By Elizabeth Goitein in Brennan Center for Justice:

The report of the Department of Justice inspector general released on Monday confirms that neither the Russia investigation in general, nor the applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in particular, were motivated by political bias against Donald Trump. That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone — despite what President Trump would have us believe, the FBI isn’t known for being a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals.

However, the report also shows that the FISA warrant applications to conduct surveillance on Page, as submitted to the secret FISA court, were full of inaccuracies and omissions. More specifically, the applications included erroneous or exaggerated factual claims supporting the government’s claim that it had probable cause to collect Page’s communications, while leaving out key facts that would cut against that claim.

The fact that these distortions were not motivated by political bias is perhaps the most relevant and sobering aspect of the report. If the Page FISA applications were handled just like any other — or perhaps even more cautiously, as some parts of the report suggest — that means this kind of sloppiness and application-padding is par for the course in the FISA process.

Read the full article here.