Here are my observations and opinions on how the FISA Court protected the FBI during its filings of FISA warrants to spy on Trump associates.

YOU NEED TO BE REMINDED – You most likely do not recall last year when, on May 3,  2018, I asked, “when will one of those patriotic FISA Court judges step forward and admit he or she was duped by the FBI’s declaration of accuracy of the anti-Trump dossier, and the agency’s failure to inform the court that the dossier was paid for by the opposition, Hillary Clinton and the DNC?  I’m still waiting.”

Then again, on August 27, 2018, I pressed for at least one of the FISA Court judges to “get a backbone and lodge a complaint against the DOJ and/or the FBI for non-disclosure of key information on FISA warrant applications submitted for the purpose of surveilling Trump associates.”

I added that the fact that no judge had stepped forward, we can only assume that the Deep State is still at work in the DOJ.

Although I seemed to be the lone voice in my criticism, I have learned that then Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), on February 7, 2018, sent a letter to Judge Rosemary Collyer to inform her what his committee had found during  their investigation of the four FISA applications, and express his concern that the FBI had acted improperly.

Collyer responded with a rather dismissive letter citing classified information, of which Nunes was cleared to see.  The dogged Nunes sent a follow-up letter to Collyer on June 13, 2018 with information on uncovered evidence proving that significant information was not disclosed to the Court.  He asked her to “initiate a thorough investigation,” and sent her a classified summary of Congress’s findings.

Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel reported that “Judge Collyer blew him off” in her June 15, 2018 response, essentially thanking him for his “interest.”

FINALLY, on December 17, 2019, Judge Collyer responding to DOJ IG Michael Horowitz’s revelation that there were significant FBI “errors” in the FISA applications, issued a sharp rebuke of the FBI over their abuses of the process.

“The frequency with which representations were made by the FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case,” Collyer said, “calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable.”

She ordered the DOJ and the FBI to thoroughly review each application submitted to the Court, and explain the steps taken to assure the candor of each submission with a January 10, 2020 deadline for completion.

Strassel suggests that “we ought to hold our applause for Judge Collyer.”  I agree. Nunes, and later Horowitz, identified the “rot in the system.”

“Collyer’s dismissive letters made clear just what the Court thought of Congress poking its nose into their secret club … she failed to act when she should have … I consider that to be misconduct,” Strassel appropriately concluded.

When Horowitz testified that the “errors” in FISA applications were the result of either “incompetency” or “intentionality,” he had to concede that repeating the errors four times point to intentionality.

While the FBI bears the responsibility for misconduct in the FISA submissions, Judge Collyer was complicit, especially after being alerted to abuses by Nunes.

DON’T GET EXCITED over the news that Judge Collyer is stepping down as the Court’s presiding judge for “health reasons” when her term expires in March 2020.  Chief Justice John Roberts has tapped Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee to replace her.

Roberts appoints all judges to the FISA Court, an 11-judge body, predominantly with Obama-appointed judges.  You may recall Roberts denying that the judges carry a “birthmark” of the president who appointed them, objecting to references to them as “Obama judges,” for instance.

So much for the liberals’ concern over Roberts’ conservative court.

The FISA Court never held a hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when considering the application of Carter Page.  We have since learned that an FBI lawyer doctored a CIA document confirming that he was working with the CIA, and that then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein misled the Court when he signed-off on the investigation of Page.

“Without (former disgraced FBI Director James) Comey’s FBI submitting false FISA requests, which Roberts’ appointees allowed, including at least one signed-off by Comey himself,” wrote Daniel John Sobieski in American Thinker,” there would have been no surveillance of Team Trump and no special counsel.”

Is it any wonder that references to the Deep State and star chamber were made over the past two years?

There’s more to come.

                  May God continue to bless the United States of America.