'Are you kidding me?' National security lawyer tears apart Nunes' 'pathetic joke' of a memo
Brad Reed
February 02, 2018
'Are you kidding me?' National security lawyer tears apart Nunes' 'pathetic joke' of a memo
Attorney Bradley Moss (Screen cap).
The controversial Nunes memo is out -- and one national security expert is decidedly unimpressed.
Bradley Moss, an attorney who specializes in litigating national security matters, has written a tweet storm in which he shreds the memo and says that he believes it amounts to a "pathetic joke."
"This is the scandal??" Moss writes incredulously of the memo. "Are you kidding me?"
He then goes on to explain why there is simply no major scandal embedded within Nunes' memo, and he says that British spy Christopher Steele's personal biases against then-candidate Donald Trump are completely irrelevant to whether a FISA court should have granted the FBI a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
"The entire premise of its insuffiency is the fact that the FBI/DOJ didn't tell the FISC that Steele was biased against Trump," he writes. "So the hell what? They're not REQUIRED to reveal that in every case. Unless that bias somehow renders the information, in and of itself, unreliable, it doesn't matter if Steele wore a 'I'm with Hillary' button. It's irrelevant."
Moss then went on to note that the Nunes memo confusingly admits that the FBI first launched its investigation into the Trump campaign based on the drunken boasts of former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who bragged to an Australian diplomat that he knew the Russian government would release dirt on rival Hillary Clinton.
In conclusion, Moss says the FBI needs to clear this up by releasing the entire FISA application on Page -- which he notes is usually between 50 to 100 pages long.
Bradley P. Moss
@BradMossEsq
This is the scandal?? Are you kidding me? https://scribd.com/document/370598711/House-Intelligence-Committee-Report-On-FISA-Abuses#fullscreen&from_embed
12:21 PM · Feb 2, 2018
Bradley P. Moss
@BradMossEsq
The Nunes memo is exactly the pathetic joke I expected it to be.
1) It admits that the Steele dossier is only a part of the FISA application. It even resolves once and for all that the Russia investigation did not start based on the dossier. It was based on "coffee boy".
12:22 PM · Feb 2, 2018
Bradley P. Moss
@BradMossEsq
·
Feb 2, 2018
The Nunes memo is exactly the pathetic joke I expected it to be.
1) It admits that the Steele dossier is only a part of the FISA application. It even resolves once and for all that the Russia investigation did not start based on the dossier. It was based on "coffee boy".
Bradley P. Moss
@BradMossEsq
2) The entire premise of its insuffiency is the fact that the FBI/DOJ didn't tell the FISC that Steele was biased against Trump. So the hell what? They're not REQUIRED to reveal that in every case. @OrinKerr did an exhaustive piece on the 4A issues for @lawfareblog
12:24 PM · Feb 2, 2018
Bradley P. Moss
@BradMossEsq
·
Feb 2, 2018
Replying to @BradMossEsq
2) The entire premise of its insuffiency is the fact that the FBI/DOJ didn't tell the FISC that Steele was biased against Trump. So the hell what? They're not REQUIRED to reveal that in every case. @OrinKerr did an exhaustive piece on the 4A issues for @lawfareblog
Bradley P. Moss
@BradMossEsq
Unless that bias somehow renders the information, in and of itself, unreliable, it doesn't matter if Steele wore a "I'm with Hillary" button. It's irrelevant.
3) Release the FISA application. The FBI has to do it now. It would likely have been 50-100 pages. Release it.
12:26 PM · Feb 2, 2018
Bradley P. Moss
@BradMossEsq
Any pundit that goes out there and says this is the FISA memo is a bombshell scandal is either a hack, stupid, naïve, incompetent and/or is completely and unapologetically unaware of Fourth Amendment law involving warrant applications and confidential informants.
12:45 PM · Feb 2, 2018
