Congressional outrage over the unconstitutional abuse of surveillance tools by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not limited to Republican members of the House and Senate Tuesday. Indeed, even Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and Democrat Dick Durbin added his voice to the chorus admonishing FBI leadership.
According to The Epoch Times, Durbin criticized the bureau for the use of the massive foreign surveillance mechanisms of the intelligence community to spy on 19,000 political campaign donors, of whom a mere eight were suspected of having foreign ties that would have justified their monitoring.
The Democrat Senator from Illinois said during the hearing that the findings of the ODNI’s recently-released Annual Statistical Transparency Report in April revealed that despite vowing to make reforms to the improper use of FISA court authorizations in 2021 and 2022, the agency made an additional 278,000 illegal inquiries on American citizens as previously reported by the DC Enquirer.
Deputy Director of the FBI Paul Abbate would later characterize these inquiries as "unintentional," triggering harsh condemnation from Senator Josh Hawley.
As reported by Epoch Times, "That report reveals that among those 278,000 queries, 19,000 were made against congressional campaign donors. But analysis of those 19,000 queries found that only eight were approved under the guidelines of Section 702."
The report explained that the FBI, "conducted a batch query for over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign. The analyst who ran the query advised that the campaign was a target of foreign influence, but NSD determined that only eight identifiers used in the query had sufficient ties to foreign influence activities to comply with the querying standard."
The outlet added that it is unclear as of this report what congressional campaign was targeted by the illegal inquiries.
Durbin told the hearing, as previously reported by POLITICO, "Since the last reauthorization of Section 702, many violations of the constitutional, statutory, and court-imposed restrictions on 702 have come to light."
The most recent report cited by Durbin also revealed that the same intelligence gathering system was used against Black Lives Matter and January 6th Capital protestors. “One hundred thirty-three people were [queried] during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest when, as the Justice Department itself concluded, quote, ‘There was no specific factual basis to think the searches would turn up the foreign intelligence,’” Durbin noted.
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According to The Epoch Times, Durbin criticized the bureau for the use of the massive foreign surveillance mechanisms of the intelligence community to spy on 19,000 political campaign donors, of whom a mere eight were suspected of having foreign ties that would have justified their monitoring.
The Democrat Senator from Illinois said during the hearing that the findings of the ODNI’s recently-released Annual Statistical Transparency Report in April revealed that despite vowing to make reforms to the improper use of FISA court authorizations in 2021 and 2022, the agency made an additional 278,000 illegal inquiries on American citizens as previously reported by the DC Enquirer.
Deputy Director of the FBI Paul Abbate would later characterize these inquiries as "unintentional," triggering harsh condemnation from Senator Josh Hawley.
Today the FBI claimed that its 278,000 illegal searches on Americans - pursued over years & years - were all 100% “unintentional.” Hahahahaha pic.twitter.com/mGPKnkhqKo
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) June 13, 2023
As reported by Epoch Times, "That report reveals that among those 278,000 queries, 19,000 were made against congressional campaign donors. But analysis of those 19,000 queries found that only eight were approved under the guidelines of Section 702."
The report explained that the FBI, "conducted a batch query for over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign. The analyst who ran the query advised that the campaign was a target of foreign influence, but NSD determined that only eight identifiers used in the query had sufficient ties to foreign influence activities to comply with the querying standard."
The outlet added that it is unclear as of this report what congressional campaign was targeted by the illegal inquiries.
Durbin told the hearing, as previously reported by POLITICO, "Since the last reauthorization of Section 702, many violations of the constitutional, statutory, and court-imposed restrictions on 702 have come to light."
"These searches have affected all manner of Americans, such as individuals listed in police homicide reports, including victims, next of kin, and witnesses."
The most recent report cited by Durbin also revealed that the same intelligence gathering system was used against Black Lives Matter and January 6th Capital protestors. “One hundred thirty-three people were [queried] during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest when, as the Justice Department itself concluded, quote, ‘There was no specific factual basis to think the searches would turn up the foreign intelligence,’” Durbin noted.
You can follow Matt Holloway on Facebook, Twitter, TruthSocial, Gettr, Gab & Parler.
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