How Many Spy Targets Were There in Russiagate? One ... or Four?

[PeteS in CA]

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/09/24/how_many_trump_people_were_spied_on_under_fisa_one__or_four_120489.html

How Many Spy Targets Were There in Russiagate? One ... or Four?

It has been more than a year since it was revealed that federal agents secured warrants to surveil onetime Trump presidential campaign adviser Carter Page both before and after the election. In all the arguments over whether those warrants were legitimately obtained, a related question has largely been neglected: Was Carter Page the only person in the Trump orbit to be put under surveillance? There is reason to think others were too.

A little-publicized Capitol Hill exchange suggests the possibility  that three other campaign figures – Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos – were also the targets of FISA-approved surveillance.

This would be especially significant in the case of Flynn and Manafort because unlike the other two they were high-level figures in constant contact with Donald Trump. Investigators are generally empowered, under FISA’s “two hop” rule, to collect communications not only of the target, but of anyone in contact with the subject (hop one) and then anyone communicating with those contacts (hop two). Casting the net even wider, investigators are authorized to collect archived communications from well before the original warrant was issued. This suggests that Trump might not have been far off when he alleged that the Obama administration had his "wires tapped" in Trump Tower .

The possibility of more spy warrants emerged last December when former Attorney General Loretta Lynch was interviewed by members of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. (The exchange was reported by Breitbart News and Epoch Times after a transcript was released in June.)

Though conducted behind closed doors, the interview did not take place in a classified setting --  meaning participants couldn’t discuss any classified information, such as the existence of an unreleased FISA warrant. So a problem arose when Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) brought up FISA warrants in the preface to a question. “I want to talk about the spring, summer, and autumn of 2016,” she said. “Carter Page, at the time, was suspected of being a Russian asset; George Papadopoulos had told the Australian ambassador that Russians had Hillary Clinton emails; Paul Manafort had been named Trump campaign manager; Michael Flynn was Trump's chief national security adviser and foreign policy adviser. One thing that all of these persons had in common was that each was the subject of a FISA court investigation.”

Lynch didn’t contradict Jackson Lee, but a senior Justice Department lawyer at the interview, Bradley Weinsheimer, did dive in: “I would object to that question as it potentially gets into possibly classified information.”

Looks like SheLiah spilled some beans. I think Trump is right to be furious at his campaign being bugged by his political opponents. And while the MSM mocked his claim that Trump Tower had been bugged, he's been proven correct, if not about the literal means, we are now at the point that "how many" is the appropriate question. And it's worth speculating how much Trump knew back when he made is claim, but simply did not reveal at the time.

[Sanguine]

If this is true, then it is as many feared and the FISA courts are fully corrupt.