At this point, it is incontrovertible that the FBI deliberately misled the FISA court to get a warrant to spy (yes, SPY) on the 2016 Trump campaign.

On Thursday night, according to investigative reporter John Solomon at The Hill, Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina confirmed with government officials that State Department notes about Christopher Steele’s partisan goals for his “dossier” were indeed transmitted to the FBI before they applied for the FISA warrant. By the time they applied for the warrant, they were in possession of four pieces of information that discredited Steele’s “evidence.” Here’s how Solomon breaks it down:

1) Christopher Steele had broken his FBI agreement by going to the State Department, as revealed in notes taken by State Department official Kathleen Kavalec and SHARED WITH THE FBI.

2) Steele had given the State Department what Kavalec identified as false information.

3) Steele had made it clear to Kavelec — and, by extension, the FBI — that he had a political deadline of BEFORE the election to get the “dossier” out. (The FBI also knew of Steele’s political bias through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ.)

4) Steele had been leaking to the media; specifically, the Washington Post and New York Times.

And Still They Went to the FISA Court

Ten days after knowing all this, they went ahead to the FISA court with information they knew to be false and politically biased. In other words, they deliberately misled the FISA court in a sworn document to secure permission to spy on the Trump campaign. Why would they do this?

Well, according to former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe (currently under investigation), getting the warrant was dependent upon having the dossier. No dossier, no warrant, he has said.

Kavalec had easily debunked one of Steele’s claims in her notes. She quoted Steele as saying, “Payments to those recruited [by Moscow, to do computer hacking] are made out of the Russian consulate in Miami.” Then, in brackets, she commented, “It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami.” So they obviously knew the Steele information was rubbish.

The FBI swore to the FISA judges on October 21, 2016, that Steele’s “reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings” and that they had determined him to be “reliable” and that they were “unaware of any derogatory information information pertaining” to their informant. They were saying this about someone known to be working for a “client” (the DNC) who wanted the anti-Trump material out before election day and had been leaking to the media.

On Wednesday’s Hannity show, Solomon reminded viewers that Rod Rosenstein is on record — as recently as this month — saying they check everything out to verify it before using it in these applications. Rosenstein himself signed off on the third renewal of the FISA warrant!

Incidentally, then-FBI Director James Comey signed off on the original application. He’s been making the media rounds lately to contradict Barr, saying the FBI “doesn’t ‘spy’ — it investigates.” Right. Is he setting himself up for an insanity defense?

As I’ve observed, the State Department chose to withhold the Kavalec memo from Devin Nunes and other Republican committee members who tried for many months to obtain any such information. It came to light only after litigation by the conservative group Citizens United forced them to turn it over.

But now we know. AG Barr knows, too, and he has the power to do something about it. According to Mark Levin, he should start by empaneling a criminal grand jury and having the entire cast of characters testify, with either a special counsel or a U.S. attorney taking charge and getting to the bottom of what happened. Sounds good to me. Whichever takes less time.

How Come Mueller Didn’t Address Steele in His Report?

There’s much more detail at the link to Solomon’s story. If Mueller knew all this, how could he get away with not addressing the use of Steele’s misinformation in his report on Russian election interference? He did make a passing reference to the “unverified” dossier but then just let it go. But David Bossie, head of Citizens United, has called for the rest of Kavalec’s information to be unredacted. (Stunningly, it was retroactively classified just a month ago by CHRISTOPHER WRAY’S FBI.  I digress.) “Christopher Steele was a political operative,” Bossie correctly observed. “The American people have a right to know why the FBI took this garbage to the FISA court.”

Originally published at MikeHuckabee.com. Reprinted with permission.