Memo: Pervasive problems in FBI wiretaps
WASHINGTON — An inspector general uncovered pervasive problems in the FBI’s preparation of wiretap applications, according to a memo released Tuesday about an audit that grew out of a damning report last year about errors and omissions in applications to target a former Trump campaign adviser during the Russia investigation.
The follow-up audit of unrelated cases by the Justice Department’s independent watchdog, Michael Horowitz, revealed a broader pattern of sloppiness by the FBI in seeking permission to use powerful tools to eavesdrop on American soil in nationalsecurity cases. It comes at a time when Congress is debating new limits on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
But the findings of systemic failures also help the FBI politically because they undercut the narrative fostered by President Donald Trump that the bureau’s botching of applications to surveil Carter Page shows that the broader Russia investigation was motivated by political bias.
Horowitz’s investigators reviewed so-called Woods files, where the FBI is supposed to catalog supporting documentation for factual claims in a FISA application, in a random sample of 29 requests to wiretap someone as part of a terrorism or espionage investigation. They found problems with all 29.
“We do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy,” the report said.
Testing the FISA applications against their underlying evidence “identified apparent errors or inadequately supported facts in all of the 25 applications we reviewed,” the report said.
The other four could not be scrutinized at all because the FBI could not even locate the required Woods file.