Posted originally on CTH on April 22, 2026 | Sundance
Prior to 2018 any public mention of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would be cause for you to immediately lose your security clearance in government. However, by mid-2018 DC officials were not only openly discussing FISA in public settings, but the DOJ released a Top-Secret Compartmented Intelligence Title-1 FISA warrant.
Why was a TSCI Title-1 FISA warrant made public in 2018?
The Carter Page FISA application and subsequent warrant would have been the easiest document to keep hidden from the public. You cannot FOIA classified documents. However, someone in the DOJ released their exclusive national security equity. I am certain it was Andrew Weissmann who made the call.
Additionally, when the DOJ FISA application was made public, few people noticed the date stamp on the application itself [copy from FISC 3/17/17].
Why was the DOJ releasing the warrant to the public, and why did they use that specific copy that came from the FISC on March 17, 2017. Why not release their own copies from their own DOJ-NSD files? What was it about the FISC copy that made it the option of their choice?
Just as the Atkinson transcript, whistleblower report and IC IG investigative material showed a fraudulent and corrupt impeachment effort, the background details of the FISA application being made public shows the fraudulent and corrupt intent of the Robert Mueller investigation that preceded it.
You will remember the massive media debate in early 2018 about the FISA application deployed against former short-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The DOJ, at the time under the control of the Mueller special counsel for all things Trump-Russia related, wouldn’t let congress see the FISA application. Devin Nunes complained to House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Eventually a deal was struck and two members from the House Intelligence committee (democrats and republicans) and two members from the House Judiciary Committee, were allowed to go to Main Justice and read the FISA application, but not copy it. Four congressmen were allowed to go read and take notes. Trey Gowdy and John Ratcliffe represented the two republicans, and their notes formed the basis for what later was called “The Nunes Memo.”
The Democrats were not happy with the claims in the Nunes memo, and subsequently HPSCI ranking member Adam Schiff wrote the democrat version.
Both of those sets of memos then needed to be declassified, more delays, before they could be made public. For weeks and weeks, the Nunes -vs- Schiff memos were debated by both sides, with each saying their version was the truth and the other party’s version was spin and/or false. All of this was happening in January, February and March 2018.
Then, later in the summer, something really weird happened. On July 21, 2018, Main Justice completely reversed position on keeping the FISA application secret, and for the first time in U.S. history a top secret classified Title-1 FISA application was released to the public (with redactions).
People were so filled with curiosity about the Carter Page FISA application that few, heck, almost no one, stopped to ask why it was released?
Why the sudden secrecy reversal by the DOJ?
The FISA application was made public under the auspices of a Freedom of Information Act request from the media. However, if you were intellectually honest and curious that justification never made any sense. If there was ever a document easy to keep hidden from the public, a Title-1 top secret, classified, FISA application was that document. No FOIA lawsuit was ever going to penetrate that firewall, it was simply too easy for the government to keep hidden.
The FISA application was released over the weekend on July 21st and 22nd, 2018, a Saturday and Sunday. The FISA was not released on a Friday afternoon, it was released on a Saturday.
Everyone quickly rushed to read the national security search warrant. Heck, no one in the public had ever seen one before. The FISA application confirmed the details of a Trump campaign official under a year of extensive surveillance and search authority; but again, few stood back and asked why it was being released.
Here’s the background:
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensten gave testimony to the Senate in June of 2020 {LINK}. Within Rosenstein’s election year and little covered testimony, he revealed that Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his main deputy Andrew Weissmann were completely in charge of Main Justice at the DOJ during the time the special counsel investigation was happening. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was recused, and DAG Rosenstein was in charge of how much power and authority Mueller and Weissmann’s team held in the DOJ.
Rosenstein testified the special counsel had full control over everything and anything related to Trump-Russia, including the Carter Page FISA application the special counsel had re-submitted for the third renewal on June 29, 2017.
Anything that remotely touched the Trump-Russia investigation was completely and unilaterally controlled by Mueller and Weissmann, including any ancillary investigation that would come as an outcome from anything to do with Trump-Russia (the SSCI leak by James Wolfe is one example).
Rosenstein also testified he deferred everything to Mueller/Weissmann and never challenged any of their requests for expanded investigative scope or authority. Rosenstein felt the special counsel was in charge, and anything they wanted – they got.
As Deputy AG Rosenstein said all the special counsel operations were part of their investigative authority, and he felt he had no place in questioning, challenging or refusing anything related to their investigative authority.
Mueller/Weissmann had full control.
That June 2020 testimony was the final piece of the puzzle as to who authorized the release of the Carter Page FISA application to the public.
It was Andrew Weissmann; but why?
♦ In the background of June and July 2018, unbeknownst to the public at the time, Inspector General Michael Horowitz had just discovered that FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith fabricated an email, which was used as part of the FISA application.
The CIA told Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them. Clinesmith doctored the email and told the FBI and DOJ that Carter Page was NOT working for the CIA. The exact opposite of the CIA statement to him. If the truth was known about Page working for the CIA, the DOJ would never have been able to get the second renewal of the FISA application in April 2017.
The INSD office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered the Clinesmith material lie. At the time in June 2018 no one else knew. However, internally the Mueller/Weissmann special counsel knew exactly what IG Horowitz discovered. Now they had a problem. The special counsel had renewed the application using the Clinesmith lie on June 29, 2017.
If the search warrant application was based on fraud, the search warrant could be invalidated by the same court that authorized it. That would be a problem because legal cases against Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn, along with the investigations of Michael Flynn Jr., George Papadopoulos and Walid Phares were all based on evidence obtained by the fraudulently constructed search warrant.
The Weissmann special counsel had a fruit of the poisonous tree problem on their hands. When the FISA court (FISC) finds out about the results of the IG report, which will include the fabrication by Kevin Clinesmith, the FISC could revoke and invalidate the authority of the Title-1 search warrant. If the FISC did that, all of the evidence against Manafort and Flynn would disappear, and they would have to drop any investigative path that came from the exploitation of an unlawful warrant.
♦ The search warrant was already getting massive scrutiny from congress and the public. People quickly discovered the FBI had used the Steele Dossier as the ‘Woods file’ underpinning the application. People were finding out the Steele Dossier was based on fictitious and debunked information the FBI knew about in January and February of 2017, even before the second and third renewals.
On July 12th, 2018, the Weissmann special counsel jumped into action and drafted a letter to the FISC saying despite recent information from congressional investigations, the predicate for probable cause still existed (see below). This letter was written to the FISC, filed quietly, and never shared with DAG Rosenstein or congress. It was a very big lie from the Weissmann special counsel. [NOTE, only the FISA court knew this letter existed until 2020.]
[NOTE, only the FISC knew this letter existed until 2020. When the FISC saw the IG report and the details about Kevin Clinesmith the FISC demanded the DOJ send a copy of that July 2018 letter to congress for oversight and accountability – SEE HERE]
Notice this letter to the FISA Court (July 12) was nine days before the FISA application was made public (July 21).
Weissmann lied to the FISC to protect his criminal cases which were at a very important stage in mid 2018. By the time the FISC found out about the Clinesmith fabrications in late 2019 it was too late. The fraudulent search warrant had been made public, the cases that used the warrant authority were over and the special counsel had concluded.
Angered by DOJ Inspector General revealing the Clinesmith manipulation, the FISA Court (FISC) demanded that congress be notified, and Bill Barr did as the FISC requested… he told congress. In essence, the judicial branch (FISC) told the executive branch (AG Barr) to tell the legislative branch (Senate Judiciary Committee) about the DOJ’s intentional lies. Congress did nothing about it.
♦ However, going back to that critical time in 2018, there was also another issue surrounding the FISA application that also surfaced mid-summer providing a second reason to make the FISA application public.
An indictment of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Security Director James Wolfe was unsealed in the DC court {June 7, 2018, LINK}.
James Wolfe was busted for leaking information to journalists from the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of those leaks was the Carter Page FISA application, which Wolfe leaked to Ali Watkins on March 17, 2017, a year earlier.
Wolfe was going to face a criminal trial for charges related to the leaking of that FISA application. Again, this was problematic for the special counsel because that leak was part of the reason why the special counsel was appointed.
On March 17, 2017, SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner wanted a special counsel appointed. There was a debate about whether President Trump was under an investigation of any sort. Senator Warner’s motive for the special counsel was exactly because he knew the DC machinery needed to throw a bag over all of the corrupt targeting of Donald Trump; a special counsel could do that, and be weaponized to continue the attacks.
Senator Mark Warner told SSCI Security Director James Wolfe to leak the FISA application on March 17, 2017. Three days later, March 20, 2017, FBI Director James Comey first admitted publicly, while testifying to congress, that President Trump was under investigation since July of the previous year (2016). The timing of the two events was not accidental. Warner and Comey both wanted a special counsel investigation put into place for the same reason. Both needed a cover-up operation.
Fast forward to the end of December 2017 and James Wolfe is busted for the FISA application leak. FBI Special Agent Brian Dugan had worked the case for six months; he had James Wolfe completely nailed and Wolfe admitted to his conduct.
The investigative evidence against the Senate Security Director had to first flow through the special counsel before it could be given to a grand jury, because the special counsel had control over anything that touched Trump-Russia and that included their FISA application which James Wolfe leaked on March 17, 2017, to Ali Watkins.
The criminal case file against Wolfe went to Main Justice in early January 2018. Between January and late April 2018, the Special Counsel went to work diffusing the damage within the Wolfe evidence files. What they did with that evidence file is jaw-dropping (Warner/Waldman text messages etc), but that’s for another story.
In late April 2018 the now weakened evidence file against James Wolfe was given back to DC U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu and a grand jury was seated May 3, 2018. The Wolfe criminal indictment was unsealed June 7, 2018.
♦ After lying to the FISA court about a justified predicate still existing on July 12,2018, Andrew Weissmann made the FISA application public on the weekend of July 22, 2018, for two reasons:
(1) To protect the predicate of his search warrant authority; and by extension preserve the cases he created using it; and by extension avoid the fruit of the poisonous tree issue by diluting the need or the FISC to invalidate the Title-1 search warrant.
(2) To render moot and remove the most explosive element of the criminal case against James Wolfe, the leak of a TSCI FISA warrant.
It was the special counsel, specifically Andrew Weissmann, who released the FISA warrant to the public.
However, you will notice that Andrew Weissmann did not release the copy of the FISA warrant from the files of the DOJ-National Security Division. No, he made public the FISA warrant that James Wolfe had leaked to Ali Watkins; that’s why the public release carried the FISC stamp 3/17/17.
Few people knew that.
Even fewer knew why.
Now you do.
The fraudulent Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Donald Trump morphed into the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation of President Trump. The same DOJ/FBI people participated in both. The week after the Mueller/Weissmann investigation collapsed under the weight of Robert Mueller’s now infamous congressional testimony, the next operation commenced. The IC IG Atkinson impeachment operation was triggered.
The gate to expose the corrupt DOJ and FBI officials, lies at the end of the path walked by the Mueller-Weissmann special counsel. Follow that Weissmann trail and you walk right in the front door of Main Justice and the Washington DC FBI office.
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner told SSCI Security Director James Wolfe to leak the FISA application (2017).
FBI Director Chris Wray gave Senator Mark Warner a heads up that the FBI found out about it (2017).
Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann then began scrubbing the evidence (2018).
Wolfe’s lawyers told the DOJ they would subpoena Mark Warner to testify.
Charges against James Wolfe were dropped (2018).
Centinel2012 