Court filing claims Feds used FISA court powers to spy on businessman connected to Giuliani
02/04/2020 / By JD Heyes
Deep State opponents of President Donald Trump, as we’ve learned already, have gone all-out in their efforts to bring down his presidency.
That has included an out-and-out effort to stage a soft coup using bogus allegations of “Russian collusion” — charging the president and his 2016 campaign with actively cooperating with Moscow to ‘steal’ the election from Democrat Hillary Clinton.
But after that unprecedented operation was exposed by true investigative media and put to rest ‘officially’ by special counsel Robert Mueller, another operation has been set in motion to ‘get’ associates of the president as a way to get to him, namely, his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
As The New York Times reported in October:
Federal prosecutors unsealed charges on Thursday against two men who have aided President Trump’s efforts to gather damaging information in Ukraine about his political opponents, a criminal case that signaled growing legal exposure for the president’s allies as Mr. Trump tries to blunt an impeachment inquiry in Congress.
The two men who were indicted are Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman; they have been charged with campaign finance violations. President Trump was not implicated in any way, and neither was Giuliani. (Related: Rudy Giuliani drops bombshells revealing massive Ukrainian money-laundering operation involving Bidens, energy company Burisma.)
But here’s where it gets interesting: These individuals were assisting Giuliani in his investigation into Democrat-related corruption and election meddling in connection with Ukrainian officials during the 2016 cycle (and recall that Democrats who have impeached Trump claim that he abused his power in an alleged attempt to extract a quid pro quo from Ukraine).
In any event, the story took another twist this week when a Ukrainian businessman accused of conspiring with Parnas and Fruman argued in a federal court filing that the government is attempting to cover up the “warrantless and unlawful electronic surveillance” it conducted against him, to include possible “stingray” devices to track his cellphones, Fox News reported.
Lawyers for Andrey Kukushkin argued that it “appears to be the case” that government agents obtained evidence via use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and that it’s “inconceivable” none of their client’s communications were not intercepted.
How deep does the corruption go at DOJ, FBI?
They demanded an explanation as to the “genesis of such evidence and the extent to which it was used,” the filing noted.
The arguments come on the heels of a rebuke of the FBI by the secretive FISA court, which lashed out at the bureau for apparently misrepresenting evidence in order to secure surveillance warrants against a member of the 2016 Trump campaign, Carter Page.
That said, the court has not demanded a comprehensive review of past FBI filings to ensure they were legitimate. Also, at least one high-ranking FBI agent that was involved in misconduct remains with the bureau.
“The government’s insistence on complete secrecy is incompatible with the rights of the defendants, particularly in the face of rapidly advancing technology,” Kukushkin’s attorneys wrote. “Initially, it was the government’s repeated insistence that ‘no Title III [wiretap] warrants were used in this investigation,’ even when asked whether non-Title III surveillance occurred. This was coupled by the government’s refusal to answer direct and repeated questions as to its use of stingray and other electronic surveillance.”
The legal team referenced the FBI’s very well-known issues regarding the FISA court. They said in their filing in the Southern District of New York that those events prove the government “routinely” puts U.S. citizens under surveillance without proper authorization or judicial review.
The team asserted the FBI could be using a prohibited tactic known as “parallel construction” — the bureau having illegally used FISA-type surveillance before eventually seeking to reobtain the same evidence through permitted means.
It all sounds shockingly familiar: Another operation by rogue elements of the FBI and Justice Department to bring down a president whose only “crime” was winning an election.
Where is Attorney General Barr?
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Tagged Under: 2016 election, Andrey Kukushikin, barack obama, campaign finanice violations, corruption, deep state, DOJ, FBI, FISA court, Igor Fruman, Illegal, Lev Parnas, Orwellian, President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, SDNY, spying, Stingray, treason, Ukraine, unauthorized surveillance
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