Rick:
Glad to see you here! You are a very bright guy with a strong background in understanding these things.
Some questions and comments:
"We need to see all warrant requests made to the FISC by DOJ or other government agencies that involved Carter Page - not just the initial one that was granted in October 2016. Were there requests made before October 2016 that were not granted by the FISC?"
My understanding is that there was a prior request late spring/early summer which was rejected. Thus it seems plausible to infer temptation to improve the next application.
My understanding is that the renewal requests (every 90 days?) require showing the actual substance has been achieved justifying the continuation of the warrant.
"We need to learn the identities of all US citizens who were subjected to federal investigation, surveillance, or any other inquiries by any agency of the federal govt (not just the Special Counsel) as a result of information learned through the Page FISC-authorized surveillance. Whose bank records were seized? Whose neighbors, friends, or business associates were interviewed? In other words why was the surveillance re-authorized 4 more times?"
Unlike the Nunes memo, wouldn't this get into "sources and methods" issues and interfering with ongoing investigations? Perhaps the Nunes Oversight committee is already looking into this?
"Were subsequent requests for extension of the Page FISC order also supported by the intercepts of Flynn and others talking to the Russian ambassador?"
We SHOULD be listening in to the Russian ambassador and were. As former head of the DIA Flynn undoubtedly knew this. A bit of a mystery why he handled the FBI request for interview as he did , , , Presumably the Russian ambassador assumes we are listening and is quite capable of playing mis-intel games with what he says and does.
"In other words, there exists strong probable cause to believe that Comey, Strzok and Page leaked to the press certain information learned from the counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. How were they acquiring all of this information in that investigation? Certainly, not just from the Page surveillance."
Well, for sure the Strzok-Page comms provide hard evidence that they were leaking! And Comey himself testified under oath that he leaked to the Columbia Law School professor , , , but does that prove they were using Russian countel-intel info? I do not know enough to judge , , ,
There is the matter in December 2016 of Obama enabling raw NSA data to go to 17 agencies instead of 3-- with the reasonable inference that this was done to make it virtually impossible to trace leakers, and the unmasking by officials who had no business doing so such as Samantha Powers at the UN. I forget her name, but at the time some Obama official gaffed into openly admitting to a conspiracy to leave untraceable landmines for Trump everywhere (we posted here about it)-- and there is the matter of President Trump's calls to the Mexican president and the Australian PM being leaked. Who the hell has access to that?!?
"If these actors would go to these lengths to get FISC authorization for surveillance on Page, what else were they doing under color of federal law once the investigation commenced in mid-2016?"
As I sure you already know, Page was informed to be a person of interest some two years before the Trump candidacy and that he was no longer with Team Trump-- who vigorously disavowed his importance and the extent of his interaction with the campaign (unimporatant unpaid volunteer, blah blah at the time. To what extent does that undercut this narrative as far as Page goes?
"One main assessment that can be made here is that the entire story of Trump collusion with Russia was a deliberate disinformation effort concocted to conceal a lot of other really bad stuff. Human behavior patterns do repeat themselves."
As best as I can tell Trey Gowdy is correct when he says that while the Page FISA warrant application was full of bad behavior by top actors at FBI and DOJ, that as a matter of logic that is a point separate from the merits of the Russian interference/collusion story. That said I AGREE 100% that conspiracy most foul has been afoot-- see e.g.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/02/how-we-got-here-2.php but at the moment I am of the opinion that the Nunez memo is less than hard proof of that. I'd be pointing more at the millions into the Clinton Foundation, Bill's $500,00 payoff, Uranium One and the internal sabotage of the Comey FBI investigation into Hillary (no grand jury, ex parte comms between Bill and AG Lynch, the immunity deals for Mills and Brazille(?) while agreeing to destroy their computers after looking at them, etc etc etc for that.
The facts on the ground are shifting every day and as new facts come to my attention I stand ready to change my mind.
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PS: Tangentially, here is a bit of background on Comey's history: http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/17/former-attorney-general-on-comeys-integrity-jims-loyalty-was-more-to-chuck-schumer/
