Judicial Watch<\/p>\n
\u2018[N]o such hearings were held with respect to the acknowledged FISA applications. Accordingly, no responsive hearing transcripts exist.\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n (Washington, DC)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Judicial Watch today announced that in response to a Judicial Watch\u00a0Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit<\/a>, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a\u00a0court filing<\/a>\u00a0last night that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.<\/p>\n In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:<\/p>\n [National Security Division] FOIA consulted [Office of Intelligence] \u2026 to identify and locate records responsive to [Judicial Watch\u2019s] FOIA request\u2026. [Office of Intelligence] determined \u2026 that there were no records, electronic or paper, responsive to [Judicial Watch\u2019s] FOIA request with regard to Carter Page. [Office of Intelligence] further confirmed that the [Foreign Surveillance Court] considered the Page warrant applications based upon written submissions and did not hold any hearings.<\/p>\n The Department of Justice previously\u00a0released<\/a>\u00a0to Judicial Watch the heavily redacted Page\u00a0warrant applications<\/a>. The initial Page FISA warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election.<\/p>\n The DOJ filing is in response to a Judicial Watch\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0for the FISA transcripts (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(No. 1:18-cv-01050)).<\/p>\n In February, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a\u00a0memo<\/a>\u00a0criticizing the FISA targeting of Carter Page. The memo details how the \u201cminimally corroborated\u201d Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ\u2019s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.<\/p>\n