(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for an interagency memorandum of understanding between the FBI and an agency whose name is redacted regarding the targeting and minimization procedures referenced in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:26-cv-02407)).
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the FBI failed to respond to a March 10, 2026, FOIA request for a copy of the memorandum that is cited in a footnote on page 87 of an opinion by Judge Rosemary Collyer filed on April 26, 2017.
The footnote Judicial Watch references in its lawsuit states:
The improper access granted to the [redacted] contractors was apparently in place [redacted] and seems to have been the result of deliberate decisionmaking. [Redacted] Compliance Report at 92-93 ([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted]). Despite the existence of an interagency memorandum of understanding (presumably prepared or reviewed by FBI lawyers), no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016. Of course, such a memorandum of understanding could not override the restrictions of Section 702 minimization procedures.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence explains that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 is a U.S. intelligence provision that “only permits the targeting of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States. United States persons and anyone in the United States may not be targeted.” Further, “all Section 702 targets must be non-United States persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States … such targets may send an email or have a phone call with a United States person. For this reason, Section 702 requires specific procedures to minimize the acquisition, retention, and sharing of any information concerning United States persons.”
The Obama FBI had officially opened its investigation, code-named “Crossfire Hurricane,” into the campaign of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 31, 2016. The court’s 99-page opinion documents significant compliance failures involving FISA surveillance during the same period, raising concerns about the handling of raw intelligence information and compliance with court-ordered minimization procedures.
“This undisclosed FBI agreement was in effect during one of the most controversial periods in U.S. history, when Crossfire Hurricane and other FISA-related activities were under way,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The American people should not have to wait one more day for transparency.”
Judicial Watch has led efforts to uncover much of what the public knows about Crossfire Hurricane/Russiagate, which involved a long list of Democratic political figures, lawyers, and staffers who shaped the narrative around the Trump-Russia hoax.
In January 2026, Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department for fully unredacted records and previously withheld or missing portions of former Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane/Russiagate investigation.
In October 2020, Judicial Watch uncovered heavily redacted email communications among top-level State Department officials and a U.S. ambassador expressing skepticism about reports by Christopher Steele’s London-based private intelligence firm Orbis Business Intelligence. (Steele was the author of the Clinton-funded, anti-Trump dossier.) The emails show one assistant secretary of state saying some of Steele’s reports sound “extreme” and others “do not ring true,” while the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine called some of the Steele reports “flaky.”
In May 2020, Judicial Watch forced the declassification and release of the “electronic communication” used to launch Crossfire Hurricane, written by former FBI official Peter Strzok.
In April 2020, Judicial Watch obtained emails between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page, including an email dated January 10, 2017, in which Strzok said that the version of the Steele dossier published by BuzzFeed was “identical” to the version given to the FBI by McCain and had “differences” from the dossier provided to the FBI by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and Mother Jones reporter David Corn. January 10, 2017, is the same day BuzzFeed published the anti-Trump dossier by former British spy Christopher Steele. The emails also show Strzok and other FBI agents mocking President Trump a few weeks before he was inaugurated. In addition, the emails revealed that Strzok communicated with then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe about the “leak investigation” tied to the Clinton Foundation (the very leak in which McCabe was later implicated).
In September 2019, Judicial Watch released State Department records revealing that Steele had an extensive and close working relationship dating back to May of 2014 with high-ranking Obama State Department officials including Jonathan Winer and Victoria Nuland.
In August 2019, Judicial Watch obtained “302” report material from 2016 FBI interviews of Associate Deputy U.S. Attorney Bruce Ohr, who was removed from his position in December 2017. (A Form 302 is used by FBI agents to memorialize interviews they undertake during an investigation.) In a November 22, 2016, interview, Ohr said that “reporting on Trump’s ties to Russia were going to the Clinton Campaign, Jon Winer at the U.S. State Department and the FBI.” In a late September 2016 interview, Ohr described a person (likely Christopher Steele) as “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President.” A report states that “Ohr knew that [Fusion GPS’s] Glen Simpson and others were talking to Victoria Nuland at the U.S. State Department.”
In July 2019, Judicial Watch obtained records revealing a September 2016 email exchange between then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer, a close associate of dossier author Christopher Steele, discussing a “face-to-face” meeting on a “Russian matter.”
In August 2018, the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the FISA spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.
Judicial Watch in July 2018 released records about FISA warrants targeting Page, which appeared to confirm that the FBI and DOJ misled the FISA court by withholding material information showing that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC were behind the “intelligence” used to persuade the court to approve the FISA warrants targeting the Trump team.
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