On Friday, the new presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) divulged the name of the fox he’s put in charge of the hen house. By Monday, there was palpable fury over the decision as the news began to sink into the Swamp’s political water table. The move was described by former federal prosecutor Joe DiGenova as a “spit in the face of the president of the United States, a spit in the face of the Republican United States Senate, and [a] spit in the face of Devin Nunes.”
The new FISC presiding judge, James Boasberg, was elevated because his predecessor left due to “health concerns.” Former presiding judge, Rosemary Collyer, suffered an extra heated case of political heartburn for looking the other way as Carter Page’s civil rights were trampled multiple times by her court and by the FBI’s James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe. She wrote a flaccid letter explaining how shocked, shocked she was that this malfeasance had occurred on her watch. It was beyond a too-little-too-late response.
So, why all the outrage? What caused Devin Nunes to explode “you can’t make this up.” What made former prosecutor DiGenova demand Senator Lindsey Graham “get off his ass and issue a subpoena to this judge. … This. Must. Not. Stand”?
As PJMedia reported, the person named to oversee the johnny-come-lately FISA rule changes is none other than David Kris, the guy who cheerleaded what the DOJ Inspector General described as illegal FISA warrants and searches. Kris wrote copiously in support of illegal warrants using the phony “Russian Dossier” and appeared frequently on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” to stoke what we now know are Trump Russia lies. He demonized the one guy who was right all along about the hoax, Congressman Devin Nunes.
The guy who did everything wrong is now supposed to make everything right?
It was beyond outrageous to DiGenova who fumed on WMAL radio, calling Kris a “partisan hack. A vicious and vitriolic critic of Devin Nunez. He’s been on the FISA court, insider, friend-of-the-court list since 2016. So he has been present on that court while all the FISA abuses occurred. So he should be disqualified.” [emphasis added]
DiGenova was apoplectic:
“This is not just tone-deafness, this is a purposeful decision to spit in the face of the president of the United States and spit in the face of the Republican United States Senate, and to spit in the face of Devin Nunes. It’s disgusting. This must not stand. This is a test, by the way, of not only Republican senators, … this is Lindsey Graham’s moment.
This is as big as it gets. I cannot emphasize enough how serious this is. This guy Kris is a Comey acolyte. He is a friend of James Comey. He is a friend of James Comey, he is a friend of the people – of Peter Strzok, [Andrew] McCabe. He knows all of these people. He worked with them. He’s been on that court since March of 2016 as a friend-of-the-court under the FISA rules and did nothing about these absues except, he did do this: he supported everything the FBI did. He wrote about it for Lawfare, the Brookings Institution’s pathetic, fake Democratic blog. In those writings, he supported the illegal activity pretending he thought it was all legal. He knew it was illegal. This guy Kris should be nowhere near that court.” [emphasis added]
DiGenova also saw it as a slap in the face of people who had been calling out the illegal searches for years:
“By the way, it’s also a slap in the face at all of us. Me, my wife, Victoria Toensing, and all of us who have been analyzing this from the beginning that the Carter Page warrants were all illegal and unconstitutional. What Boaseberg has show is that he doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a damn about the crimes that were committed. Get. Him. Off. That. Court!”
Nunes shook his head with contempt on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo (see below): “The new judge who puts in the guy who was covering up for the dirty cops. You can’t make it up. Granted the Swamp isn’t very big, but there are several million people who live in this area. This is the guy you come up with?”
President Trump apparently was watching the program and chimed in:
You can’t make this up! David Kris, a highly controversial former DOJ official, was just appointed by the FISA Court to oversee reforms to the FBI’s surveillance procedures. Zero credibility. THE SWAMP! @DevinNunes @MariaBartiromo @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020
DiGenova demanded that Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Lindsey Graham “get off his duff” and “get Boasberg to testify about this selection.”
The former federal prosecutor also urged every Republican sign a letter demanding that Kris be removed, saying: “He obviously has no analytical capabilities or he would have or he would have caught all of the FISA abuses during all those years he was twerking with the court. This is so bad and so stupid that I agree with Nunes; this threatens the very existence of the FISA Court. It shows Boseberg’s arrogance and his indifference. What a disgusting performance by a federal judge.”
DiGenova said that Republicans should demand Kris be removed and it should happen today.
Here’s Nunes on the appointment of Kris to the FISC:
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