What's Up With The Carter Page Woods File?
A few days ago, September 1st to be exact, Sara Carter broke a story about the Woods file re the Carter Page FISA going missing, and having to be recreated by Team Mueller. Or something like that:
Carter Page’s FISA Related ‘Woods File’ Docs Disappeared, Was It ‘Malice Or Incompetence’
Unfortunately, from Carter's account it's difficult to be sure exactly what the story is. Here's how Carter explains it:
The original Woods file on former campaign advisor Carter Page went missing more than two years ago, and according to sources who spoke to SaraACarter.com, those documents had to be recreated by the FBI and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team in 2018 from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Application used by the bureau to obtain the warrant on Page.
In other words, Carter is saying that the entire Woods file went missing and had to be recreated. The way that would work would be like reverse engineering: You look at the actual FISA application, figure out what statements needed to be supported with a reference to a case document, and include that document.
Just to be clear about what the Woods file actually is, here's Shipwreckedcrew's good explanation from Did Mueller Prosecutors Know of Problems With Carter Page FISA, Approved It Anyway, and Later “Recreated” The “Woods File” To Cover Up The Misconduct?
As a refresher readers should understand that the “Woods File” is a process by which the FBI case agent on a FISA application documents a source for every factual allegation set forth in the application. ...
...
The purpose of having the file is so that when third parties — supervisors, subsequent case agents, other agencies — who review the affidavit and have questions about a particular allegation, they can go to the Woods File and find the specific documents from which the allegation was sourced. The file is not intended to “prove” the allegation true — only that the allegation has a source, and what that source is.
Notice this: The specific documents included in the Woods file exist separately in the case file--they're not unique to the Woods file, but are copied to the Woods file. In other words, if the Woods file goes missing--and please, we all know electronic files don't go missing--then it should be entirely feasible to reconstruct the Woods file, mimicking the original process. So what's the problem?
As I see it, the real problem is if you go to the case file and the original documents ... have also gone missing!
That's what Paul Sperry claims is going on, and to me it makes more sense:
Paul Sperry
@paulsperry_
BREAKING: Several documents are missing from the Woods File for both the 2nd and 3rd renewal applications for Carter Page FISA warrant, and in lieu of some of the documents, the FBI inserted a piece of paper as a "placeholder" to represent the supporting document that is missing.
That means that when the reverse engineers went to the case file to find the document that needed to be copied to the Woods file they couldn't find several of the documents.
Since electronic documents don't just "go missing"--and I like the way SWC puts this:
Where to begin?
How about with the “disappearance” of an electronic file in a system where nothing disappears?
we're left to assume that somebody really didn't want those documents to be available. They didn't just go missing from the Woods file, they went missing from the case file, too. Of course, in an electronic file system, you might not really have a copy--just a link to the one document. But again--that link doesn't just go missing unless someone makes it go missing, and my guess is that it takes a very high level of authority to get that done. If it's possible at all.
If there's a problem here, then I think Sperry's version makes the most sense. The Woods file is more a matter of convenience and quality control than anything else. Ultimately, as long as the case file is complete, it should be recoverable. But how does the case file become incomplete? There's no digital Bu-dog that roams the Sentinel file system devouring the agents' homework.
But wouldn't you expect that the Sentinel file system would record someone causing a file to "go missing"? Something--actually a lot of things--are not adding up.