Donald Trump orders declassification of Carter Page FISA warrant and James Comey texts

  Donald Trump has been threatening to do it for weeks and today he made good on it. I am referring to the President’s threat to declassify the Carter Page warrant as well as text messages from higher-ups in the FBI, including James Comey.

  Here is more:

President Donald Trump has moved to immediately release a tranche of former FBI Director James Comey’s text messages and declassify 20 pages of a surveillance application that targeted former campaign adviser Carter Page, his latest offensive against a Russia investigation that has ensnared associates and has consumed Trump’s attention for much of his presidency.

The breadth of the order came as a surprise and landed amid a full-court White House effort to shore up the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as he defends himself against a sexual assault allegation. Trump demanded that the FBI produce 20 pages of the surveillance application — which Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested would help show anti-Trump bias at the highest levels of the FBI.

  Did you notice the way the article framed this as a distraction from the Brett Kavanaugh sexual assault scandal? I would argue that is 180 degrees backwards; Dianne Feinstein had the information on this so-called scandal for months and did not release it because she was waiting for the right time. My first thought was this was a last minute effort to derail the nomination but perhaps she knew this was coming and was trying to get ahead of it. You can count on the mainstream media to use the Brett Kavanaugh story as cover to avoid reporting on this.

  But anyway, here is more:

Trump also called for the release of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s notes related to the Russia probe. Ohr was a key conduit to the FBI for information provided by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who investigated Trump’s relationship with Russia during the 2016 campaign and produced a dossier of damaging allegations — which Trump has derided as false.

“It couldn’t be fast enough,” Caputo said of the timing for the release of the materials

“Not only will this let Americans know how their country failed Carter Page and George Papadopolous, it will also let them understand how FISA has trampled all of our rights and never should be reauthorized again.”

One top Trump ally, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) quickly praised the president’s decision

“My colleagues in Congress and I have requested these documents for months, but have faced lengthy and unnecessary delays, redactions, and refusals from officials at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said. These documents will reveal to the American people some of the systemic corruption and bias that took place at the highest levels of the DOJ and FBI, including using the tools of our intelligence community for partisan political ends.”

  This certainly could prove to be interesting depending on what is in there and what, if anything, has been redacted. I for one am not going to be expecting too much to come from this but hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium