Byron York: No question there was spying on Trump campaign, but how much?
by Byron York
| May 06, 2019 11:10 PM
At a contentious hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General William Barr dropped a big hint about his investigation into the conduct of the Trump-Russia investigation.
"Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant and a FISA warrant," Barr said. "I would like to find out whether that is in fact true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort designed to stop the threat as it is being represented."
Here is what he meant. There has been a lot of discussion on the Right about the FBI's use of a confidential informant, an England-based college professor named Stefan Halper, to spy on some Trump campaign figures, including the sometime foreign policy volunteer advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. There has also been talk about the FBI's use of a FISA warrant, a court-approved permission to wiretap, against Page.
What seems to be forgotten, or just isn't discussed much, is that the "Title I" warrant granted permitted far more than "permission to wiretap, against Page."
A "Title I" FISA warrant for a U.S. citizen target is the most intrusive, exhaustive and far reaching type of search, seizure and surveillance authority, permitting the FBI to look at every aspect of Page's life (including
all of the people that he came in contact with).
Designating Page as a "agent of a foreign government" (which is necessary for Title I surveillance), permitted the FBI to surveil every single person Page came in contact with; and every single aspect of their lives and their activities in expanding circles;
without limits to current time or historic review.
This designation also applied retroactively to any action taken by Page, and automatically created an exponential list of all others he came in contact with. And each of those people (or organizations) could now have their communication reviewed, unmasked and analyzed by the FBI with the same surveillance authority granted upon the original target, Page.
So for all practical purposes, the warrants granted to surveil Page, basically permitted them to surveil the
entire Trump campaign and transition team.
