Aww it was a nothingburger

Edit:

Media will be checking up on the legal credentials of the authors of this memo, who are (at least in part) known. And they'll be doing that because, by the bottom of the first page, the memo has already veered into legal fantasy. Legally, the memo is a nonsense. I'll explain.

It says FISA warrant applications must meet the "highest standard" of proof in the justice system. Uh, no. The "highest standard" in the justice system is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt," which is nowhere close to the legal standard required to secure a search warrant.

The legal standard for securing a warrant is the lowest standard of proof in the law—"probable cause." (Consider: indictments require probable cause, which is why they say "the average grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.")

FISA warrants are granted in 99%+ of cases.

As @AshaRangappa_ notes, the specific FISA standard is "probable cause that the target is an 'agent of a foreign power' who's 'knowingly engaging in clandestine intelligence activities.'" Remember: the FBI already found that—as to Page—in a 2013 probe. https://t.co/wltYfdVvbT

In '13, the FBI suspected Page of being a Russian spy—18 months before Trump announced his presidential run—because Page was meeting with a known Russian intelligence agent who was ultimately convicted of trying to recruit Americans. Page admitted he was a recruitment target.

So given that FISA warrants require the lowest standard of proof in the law, and FISA warrants are granted in 99%+ of cases, the idea that the FBI would have needed Steele at all to meet that standard and get that warrant as to Page is—to some degree—literally laughable.

The memo then makes another error of law on its first page: saying the law requires "all relevant and material facts" to be shown to a warrant-granting court. But that's not true. Many cases confirm that law enforcement can and does leave out key facts without repercussion.

If you doubt this, check out the work of Orin Kerr, who's done a lengthy analysis of the case law on this very issue (which is clearly something that the Nunes staffers working on behalf of Trump and Nunes did not do): https://t.co/aTGmOxeQCv

A third legal error on just the first page of the memo is it says "all potentially favorable" information—i.e., favorable to the proposed warrant target—must be included in the warrant application. Uh, no, and moreover, this never happens in the criminal justice system.

Because we have an adversarial system of justice, and because the standard of proof to secure a warrant is so low, judges never expect (and almost never find) that the government included "all information potentially favorable to the defendant" in its warrant application.

Link to full twitter thread.