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Comment by kansface | Hacker News Reader

My recollection is probably a bit off, but IIRC, the FBI knowingly and repeatedly lied to the FISA court ("material misstatements") in order to obtain secret search warrants to spy on the Tump campaign based on opposition research which was directly funded by the Clinton campaign, who had hired a former MI6 spook to find or make up dirt who also happened to be working for the bureau and was secretly leaking everything to the press! There were basically no consequences for anyone involved, including the FBI. I wouldn't believe that story line in a movie.

The FBI continually goads citizens into being terrorists or on occasion, convinces them to kidnap a governor, then arrests them and claims victory! We could look a little further back in time to the aftermath of 9/11, and the role the CIA played in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the even the FBI doing its best to destroy the civil rights movement.

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That's certainly the Republican narrative of that FISA warrant. The inspector general report that found "material misstatements" found no evidence of politically-motivated or intentional abuse. It was basically technical sloppiness.

The Iraq WMD lies were driven directly from the White House, it was not a rogue CIA. For J. Edgar Hoover's FBI you have a point, but it led to many reforms by the Church Committee in the 70s.

Have you read the key judgements from the 2002 NIE on Iraq?

> High Confidence:

> - Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.

> - We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs.

> - Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.

> - Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Iraq_NIE_Excerpts_2003.p...

That unclassified public NIE "summary" was manipulated by Bush and Cheney. If you can find the classified full NIE it has much more nuance and strong dissents. Instead of showing rogue agencies it's evidence of full White House control.

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB254/index.htm

I would agree that the White House placed a ton of pressure on the CIA to come up with a justification to invade Iraq, but the whole thing smacks of them trying to cover their own asses after the fact. Yes, there were dissenting opinions, but the IC still signed off on the NIE, including the summary, and top officials at the CIA have their share of the blame as much as Bush and Cheney:

> On the other hand, senior CIA officials mentioned the uranium claim in congressional testimony at the same time, permitted it to be included in a December 2002 “fact sheet” on Iraq, and mounted only tepid opposition to inclusion of the charge in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address, where it would become notorious as the “16 Words.”

If they knew it was a lie, and repeated that lie to Congress, pawning it off as just 'Bush lied, people died' (which, not saying that was your position, but that's what your comment initially came off as, hence my reply) absolves the CIA of the blame they justly deserve for their part in Iraq. But you're right that they certainly were not a rogue agency.

I think GP was referring to Kevin Clinesmith who pleaded guilty to deliberately falsifying documents presented to FISA courts.

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