FREEDOM
FBI Wiretapped Paul Manafort Under Secret Court Orders During And After 2016 Election: Report
The US government wiretapped the phone of President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, under secret court orders during and after the 2016 presidential election, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to Trump, according to CNN.
The report cites multiple intelligence community officials who confirmed Manafort was under surveillance due to a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, court order for an FBI investigation into the consulting work.
According to CNN:
A secret order authorized by the court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) began after Manafort became the subject of an FBI investigation that began in 2014. It centered on work done by a group of Washington consulting firms for Ukraine’s former ruling party, the sources told CNN.
The surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence, according to one of the sources. The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year.
Sources say the second warrant was part of the FBI’s efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives. Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.
It is unclear when the new warrant started. The FBI interest deepened last fall because of intercepted communications between Manafort and suspected Russian operatives, and among the Russians themselves, that reignited their interest in Manafort, the sources told CNN. As part of the FISA warrant, CNN has learned that earlier this year, the FBI conducted a search of a storage facility belonging to Manafort. It’s not known what they found.
