Claire Xen  🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 🧙🏻‍♀️ BLM  🏴 🚩

Really? Did a pundit on Fox News say that? </sarcasm> The FBI is investigating Manafort since 2014. Among other things they had enough on him to get a FISA warrant. They even had enough to convince a judge to issue a warrant for a no-knock raid, which they lawfully executed.

Your ignorance of the FISA court is showing. (See wikipedia) FISA warrants are not criminal warrants, nor could they be. The fact of a FISA warrant is therefore not evidence of a crime, but more likely an abuse of the court. But, yes, we'll see how this plays out.

To get a FISA warrant against a US citizen ("United States person") the law enforcement agency must convince the judge that there is reason to believe the target was knowingly engaging in clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power that violate American criminal laws.

The FISA court therefore is not about prosecuting US persons, but rather as its name implies its purpose is to facilitate the gathering of intelligence on FOREIGN powers.

This is a strawmen. I did not say that FISC is about prosecuting US persons. I said you can't get a FISA warrant on a US person without being able to demonstrate that there is reason to believe that the US person is violating US criminal law.

"Acting as an agent of a foreign power" is not equivalent to violating US criminal law. Many foreign governments hire US lobbyists. This in itself isn't a crime.

The fact that a FISA warrant was (or was not--I don't really know) issued against Manafort in 2014 is therefore irrelevant to any criminal discussions.