This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, February 15, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Nunez memo has landed alleging abuses in the process of securing surveillance warrants on at least one member of the Trump campaign

team. It may not have presented a strong case that the process was abused, but it's still

worth looking into how the Foreign Intelligence surveillance court does its job.

Cato Senior Fellow Julian Sanchez joined me yesterday in a live online Cato Connect's discussion.

This is a portion of our conversation.

Right before this memo was released,

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell went out

and talked a little bit about this memo.

And this is something that I found pretty notable

is what Paul Ryan said here.

What this memo is, is Congress doing its job in conducting legitimate oversight over a very

unique law FISA.

And if mistakes were made and if individuals did something wrong,

then it is our job as the legislative branch of government

to conduct oversight over the executive branch

if abuses were made.

Remember, FISA is a unique situation which involves Americans civil liberties.

And if American civil liberties were abused, then that needs to come to light so that doesn't happen again.

What this is not is an indictment on our institutions of our justice system.

This memo is not indictment of the FBI, of the Department of Justice. It does not impugn the Mueller

...