ANOTHER black mark for the FBI: Bureau misused surveillance tool on January 6 suspects, BLM rioters

FBI officials misused key surveillance tools in search of Americans involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the 2020 George Floyd protests, according to an explosive new court document that outlines the latest in a series of black marks against the agency .

The violations were first outlined in an April 2022 secret court order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The Office of the Director of the National Intelligence (ODNI) released a redacted version of the report on Friday, which found that the FBI did not follow its own standards when using Section 702.

Section 702 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows U.S. federal intelligence agencies to conduct targeted searches of foreigners, but sometimes Americans are inappropriately searched in the process.

The report details how the FBI used Section 702 to “interrogate” — or search — names of individuals suspected of being on Capitol property during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, Black Lives Matters protesters, victims from crimes and their families and donors to one congressional campaign.

Due to clear violations of the FIA’s standard operating procedures, FBI agents subsequently obtained information on Americans, despite this not having any “analytical, investigative or evidential purpose.”

The explosive report follows damning conclusions in Special Counsel John Durham’s final report released Monday — including the deconstruction of the Steele dossier and “salacious” claims against Donald Trump. He concluded that the FBI had no “actual evidence” to investigate the Trump-Russia conspiracy.

The report says 13 people connected to January 6 were improperly questioned to determine if they had “foreign ties.”

In addition, the database was searched over 130 individuals associated with the social unrest and riots of Black Lives Matter activists in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

The FISA search was conducted to obtain information on whether they were related to counter-terrorism plots – what DOJ wrote in the report was “reasonable,” but the high level of redaction does not allow for a fuller explanation.

There was also a “pooled study” of more than 19,000 donors for a congressional campaign, which was unnamed.

The FBI analyst who conducted the search said the campaign was a possible target of foreign influence.

However, the Justice Department said only “eight identifiers in total” had been used in the search that had “sufficient ties to foreign-influenced activities to meet the query standard.”

In addition, FISA investigations were conducted by the FBI on crime victims, including “individuals listed in police homicide reports, including victims, close relatives, witnesses, and suspects.”

DOJ said these searches were inappropriate because there was “no reasonable basis” for expecting the individuals to be linked to foreign intelligence agencies through those searches.

In total, the FBI has abused Section 702 more than 278,000 times – according to the document.

The Section 702 provision expires by the end of the year, so Congress is taking action, especially working to ensure that abuses are not repeated.

Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, previously called extending Section 702 “the most important thing we’re going to do this Congress.”

Jordan told DailyMail.com in a statement on Friday: “[FBI Director] Chris Wray told us that we can sleep well at night thanks to the FBI’s so-called FISA reforms. But it only gets worse.’

In December, ODNI released a 2021 report detailing instances of numerous FISA abuses.

It also revealed that the FBI searched records for an “unnamed” congressman and local political organizations in conducting an investigation into whether they had ties to foreign intelligence agencies.

The FBI said in a statement that the agency has made “extensive changes” to Section 702 searches since the ODNI report.

Database searched over 100 individuals linked to the social unrest and riots in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd murder and BLM protests

“While we can’t comment on specific questions, the FBI has made extensive changes in recent years — changes that postdate the time period covered in the reports brought forward at today’s hearing — to address 702 compliance issues. including the creation of an all-new Office of Internal Audit currently focused on FISA compliance and instituting new policies requiring enhanced pre-approval requirements before certain “sensitive” U.S. person queries can be run,” said an FBI spokesman at the time.

“Sensitive” questions involving elected officials, for example, now require deputy director approval. We look forward to sharing the impact of our reforms. The FBI takes seriously its role as stewards of our 702 authorities, which are vital to fulfilling our mission to protect Americans from foreign threats from countries such as China, Russia and Iran,” the statement continued.

In March, Representative Darin LaHood, R-Ill., revealed that his name had been incorrectly searched by the FBI conducting a Section 702 investigation.

“I want to make it clear that the FBI’s improper questioning of a duly elected member of Congress is egregious and a violation that not only erodes trust in FISA, but is also seen as a threat to the separation of powers,” LaHood said at a House Intelligence. committee hearing.

Officials told the Associated Press that the “unnamed congressional campaign” in the new court document is not related to LaHood.