papadopoulos, the information gathering was done by an informant engaged by the FBI.
In a saner world, this would be a huge deal.
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