We now know: FISA court must go (4)

David Kris is the amicus curiae appointed by the FISA court to assess the Department of Justice/FBI response to the court’s post-Horowitz order on FISA abuse. The FISA court itself stands revealed as an accomplice of the FBI in the wrongdoing committed against Carter Page. What we have here is an infuriating case of Kabuki theater. What is to be done with the FISA court?

It is difficult to imagine a more inappropriate selection than Kris to seek to remedy the rot laid bare in Horowitz’s Department of Justice Inspector General report on FISA abuse. Kris is, more properly, an amicus of James Comey and apologist for the FBI. While Horowitz’s report vindicated Rep. Devin Nunes’s exposure of FBI wrongdoing in the matter of Carter Page, Kris’s defense of the FBI went down with the boat. What is he doing here?

Last week Kris filed his response as amicus curiae in the form of a 15-page letter to the court. I have embedded it below. Reason’s Scott Shackford has a brief but useful account.

Kris finds the government’s tweaks to the FISA process inadequate. He proposes yet more tweaks. More cooperation between the DoJ and the FBI. More training. More accuracy reviews. More yada yada.

Quotable quote: “Above all…the FBI must restore and the Court should insist that it restore a strong organizational culture of accuracy and completeness.”

FISC Misc 19 02 Amicus Curiae Letter Brief January 15 2020 200115 by Scott Johnson on Scribd

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