14 Aug 2019 6:20 pm
Did anyone even know about the FISA warrant before the election?Cannonpointer » 14 Aug 2019 6:08 pm » wrote:Are you under the impression that the fisa warrant HELPED the trump campaign?
Seems to me that both candidates were under investigation, but we only knew about one of them before the election.
I didn't say that.Cannonpointer » 14 Aug 2019 6:08 pm » wrote:Oh, that's right - you just got through lying that the fisa warrant that was based on the steele dossier wasn't. So THAT'S why you told that lie - to slime the above fake question through.
Well, let's play along with your lie. The dossier had nothing to do with the fisa warrants - nothing at all.
The dossier may have been a factor, but it is not what started the investigation.
Competing memos from the Republicans and the Democrats on the House intelligence committee both say that information about George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, had prompted the FBI investigation in July 2016.
[.....]
A memo released Feb. 2, 2018, by the Republicans on the House intelligence committee raised concerns about the use of the dossier in an application from the DOJ and FBI under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to conduct electronic surveillance on Carter Page, another Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. But it said the “Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016.”
The Democrats on the House intelligence committee agreed with that, saying in a memo released Feb. 24, 2018, that the FBI investigation started “more than seven weeks” before the FBI received Steele’s intelligence reporting in mid-September of that year.
The two sides disagree about how essential the dossier was to the FISA court application to monitor Page. But one of the few points of agreement is that the FBI investigation began with information on Papadopoulos.
After the GOP memo was released, Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, also a member of the intelligence committee, said the dossier didn’t have any effect on the Russia investigation. “I actually don’t think it has any impact on the Russia probe,” Gowdy said on Feb. 4, 2018, on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Gowdy mentioned other incidents that had nothing to do with the dossier, including Papadopoulos’ contacts with the professor and the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting Donald Trump Jr. arranged with what he was told was a “Russian government attorney” offering incriminating information on Hillary Clinton.
“So there’s going to be a Russia probe, even without a dossier.”
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/dossi ... l-of-this/
Fox News’ Chris Wallace Sets Record Straight: Russia Investigation Did Not Start With Trump Dossier
‘This will drive some of our viewers nuts,’ the ‘Fox News Sunday’ host noted. ‘The Trump investigation did not start with the FISA warrant and Carter Page and the dossier.’
Wallace continued: “It started in June and July of 2016 when George Papadopoulos had spoken to a Russian agent and spoke to an Australian diplomat and said he had heard they had information on—dirt on Hillary Clinton.”