Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., delivered a scathing rebuke of "unconscionable," partisan weaponization of the FBI, an "unverified dossier," and FISA warrants to surveil a political campaign based on "circular reasoning" – all pointing back to a Democrat-funded dossier attacking its political opponent.
"A warrant to wire tap in a presidential campaign . . . to be spying on that based on a phony report is just unconscionable; it's unacceptable," King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee investigating Russia's involved in the 2016 election, told "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y.
King's criticism of the process centered on what he called "circular reasoning" and FBI obfuscation to the FISA court – "the most secret court in America" – which should have required "extraordinary evidence," not a partisan-funded dossier.
"They never told the court that – they never said – that the Democratic National Committee paid for this," King told host John Catsimatidis. "They never said the Hillary Clinton campaign was involved in it. They never brought that out at all.
"They also never brought out the fact that Christopher Steele, who wrote the [dossier], that he had actually been on the FBI payroll."
King added a rip for the FBI's FISA application's use of "newspaper reports based entirely on Christopher Steele leaking his own dossier, so this was like circular reasoning."
"You had the dossier and you had newspaper reports and they were all tied together, and they were used to show that there was a consensus that there was Russia involvement in the campaign," King added.
King also reminded Catsimatidis there is no consensus on Russia collusion with the Trump campaign, despite the politically motivated dossier and wiretapping.
"I've been involved with this now for the last 18 months, and I have not seen one bit of evidence of any collusion at all between the Trump campaign and Russia," King said. "Listen, if you wanted to make a case, there was more possibility of the Russians being involved in the Hillary Clinton campaign. So many Russians had paid money to Bill Clinton and also the Clinton Foundation.
"But I wouldn't be in support of that either. That is not a basis to be investigating [with] a warrant to wire tap in a presidential campaign."
King added criticism of Democrats and biased media attacking the release of the memo revealing the possibility of FISA abuses, saying it was "factual" and no "threat to national security."
"The FBI went through [the GOP memo] line by line: They did not find one factual error – nor did they find any threat to national security," King said. "They said they disagreed with the conclusion. Well, [no wonder] – the conclusion is critical of high-ranking people in the FBI."
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