The issue in the Horowitz report under discussion involves the FBI's application to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, an American citizen, and did they meet the requirements under the Foreign Surveillance Information Act (FISA). They may not have. The problem with the request involved the Woods Procedure, which
specifies the request be sent to the Justice Department "where attorneys from the National Security Division comb through the application to verify all the assertions made in it. Known as “Woods procedures” after Michael J. Woods, the FBI Special Agent attorney who developed this layer of approval, DOJ verifies the accuracy of every fact stated in the application. If anything looks unsubstantiated, the application is sent back to the FBI to provide additional evidentiary support."
The Horowitz Report stated the FBI agents involved did not seem to understand the procedure:
The agents and SSAs also did not follow, or appear to even know, the requirements in the Woods Procedures to reverify the factual assertions from previous applications that are repeated in renewal applications and verify source characterization statements with the CHS handling agent and document the verification in the Woods File.
Report
The reason Page was being surveilled was, he was suspected of being a point of contact between Russian figures and the Trump campaign. Page had a history with Russian government figures. The FBI had investigated Page previously, in 2013, when Page provided a Russian government figure, also a spy, with information about the American energy industry. At that time there was also an attempt to recruit Page to work for SVR, a Russian intelligence agency. But Page insisted to the FBI that the information he gave the Russians was all publicly available. Eventually, the FBI concluded Page had not agreed to spy for Russia and had probably not been aware the government figure he was consulting with was in fact, a Russian spy. Page was not charged. But when he surfaced again in 2016, as the Trump campaign's foreign policy adviser, with accusations flying around that Trump had ties to the Russian government (which was secretly working to aid his election) it is understandable the FBI found Page a person of great interest.
Something in the Horowitz Report that Trump supporters doggedly ignore is, the following statement on page III:
We concluded that [Counter intelligence Division (CD) Assistant Director (AD) E.W.] Priestap's exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision.
What could be clearer? There may have been some problems with the way the FBI pursued the Carter investigation and the surveillance request, but it is far from being any kind of smoking gun that would 'prove' the whole thing was a "hoax."
I have news for Trump supporters. People not supporting Trump -- whether they despise him or are middle-of-the-road independents -- would NOT support an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election if they truly believed it was a hoax cooked up by people who did not like Donald Trump. It's a question of basic values. Instead, most non-Trump supporters say, "I understand why Trump's supporters say the things they do, and profess to believe the things they do, but I'm not going to allow them to drag me down to their level." Something else Trump supporters 'don't get.' And I don't blame them. If I was a Trump supporter I wouldn't want to get it either.
