Debunking Charlie Kirk on Nunes memo

Charlie Kirk had argued for sometime, like many Trump supporters, to release the Nunes memo. Kirk implied, of course without any evidence, like the others, that the memo would incriminate the FBI. He has even argued a link between the memo and the forced stepping down of FBI deputy Andrew McCabe.

Kirk’s claims about the memo are not unique to him. But it is interesting to note to what extent he parrots Trump. It is also important to note, again, that Kirk’s continued problem with telling the truth — to presenting facts — is a terrible pattern for a person who has such a powerful influence on thousands of college students.

I want to fact-check Kirk’s tweets after the release of the memo [as of 8:15 PM EST Feb. 4]. I have added punctuation for clarity. I’ve added a few tweets right before the memo’s Friday, Feb. 2 release for some context. And lastly on that context, let me say these tweets don’t constitute a coherent or organized set of arguments and I don’t treat them in the same manner as the op-ed he wrote. The tweets are one-offs, related, but still individual moments.

Here are Kirk’s tweets:

Feb. 1, 2018 tweet: “If there was a memo that showed the Bush FBI illegally obtained a FISA warrant to spy on Obama’s campaign, it would have been leaked already and the Democrats would be calling for a purge of the FBI. #ReleaseTheMemo”

Feb. 1, 2018 tweet: “Democrats pretend to care about Russia undermining our Democracy, yet now we have concrete evidence our government actually did and they are trying everything they can to prevent the release of that info. #releasethememo”

Feb. 2, 2018 tweet: “The memo demonstrates at least 5 people in the FBI and DOJ conspired to deny citizens of their constitutional rights just because they were conservatives. Our own government cannot be trusted.”

Feb. 2, 2018 tweet: “The FBI took an unverified political dossier funded by Hillary Clinton to illegally wiretap Trump. They never told the judge it was funded by DNC or Hillary. Political forces uses government to silence their opponents. People need to go to jail.”

Feb. 2, 2018 tweet: “The #Memo is why I do not trust the government. It shows why we cannot give unlimited, unchecked power to bureaucrats. They will use that power to go after those they disagree with and to silence political opponents.”

Feb. 2, 2018 tweet: “If these FBI bureaucrats got caught doing stuff this bad, imagine how much other corruption, illegal activity, wiretapping, abuse of power, and unethical conduct doesn’t get revealed within our government.”

Feb. 3, 2018 tweet: “Comey under oath March 2017: “In regards to the President’s tweets about him being wiretapped I have no information that supports those tweets as we have looked carefully inside the FBI.” This would be called perjury. Comey knew about the wiretapping, and denied it.”

Feb. 4, 2018 tweet: “Obama used government to go after his political opponents. First we saw this with the IRS targeting conservative groups and now with the FBI abusing FISA warrants. A full investigation must be launched into this abuse of power.”

First, there are some themes: an illegal FISA warrant process and then illegal intelligence activities, “unverified” information that led to those illegal acts, and in general, without using the phrase, a “deep state” conspiracy in the federal government that abused its power.

There have been many fact-checks of the Nunes memo. And many of them point out that the source which debunks the claim that the FBI used only or even significantly the Steele dossier to get a FISA warrant — the source is the memo itself.

Here is Snopes: “The campaign to release the then-classified memo touted that the document would show the Russia investigation, now led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is tainted because it wholly relied on a dossier penned by a former British spy, paid for by Democratic opposition research in the lead-up to the 2016 election. This was not the case. The memo itself undermines that claim by pointing out that the FBI had not relied solely on a controversial dossier written by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to secure a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. It also points out that the investigation was initially launched before the FBI had the dossier in their possession, as a result of information gathered from another Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, in July 2016…” Snopes then quotes the memo for evidence.

This information debunks Kirk who tweeted: “The FBI took an unverified political dossier funded by Hillary Clinton to illegally wiretap Trump. They never told the judge it was funded by DNC or Hillary.”

Kirk is getting the investigation timeline wrong here, with a good case to be made that he is doing it deliberately. He is committing this error so he can not only knock the dossier, knock Clinton’s role in it (I’ll get to that in minute), but also so he can connect it all to the “wiretap” claim. It is this baseless claim about Trump that allows Kirk then the space to defame Comey, suggests he is one of the “deep state” conspirators, and of course, then attack the government in general. These are large leaps of logic, to say the least. But par for the course for Kirk. See my other fact-checks.

As an aside, Kirk either is making the claim the FBI “wiretapped” Trump himself or the Trump campaign. It is hard to know which he means. But both are not true.

The Washington Post titled its fact-check of the memo this: “Does the GOP memo show the FBI spied on the Trump campaign?” It answers the question like this: “But the actual memo does not back up these claims — and in fact undermines them.”

The Post points out Carter Page, the subject of the FISA court-approved surveillance, became a subject of surveillance after he was no longer associated with the Trump campaign.

On the connections to Clinton, I refer you to the good summary of Steele and his dossier here. A connection to the DNC is clear but who paid for Steele’s work is only important if you buy that it — and only it — was the source for the FISA warrant. Many sources and the memo say that is not true.

On the claim that the FISA court was not told about the source of funding for Steele’s work, it is not clear as we do not have the FISA warrant. But as many have pointed out, the warrant was extended at least three times, giving the judges who approved it sufficient reason to think it was gathering good evidence. There is nothing illegal about using sources funded in part by political parties or partisan groups. And so no “fruit from the poisonous tree”
claim here. And the extension also tracks with other reporting that has said the FBI became interested in the dossier because it dovetailed with information its own work had uncovered.

The central Kirk claim here of illegality is based on the other unproven claims. But in general to respond to the illegality claim, a FISA warrant approved by the court is the legal process for this type of surveillance. The FBI didn’t do this surveillance unilaterally.

And even if the FBI didn’t tell the court the political history of the dossier, if we even accept that part of Kirk’s theory, it is clear the dossier’s information itself was good or able to aid in production of more information. That said, The New York Times has reported the Steele dossier itself — by itself — would not meet the requirements for a warrant approved by the FISA court. Here is the Times on the dossier.

In the end, the claims in this one central tweet by Kirk are not true, are based on evidence that doesn’t exist (or in the case of the Clinton connection, missing context), and pushed to get to another claim that has no basis in reality — the claim that Comey knew about a “Trump” wiretap and lied about it.

Next, this whole episode reeks for Kirk of abuse of power. He wrote that there was an “unlimited, unchecked power” that “bureaucrats” used here to abuse.

Those two adjectives make the claim simply not true.

If there was abuse in the FBI, not only would the Justice Department and the FBI administration have oversight, so would the judges on the FISA court. Those three groups of people “checked” this particular investigation. Congress also has some role to play in checking the power of the courts, the FBI, and Justice. Many steps along the way were taken and judged rightly by many people. And many appointed by Republicans. And a few appointed by Trump (i.e. his new FBI director, who continues to oversee and judge valid the Mueller investigation).

And on the unlimited claim, a warrant is a tool intended to limit what action investigators can take. They need court permission to take those steps and get permission for only those steps. The warrant process itself is a way to check power. See warrant-less surveillance in Bush era.

And it is an odd word choice of “bureaucrats.” A bureaucrat is usually associated with following the “book” or the “letter of the law.” And because of that “book-ish” attitude, bureaucrats usually slow or stop abuse or acts that would favor someone over another. Bureaucrats don’t care about who you are; they are just doing their job, staying in their lane.

And generally FBI agents and federal judges, particularly those appointed to the FISA court by the Chief Justice, are not usually categorized as bureaucrats. Mainly because bureaucrats have limited power.

Next, there are the comparisons to Democrats and Obama. First, there is the hypothetical claim — a favorite rhetorical move by Kirk — that if this episode happened with Bush and Obama, documents “would have been leaked already and the Democrats would be calling for a purge of the FBI.”

This tweet implies the GOP release of the Nunes memo is justified by this hypothetical claim. It also suggests more generally Democrats are hypocrites. And finally it argues there are particular situations where a “purge” of the FBI is warranted.

This is all poor argumentation because it is unethical. That someone does a bad act is no justification for my bad act. And that this “someone” is hypothetical clearly is a problem. And there is just no evidence that can back up this claim by Kirk— it is an unproveable claim. That is never sound rhetoric.

And, again, an interesting word choice here of “purge.” This implies the presence of the “deep state” compels this action. Such an action also dovetails with Trump reportedly asking FBI and Justice officials who they voted for and what “team” they are on. Not good for the president or Kirk because, in the case of Kirk, it undermines other of his claims, particularly the “trust in government” one.

As an aside connected to Kirk’s other work, for Kirk to repeat the call for a purge, to give it credence, makes him a clear target for the charge of hypocrisy because he is a person who claims to defend and whose organization has as its central element the defense of free speech. In other words, Kirk can’t have it both ways.

He can’t want to “purge” the FBI (and presumably colleges and universities) of those who are “anti-Trump” and also argue for “free speech,” speech allowed irregardless of its political content. This of course debunks the myth that his group, Turning Point, is interested in free speech in the same manner those on campuses have defined it in response to Kirk’s visits. Free speech for Turning Point is a fig leaf, a ruse, a means to an end.

Then there is the old canard of Obama using the IRS to target conservatives. That story is a long one, but here is a good timeline.

That timeline includes a report to Congress from the Justice Department in 2015 that noted there was “substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints. But poor management is not a crime.” The IRS was so inept here it also targeted progressive groups.

Finally, all this leads Kirk to this conclusion: “Our own government cannot be trusted.” As I mentioned before, this claim is undermined by his other claims.

This claim by Kirk of course is an opinion and can’t be fact-checked. I can argue that government can be trusted with numerous facts and other rhetorical moves. But in the end Kirk’s opinion is his opinion, groundless here in this case, but his opinion.

Why then end on this in a fact check? For one, there is a fact error in the tweet. Kirk clearly is suggesting only part of the government can’t be trusted. To say “our government” is to imply all of it. Clearly he trusts the GOP congressmen who voted to release the memo, the White House who released it, and many parts of the federal government who aid Trump or his presidency in known and unknown ways.

The other reason to end on this claim is to raise this question: How does the government gain and sustain trust in Kirk’s eyes?

If his answer includes the de-politicalization of FBI or IRS, Trump has not done that. Trump has made many government agencies even more political. And Kirk’s own tweets here politicize the FBI.

If his answer includes limiting government in general based on the theory that less government will be less abusive, Trump’s rollback of regulations and ignoring of conflict of interest laws have only spurred more distrust.

If Kirk wants to create trust in government, even in a person like himself who thinks “big government sucks,” it is entirely unclear what moves Trump has done that would merit trust.

This rhetorical move to claim a lack of trust is, like the claim of backing free speech, a ruse. There is no and will not be any positive affirmation of trustworthy government, only claims we can’t trust it.

It seems to Kirk that to trust the government means to rid it of all “anti-Trump” bias. Trust here is not an objective term. Kirk’s version of trust would not include governing all citizens equally and without personal bias. I would argue trust as a term here is being misused. A last fact error.