The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the U.S. District Court of Columbia to dismiss a lawsuit filed by former Donald Trump adviser Carter Page over the deep-state witch hunt during which FBI officials spied on Democrats’ political opponents under operation Crossfire Hurricane.
Page filed suit against the Justice Department over abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). A federal judge ruled in January last year federal authority granted to spy on Page under the act was “not valid.”
In requesting the D.C. District Court to dismiss the case, the government argued it may abuse the FISA process and unlawfully spy on American citizens without liability.
“Plaintiff alleges that after the Defendants obtained the process — the FISA orders — Defendants used it ‘to spy on the Trump presidential campaign by unlawfully invading the privacy of Dr. Page without probable cause,'” DOJ attorneys wrote. “Even taken as true, which Defendants do not concede, Plaintiff fails to state a claim for abuse of process because conducting surveillance and collecting information for foreign intelligence purposes are exact purposes for which FISA orders are intended; that is, they are the end intended by law.”
In other words, the Justice Department argues that even if warrants to spy on Page were an unlawful violation of Page’s privacy, the government can’t be held accountable.
The government argued Page’s lawsuit also came too late.
“The facts alleged in the Complaint and in various judicially noticeable public documents establish that Plaintiff’s claim accrues well more than the two years before he presented it administratively to the Department,” government attorneys wrote.
Page, a primary target in the Russia collusion hoax where deep-state actors maliciously attempted to frame the incoming Republican president as an agent of the Kremlin government, was exonerated after the two-year special counsel investigation run by Robert Mueller. The special counsel report published in 2019 found not one person, let alone the president, had colluded with Russians to secure the Oval Office.
Page also filed suit against former FBI Director James Comey, and former FBI officials Joe Pientka, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, and Kevin Clinesmith, who pled guilty of manipulating documents to seek spy warrants on Page. Clinesmith was let off the hook in January: sentenced to one year of probation and 400 hours of community service without prison time.
