RUTHFULLY YOURS

Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has written a six-page response to the FISA-abuse memo published Friday by the committee’s Republican staffers under the direction of Chairman Devin Nunes (R., Calif.).

I won’t get sidetracked by the fact that Nadler’s “Dear Democratic Colleague” letter has been “exclusively obtained” by NBC News — i.e., that it was leaked to the media, whereas the so-called Nunes memo was provided to committee Democrats before publication so they could seek changes. The Nunes memo had to be subjected to a rules-based process because of classified-information issues. The Nadler memo does not seem to contain classified information; it just responds to what the Republicans have produced, which is now public record.

I don’t agree with Jerry Nadler’s politics, but he is an able lawyer. What surprises me about his retort is how weak it is.

He posits four points, the last two of which are strictly political red meat. Of the other two, one provides an inaccurate explanation of the probable-cause standard in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); the other is an ill-conceived argument about Christopher Steele’s credibility. The latter provides a welcome opportunity to confront a wayward theory — which I’ll call “vicarious credibility” — that has been vigorously argued by apologists for the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of the Steele dossier.

Once upon a time a seasoned political operative ran for President of the United States against a candidate who had virtually no political experience.

She––Democrat Ms. Hillary Clinton––former First Lady of Arkansas, former First Lady of the United States, former U.S. Senator from New York, former Secretary of State under the faux “president” Barack Obama, was clearly the favorite.

Her opponent––Republican Mr. Donald J. Trump––the billionaire builder who lived in the American version of the Palace of Versailles in Manhattan and in several other resplendent homes around the country and the world, who hosted two wildly successful TV shows, who owned casinos and built golf courses and was a favorite of tabloid magazines, and who had been lionized and courted by the Hollywood crowd, the media whores, and both Democrats and Republicans for his generous contributions, was the clear loser.

Ha ha ha sputtered the political experts. The idea that this neophyte, this (pardon the expression) capitalist could go up against a representative of the outgoing Big Government regime––which brought us socialized medicine (Obamacare) and socialized education (Common Core) and 94-million unemployed Americans and strangulating regulations and horrific trade deals and a foreign policy that bowed deeply to our enemies and spit in the faces of our faithful allies––well that just struck the experts as preposterous.

No players knelt or sat during the national anthem as the Super Bowl kicked off in Minneapolis on Sunday, according to The Associated Press.

Pop singer Pink performed a rendition of the song as players for the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles stood on the sidelines.

Many Patriots players could be seen with their hands over their hearts, the AP reported.

Prior to the game, President Trump released a statement in which he called on Americans to “proudly stand for the National Anthem.”

The NFL season has been rocked by controversy as players have protested police violence and racial injustice by kneeling or sitting during the anthem, raising the ire of many on the right, including Trump.

Though the protests were started in 2016 by current free agent Colin Kaepernick, Trump fanned the flames in September when he said the league should fire the protesters.

His call led to a wave of player protests across the league, as well as heightened tensions between players and league representatives.

For all the debate over the House Republican memo pointing to alleged misconduct by some current and former FBI and Justice Department officials, one crucial point hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.

And it relates in an unexpected way to special counsel Robert Mueller.

The point is: There are strict rules requiring that each and every fact presented in an FBI request to electronically spy on a U.S. citizen be extreme-vetted for accuracy — and presented to the court only if verified.

There’s no dispute that at least some, if not a great deal, of information in the anti-Trump “Steele dossier” was unverified or false. Former FBI director James Comey testified as much himself before a Senate committee in June 2017. Comey repeatedly referred to “salacious” and “unverified” material in the dossier, which turned out to be paid political opposition research against Donald Trump funded first by Republicans, then by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Presentation of any such unverified material to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to justify a wiretap would appear to violate crucial procedural rules, called “Woods Procedures,” designed to protect U.S. citizens.

The memo released Friday by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was the product of necessity, not choice. Even before its release, the debate over its provenance, motive and effect was obscuring the crucial point that it is the underlying facts the memo alleges that present the real issues.

The committee’s memo says that yet another memo, which goes by the cloak-and-dagger title “Steele dossier,” provided at least part of the basis for a wiretap of Carter Page, a U.S. citizen who had volunteered as a foreign policy-consultant to the Trump campaign. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted the wiretap application from the FBI and Justice Department two weeks before the 2016 election. In order to obtain the warrant, the government had to show probable cause that Mr. Page was acting as the agent of a foreign power and that in so doing he had committed a crime.

The Steele dossier is 35 pages of opposition research on Donald Trump, described by former FBI Director James Comey as “salacious and unverified.” It was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who had a luminous dislike for Mr. Trump and was also an informant for the FBI.