After writing about the various reports on the FISA warrants, my attention was drawn to a potential discrepancy on the target of the FISA warrant issued in October of 2016. In early November it was reported by HeatSt.com that the FISA ‘covers Donald Trump and at least three further men who have either formed part of his campaign or acted as his media surrogates.’ However, the BBC reported this January, ‘Neither Mr Trump nor his associates are named in the Fisa order, which would only cover foreign citizens or foreign entities — in this case the Russian banks.’

So who’s right and is it possible they both are? I hold no magic ball, but it seems that the BBC’s reporting is rather disingenuous. To understand why we need take a closer look at what exactly a FISA warrant entails. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978 to provide a check on the ability of the Executive to spy domestically for national security reasons. The act allows the President to conduct surveillance without a warrant so long as it doesn’t include US citizens or foreign agents in the US. However, when the surveillance will capture significant interactions with US citizens or targets them directly, the President is required to seek a warrant from the FISA court.

I took a look at the banks that were reportedly named in the October warrant. I could not find any credible information on SVB, but I found plenty Alfa-Bank and it has no ties to the US. (Note, it appears the SVB referred to by HeatSt is the Silicon Valley Bank. I had repeatedly read that it referred to a foreign bank, see Politico, which is why I wasn’t able to find anything. It does make sense that a FISA warrant would be required for spying on this bank no matter the investigation’s goals.) As FISA warrants are only required for domestic spying, there would be no reason to seek one on a Russian bank with no US subsidiaries. Why then would they? Because they needed it to spy on US citizens who had interactions with the bank. The warrant therefore may have named ‘the Russian banks’ as the target, but it was expressly for the purpose of monitoring its interactions with US citizens.

So far multiple outlets have confirmed HeatSt’s early reporting on the existence of FISA warrants, both those refused by the courts in June and the one approved in October. The reports that supposedly contradict this reporting only do so if you ignore the purpose behind a FISA warrant. When considered in light of other ongoing investigations into Trump’s associates for ties to these banks, all of which turned up nothing, it is exceedingly clear that these warrants were required because they intended to monitor specific US citizens.