The big guns were apparently called in for the task of composing the FISA application based on the sketchy Steele dossier. This was completely out of the ordinary in terms of protocol [emphasis mine]:

A former top FBI lawyer [James Baker] acknowledged he was personally involved in the warrant application to surveil then-Trump campaign aide Carter Page and confirmed other “unusual” steps taken in the FBI’s Russia probe in 2016, during a closed-door congressional interview…

Baker said he was briefed on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant “as time went by” and recalled how he got involved early in the process. The warrant relied heavily on the unverified anti-Trump dossier, which was financed by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign via the law firm Perkins Coie.

“I don’t want to see it at the end, like when it is about to go to the director [for] certification, because then it is hard to make changes then,” Baker told House investigators when Republicans controlled the chamber. “So I wanted to see it when it was gelled enough but before it went through the process and before it went to the director. I wanted to see it and I wanted to read it because I knew it was sensitive.”

Fox News confirmed the Baker transcript also includes the following exchange with investigators regarding his involvement in the surveillance application:

Question: “So that is why you took the abnormal or unusual step in this particular situation because it was sensitive?”

Baker: “Yes.”

Question: “So you actually got involved because you want to make sure that, what?”

Baker: “I wanted to make sure that we were filing something that would adhere to the law and stand up over time.”

Baker also told lawmakers, as part of the joint investigations by the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, that it was not routine for him to get involved personally in such matters.

“I did not … at that point in time when I was at the FBI … almost all of the FISA applications did not go through me,” he said.

What does the euphemism “sensitive” mean? I would suggest it meant “this is so out of the ordinary—ultimately, we are spying on a presidential candidate based on evidence cooked up by his opposition—that the lower-down lawyers aren’t good enough to craft something that won’t seem every bit as suspicious as it really is.”

Well, it hasn’t really “stood the test of time,” has it? But only because Trump was elected and for two years the Republicans controlled Congress. That is the reason—the only reason—we know about any of this.

[NOTE: By the way, we’re talking about this James Baker, not this one. It’s confusing because they both have the middle initial “A.”]

[NOTE II: In the first sentence of this post, I originally made this error: “The big guns were apparently called in for the task of composting the FISA application…” Pretty funny, eh?]