Fisa Judges: Incurious, Incompetent or Bent?

My confidence in governments' legal goings-on (vis-a-vis private citizens) at the federal, state and local levels had been shaken long before the revelations growing out of the 2016 elections.  Readings I had done [1] over recent years had left me, if not cynical, highly skeptical of America's legal system. That skepticism, ranging from city, county and district courts to state and federal ones to include the U.S. Supreme Court and the often too-cozy collaboration between law enforcement and prosecutors.  In short, the growing political corruption of the justice system now appears to be a given.  Although I have long believed that to some extent justice is the handmaiden of power, I perceive that things worsen over time.  With that context in mind, the reader will understand why I pose the title question along with others.


The F.I.S.A. court should presumably be the least corrupt and the most prudential court in the land, oweing to its burden to keep separate American citizens from potentially nefarious foreign actors.  When it became known that apparently false, incomplete or misleading information was presented to the court successfully to obtain authorization to surveil Carter Page, attention centered around the F.B.I. petitioners who presumably lied to the judges on four occasions.  They deceived the judges.  But did they?  Why did the court not minutely examine the petitions and raise hard questions about reportedly sketchy information in the documentation presented to them?  Why, when it was later revealed to the court that information given to them was of doubtful provenance, did the judges not angrily and publicly call the F.B.I. to account?  Judges predictably respond with barely contained fury when they discover that they have been deliberately been deceived by petitioners. [2] How to answer these questions?  Well, it seems to me that -- putting aside for the moment the unlikely charge of incompetence -- there are two probable explanations.

Out of habit, boredom and/or past practice the F.I.S.A. judges may have come to rubber-stamp F.B.I. warrant requests.  But that leaves open the question as to why we know of no disciplinary action taken by the court.  Especially if the judges were exposed as incompetent. The other explanation is more troubling.  The judges and federal law enforcement shared the same animus toward Donald Trump.  Like the Bureau, they were bent.

A final thought: if the F.I.S.A. court is corrupt, to whom can they be held to account?  And will they be held responsible?  Where does it end?  Does it?


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1.  Philip K. Howard's Death of Common Sense, Harvey Silverglate's Three Felonies a Day.  William  L. Anderson's blog has also been instructive         
2.  See Judge Emmet Sullivan's reaction to prosecutorial deception (Brady violations) in the politically driven case against Senator Ted Stevens.  Licensed to Lie by Sidney Powell, esp. Ch. 13