Moments from now the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will all go before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a highly anticipated hearing just just 24 hours before tomorrow's Comey testimony. The hearing was originally scheduled five weeks ago as a review of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but it will undoubtedly morph into another chance for Senators to probe for new details on the Justice Department's investigation into President Trump's campaign and alleged Russian meddling in the US election.
Tune in below for the fireworks:
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For those who missed it, here is our preview of today's festivities from earlier this morning.
At 10AM EST, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will all go before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a highly anticipated hearing just just 24 hours before tomorrow's Comey testimony. The hearing was originally scheduled five weeks ago as a review of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but it will undoubtedly morph into another chance for Senators to probe for new details on the Justice Department's investigation into President Trump's campaign and Russian meddling in the US election.
As we pointed out a few weeks ago, a recently released court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) found that the Obama administration had been conducting illegal queries targeting American citizens "with much greater frequency than had previously been disclosed to the Court"...an issue which the court described as a "very serious Fourth Amendment issue" (see "FISA Court Finds "Serious Fourth Amendment Issue" In Obama's "Widespread" Illegal Searches Of American Citizens").
A newly released court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) found that the National Security Agency, under former President Obama, routinely violated American privacy protections while scouring through overseas intercepts and failed to disclose the extent of the problems until the final days before Donald Trump was elected president last fall. In describing the violations, the FISA court said the illegal searches conducted by the NSA under Obama were "widespread" and created a "very serious Fourth Amendment issue."
These new discoveries come from a recently unsealed FISA court document dated April 26, 2017 and center around a hearing dated October 26, 2017, just days before the 2016 election, in which the FISA court apparently learned for the first time of "widespread" and illegal spying on American citizens by the NSA under the Obama administration.
The court order goes on to reveal that NSA analysts had been conducting illegal queries targeting American citizens "with much greater frequency than had previously been disclosed to the Court"...an issue which the court described as a "very serious Fourth Amendment issue."
Moreover, the court found several instances in which the FBI shared their illegally obtained intelligence on American citizens with their private contractors, which resulted in the following punchline from the FISA Court:
"The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."
All of which is even more relevant now in light of the fact that one of those contractors, Reality Winner, was just arrested for illegally downloading and sharing intelligence with the media.
Of course, constant abuses of the Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens is unlikely to play all that much of a role in today's hearing as it does very little to advance the Left's narrative that Trump allegedly colluding with Russian hackers to steal the 2016 election. Therefore, this is what CNN thinks you should focus on:
1. Did Trump pressure Coats and Rogers to dismiss concerns about Russia?
Before senators get to questions on whether Trump pressured Comey to kill his investigation of former National Security Michael Flynn, they're going to dig in on whether Trump pressured Coats and Rogers to rebut Comey.
According to The Washington Post, Trump pressed two of his top intelligence directors to argue that the FBI was not investigating ties between his campaign and Russian officials -- one day after Comey revealed the investigation in public testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.
The day after the report, Coats declined to answer whether it was true -- but Coats also teased that he may be open to answering the question if asked by the right committee.
"If I'm called before an investigative committee, I certainly will provide them with what I know and what I don't know," Coats said on May 23.
Sen. Mark Warner, the committee's vice chairman, said Wednesday it would be his first question of the hearing.
2. Can the Trump team score a win on leaks?
The White House and its growing "war room" may want to thank a 25-year-old NSA contractor named Reality Winner for becoming the first target of a leak investigation. Winner's alleged disclosure of an NSA report detailing Russian attempts to hack voting systems in the election, handed the Justice Department what appears to be an easy win.
Trump has made identifying "leakers" one of his top priorities as part of an effort to counter Russia stories and the topic of Wednesday's hearing -- FISA surveillance -- plays to Trump's strengths on this issue. (A Justice Department spokeswoman said Tuesday that McCabe would only answer questions about FISA, and not Russia.)
But Winner's alleged leaking of the report is bound to give committee Republicans a stronger foothold to ask questions than the hearing topic or any of Trump's tweets.
3. Rosenstein's first public testimony
Just a day after Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as the special counsel for the Russia investigation, he headed to the Capitol for a pair of closed-door briefings about his decision. Second-hand reports of Rosenstein's promises and comments trickled out of the meetings, one in the House and one in the Senate, but Wednesday will mark the first time lawmakers can get Rosenstein on the record answering questions himself.
Rosenstein has been intrinsically wrapped into the Comey firing story, with White House officials citing Rosenstein's memo as the key reason for Comey's ouster. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has already promised to grill Rosenstein on what Trump told him when he said he wanted Comey fired.
4. Mueller questions
Mueller might not be at Wednesday's hearing, but with Rosenstein and McCabe in the room, questions of how the federal and Senate investigations will co-exist are likely to come up.
As of Tuesday, committee Chairman Richard Burr and Warner had still not talked to Mueller -- three weeks after his appointment.
5. Will the White House exercise executive privilege?
Trump's surrogates may have said earlier this week that the President will not block Comey from testifying by claiming executive privilege. But all four of the officials testifying Wednesday still work for Trump, sparking some concern behind the scenes that Trump may try to curb their testimony.
The White House did not respond to questions of whether Trump would claim executive privilege Wednesday.
We will be providing updates on the testimony throughout the day.