The FBI lied to the FISA court by signing off that all of the information had been verified and was true, [blah blah blah, they didn’t disclose exculpatory information].
I’ve omitted some redundancies but the basic gist is you’re saying they lied and failed to disclose information that was exculpatory in the warrant application. Tell me if I’m wrong.
Search warrant applications, including this one, are effectively the affiant swearing that he has information that he believes establishes probable cause. Some of the information that this affiant had was hearsay. Therefore, he/she had two pertinent options to reach probable cause:
1. Bolster the reliability of the CI, generally. This is usually done, as it was done here, by demonstrating a past relationship with the CI. CIs are often criminals, so it doesn’t mean that everything they’ve said ever is true, and it doesn’t even mean that everything they’ve said about this case is 100% accurate.
2. Corroborate material facts with other observations.
This warrant was based on both.
I’m not aware of any rule that says that the police have to include exculpatory evidence in a warrant application. I’m familiar with a number of analogous legal principles that suggest that this is not something that any court is considering adopting.
Even if they, the FBI, outright lied, which I don’t think is established, guess what? Still a reasonable search, unless the lie was necessary to probable cause. So the corroboration of necessary facts for the warrant in the Mueller report is in fact relevant, despite your baseless protestations. The use of the word “legal” was probably an imprecise characterization of the validity of the search/investigation. There could still be consequences for the officer, but there never are.
Unless there’s some deviation that I didn’t catch, in this specific warrant application or some differences in the FISA laws that I’m not aware of, that’s my understanding of how the law would apply here.
(These are my personal opinions and should not be considered legal advice.)
The FISA process is extremely stringent, as it's supposed to protect our civil liberties, and the FBI **** all over it. You keep making excuses for it and trying to make reasons that it was legal. To top it all off, you post drivel about Trumpists trading in ethics and morals for "legal" standard, which makes you look ridiculous after trading lying to courts to trample civil liberties as supposedly "legal".
lol at “making” reasons. You know who made the reasons? “Conservative” lawmakers and judges of the last half-century who wanted to appease their “conservative” constituents. You know, the people who thought punishing crack heads was more important than maintaining reasonable restraints on government?
So, yeah, I’m not “making” anything, I’m telling you what the law is. I’m not a Jedi knight. It’s not the force. It’s publicly available. You’re welcome to go look it up yourself. I suggest starting with Franks v. Delaware. I’ve posted case law in this forum during other iterations of this conversation, but go look it up for yourself and come tell me I’m wrong.
The fact that you haven’t already done this smells like the outrage of somebody who probably supported those same policies when they were being decided, even though people like me were saying “this is not right, what happens when it’s used against you?” Of course, that was met with a holy chorus of “I never do anything wrong, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.” How’s your singing voice?
Keep whistling past the graveyard. If you're not already embarrassed by the water you're carrying, it's on you. Dooley or not.
I don’t think that idiom means what you think it means.
Admittedly, I’ve not posted here for very long, but I’ve spent my whole professional career fighting against the creep of government power and spent my whole adult life, since the passage of the patriot act, complaining about it. Just like the law doesn’t support your arguments about warrants, reality doesn’t support your accusations about me and, frankly, just further confirms that you’re willing to talk out your ass about stuff you don’t understand.
