Republicans were stunned last week when FISA Court Judge James Boasberg appointed former Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s National Security Division, David Kris, to assess the FBI’s efforts to address the abuses revealed in IG Michael Horowitz’ December report. Judge Boasberg, an Obama appointee, has recently replaced former presiding FISC Judge Rosemary Collyer.
Boasberg could hardly have made a more inappropriate choice. Kris has claimed that the IG report vindicates the FBI. He was also highly critical of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) as he began uncovering the FBI’s abuse of the FISA Court application process for the warrant to spy on Carter Page. Kris said, “The Nunes memo was dishonest. And if it is allowed to stand, we risk significant collateral damage to essential elements of our democracy.”
On Monday, my colleague Bonchie posted here about just how partisan Kris really is. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway, who calls Kris a “FISA Abuse Denier,” outlines his most egregious offenses here.
Anyway, Rep. Mark Meadows spoke to investigative journalist Sara Carter on her Monday radio show and said he and several other senior House Republicans plan to write a letter to Boasberg demanding that Kris be removed from this position.
Meadows told Carter:
When you look at just his politics, there’s no way that he can fix the problem if he doesn’t even acknowledge that there is a problem. And I say that, as the most recent IG report when Inspector General Horowitz came out and said ‘there was a problem,’ (Kris) down played it.
Well you and I both know about the abuses that took place, we knew it before the IG’s report came out. We also know that there’s more that will come out as John Durham continues his investigation but this is a critical time.
I can tell you that a few of us, are not only appealing this to the Judge who has now taken over the FISA process but we are also looking at this when it comes to renewing the FISA process within Congress. There’s a renewal of a section of the FISA that is coming up. I’ll be talking to (former Chairman) Bob Goodlatte, who used to be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee – is now working from the outside, is retired – we’re now working very actively with the administration to make sure that no American, not just the President of the United States, not Carter Page, it’s not just a few people but to ensure that no American’s civil liberties were actually infringed upon, and that’s what happened here.
Not only did it happen, but it happened deliberately and until we fix it all Americans are at risk.
Meadows, as we all were, was mystified by Boasberg’s selection of Kris and noted, “When you look at his twitter feed, when you look at the comments he’s made not only did he go after Devin Nunes but he’s gone after the President, he’s a contributor for MSNBC at times.
Over the weekend, Rep. Nunes told Carter that appointing Kris to this position was “a ridiculous choice. The FBI lied to the FISC, and to help make sure that doesn’t happen again, the FISC chose an FBI apologist who denied and defended those lies. The FISC is setting its own credibility on fire.”
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/01/14/top-republican-house-lawmakers-will-appeal-fisc-judge-to-prevent-david-kris-from-overseeing-fbi-reform/
No comments:
Post a Comment