Identified: The FBI agent primarily responsible for abusing the Carter Page FISA warrants

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Back in December, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified that there were 17 significant “errors and omissions” in the Carter Page FISA application process:

The inspector general “identified at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications and many errors in the Woods Procedures” which guide the FBI’s FISA process, according to the 476-page report.
“These errors and omissions resulted from case agents providing wrong or incomplete information to the National Security Division’s Office of Intelligence and failing to flag important issues for discussion,” Horowitz said.

Horowitz found big problems in the system:

“That so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate, hand-picked teams on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations that was briefed to the highest levels within the FBI, and that FBI officials expected would eventually be subjected to close scrutiny, raised significant questions regarding the FBI chain of command’s management and supervision of the FISA process,” Horowitz said.

While Horowitz “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations” he was completely unable to explain how 17 “errors and omissions” could all work against Trump. That’s like flipping a coin seventeen times and coming up all heads or tails. The odds of that happening are 1 in 131,072.

Clearly it was bias.

Case Agent 1, as described in the IG report, is Stephen Somma.

The Justice Department inspector general referred FBI agent Stephen Somma for disciplinary review after an investigation into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses.

Somma, a counterintelligence investigator in the FBI’s New York field office, was identified only as “Case Agent 1″ in Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, released in December. Sources told the New York Times that Somma is that official. The FBI did not comment on the report.
Somma was “primarily responsible for some of the most significant errors and omissions” during the process of obtaining FISA warrants to wiretap Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016 and 2017, according to Horowitz.

A number of names had been written in May 2019 about by Mollie Hemingway and she did include the perp.

Somma badly wanted a FISA warrant on Page

According to the IG report, he was the FBI agent who initially sought a surveillance warrant against Page. Somma pushed for a FISA warrant “almost immediately” after the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, the IG said.

And he got one- badly

  • The IG report said the FBI failed to verify the allegations about Page before using Steele’s information in FISA applications.
  • The IG report said the FBI failed to verify the allegations about Page before using Steele’s information in FISA applications.
  • The IG report said Somma failed to disclose potentially exculpatory information that Page and Papadopoulos told Halper. He also failed to disclose that the CIA told him on Aug. 15, 2016, that Page had been an “operational contact” for the agency years earlier.

Somma also tapped Stefan Halper to spy on Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

He was referred for disciplinary review? WTF? There are only two possibilities here. One is astonishing incompetence from Somma up to the highest levels or it is pure political bias. Both are frightening.

It is precisely because of this crap that Robert Mueller and his band of thugs were able to make life miserable for a lot of innocent people.

What inquiring minds want to know is why the hell is this guy still working for the FBI?

Failure of the FBI to terminate this moron and everyone else who should have caught and corrected the malfeasances will leave a stench on the FBI that cannot be covered up or showered away. Disciplinary review won’t cut it.

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Once again, the question arises; if Trump is so corrupt and it is so obvious, WHY is all the lying and manipulation of evidence and processes necessary?

Somma should have the maximum penalties thrown at him and squeeze all the other co-conspirators out of his cowardly ass.

Who can we trust, and as we can now see who could he trust. these people were thrust in font of Trump, and from the looks of it they were all untrustworthy.

Wray needs to be replaced by a more competent director, willing to clean up the department.

@kitt: At the very least, he needs to be called before Senate panels (I wouldn’t waste any time with the House) with his lessons learned, corrective actions proposed and scheduling a future date for an update. If his corrective actions do not address the punishment of criminal acts, THEN he should be fired. If he is not meeting the milestones demanded by the Senate in cleaning up his business, THEN he should be fired. If any of this ever rears its ugly head again, THEN he should be fired.

That would send a distinct message to future directors AND agents.

Actually, Somma performed actions outside of his job description. That means he is not protected under the Gonzales Act. He is subject to civil suits by any and all individuals who suffered adverse financial and emotional injury due to his illegal actions. He also is not allowed to be represented by government council. He may even damaged enough people that there could be a class action civil suit brought against him and everyone who knew about his illegal actions and approved them. He may not see jail time, but if sued, he may end up on the streets of San Francisco.

As they say in job shop manufacturing: “If you want it bad, you get it bad. And the worse you want it, the worse you get it”