Inspector General report finds former FBI lawyer falsified FISA document

  It is beginning to look as if the Inspector General report on alleged FISA abuses and the beginning of the Russia investigation might be coming out shortly after all. We heard a few weeks ago that when it came out there would be criminal references included and now we are beginning to see some information leaking out about the report and it includes the news that a former FBI lawyer is under investigation for altering documents to get a FISA warrant. Here is more:

A former FBI lawyer is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Yet the situation did not sway an independent Justice Department watchdog from finding the surveillance was valid, sources said.

Still, the possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.

  The block quote above is from CNN, which you might have guessed from the spin. Note that according to the article this does not mean the spying was not justified and also note the way the article mentions how this will fuel accusations from Donald Trump instead of admitting the President’s accusations were right all along. 

  This is how Fox News reported the story:

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has found evidence that an FBI lawyer manipulated a key investigative document related to the FBI’s secretive surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser — enough to change the substantive meaning of the document, according to multiple reports.

The new evidence concerning the altered document, which pertained to the FBI’s FISA court warrant application to surveil Page, is expected to be outlined in Horowitz’s upcoming report. 

  The bottom line is the same, somebody at the FBI altered a document to enhance the chances of obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on Donald Trump and that has to be a crime. There are reports out there that this person was none other than Peter Strzok, and while I would not doubt that there are also reports that nobody high up is going to be implicated, that there is going to be some low-level fall guys and I would not doubt that either.

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium