Glenn Greenwald with the Intercept says the IG report on FBI spying reveals a scandal of historic magnitude for the FBI and for the U.S. media

We know.

While Glenn Greenwald is the rare journalist who will say so.

Greenwald is an impressive journalist. An impressive lawyer as well. And he is an impressive linguist.

I watched Citizenfour on Amazon Prime. As I recall it the beginning is not so impressive. I almost switched off. Then Snowden appeared and the show suddenly became much more interesting. Snowden is shown mostly holed up in a hotel. In Hong Kong, I think. Mostly barefoot in bed. His voice is annoyingly vocal fry the whole time, but if you can overlook that then what he says is incredibly interesting. They're trying to figure out what to do. Greenwald's advice is superior. Greenwald is mostly silent but when he speaks his questions go directly to the heart of the matter. There is no messing around. Later we see him addressing Brazilian journalists speaking Portuguese. He has a clear American accent but the journalists are all completely respectful totally inthralled. It's a very good show. Recommended.

Now Greenwald dissects the Inspector General's report.

* squeaky ventriloquist voice * "What does he say?"

He says quite a lot. The page goes, scroll, scroll, scroll.

     "Tell us what he says."

That would take too long.

     "Come on. Be sport. Tell us."

Okay fine.

I'll tell you what he says in each paragraph. You asked for it.

First, the page is loaded with pleas for support.

*  Following the Mueller report, the IG report reveals years of major claims and narratives by U.S. media are utter frauds.

* Before analyzing the media component of the scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power, its serial deceit is so grave that it's easy to demonstrate. The IG report documents several instances in which the FBI had the FISA court give it permission to spy on Trump campaign operative Carter Page. They manipulated documents, concealed exonerating evidence, touted what it knew were unreliable false claims.

* FBI lying, concealment of evidence, manipulation of documents to spy on a U.S. citizen is not aberrational. FBI are blackmailers. They tried to get Martin Luther King to kill himself. That's who they are. They are out of control with unlimited police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and they subvert democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.

* The IG report is brimming with proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit to persuade a FISA court of something that was not true: that Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government and needed to be surveilled.

* The first part of the IG Report was on the warrants obtained by the DOJ for the FBI to spy on Carter Page on the grounds of him being an agent for the Russian government. They made sure the media widely disseminated this falsehood. The Mueller investigation examined the accusations and failed to establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 election.

* The IG report documents a multitude of lies and misrepresentations by the FBI to deceive the FISA court into believing there was probable cause to surveil Page as a Kremlin agent. The first FISA warrant was to spy on Page after Page left the Trump campaign but weeks before the election.

* The FBI fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure that all factual statements in a FISA application are scrupulously accurate. The IG identified several instances where factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation based on information the FBI had in its possession at the time.

* This point ↑ is reiterated twice.

* The first application contained seven inaccuracies:

     1) The FBI concealed that Page had been working with the CIA in connection with his dealings with Russia and had notified CIA case managers of those contacts.

     2) The FBI lied about both the timing and substance of Page's relationship with the CIA.

     3) They vastly overstated the value of Steele's prior work for the U.S. government to make him appear more credible.

     4) They concealed serious reasons to doubt the reliability of Steele's key source.

     5)  The FBI did not have corroborating information on the specific allegations against Carter Page in Steele's reporting when it relied on his reports in the first FISA application or in subsequent renewal applications.

Well, I guess there are 5 serious inaccuracies, not 7. I seem to have missed two or possibly combined them. Oh, wait.

     6) The FBI touted a gossipy unverified unreliable rag that it had no reason to believe and every reason to distrust but hid all of that from the FISA court. They needed FISA court to believe the Steele dossier was something that it was not or else they would not have permission to spy on Carter Page.

I'm tired of counting items and trying to make it amount to seven. Greenwald didn't number them so I don't know where one leaves off and another begins.

* FBI decided to seek reauthorization of the FISA warrant to continue to spy on Page, and they did that three times; January, April, and June of 2017. Here they add ten more major inaccuracies.

But I'm not going to try to count them.

* They repeated the 7 errors contained in the first FISA application and added 10 more.

* FBI omitted the fact that Steele's Primary Subsource had made statements in January raising significant questions about the reliability of allegations included in the FISA applications including that they did not recall any discussion with Person 1 concerning Wikileaks and there was nothing bad about the communications between the Kremlin and the Trump team and that they did not report to Steele in July 2016 that Page had met with Sechin. That is, Steele's own key source told the FBI that Steele was lying about what the source said. A critical fact that the FBI concealed from the FISA court because they knew how devastating that would be to continue to spy on Page. The most serious of the 10 additional errors was the FBI's failure to advise DOJ or the court of the inconsistencies between Steele and his primary sub-source on the reporting relied upon in the FISA applications.

* The FBI hid key information from the court about Steele's motives. It omitted information obtained from Bruce Ohr about Steele and his election reporting including

     1) Steele's reporting was going to Clinton's presidential campaign and others.
   
     2) Fusion GPS's Glenn Simpson was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media

     3) Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President."

[He's British! It's none of his stinkin' British bizwax. Mind your own business British spook. Now, look at you. You've got your own problems. You got your own British Trump. Take a deep bow, you butt.]

Greenwald now speaks to his liberal audience. He tells them point blank that if FBI repeatedly and deliberately deceiving the FISA court into granting permission to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign doesn't bother you then it is certain that you are either someone with no principles, someone who cares only about partisan advantage and nothing about basic civil liberties and the rule of law. People of good faith will see in this report that the FBI abuses its power in severe ways to subvert and undermine U.S. democracy. If you don't care about that, what do you care about?

He's not talking to us right now. Because we do care about that.

Greenwald, God bless you. You are the light on the hill. You stick out head and shoulders above all of your peers.

Now Greenwald switches from the FBI to the media. You sense that he's really going to let them have it. Pow, right in the kisser.

* The revelations of the IG report reveal that so much of what the U.S. media has authoritatively claimed about all of these matters for more than two years is completely false.

[We know that! But finally we are hearing from someone inside of U.S. media. Although he's in Brazil. Let's hear it. Let 'er rip. He's going to be like Trump at one of his rallies pointing to media and calling them fake news "Ah! The light just went out on their cameras. They stopped recording."]

* News outlets rely on claims of security state agents, worse, now they're employing them in their newsrooms to shape the news.

* The ex-security agents yearn for a second lucrative career in the public eye. Greenwald cites Politico:

He takes a crash course in speaking in soundbites, refreshes his wardrobe and signs a TV news contract. Then, several times a week, waits for a network limousine to shuttle him to the broadcast news studios where, after a light dusting of foundation and a spritz of hairspray, he takes a supporting role in the anchors’ nighttime shows.

* They're not in the business of breaking news or uncovering secrets. Their loyalty is to their original agency. It's like a TV network covering the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives.

* The CIA, FBI and NSA have always tried to infiltrate and shape domestic news but they had the decency to do it clandestinely. In 2008 NYT David Barstow won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing a Pentagon program whereby retired Generals and other security sate agents would get hired as commentators and analysts and then unbeknownst to their networks coordinate their messaging to ensure that domestic news was shaped by the propaganda of the military and intelligence communities.

* Now it's all out in the open. We're bombarded with former Generals, CIA operatives, FBI agents, and NSA officials who work for the networks as commentators and as reporters.

* Example. Twitter CNN congratulating Josh Campbell.

[I wouldn't know. Nobody sensible watches CNN anymore. Cat videos are more useful.]

* The past 3 years of "Russiagate" reporting, U.S.  journalists lavished themselves with Pulitzers and other prizes despite a multitude of embarrassing and dangerous errors about the Grave Russian Threat has relied almost exclusively on anonymous, uncorroborated claims from Deep State operatives. With few exceptions such as:

Example tweet from Terry Morgan displaying a video of John Brennan saying something stupid. I didn't watch it so I don't know what the embarrassing thing is. Homey ain't got time fo dat.

* This means that the U.S. discourse on these national security questions is shaped almost entirely by the agencies that are trained to lie: CIA, NSA, Pentagon, FBI, and their lying has been highly effective.

[Only if you watch them. And sensible people stopped that. So now only insensible people watch them. It's like smoking.]

* For years we were told by the nation's leading national security reporters something that was blatantly false; that the FBI warrants to spy on Carter Page were not based on the Steele Dossier. Devin Nunes was vilified and mocked by super-smart DC national security reporters. The IG report corroborated the Nunes memo; that FBI lied to spy on Carter Page through a series of misrepresentations, falsehoods and concealment of key evidence.

* Nunes memo example

* IG report example

* Greenwald lauds left-wing Matt Taibbi with Rolling Stones for courage in reporting counter to the standard narrative. Democrats are not going to like this, but the Horowitz report ratifies the major claims of the infamous Nunes memo.

* Media servants rushed to deny the page warrant was based on the Steele Dossier. Did they have evidence? The FISA warrant applications are highly classified. No, they were just repeating what the FBI and CIA and the pathologically dishonest Rep. Adam Schiff told them to say. Good and loyal puppets. What media kept telling the public in highly definitive tones was completely false as we know form the IG report.

[I wouldn't know without being told. I don't listen to them anymore.]

* Example tweets about the the Steele Dossier not being used for FISA applications.

* Repeatedly the IG report makes clear that contrary to denials, the Steele Dossier was crucial to the Page eavesdropping warrant.

We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order. 

In support of the fourth element in the FISA application-Carter Page’s alleged coordination with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities, the application relied entirely on the following information from Steele Reports 80, 94, 95, and 102. 

*  It was the Steele Dossier that led FBI leadership including James Comey and Andrew McCabe to approve the warrant application in the first place despite concerns raised by other agents that the information was unreliable.

FBI leadership supported relying on Steele’s reporting to seek a FISA order on Page after being advised of, and giving consideration to, concerns expressed by Stuart Evans, then NSD’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight responsibility over QI, that Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC, and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would probably not be worth the ‘risk’ of being criticized later for collecting communications of someone (Carter Page) who was “politically sensitive.”

* The narrative manufactured by the security state agencies and laundered by their reliable media servants about these critical matters was false, a fraud, a lie. U.S. discourse was subsumed by the propaganda because the U.S. media and key parts of the security state have decided that subverting the Trump presidency is of such a high priority that their political judgment is greater than the results of the election, that everything including outright lying even to courts and the public is justified because the ends are so noble.

* Taibbi: "No matter what people think the political meaning of the Horowitz report might be, reporters who read it will know that anybody who touched this nonsense in print should be embarrassed. No mater how dangerous you believe the Trump presidency to be, this is a grave threat to the pillars of the US. democracy, a free press, an informed citizenry and the rule of law.

This ends the part about American media.

* Another major lie spun by the newly-minted media stars and liberal icons from the security state agencies. Ever since the Snowden reporting, and before that, when the NYT Eric Lichtblau and Jim Risen (now with the Intercept) revealed that the Bush-era NSA was illegally spying on U.S. citizens without warrants it was widely understood that the FISA process was a rubber-stamping joke that offered no limits on the ability of the U.S. government to spy on its own citizens.

* Over the last 3 years, the strategy of Democrats and liberals particularly their cable outlets and news sites has been to venerate and elevate security state agents as the noble truth-tellers of U.S. democracy. Once reviled by liberal sites such as Lawfare  composed of little more than pro-NSA and pro-FBI apparatchiks gained mainstream visibility for the first time on the strength of a new group of liberals that decided the salvation of the U.S. democracy is not with the political process, rather, it is with the dark arts of the NSA, FBI and CIA.

* Sites like Lawfare became twitter and cable news stars and they used their platform to resuscitate what had been a long-discredited lie: that the FISA process is rigorous and that the potential for abuse is low.  Liberals eager to believe that the security state agencies opposed to Trump should be trusted despite their decades of violent lawlessness and systemic lying started to believe in the sanctity of the NSA and the FISA process.

* The IG report destroys that delusion. It lays bare what a sham the whole FISA process is and how easy it is for the NSA and the FBI to get from the FISA court whatever authorization it wants to spy on any Americans they want no matter how flimsy the justification. The ACLU and other civil libertarians spent years getting people to realize this truth but it was wiped out by the Trump-era veneration of these security state agencies.

* Excellent article on the fallout from the IG report, NYT Charlie Savage, leading journalist on these debates, shows how devastating these revelations are to this concocted narrative designed to lead Americans to trust the FBI and NSA's eavesdropping authorities.

* Horowitz and his team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the FBI went about obtaining and renewing court permission to wiretap Carter Page.

* The litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications shows how the secrecy shrouding the government's one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse. The concerns apply to intrusive investigations of others including especially Muslims and far better safeguards against abuse are necessary.

* His exposé left some former officials who generally defend government surveillance practices aghast.

* David Kris, expert in FISA who oversaw the DOJ National security division during Obama administration, "If the broader audit of FISA applications shows a systematic patter of errors of this sort that plagued this one, then I would expect very serious consequences and reforms."

* The FISA only rarely rejects wiretap applications. Only 1 was denied out of 1,080.

* Defenders say the low rejection rate comes from how well the Justice Department self-polices and avoids presenting the court with requests that fall short of the legal standard. They stress that officials obey a heightened duty to be candid and provide any mitigating evidence.

* The IG found major errors, material omissions, and unsupported statements about Mr. Page in materials that were sent to the court. FBI cherry-picked evidence, they told the DOJ stuff that made Page look suspicious and they omitted material that cut went the other way and the department passed that misleading information onto the court.

* This system of unlimited domestic spying was built by both parties who rouse only when the power is in the hands of the other side. Last year a majority of GOP members joined with minority Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff to give President Trump all-new domestic spying powers while blocking reforms and safeguards to prevent abuse.

* [It's beginning to sound like a wrap]  Maybe these revelations will lead to the realization of how rogue and dangerous these police state agencies have become  and how serious reform is urgently needed. If nothing else, it must serve as a tonic to 3 years of unrelenting media propaganda that has deceived and misled millions of Americans into believing things that are simply not true.

[Not us! We never did believe anything from these butts. For us, this whole thing is bias conformation. And that's why we love you so. Because you're telling them. And they respect you, but they don't respect us. So they're hearing it from one of their own and not from us.]

None of these journalists have acknowledged an iota of error in the wake of this report because they know that lying is not just permitted but encouraged as long as it pleases and vindicates the political beliefs of their audiences. Until that stops, credibility and faith in journalism will never be restored, and – despite how toxic it is to have a media that has no claim on credibility – that despised status will be fully deserved.

OMG, I could kiss you for that. Even though you're not my type.

I can't believe how brave Glenn Greenwald is. That takes a lot of guts. There must be something to chopping his way through the Amazon jungle.

Plus he likes dogs.

I saw him on t.v. in debate with a Pentagon general. The general was all standard boiler plate bromides and platitudes and trust us. Glenn got right to the crucial points and enumerated the problems. He was clear as a bell and he left no room for contrary insertion. He made the general look stupid by simply being himself. He didn't argue, he simply drew a very clear picture.