The FBI routinely violates its own procedures when applying for warrants to spy on American citizens, a new report from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found.
In a memo dated March 30, Inspector General Michael Horowitz followed up on an earlier report from December 2019, which found the FBI violated its own procedures when obtaining Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Carter Page, a former adviser to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The OIG found that the FBI violated what’s known as the Woods Procedures, which were implemented in 2001 “following errors in numerous FISA applications submitted to the in FBI counterterrorism investigations.” The Woods Procedures are meant to “minimize factual inaccuracies in FISA applications and to ensure that statements contained in applications are ‘scrupulously accurate,’” Horowitz wrote.
After its massive report late last year, which found 17 “inaccuracies and omissions” that led to Page getting spied on by his own government when he had done nothing wrong, Horowitz led a team to look into other FISA applications to see if violating the Woods Procedures was routine. – READ MORE
