We Were Never Supposed to Know

Our media’s valiant efforts to distract us notwithstanding, information continues to seep out that underscores how badly a housecleaning is needed in Washington, D.C.

This past week saw the release of the applications used to obtain warrants from the FISA court to spy on Carter Page, an advisor to the Trump presidential campaign. Obtained by Judicial Watch, the 400-plus pages of (heavily redacted) documents support the conclusions earlier drawn by the House Intelligence Committee (and denounced by Democrats as hysteria): the FISA warrants were obtained through obfuscation and deceit.

As various commentators predicted would be proven, the bulk of the information that formed the basis for the FISA warrant applications was the “dossier” of allegations about Donald Trump’s activities in Russia. This dossier was provided to the FBI by British spy Christopher Steele. Steele was hired during the 2016 presidential campaign by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, who was paid by Hillary Clinton’s law firm Perkins Coie, who was paid by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. The allegations in the dossier were scandalous and completely unverified, in violation of federal statutes and FISA court rules.