biochem wrote:If the memo's allegations are true, that would mean that the investigation against Page was tainted. But wasn't the administration saying that Page was an insignificant part of the campaign? So why would it affect any investigation against Trump?
More seriously, Even Trey Gowdy - who, unlike Nunes, did read the FISA documents - is saying that he still has full faith in Meuller's investigation.
1. The indirect effect
Trump now has a legitimate reason to fire James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein. Comney and Yates are already gone. McCabe is on leave until retirement (1-month). Rosenstein and Boente are still there and could be fired. Rosenstein is in charge of supervising Mueller. If he were fired, in theory he could be replaced by a Trump loyalist.
2. The tip of the iceberg
There appears to be a small group at the top of the FBI & DOJ, who were misusing their positions to investigate Page, using bad info to get warrants. What else did they cut corners on? Everything those individuals did is now questionable. Some of them influenced the Mueller investigation.
3. Fruit of the Poisoned Tree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_ ... onous_tree
If the "poisoned" Page warrant led to evidence which led to other warrants, those warrants may now be invalid. Fruit of a poison tree is murky in practice, with lots of caveats. So it's hard to say for sure.
All the above reasons do not necessarily mean that the Mueller investigation will be impacted, but they are routes by which it might be possible.
On what grounds? Even Nunes is now conceding that the FISA applciation did note the dossier was political - his argument seems to have morphed from "the FBI did not disclose the information" to the "FBI did not emphasize it enough". And it's highly arguable whether disclosing the dossier's source as oppo research would even matter, especially as they wouldn't have gotten an order based on that alone.