Republicans released a long-awaited memo Friday detailing government surveillance abuses, showing that the FBI would not have obtained a surveillance warrant for the Trump campaign without using information from a dubious partisan dossier.
Here are seven take aways:
⦁ The FBI relied heavily on Democratic Party dossier to obtain three surveillance warrants before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The FBI did not tell the court the information came from a Democratic Party-financed opposition research. FBI knew source.
⦁ In one application to judges, FBI cited two sources, the dossier and a story by Yahoo News. But the Yahoo story was based on the dossier. Not really two sources.
⦁ Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe said warrants on Trump volunteer Carter Page could not have been obtained without dossier.
⦁ Dossier writer Christopher Steele lied to FBI when he said he did not speak with media. He has said in libel case that he spoke to reporters repeatedly.
DOCUMENT: Read the memo detailing FBI surveillance abuses against Trump campaign
⦁ FBI fired Mr. Steele. He then continued to funnel information to the agency through former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr. Bruce Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition research that paid Mr. Steele. She passed Fusion research to the FBI, which never disclosed source to FISA court.
⦁ Mr. Steele said he wanted to destroy Trump’s presidency with a dossier that remains discredited.
⦁ Former FBI director James Comey signed three surveillance warrants on Trump campaign aide Carter Page at the same time he told President-elect Trump that the dossier was “salacious and unverified.”
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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