T<\/span>he Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered a review of all Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act filings handled by Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer who altered a key document about Trump campaign associate Carter Page.<\/p>\n The FISA court confirmed Clinesmith had been referred to the Justide Department for a\u00a0possible criminal investigation<\/a>. Judge Rosemary Collyer, who leads the FISA court, ordered the DOJ to bring it up to speed on everything it had learned about\u00a0Clinesmith\u2019s conduct<\/a>\u00a0and to explain why there was a delay between the conclusion of Inspector General Michael Horowitz\u2019s investigation and the court being told what misconduct had been unearthed.<\/p>\n Specifically, the FISA court ordered the DOJ to \u201cidentify all other matters currently or previously before this court that involved the participation\u201d of Clinesmith. The court also ordered the DOJ to \u201cdescribe any steps taken or to be taken by the Department of Justice or FBI to verify that the United States’s submissions in those matters completely and fully described the material facts and circumstances,\u201d unlike the Page FISA filings. Third, court ordered the DOJ to \u201cadvise whether the conduct\u201d of Clinesmith has been \u201creferred to the appropriate bar associations for investigation or possible disciplinary action.\u201d<\/p>\n Several months before its first FISA filing against Page, the FBI was informed Page had been a source of information for the CIA in the past, a fact the bureau failed to include in its initial filing or any of its renewals. A liaison from the CIA reminded Clinesmith, who was a part of the team reviewing the Page FISA filings, about Page\u2019s previous relationship with the agency. But instead of accurately informing the FBI supervisory special agent so that the FISA court could be properly informed, Clinesmith altered the email to falsely state that Page was \u201cnot a source.\u201d<\/p>\n This public order follows a\u00a0scathing letter<\/a> from Collyer directed at the bureau released earlier this week.<\/p>\n “The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Horowitz] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above,” said Collyer, who approved the initial surveillance warrant against Page.<\/p>\n The judge worried the sheer number of FISA process abuses by the bureau during their investigation into Page might mean the problem was widespread throughout the FBI’s hundreds of other FISA investigations.<\/p>\n Horowitz\u00a0concluded<\/a>\u00a0that the FBI\u2019s investigation was flawed and\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0the DOJ and the FBI for 17\u00a0\u201csignificant errors and omissions\u201d<\/a>\u00a0related to secret surveillance court filings targeting Page, which relied on allegations contained within British ex-spy Christopher Steele\u2019s dossier.<\/p>\n Clinesmith was an attorney with the FBI\u2019s National Security and Cyber Law Branch. He worked under FBI General Counsel\u00a0James Baker<\/a>\u00a0and Deputy General Counsel\u00a0Trisha Anderson<\/a>. He also worked on the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia investigation, even working on special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s team for a time.<\/p>\n In a highly critical\u00a0July 2018 inspector general report<\/a>\u00a0on the FBI’s Clinton emails investigation, Clinesmith was criticized at least 56 times as being one of the FBI officials who appeared to convey a bias against Trump in instant messages, along with\u00a0Peter Strzok<\/a>\u00a0and FBI lawyer\u00a0Lisa Page<\/a>, both of whom have left the bureau.<\/p>\n In a lengthy instant message exchange between Clinesmith and another FBI employee on Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Trump\u2019s electoral victory, he lamented Trump\u2019s win and worried about the role he played in the investigation into Trump and his campaign. \u201cMy god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff,\u201d Clinesmith said, adding, \u201cSo, who knows if that breaks to him what he is going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n Other messages showed Clinesmith, listed in Horowitz’s 2018 report as “FBI Attorney 2,” expressed favor toward Clinton and said, \u201cViva le resistance,” in the weeks after Trump’s win.<\/p>\n