Michael Medved made an very interesting point that I think many are overlooking in their reaction to the memo and it centers on when Carter Page resigned:
Sorry, but all the hyper-ventilating over #TheMemo is ridiculous, embarrassing. How does it indicate illicit spying on the #Trump campaign--when #CarterPage RESIGNED from that campaign BEFORE the FISA application ever went through for surveillance on this one-time "advisor"?
— Michael Medved (@MedvedSHOW) February 2, 2018
Él Soopy sent me this so I looked into it, and even Wikipedia points out that the FISA warrant was issued after Page was gone from the campaign:
Shortly after Page resigned from the Trump campaign, the Federal Bureau of Investigation obtained a warrant from the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil Page’s communications.[25] To issue the warrant, a federal judge concluded there was probable cause to believe that Page was a foreign agent knowingly engaging in clandestine intelligence for the Russian government. Page was the only American who was directly targeted with a FISA warrant in 2016 as part of the Russia probe. The 90-day warrant was repeatedly renewed.
Medved doesn’t dismiss the memo out of hand. He certainly agrees that it’s still damning that the FBI used a political document to go after an American citizen instead of national security:
Most damaging allegation in #TheMemo is that surveillance of #CarterPage was political, based on Trump hatred, not nat'l security. But how is it "anti-Trump" to monitor a FORMER campaign aide, identified as a potential Russian agent years before Trump's campaign even began?
— Michael Medved (@MedvedSHOW) February 2, 2018
He also feels that Nunes is damaging Trump more by putting this out there now when we should still be talking about the SOTU:
No one's damaged @POTUS more than #DevinNunes. Instead of basking in the glow of an outstanding #SOTU address, here we are, back to #WWF mud-wrestling over a disastrously-timed, brain-dead #Memo, focusing again on a #RussianConnection story that can't possibly help the president.
— Michael Medved (@MedvedSHOW) February 2, 2018