Louie Gohmert on FISA Abuse Scandal: 'Somebody's Got to Go to Jail Or Our System Is Over'
Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, stated over the weekend that “somebody has to go to jail” over the FISA abuse scandal targeting the Trump campaign “or our system is over.”
The House Judiciary Committee member told Fox News anchor Judge Jeanine Pirro on Saturday, “I found out as a felony judge when I put one lawyer in jail for contempt, people get the message.”
“You don’t come in and misrepresent. You do what is appropriate in court,” Gohmert said. “I’m shocked, really shocked, that no FISA judge put anybody in jail yet. Yet we have found total disregard for propriety before the FISA court. And somebody should have been in jail long before now over the improprieties that were submitted to the court.”
The representative noted that due to the nature of the FISA Court proceedings, the individuals the government is seeking to surveil do not have the opportunity to defend themselves, putting the onus all the more on government officials to be forthright when seeking a warrant.
The recently released Republican FISA memo offered evidence that the FBI failed to do so when it knowingly relied on the partisan, unsubstantiated Trump dossier when it went before the FISA court in order to seek permission to surveil an advisor to the Trump campaign.
The FBI knew the dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, but the bureau did not reveal this information to the FISA judge.
“A bunch of us signed a letter to our (Judiciary Committee) chairman,” Gohmert said. “And we know he has a heart like we do to get to the bottom of what happened in the FISA court. I talked to Chairman (Bob) Goodlatte about it. He is going to get to the bottom of what was said and what was done.”
“There is a chance, there may not be some transcripts,” the congressman continued. “In which case you go totally by the four corners of the documents that were there. In which case we know people should go to jail.”
Pirro followed up asking Gohmert if someone would go to jail.
“Somebody has to go to jail or our system is over,” Gohmert replied.
As reported by The Western Journal, conservative radio talk show host and former Reagan Justice Department official Mark Levin charged Hillary Clinton with colluding with Russia and paying for the warrant to surveil the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
“Hillary Clinton paid for a warrant,” Levin told Sean Hannity on his Fox News program last week. “That’s the easiest way we can put it.”
He explained, “Hillary Clinton colluded with the Russians. But it appears the FBI at the senior-most levels colluded with the Russians too. Whether it was witting or unwitting it doesn’t matter. That’s a fact.”
Levin does not buy the notion that the disturbing information contained in the FISA memo and special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation are not connected.
“Mueller is the former FBI director. Those are his people. That’s his environment. He’s not out there as some independent force,” the former DOJ official contended.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who, like Gohmert, is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News on Sunday, “I think we’re going to see a lot more review of the FISA process.”
He added, “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, we can never let this happen again. We can never allow cash at a political party to be convertible into a government-sponsored warrant to spy on American citizens.”
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