If the controversy in the Memo boils down to the document that was used to get a FISA warrant,

[Baitball Blogger]

why isn't this one fact clear and understandable? I hear some pundits claim that it was due to Papadopoulos loose lips, and their guests claim that it was because of opposition research document paid by Hillary Clinton?

I just saw one guest say the latter twice without any correction.

So, which is it?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. There's never just one document supporting a FISA warrant.

Typically the application goes to 100 pages or so of supporting evidence. That's the point Nunes and his stooges are ignoring - FISA warrants never rely on just one source.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. Like on Maher, it is a piece of paoer with words on it and that is all that is needed

for hannity to hold it up and say SEE

trump will use it to fire rosenstein

[VMA131Marine]

3. There's no evidence Hillary had anything to do with the dossier

Fusion GPS was paid by the DNC through Perkins Coie to continue the oppo research begun under a contract with the conservative Washington Free Beacon. There is no evidence that Fusion GPS revealed who the clients were to Christopher Steele. In fact, Glenn Simpson's testimony indicated that he did not tell Steele about the client to avoid introducing bias into his investigation and that this was standard practice when Fusion GPS hired a subcontractor.

[lapfog_1]

4. Without the actual application

we won't know for sure.

However, that said, the Democrats on the committee that have seen everything (that being only ranking member Schiff ) have stated as a fact that the Steele dossier was only one factor and a minor one. Chairman Nunes has NOT read the application, that was left to Trey Gowdy... who announced he was retiring from Congress the day before the release of the memo and has refused to comment on the Nunes memo.

And last, in the last paragraph of the Nunes memo even it acknowledges that the investigation by the Special Prosecutor was triggered by an Australian diplomat who heard about STOLEN emails ( a federal crime by the way ) from George Papadopoulos. Note that this is NOT the same thing as the FISA wiretap warrant.

So we don't know ALL of the information that went into the FISA warrant. It is likely 50 to 100 pages in length and people who know such things say that they are never single sourced. But, until the FISA warrant application is released, you have to decide if you believe Schiff or Nunes ( who has never read the warrant application )

Last point, Carter Page ( the subject of the FISA warrant ) was a "person of interest" to the FBI when his name came up because of wiretaps on RUSSIANS ( at least 3 spies that we know of, 2 of which were indicted but fled back to Russia and one which was indicted and convicted and now is in a federal prison ) . So the investigation into this spy ring turned up information about Carter Page ( and, apparently, a warning from our embassy in Moscow that Carter was speaking in Moscow and making pro-Putin and anti-American comments in his speech ) about how Carter might make a useful asset for further spying ( at least one of the Russians apparently stated that Carter Page was an "idiot" ) . This was long before he joined the Trump team as a foreign policy advisor. I feel fairly certain that given all of the information they had on Carter Page, that information ( and not the contents of the dossier ) would have figured into the FISA warrant application.

My summary... Carter Page was a Russian asset ( probably one they rate as "useful idiot" meaning someone who is rather clueless about the spying that he is doing for his Russian minders ) . Trump took him into his campaign because either a) he was told to by HIS Russian minders or b) Trump and his team are true incompetents. When it was discovered by the FBI that Carter Page was now part of a major party political campaign for the PResidency, they sought a FISA warrant to discover if he was, in fact, a spy so they could warn Trump about his activities. Last, this has nothing to do with the Special Counsel investigation into the Trump campaign and transition, etc OTHER than the fruits of the FISA warrant were given to Mueller so he could use the information from that wiretap to fact check people he was interrogating ( witness the 2 conviction for lying to the FBI so far and the indictments ).

[skip fox]

5. I think

Shiff's response to the claim that the FISA was awarded solely on the basis of the Steele Dossier was that it was untrue.