Last August, U.S. officials obtained a FISA warrant to wiretap the communications of Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump. The FBI suspected Page was working as a spy on behalf of Russia, a U.S. official told the New York Times. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the wiretap was granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, after the Justice Department provided evidence that Page might have been a mole for the Kremlin.

Previously a Moscow-based investment banker, Page is one of Trump’s former advisers many suspect FBI Director James Comey was alluding to when he said in a recent House hearing that the bureau was investigating the “nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.” Comey said the FBI had been probing the matter since July.

Securing a FISA warrant is no easy feat, and requires solid evidence to justify a wiretap. Usually, FISA warrants are used to surveil the communications of foreign agents, such as Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. For Page, the FBI pointed to two pieces of information that vindicated its suspicions about him acting as a Russian agent:

1. In 2013, Page met with a Russian man who U.S. intelligence officials identified as an undercover Russian intelligence officer. During the meeting with Page, the man was posing as a Russian businessman. Page reportedly provided the Russian agent, Victor Podobnyy, with documents pertaining to Page’s New York-based investment firm, Global Energy Capital.
2. In July 2016, after the Republican National Convention and before he left Trump’s campaign, Page traveled to Moscow to give a speech at the New Economic School. Page delivered a scathing harangue of U.S. policies toward Russia, including the sanctions imposed for its annexation of Crimea and its aggression in Ukraine.

According to the government official, the 90-day FISA warrant has been renewed more than once. Obtaining a FISA warrant is an intentionally complicated process. One of three top senior officials at the Justice Department must approve the request before it can go before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Along with Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, Page is one of Trump’s former aides whose communications with Russia have caught the attention of U.S. intelligence officials. Page, according to Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, had an “informal” role, and never had a private meeting with Trump. There has been no criminal charges brought against Page, and even months-long FBI investigations do not necessarily lead to charges.

For his part, Page has denied any wrongdoing. In an email to the Times on Tuesday, he said it “will be interesting to see what comes out when the unjustified basis of those FISA requests are more fully disclosed over time.” And on Wednesday, in an interview with CNN, he said, when asked if he has acted as a Russian agent: “Let’s not jump to any conclusions, and until there’s full evidence and a full investigation has been done, we just don’t know.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Earlier this week, reports came in that Susan Rice, the national security adviser from 2013 to early 2017, requested the identities of some of President Donald Trump’s associates be “unmasked” in intelligence reports. Rice is no stranger to political scandals: in 2013, she was grilled for her handling of the bombing at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. But what exactly did Rice uncover when combing over the reports, and were her actions that unusual, or illegal? Let’s take a deeper look.

What Did Rice Do?

U.S. intelligence services routinely surveil communications of foreign actors. Sometimes, American citizens are at the other end of these communications. A handful of Trump’s campaign associates are suspected of communicating with Russian government officials or businessmen, and therefore, were anonymously “swept up” in intelligence reports on the Russian actors. Usually, the identities of U.S. citizens who are included in foreign surveillance reports are kept hidden, or masked.

Rice, as first reported in Bloomberg View on Monday, repeatedly sought to “unmask” the identities of Trump’s associates who were caught up in the intelligence reports during the campaign. In an interview on MSNBC on Tuesday, Rice explained her thought process:

There were occasions when I would receive a report in which a U.S. person was referred to–name not provided, just a U.S. person–and sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance of the report, and assess its significance, it was necessary to find out, or request the information as to who the U.S. official was.

She did not, however, agree with her critics that her unmasking requests were for political gain. “The allegation is that somehow the Obama Administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes,” she said. “That’s absolutely false.”

Is What She Did Illegal?

No, it’s not. Federal law does indeed allow the national security adviser, which Rice was at the time, to request the identities of U.S. persons in intelligence reports for “context.” And there is no evidence she acted to benefit the Obama Administration, or Trump’s opponent at the time, Hillary Clinton. That’s not stopping Trump, who first claimed Obama wiretapped Trump Tower in a now-infamous tweet in early March, from reaching that conclusion.

“It’s such an important story for our country and the world,” he said in an interview Wednesday with the New York Times. “It is one of the big stories of our time.” He did not elaborate, nor did he provide any fresh evidence to vindicate his earlier claims about Obama wiretapping him, or that Rice’s actions were politically motivated or criminal.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a leading member of the House committee that is probing Trump’s and his associates’ ties to Russia, suggested on Wednesday that Rice could be subpoenaed to testify in front of the committee. “Whether she has pertinent testimony or not, I can’t say. If she does, we’d be happy to have her come in,” he said. He categorically rejected people who try to “besmirch the reputation” of Rice.

“I don’t know what it is about Susan Rice that has always drawn the conspiracy theories of that Breitbart crowd,” he said. “But they’re at it again and it is a disservice to someone who is a public servant.” Some Republicans are looking at the new reports as potential evidence that Rice was politically motivated in her handling of the intelligence reports.

“Every presidential administration from FDR through Nixon, the administration in power used intelligence agencies to engage in political espionage,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said in an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Wednesday. “Human behavior hasn’t changed. Technology has changed and made a lot of this simpler. We have to be on the lookout for it.” While Lee did not conclude Rice’s actions amount to a political or criminal act, he did say it is “not absurd to suggest something like this could have happened.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said, in a press conference on Capitol Hill and later at the White House on Wednesday, that President Donald Trump and his associates were compromised during the campaign as the result of surveillance in Trump Tower. Trump’s associates, Nunes said, were “unmasked” by the surveillance, and some of Trump’s communications were swept up in “incidental collection” as a result. He cited a classified report as the source of his claims, but did not divulge who provided him with the information.

“I don’t want to get too much into the details, but these were intelligence reports, and it brings up a lot of concern about whether things were properly minimized or not,” Nunes said. “What I have read bothers me, and I think it should bother the president himself and his team, because I think some of it seems to be inappropriate.”

This behavior by Nunes, head of the House investigation into Trump and his associates’ communications with Russia, brings up a host of questions: Can Nunes continue to lead an impartial investigation? Did he reveal any new information? What is “unmasking” and “incidental collection”? And was the surveillance that Nunes described lawful?

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) said that Nunes apologized Thursday morning for going straight to the White House with his concerns, and circumventing the House Intelligence Committee. But many House Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, said Nunes could no longer be expected to be an impartial voice in the Trump-Russia investigation.

The White House, in contrast, warmly embraced Nunes’s direct approach. “I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found,” Trump said, adding that he feels “somewhat” vindicated for his accusations that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, said Nunes provided “startling information.” But what exactly did Nunes reveal that was previously unknown?

The FBI and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which are leading separate investigations into Russia’s communications with Trump and his associates, both concluded there is no evidence Trump Tower was wiretapped–by Obama or any other intelligence agency. And Nunes on Wednesday admitted as much. It is the “unmasking” of Trump’s associates that has Nunes concerned. Americans are often surveilled for communicating with foreign actors that might concern the U.S. But their identities are commonly masked, hidden from U.S. authorities who are tracking them.

Not so in the case of Trump’s associates, Nunes claims. He said the identity of those who were surveilled–Nunes said it was multiple associates, Schiff said it was one–was revealed to U.S. officials. Given the unusual nature of the investigation into people close to Trump who had ties to Russia (a common target of U.S. surveillance), it is hardly surprising that U.S. officials might not have conducted business as usual.

And according to Schiff, “unmasking” in and of itself “does not indicate that there was any flaw in the procedures followed by the intelligence agencies,” and “is fully appropriate when it is necessary to understand the context of collected foreign intelligence information.”

The “incidental collection” Nunes mentioned refers to Trump’s communications that might have been collected due to the surveillance of his associates. Again, there is nothing illegal about that. As to who might have been the subject of the surveillance, Nunes provided no specifics. Here’s a good bet though: Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman who resigned last August after his name was included on a ledger of cash payments made by Ukraine’s former pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The House Intelligence Committee convened its first public hearing with FBI Director James Comey on Monday. Fielding questions from Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the committee’s chairman, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the committee, Comey was reluctant to reveal anything too explosive. He did, however, reaffirm the Senate Intelligence Committee’s conclusions that, contrary to President Donald Trump’s tweets, there is no evidence that Trump Tower was bugged at any time during the campaign. Comey also said the bureau is actively investigating Russia’s election meddling, including any communications it had with Trump’s campaign associates.

No Evidence of a Wiretap

To hardly anyone’s surprise (except the president’s), Comey said there is “no information” to support Trump’s accusations that President Barack Obama had his de facto campaign headquarters, Trump Tower, wiretapped. “With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets,” Comey said.

He added: “And we have looked carefully inside the FBI. The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components: the department has no information that supports those tweets.”

Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee came to the same conclusion, even as Trump and his aides refused to lay the issue to rest. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, quoted a report from a Fox News reporter that suggested Obama colluded with GCHQ, the British spy agency, in bugging Trump Tower. GCHQ strongly rejected that claim, and Spicer reportedly met with the British ambassador to promise the unfounded claim would not be made again.

Russia Probe

Confirming what many privately suspected, Comey said the FBI is actively investigating Russia’s role in hacking the emails of Democratic operatives during the campaign; a cohort of Trump’s current and former campaign aides are also being investigated for their Russian ties. What was a surprise to many observers of the hearing, however, was that the FBI has been probing the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia since July of last year, well before the Obama Administration announced the possible role Russia played in hacking the Democrats’ emails.

“Because it is an open, ongoing investigation and is classified, I cannot say more about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining,” Comey said.

Trump, early Monday morning before the hearing, tried to deflect blame to his favorite target: Hillary Clinton. He tweeted:

The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 20, 2017

The hearing showcased what Democrats and some Republicans perceive as the real issues at hand. For Democrats, it is the fact that an adversary intentionally hacked the U.S. political process, and what role the current administration might have played in that plot. Republicans at the hearing largely questioned the leaks that ultimately led to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation. The leaker, they seemed to imply, should be identified and punished.

“Unauthorized dissemination is punishable by felony up to 10 years in federal prison?” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) asked Comey, who responded: “Yes, as it should be.” But to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate minority leader, the most pressing issue facing the country is not the leaker, but the content of the leaks.

“The possibility of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials is a serious, serious matter,” Schumer said after the hearing. “The investigation must be fair, independent, and impartial in every way, and the F.B.I. must be allowed to follow the facts wherever they may lead.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed on Thursday that British spy agency GCHQ colluded with the Obama Administration to wiretap Trump Tower. The GCHQ said those claims are “ridiculous.” The statement came after Spicer defended President Donald Trump’s claims that President Barack Obama wiretapped his Manhattan base during the 2016 campaign. Spicer, quoting a report from Fox News reporter Andrew Napolitano, said the wiretap was a collaborative effort between Obama and GCHQ.

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command,” Spicer said, quoting Napolitano. “He didn’t use the N.S.A., he didn’t use the C.I.A., he didn’t use the F.B.I., and he didn’t use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ.”

But GCHQ, or Government Communications Headquarters, one of Britain’s three spy agencies, vehemently denied the accusations. “Recent allegations made by media commentator judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” the agency said in a rare statement. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”

The wiretap saga began on March 4, when Trump tweeted, “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Former Obama officials immediately denied the accusations. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence at the time, also shot down Trump’s claim.

And on Thursday, before Spicer’s remarks, high-ranking Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said “we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.”

Even so, Trump and his advisers stood by his wiretap claims. But after Spicer’s comments rankled British officials and Prime Minister Theresa May, he met with Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. Kim Darroch Thursday evening. Spicer and H.R. McMaster, the U.S. National Security Adviser, formally apologized for the comments, according the British intelligence officials.

A spokesman for May said they told the Trump Administration “these claims are ridiculous and they should be ignored” and that they “received assurances that these allegations will not be repeated.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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High-ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a Democrat and a Republican, said on Thursday that there is no evidence that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. The rebuke comes two weeks after President Donald Trump tweeted that his predecessor tapped his phones during the campaign.

Despite producing no evidence to back up this claim, and as lawmakers from both parties piled on the condemnation, Trump remained steadfast. Now, high ranking members of his own party have delivered the strongest statement yet in contradiction to Trump’s claims.

“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” Intelligence Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said in a joint statement.

House Speaker Paul Ryan delivered a less forceful denial of Trump’s wiretap claims on Thursday, when he told reporters that Congress has “seen no evidence of that.” Trump made the explosive accusation on March 4, when he tweeted:

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

Trump continued his baseless Twitter tirade, adding: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” In the days since, Trump has failed to produce any evidence that Obama, or any agency or individual in his administration, bugged Trump Tower, his de facto campaign headquarters in Manhattan.

Some suspect Trump was referring to the recently-released intelligence information about some of his aides who had communications with Russian government officials or business representatives. Those conversations were relevant to U.S. authorities because there was evidence that Russia had meddled in the election by hacking the emails of Democratic operatives in a veiled attempt to boost Trump’s standing.

And while there is a legitimate concern that those taps might have inadvertently captured some of Trump’s campaign communications, there is no evidence to suggest that is what happened, intentionally or otherwise. FBI Director James Comey is scheduled to make a public address on Monday regarding the wiretap claims. Despite all of this, on Wednesday Trump ominously stood by his comments. “You’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,” he said in an interview on Fox News.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In the very early hours of Saturday, President Donald Trump went on one of his characteristic Twitter rants. He accused former President Barack Obama, seemingly without providing any evidence, of wire-tapping him during the 2016 presidential election.

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

Why Does Trump Think Obama Has Wiretapped His Phones?

Well, no one is really sure. So far, POTUS has been very vague about any evidence he has for these claims. We know a Breitbart article was released on Friday that made allegations to that effect and some have hypothesized that Trump made his statements based on that article. The Breitbart piece appears to take at least some of its information from a separate Heat Street article; Heat Street is another conservative outlet. That article states that there are two separate sources confirming that the FBI got a FISA warrant granted in October, to examine the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

It’s unclear if Trump got that information from anywhere other than media reports. Jake Tapper tweeted:

WH officials with whom I spoke said POTUS got the info about wiretap from media – Breitbart, Levin – not from govt sources.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 5, 2017

So, What’s a FISA Warrant?

FISA refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It’s a “secret” tribunal that can grant warrants to monitor people related to terrorism or counter-intelligence investigations. Until 2013, FISA warrants weren’t really in the common American vernacular, but after Edward Snowden leaked classified info in 2013, the court was thrust into the national media. It was a FISA warrant that authorized the collection of information that Snowden eventually leaked.

But, it’s unclear whether the FISA warrant reported by Heat Street and Breitbart was ever actually issued. And even if it was, there’s no evidence to suggest that Obama would have been in any way behind it. Likely, it would have been the FBI or another intelligence agency that put in the request.

How Has Everyone Responded?

It’s been a bit of a mixed bag. An Obama spokesman, as well as the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have categorically denied the accusations. Clapper told Chuck Todd “there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign.” But he did also acknowledge that he can’t speak for “other authorized entities in the government or a state or local entity.” FBI Director James Comey also asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump’s allegations about the wiretap this afternoon.

Largely, reactions from other politicians have included confusion. Some Republicans have even expressed as much, making it clear that they don’t know where Trump’s claims have come from. For example, Senator Marco Rubio expressed seemingly shaky confidence that more information will become clear when he appeared on “Meet the Press,” saying:

I’d imagine the President and the White House in the days to come will outline further what was behind that accusation. The President put that out there, and now the White House will have to answer as to exactly what he was referring to.

Senator Ben Sasse stated:

The president today made some very serious allegations, and the informed citizens that a republic requires deserve more information. If without [an authorization], the President should explain what sort of wiretap it was and how he knows this. It is possible that he was illegally tapped.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The answer to that question is also very unclear. Presumably, Trump isn’t going to back off. In fact, Trump has doubled down on the allegations. Today, he called for a Congressional inquiry into the claims. So, this isn’t going to die anytime soon. Hopefully we’ll have answers soon.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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