If the Justice Department and FBI abused their intelligence-collection authority by seeking a FISA-court warrant based on unverified information, if they in any way gulled a federal judge into believing that Steele’s rumor-mongering was refined U.S. intelligence reporting, why not disclose that misconduct and put the collusion chatter to rest?...
They may not have had a collusion case on Donald Trump, but they surely had lots of intelligence tying him to bad people and unsavory activity.... [T]he Justice Department and FBI must have figured the public would never see their classified FISA-court application, especially after President Hillary Clinton took office. Thus, they had a strong incentive to load it up with anything they thought they had on Trump....
Even if that information doesn’t prove collusion, and even if some or all of it is suspect, would you want such an application disclosed if you were the president?
January 14, 2018
"Anatomy of a Farce/Fusion GPS founder’s testimony shows how we got the collusion narrative . . . and why it won’t go away."
You need to read Andrew McCarthy at National Review. From the very end:
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 262 of 262He has been very shallow:
www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/confusing_dossier_chaff_with_wheat.html
I spank him. You bringing out the whip immediately.
Slow down for god's sake. Let us have a little fun with him first.
Oh, is this what you're planning?
Like I said, you're a pretty disgusting person. You even talk like one.
TTR says;
For someone obsessed with thinking he's proving NASA and the EPA wrong
Not me. I don't even know who these guys are. Should I google 'em?
Not me. I don't even know who these guys are.
Says all anyone needs to know.
You don't know anything, period.
Just how to make a lot of noise and telegraph how easily upset and incompetent you are.
Another from 2010. TTR been stressing for a long, long time. SAD!
Rit
Isn't there any thing you can find to do to cool your jets on a Sunday morning) ? All this self-induced stress can't be good for you. Heal thyself, Physician. And then, read a book or something. Take your mind off of these invisible demons.
And don't be so darn reflexive. The mind is about more than just a series of Pavlovian responses, my friend. I'd urge you to ponder that, sometime. Seriously. It'd do you good.
As for other planets - they are other planets, and whats on them, like the Venusian atmosphere, developed on them as a result of different starting conditions and contingent events.
Might as well say that the Earth would have crushing gravity had it had more mass.
The Earth is not going to turn into Venus anymore than the San Francisco water supply is going to kill us all tomorrow because its got a bit of Selenium in it.
it is simply that CO2 in its present small traces or their measured/projected increase, again in such a trace-proportion, in itself does not lead to the “global warming" predictions used to justify public policy.
Well, no.
It’s sort of half true what you say. They have a lot of triple bank shot kinds of assumptions to get to their high numbers, and it does look more and more every year, like the warming is going to track the far less significant path that would be predicted by just looking at the CO2, and not the add on effects that they like to use to stir up the fear, whatever Toothless thinks, but there is plenty of CO2 in the atmosphere to affect the temperature of the planet, whether it is a “trace gas” or not.
Maybe there would be more fun taking the other side of this debate!
What you do know is that Trump is a erratic out of control individual who might literally be crazy.
My what fresh and insightful take that is! That is SO good I suggest you run the entire 2018 election on that platform. I wonder why Hillary never tried that tack. She really should have emphasized in every speech how she was a smooth stable insider and he is a diabolical nefarious outsider. That seems like it would have won handily. In fact why wasn't she 50 points ahead?
This proposed effect is unproven.
It's "unproven" that every time you give arsenic to someone, they'll die. But it's still avoided anyway because of past experience and logic. Unless you want to go to jail or get the chair. That's called a reasonable evidentiary behavior in a responsible society.
If you deny the greenhouse effect in its entirety then you are essentially saying that there is no known reason for why the earth has a climate but the moon does not. You are avoiding admitting that you are convincing yourself to believe the nonsensical proposition that a climate can exist without an atmosphere, so there is no point to talking about percent increases in what you assert (without any evidence and against all the available evidence) is a non-contributor to a ubiquitous phenomenon such as climate that you pretend no one can understand how or why it exists.
So the discussion is over. You just denied reality in so many words.
The Toothless Revolutionary said...
Not me. I don't even know who these guys are.
Says all anyone needs to know.
You don't know anything, period.
Just how to make a lot of noise and telegraph how easily upset and incompetent you are.
1/14/18, 2:31 PM
Haha! That's me all right. Very upset. Easily triggered. Extremley sensitive.
But Turtle, the CO2-only "far less significant path" is indeed far less significant. And moreover if confined to that it becomes just part of a pile of other far less significant factors, many of which arent even in the models because they arent known, or there is no data-set to use them. Making a prediction out of that is impossible.
“Meteorology is quite an impressive field, because it is intensely data-driven. They are big on complex computer models in fact. So much so that they were and are early adopters of supercomputing systems.”
I have fond memories there. My first jobs in computer engineering were in Suitland, MD. First was for the 1980 Decennial Census, and then when the top managemet there declared that I couldn’t move out of Decennial applications programming until at least 1981, I quit and went to work for a vendor. Turns out my first job there was as a contractor to NOAA, in the same (FOB 3) office building. The NOAA supervisor had come over from the Weather Bureau in the next building over, and he took us on a tour of their computers. At the time, 3 of the fastest computers that IBM had ever built. And I think I saw my first Cray there before I moved west. Interestingly. Even back then, 35 years ago, he pointed out the computational problem that predicting weather still faces, which is cutting the grid scale in half more than cubes the computational complexity (because the atmosphere is 3 dimensional).
But you are correct that the difference between predicting weather and climate is that there is a lot of feedback when it comes to weather. When the weatherman says snow, and people get tornadoes, people are put out. Weather is predicted around the country, and around the world, day in and day out, and the models are constantly being refined by how accurately they represented reality. Climate, on the other hand has a much lower number of actual data points, and the feedback is decades, versus days.
...there is plenty of CO2 in the atmosphere to affect the temperature of the planet, whether it is a “trace gas” or not.
Are you arguing reality with him. He said it was too small for him, buwaya, a person, to subjectively appreciate. So obviously ergo it must be too small to play any naturalistic role in the natural systems of the earth.
That's what he's saying.
Hopefully he's not also saying that it's too small or "trace" for the plants to appreciate. Because then we'd really be fucked!
Although not all hope is lost. The right-wing propaganda sites try all the time to say as much. They say that the plants will die without human intervention to increase the amounts of CO2 that I guess just aren't enough for them to survive all the deforestation taking place. More CO2/plant food so that the plants will become big and strong and fight those loggers on their own! Don't give them any government assistance!
I went and read the Andrew McCarthy piece in NRO. My take away is that one should never trust or even talk to a government investigator, not even a traffic cop. No good can come from it. Keep your mouth shut no matter what they threaten. No matter what they imply that they know about you. They lie! Just stand mute.
Another thread hijacking by Ritmo and his obsession. Why do you guys put up with it?
"And Ritmo is a fraud."
I disagree Buwaya.
My best guess (not that of a licensed psychologist, which I am) is that he becomes manic when he comments on this site. That is a guess, Inga, not a professional opinion, unlike Dr. Bandy X. Lee.
People with bipolar disorder struggle when they have manic episodes because they find them energizing. It's like taking stimulants such as meth, cocaine and Ritalin.
Hmmm. Maybe there is another explanation.
Ritmo,
Every time you give a baby a drink, you are giving the poor thing a trace of arsenic. It might be quite difficult to detect, but its there. If you can't detect it now, at some point a new tech/procedure will be developed that will find it. Thats just a fact.
And that is even more true of all the "natural" water sources humanity drank while evolving into the creatures we love so much today.
So we are all, then, a bunch of baby-killers and always have been. But there aren't very many dead babies. Hmm. I see some problems with this logic.
Making a prediction out of that is impossible.
But it's important to never make policy decisions based on not knowing every detail about the future in advance.
For instance, not everyone will be adversely affected if the amounts of arsenic in drinking water were raised.
So why don't we just do it? It's not fair to the people who will do just as well to have to contend with lower arsenic amounts just to go along with what the weaklings among us need!
More arsenic now! Anyone who doesn't cut it, they don't deserve clean water!
People with bipolar disorder struggle when they have manic episodes because they find them energizing. It's like taking stimulants such as meth, cocaine and Ritalin.
For that reason some skip the meds that "slow them down".
Stupidity. Comes naturally to some. Cannot be cured by education.
More arsenic now! Anyone who doesn't cut it, they don't deserve clean water!
My best guess (not that of a licensed psychologist, which I am) is that he becomes manic when he comments on this site.
I find exposing idiocy to be invigorating. Like a runner's high. I guess now all the joggers are "manic."
A lot of what's wrong with the world results from a lot of idiots making idiotic decisions that affect everyone else.
I like to make a point of pointing this out when the complacent find a way to offer false explanations and cover for these bad decisions.
I suppose I'm supposed to be more like those who failed the Milgram experiment, in your eyes. In order to be a better person, according to you.
More arbitrary, false "authority" I need to accept without questioning, right?
So much of it, though. So where do I start? Should I start with NRO? With Don Trump? Steve Bannon? How about Ben Shapiro? Rush Limbaugh?
You know, not all of these so-called inexpert "authorities" agree, so obviously being brainwashed into right-wing social complacency is a more difficult task than you seem to realize.
Help me out here! Who will be my right-wing social/intellectual/political "authority?" There are so many different ones from which to choose!
Lead me, right winger! I need your paternalistic sense of control over me. I just need it oh so bad.
Or at least, you need me to make you feel that I do.
Thank you Francisco.
I used to work with/for a manic-depressive, and moreover he took cocaine (that I know of, it could be he took other things too). I always assumed his episodes were spontaneous, the switch from manic to depressive and back again. But you would know of course. Can someone with such an affliction choose his state?
Andy McCarthy injects logic and reason. Something the left believes is core to white supremacy.
The Nellie Ohr story is interesting, particularly he ham radio licence she obtained in 2016. Why?
Water Closet had three imperatives. One, after being denied the nomination with Obama's ascent to assure Clinton the Democrat nomination, which is why the Obama/Clinton/DNC axis denied the nomination to the Jew, and to any Republican, especially Trump who is intimately familiar with the liberal world and the Democrat Party. Two, to paint Americans as diversitists, specifically as misogynists, as they painted Americans as racists when it was Obama's turn for political and social leverage. Three, to repeat the violent Western-backed coup in Kiev in Moscow, through collusion with the post-coup government in Kiev, and anti-government agents in Russia. Apparently, the DNC and GOP have a Soviet fetish, or perhaps after opening an abortion field in Libya etc. and carrying out redistributive change (a la South Africa, Serbia) of her natural resources, they were eager to do the same in the Soviet Union... Russia. Putin, to the left and GOP's disappointment, escaped the Planned Gaddafi sodomy session.
So, Obama spied on the Republican candidate; Clinton colluded with foreign and domestic assets to influence the election and abort the Republican president (once elected); and the DNC denied the nomination to the Jew.
TTR calmly, rationally, serenely refutes logical assumption regarding mania.
Interesting
@Buwaya,
I tend to believe that people, however afflicted with mental or physical disorders, make choices about how to deal with those disorders.
I work with a lot of chronic pain patients. You would be amazed at how some people drag themselves to work everyday despite crippling injuries. You might also be amazed at how some people milk minor pains to mask their psychiatric complaints.
Of course, there are malingerers who want others to support them. Based on my direct experience, it's rife at the VA and the Disability system. That is not to say that there are not many people in both systems who deserve our financial support because we are a kind and generous nation.
Andy McCarthy may have been calling his own analysis a farce. Consider that that McCarthy concedes that Trump is a crook:
[Donald Trump] is a really crappy guy. He is a grade-A louche with mafia business partners and a decades-long record of financial shenanigans that walk the razor’s edge of actionable fraud. Born into wealth, he puts on the airs of the self-made man. When he’s in town, hide the women away. If he says he’ll pay you for a job, get it in writing . . . and make sure he still needs you when it’s time to pay up. Better have a good lawyer on retainer, too, just in case. [Trump's] books are undoubtedly cooked, but they’re better hidden than Jimmy Hoffa — and yeah, you can bet he knows something about that, too.
But instead of conceding that Special Counsel Mueller has the authority to investigate Trump's illicit past, he belittles what he imagines as faulty reasoning by Fusion GPS's Glenn Simpson. First McCarthy blows away Simpson's discovery that Trump actually has Russian connections:
Trump was closely associated with a Russian organized crime figure, Felix Sater — a business partner whom Trump had falsely claimed he wouldn’t know if he ran into him. According to published reports, Sater is suspected in the theft of billions of dollars from the Kazakh government. Simpson figured out that some of the Trump organization’s money flowed in from Kazakhstan. He further learned that Sater and Trump were involved together in a company that built the Trump SoHo project in New York.
Brushing admitted facts aside Andrew concluded that:
The frantic churning of hearsay and innuendo about bad guys who, being bad guys, must have been doing bad things. But at the core, there is no concrete, admissible evidence of an espionage or corruption conspiracy; no solid identified sources, no verifiable wrongdoing. A circle of relentless suspicion with a hole in the middle where the crime is supposed to be.
Methinks that if it was really that simple, Mueller would have thrown in the towel and that Trump would have ended the whole inquiry as McCarthy suggested:
That being the case, why doesn’t President Trump just expose it? Why doesn’t he tell the intelligence agencies to declassify the relevant data? If the Justice Department and FBI abused their intelligence-collection authority by seeking a FISA-court warrant based on unverified information, if they in any way gulled a federal judge into believing that Steele’s rumor-mongering was refined U.S. intelligence reporting, why not disclose that misconduct and put the collusion chatter to rest?
Trump, of course, knows whether or not he is guilty and he is not betting his hand.
dgadfly.
Still no proof of collusion.
Asad fact is if you do business in Russia, no matter what it is, your doing business with some shady people. That's just how Putin preferrs his country to be run.
Igna, what are you doing here on this thread? Why aren't you over on the the South Africa thread, defending the shitheads who are trashing their shithole?
TTR: "I find exposing idiocy to be invigorating."
Clearly, and nobody does it harder or more selflessly. You are a martyr for the cause, but isn't it just a little bit embarrassing?
I find exposing idiocy to be invigorating.”
I am wonder if that is not all he finds “invigorating” to expose. His avatar should be a trench coat!
@Bottom Turtle
ISWYDT re your handle. Very droll.
I doubt if McCarthy has ever been as wildly wrong as Krugman was about the economic fallout of Trump's election.
"If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never."
It wasn't an offhand remark. The Krugster's column was titled "The economic fallout."
Krugman was as wrong as it is possible to be. Very unprofessional, too, for an economist to make a dire prediction with no hesitation or qualifications, other than a boiler-plate mention of a "first-pass guess." I suspect Krugman knew that even if he was completely and utterly wrong about a field in which he is supposed to be an expert,he would never be held accountable. That's the way it is on the Left. You can be wrong in very important ways & never pay the price of being wrong. That's why people on the Right tend to be smarter about things.
Blogger Rusty said...
@gadfly.
Still no proof of collusion.
A sad fact is if you do business in Russia, no matter what it is, your doing business with some shady people. That's just how Putin prefers his country to be run.
That part is easy. On July 27, 2016, Trump publicly made the following request:
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
That request violates Campaign Finance law:
“It shall be unlawful for— (2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation… from a foreign national.”
The July 2016 meeting with the Russians at Trump Tower similarly violates Campaign Finance law and constitutes colussion.
Man, Trump is one sly, tricky little traitor dude. He slipped that right past us all, in the dark of night, in code, written in disappearing ink. If we only knew, we never would have voted him in. I feel used.
This demonstrates that Gadfly has absolutely no sense of humor.
If Trump found his car scratched in a parking lot, and muttered "I'd like to kill the guy that did this" Gadfly would want Trump prosecuted for making death threats.
You are a crazy person, Mr. Gadfly. Your brain ain't working right.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
That request violates Campaign Finance law:
"Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Please explain how the references emails could be construed as a contribution or donation?
"And Ritmo is a fraud."
You misspelled 'asshole.'
Its magic thinking.
Since Ritmo is up on his high horse it is time to humiliate him again.
We will just start off here. It is a widely known fact, now, that CO2 increases actually trail temperature increases.
The climate change religion has adapted to this fact late, similar to what the bible had to do when it was discovered that the Earth was not the center of the solar system. But they still have witches to burn. If necessary I will force Ritmo to claim, again, that climate history before humans never happened. For them Co2 was not really over 2000ppm for over half the earth's history. That evidence was made by Satan to trick the faithful.
I expect he will flee from the thread though or start going off on another puerile string of ad hom attacks.
gadfly said...
That request violates Campaign Finance law:
“It shall be unlawful for— (2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation… from a foreign national.”
I know! Hillary didn't actually request the $140+ million dollars she got from Russia. So it must have been legal!
Althouse: “You need to read Andrew McCarthy at National Review.”
Two years too late.
Achilles, the last time I checked, if you graph atmospheric CO2 against time for the last 100M years, you don't see a lot of corelation.
Hey! Russians! I am afraid Hillary will run again in 2020, and I don't want her to win. So, release her emails & I will give you $5.
I assume gadfly will be on the phone in minutes to call down the FEC on my poor head, after all, I've just violated a campaign finance law.
Gadfly would be thrilled if it became a crime to suggest that Hillary's crappily protected private email server resulted in some foreign power reading secret government emails. So long first amendment, gadfly dowsn't like you!
Like I said, he has some kind of brain issue.
So Trump has these secret backchannels to the Russkis -- likely Putin's personal cell number -- but he has to beg the Russians to hack & release Hillary's emails in a televised speech. On what planet is that not the stupidest thing ever?
Because this never gets old
Poor George Clooney -all his money could not buy Corrupt Hillary's election.
What few have realized
including McCarthy
The Steele document is the output of unauthorized searches of the collected surveillance databases at NSA/FBI by Fusion contractor Nellie Ohr
Then dirt was collected into a dossier which was released to the media and dupes like John McCain to return to the FBI/DOJ, who could then use it as a basis for further investigation, FISA wiretap warrants...
In other words, intelligence laundering.
This weaponizing of law enforcement may be to complicated to explain to the public
or the public may not care that law enforcement meddled directly in elections via the apparatus of surveillance
just as the public did not care that the IRS was used to limit the free speech of conservative groups
The Democrats will be opposing/deflecting discovery and exposure since its their own
the media will be ignoring this corruption to cover for
The First Black President
who we all know had a scandal free administration.
Lewis Wetzel said...
Achilles, the last time I checked, if you graph atmospheric CO2 against time for the last 100M years, you don't see a lot of corelation.
Over the Earth's entire history there is almost none. For most of it the CO2 levels are over 2000 ppm which demonstrates pretty much everything the warmists say is wrong.
But since the last Ice Age, the last 10,000ish years, there is a correlation. It is just opposite of what the warmists predicted.
In the end the data just doesn't support their hypothesis. If you look around though you can see some pretty entertaining explanations of why all of this contradictory evidence really supports their theory.
It is purely a religion at this point.
The Conservative Treehouse posted an article titled "#FusionCollusion – Congress Takes 3-Prong Approach To Surround Corrupt Intelligence and Justice Officials". The article explains how Congress intends to investigate the scandal. The article includes the following passages:
[quote]
Ron DeSantis has asked Speaker Ryan to declassify everything…. only a week before Devin Nunes announces his request for the full house to see everything declassified and without redaction. These are Big Ugly cannon shots into the heart of deception. ...
•House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes is focused on the FISA abuse; and overall abuse from the larger intelligence community (FBI, CIA, ODNI and NSA). The FISA-702 angle is his leverage to reveal it.
•Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is focused on the Dossier fraud; and the overall DOJ and FBI corruption. The Steele Dossier is his leverage to reveal it.
•House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte is focused on the FBI and DOJ corruption; and his leverage is the Office of Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, and the year-long IG investigation that just turned over 1.2 million pages of investigative documents.
[end quote]
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/14/fusioncollusion-congress-takes-3-prong-approach-to-surround-corrupt-intelligence-and-justice-officials
[if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”]
That request violates Campaign Finance law:
Anyone who thinks this violates CF law doesn't know anything about anything.
Just to be clear. Before The part gadfly quoted, Trump said (paraphrasing), "I think the Russians already have them [the 30,000 'missing' emails]." So Trump wasn't asking Russian to hack. He was asking Russian to release emails he thought they already had.
Original Mike said: Another thread hijacking by Ritmo and his obsession. Why do you guys put up with it?
It is a pity, isn't it? Reading back through the Althouse archives is a treat. There were some great riffs and memes. However, we were so naive about online communications fourteen years ago. Who knew that what began as an interesting online conversation would degenerate into a poo flinging fest.
I'm not blowing smoke up Althouse's skirt, we are indeed lucky that she perseveres. So many excellent pioneering bloggers gave up as the ratio of noise to signal increased...or some just flipped out (LGF).
Chuck said...
Althouse: “You need to read Andrew McCarthy at National Review.”
Two years too late.
If you are a leftist the Trump presidency has been terrible.
It has been great for American citizens though.
Sadly all the people Chuck actually admires and defends are going to jail soon. Must be sad for LLR's to see actual laws enforced against their admired opponents.
Original Mike said...
Another thread hijacking by Ritmo and his obsession. Why do you guys put up with it?
This is just like Ritmo admitting he doesn't read any of that stupid stuff people who disagree with him write.
Humans are tribal beings and we naturally self select. Resist that temptation or you will end up as bitter and ignorant as Ritmo.
Althouse you need to read Jonah Goldberg at National Review
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Ignoring that this was obviously said in humor, the key distinction here is that the solicitation must be for something of value for the there to be a violation. Here, Trump isn’t offering money, but the possibility that the press might be willing to pay. Or otherwise reward them.
“The July 2016 meeting with the Russians at Trump Tower similarly violates Campaign Finance law and constitutes colussion.”
“It shall be unlawful for— (2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation… from a foreign national.”
Don, Jr and Kushner may have had a close escape there, but they walked out of the room once they realized what was possibly being offered. But notably they weren’t the ones soliciting anything - it was the Russian Attorney who was offering. And they didn’t accept or receive anything, since they walked out of the room and left after a couple minutes. No crime.
In any case, it looks more and more like a setup. She met with Fusion GPS (yes - the same people as created the Steele Dossier) right before AND after her meeting in Trump Tower. And the Obama Administration got her into and out of the country WITHOUT A VISA for a fairly short visit. Indeed, there is the question whether the real reason for her meeting was to setup access to FISA 702 collection of electronic data involving Trump Tower (and maybe the 10/16 FISA warrant) using her as the subject of “about” queries of collected electronic records. The more we learn about her visit there, the more it stinks - for the Lynch DoJ and Crooked Hillary campaign.
“The Steele document is the output of unauthorized searches of the collected surveillance databases at NSA/FBI by Fusion contractor Nellie Ohr
Then dirt was collected into a dossier which was released to the media and dupes like John McCain to return to the FBI/DOJ, who could then use it as a basis for further investigation, FISA wiretap warrants...”
We just don’t have enough documented or corroborated information yet to support that statement. To date, it is just conjecture. For one thing, we don’t know whether Fusion GPS was one of the contractors that the FBI illegally allowed to access the 702 electronic databases. We do know that there were close ties between it and the FBI (Nellie Ohr, the Fusion GPS Russian expert, is married to FBI Deputy Director Bruce Ohr), as well as to Crooked Hillary and her campaign (Mary Jacoby, wife of Fusion head Glenn Simpson, is an alumna of the Rose Law firm - yes, the same Rose Law Firm whose billing records disappeared in the private WH quarters of the Clintons for several years, until the statute of limitations ran out).
My point here is that McCarthy was describing how to build a case with no real evidence connecting a suspect to the crime. Part of it is to blow a lot of smoke around the target, and make it look like they must have done the deed being alleged. And that is all we really have right now with the story going around right now that Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS, working closely with the FBI, used FISA 702 information to build the Steele Dossier, then ran it through Steele to justify it coming from the Russians - a lot of smoke and suspicious occurrences, but no real evidence, yet, concretely tying everything together.
We also know that Hillary funneling money through a law firm to an oppo research firm and reporting it as legal expenses is a likely campaign finance violation.
Democrats project more than could possibly be healthy.
Going back on topic--
It goes w/o saying but I'll say it anyway--if McCarthy is right that Trump hasn't ordered the FISA filing(s) released because there are or could be highly (personally) embarrassing stuff, it suggests that somebody (maybe Putin, maybe someone else) my have information that COULD be used in a blackmail/extortion scheme (such as Simpson and some others seem to have been concerned about as regards Putin). I do not know whether Trump &/or his attorneys have seen the FISA materials, but either way, if McCarthy is right on this point it suggests that Trump is afraid or at least hesitant about something that is or may be in there, and is paying a political price to not just open it all up.
The FISA court proceedings are supposed to be secret and it may be McCarthy is wrong and that releasing these filings would violate the law, which is why it hasn't happened--but that would be a pretty big "miss" for McCarthy.
Unless, of course, Trump's people have seen the FISA filings and they are full of untruths that they don't want to have to run down.
Tho, in that case, if they were good enough for the FISA court they must be somewhat convincing, and why would the anti-Trump forces not roll them out when they saw fit, anyway?
Unless they would also embarrass others, whom the "anti-Trump" forces (which are not entirely monolithic) do not want to embarrass... for example, purely hypothetical here, if Trump had to deal with some mafia types in getting some building built/managed in NYC (labor issues, waste hauling?), and Schumer was part of the whole process (which would surprise nobody).
This is the kind of counter-intelligence rabbit hole that drove James Jesus Angleton crazy.
Abusing the NSA to spy on one's political opponents - is that better or worse than Watergate?
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