inspector general unleashed two other reports after our russia gate reporting, issuing a damning statement of fbi saying they made a thousand errors to just the fisa court application process alone this why the fbi has lost all credibility, there is no more accountability, we tried our best. american wants accountability, maybe it will come in form of john durham, this is why american citizens don t believe that our fbi is acting without bias. trey, you mentioned congress, they love to talk. some people love to talk about police reform. and they are usually talking about state and local cops, over whom they have zero jurisdiction. they have jurisdiction over federal agents including fbi, what will congress
this is not parcelled out. it is a serious business. chuck, is there a safe mechanism in place that if in fact we are saying from a devil s advocate point of view, not just carter page. but if an american citizen was wrongly caught up in fisa court application, is there an pale once they realize they have been targeted the target after surveillance? there is a bunch of places to go if there is a mistake or concern about a process, amman. releasing a partisan memo is not the way to go. can you go to the fisa court or inspector general at department of justice or to the privacy and civil liberties oversight board. a nonpartisan department of the executive branch. i want to amplify one thing. and harry knows this, have you a high pass rate when you bring in an after dave sit because you play a long game as federal
in criticism cal court or before the fisa court the standard s the same and probably cause. where does that come from? the fourth amendment to the constitution. it is serious but not particularly high bar. i can tell you by having worked for director mueller with the fbi, one of my jobs was to review every fisa warrant before he certified it. dozens of lawyers aej agents in the fbi and department of justice before it before i review it. before director mueller certifies it. before it goes to attorney general for his signature. before it then goes to a federal district court judge on the fisa court for their authorization. an exacting process relatively low standard of proof. harry, a couple of years ago, when talk about fisa courts have do with the war on terror and
angle sounds cold warrish to us, the thing to remember about the fisa court, they are deeply involved in preventing terrorist attacks. and keeping the country s general good record in absence of attacks in the last 15 years. this is important stuff that i don t think they will want to be on record as trying to reverse. and chuck, as the foremost expert on the fisa court application process, i will give you the final word. do you think we could see a change in the system? i think the system is fine. i assume that if the judges have concerns, they will call on the prosecutors and agents. judges are not going to rely on memos written bipartisans and i mean that either from the republican side or the democratic side. there is a flaw in the process. we have systems to fix it. but i can tell you having seen the process up close, that it is a careful meticulous exacting process. not perfect, don t misunderstand me. we get stuff wrong and we try and fix it. but we don t do it in a partisan
it any changes in the system now that we are seeing this dynamic unfold? well, i don t know. i mean, there have been different attempts to reform and we usually there all grew out of water gate, amman. and the 1978 report by the church committee saying we needed some changes and then they were put into place. people when they have looked at them have tended to find them robust. i should say, by wait, i m a little bit like a physics student here in a discussion with relativity. chuck is the foremost on fisa procedures in the country. but i think you ask mainly a political question. if i m betting, i think that nunes and company will not really have the wherewithal to make any kind of true reform in the process. when they look closely, they will see the process runs wait it is supposed to. by the way, what the russia