On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Canon declined to immediately issue a ruling on whether a special master will be appointed to review documents seized in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) raid on Mar-a-Lago in August. Fox News reported that Judge Canon said she would issue a ruling "in due course."

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have rightly come under fire in recent weeks for their raid on former President Donald Trump's home and seizure of Congressman Scott Perry's personal cell phone. No doubt, transparency surrounding these actions is a necessity if the DOJ and FBI want to maintain any semblance of legitimate law enforcement agencies going forward.

Allegations are piling up accusing the DOJ and the FBI of engaging in political bias in favor of the Biden family in an investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop. But as Senator Ron Johnson said on Twitter: "Political bias has no place at the Department of Justice or the FBI."

Political bias has no place at the Department of Justice or the FBI.

The American people deserve the truth. I will continue to call for any potential corruption within our federal agencies to be investigated to the fullest extent of the law. https://t.co/IjF0p9TMzK

— Ron Johnson (@RonJohnsonWI) August 1, 2022

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has donned his "dark money" tinfoil hat yet again. Unsurprisingly, Senator Whitehouse dubbed his first hearing as chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights: "What's Wrong with the Supreme Court: The Big-Money Assault on Our Judiciary."

On Wednesday, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn emerged victorious in the fight over whether to grant his writ of mandamus filed in the D.C. Circuit. This comes after U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan refused to dismiss Flynn’s case, despite the Department of Justice informing the court that it was no longer pursuing charges against him. Judge Sullivan appointed John Gleeson as amicus curiae to argue for his ability to decide whether the charges should be dropped. In an opinion authored by Judge Neomi Rao the D.C. Circuit admonished Judge Sullivan’s decision to appoint Gleeson and ordered the lower court to dismiss the charges against Flynn.

After the news broke today that the Department of Justice was dropping charges against Michael Flynn, Wall Street Journal columnist Kim Strassel tweeted:

8) Instead of continuing to cover/apologize for FBI misconduct, they might instead try to relocate the principles they threw out the door in 2016. Flynn should never have been prosecuted.

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 7, 2020

In a normal world, there would be front page screaming headlines of the FBI’s complete failure regarding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants.  As the Obama appointee Inspector General Michael Horowitz reported on March 30:

As a result of our audit work to date and as described below, we do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy. . . . our testing of FISA applications to the associated Woods Files identified apparent errors or inadequately supported facts in all of the 25 applications we reviewed, and interviews to date with available agents or supervisors in field offices generally have confirmed the issues we identified

Carter Page served as foreign policy advisor to the 2016 Trump campaign and also as a CIA asset.  He is exhibit one in the abuse (or worse) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the FBI in their efforts to investigate the Trump campaign. Don’t take our word for it- Judge Rosemary Collyer, the Presiding Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, is furious. 

A lot people have admitted mistakes, promised reforms or are acting further on the incredible IG report of Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz.  This weekend former FBI Director James Comey even admitted he was wrong on the basis of the report.  But one person has not budged: the leader of the impeachment efforts for Democrats, House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff.  And besides the FBI and Obama Department of Justice, if there is one person who should be admitting he was wrong, it is Rep. Schiff.

It should be noted that much of this was available to Rep. Schiff, who denied it when Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes came out with a report confirming that the FISA warrants were wrong and based on information known to be false.

Schiff tells Chris Wallace he was unaware of errors and omissions in FBI use of FISA process. Bunk. The much-derided Nunes memo, which Schiff strongly disputed at the time, called attention to these very abuses. Most media, of course, echoed the Schiff version, scoffed at Nunes.

— Brit Hume (@brithume) December 15, 2019

There is a lot to unpack in Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the review of four FISA applications.  It is impossible in one short blog post to detail all of the things uncovered.  The only safe conclusion is all Americans should be upset by this report.  As one group said (emphasis added):

For instance, the litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications demonstrates how the secrecy shrouding the government’s one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse. . . . The FBI must also adopt higher standards for investigations involving constitutionally protected sensitive activities, such as political campaigns.

That statement is not from a Republican or a conservative group, it is from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  Speaking of Carter Page, he has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal which begins: