Vast Invisible Power Means vast visible injustice for the people. by Lloyd Billingsley
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/vast-invisible-power/
As the name implies, the Supreme Court of the United States is the nation’s highest judicial body and Chief Justice John Roberts is the highest ranking judge. Behind the scenes in recent years, a secret court has usurped SCOTUS and a person outside of that body became the most powerful judge. If that seems a stretch, consider James Boasberg, Chief Judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
The San Francisco native moved to Washington as a child when his father accepted a position in the Office of Economic Opportunity, which administered many of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” programs. So Boasberg fils is something of a “Great Society” diaper baby. The Yale law alum rose through the ranks and in 2011 president Obama, the composite character formerly known as Barry Soetoro, appointed Boasberg to the DC District Court.
In 2014, Chief Justice John Roberts tapped Boasberg for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, better known as the FISA court, established in 1978 during the administration of Jimmy Carter as part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. From January 2020 to May 2021, Boasberg served as that court’s presiding judge, a powerful position with important distinctions. The FISA court operates in secret, no advocates for the accused are present, and only the government’s arguments are considered. This is basically a deep state star chamber, but there’s more to it.
Unlike Supreme Court justices, the presiding FISA judge is not subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate. That invites a look Boasberg’s treatment of Kevin Clinesmith, Assistant General Counsel in the National Security and Cyber Law Branch of the FBI’s Office of General Counsel. Clinesmith was assigned to the case of Carter Page, an American citizen and U.S. Navy veteran who worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and had also served as an asset for the CIA. Clinesmith altered an email to show that Page was not a CIA asset, subjecting the American citizen to surveillance under FISA.
That deliberate forgery came at time when, as NPR explains, “the FBI faced harsh criticism for submitting inaccurate applications to the court.” It was as though Clinesmith had somehow got Page’s date of birth wrong on what was actually a warrant, not an “application.” The FBI lawyer’s forgery was a serious crime, and as Politico explains, Boasberg handled the sentencing “as part of his more routine duties as a federal district court judge in Washington.”
Unlike the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the FISA court boss can slide down to his home circuit and rule on matters he handled with FISA. The people have cause to wonder about Boasberg’s ruling on the FBI’s Assistant General Counsel in the National Security and Cyber Law Branch.
Clinesmith claimed he thought his statement about Carter Page was true at the time, and Boasberg agreed. “By altering the email,” the judge explained, “he was saving himself some work and taking an inappropriate shortcut.” If anybody thought “illegal” or “criminal” would be more appropriate it would be hard to blame them.
Boasberg also agreed with a DOJ Inspector General statement that political considerations played no role in Clinesmith’s actions. According to Boasberg, “it is not at all clear to me the FISA warrant would not have been signed but for this error.” The judge thus transforms a crime into a mistake, and in effect serves as Clinesmith’s pro-bono attorney.
Boasberg also contended that the FBI man’s “misstatement” was the “only stain on the defendant’s character that I have been able to discern.” Trouble was, since Clinesmith had already pleaded guilty he was no longer a “defendant” but an admitted criminal awaiting sentence. The maximum sentence on the felony offense is five years in prison plus a fine of $250,000. Judge Boasberg gave Clinesmith 12 months probation and 400 hours community service. In light of the offence, that falls short of the classic tap on the wrist, and the injustice did not stop there.
Clinesmith should have been disbarred but the DC bar only suspended his law license for one year. According to bar officials, Clinesmith’s “misconduct has been used to discredit what appeared otherwise to have been a legitimate and highly important investigation,” of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. As the maximum sentence confirmed, Clinesmith was guilty of a crime, not mere “misconduct.” Russian interference in the 2016 election was a creation of the Hillary Clinton campaign, so the ensuing FBI investigation was 100 percent bogus. In 2021 the DC bar restored Clinesmith to “good standing.”
In this massive travesty of justice, James Boasberg was the de-facto chief justice and the FISA court the nation’s most powerful. Whatever his reputation and self-image, the Obama judge is a partisan Trump inquisitor, and he continued in that role after his FISA capers.
As NPR explains, Boasberg “presides over a building where trials of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are underway, as are grand jury investigations of former President Donald Trump.” Boasberg has also “become one of the top feeder judges in the U.S., sending many of his young clerks onto clerkships at the Supreme Court.” None of the high court justices can slide down to a district court to rule on a case in the manner of FISA judge Boasberg. That is hardly the only argument for FISA’s elimination.
As Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, argued in 2013, the FISA court is “a judicial body with no parallel in American history. A group of judges operating in complete secret and issuing binding rulings based solely on the government’s arguments.” Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal notes that the FISA court “exercises vast invisible power” and embattled Americans now understand what that that means in practice: vast visible injustice for the people.
FISA should be eliminated at first opportunity but that would not end the partisan politicization of the judiciary. Boasberg’s colleague on the DC Circuit is Obama judge Tanya Chutkan, Frontpage pick for worst judge in America. In the style of Boasberg with Clinesmith, she let the Democrats’ IT man Imran Awan off the hook with basically nothing. So that circuit is another robed politburo for the left. As President Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens
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