Warner(D), ugly mug captain go it alone. Throughout the text exchanges, Warner seemed particularly intent on connecting directly with Steele without anyone else on the Senate Intelligence Committee being in the loop -- at least initially. In one text to the lobbyist, Warner wrote that he would "rather not have a paper trail" of his messages.
Many pairs of white socks take on successive shades of iron from the water each time they're washed. For matching socks, take three from the drawer and use the two that match most closely.
The last pair is usually one really white and one really rust.
I am taking this opportunity to point out a YouTube video, done by someone who calls himself SonofNewo and that is titled "Susan Rice Confirms: Trump Tower Wiretapped by FBI". This video was posted in September 2017, but it still is worth watching.
SonofNewo cleverly proves (in my opinion, he proves) that Michael Flynn was being wire-tapped under a FISA warrant when he attended a meeting in Trump Tower on December 15, 2016. Susan Rice unmasked the names of a couple of the meeting's participants -- Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon -- but did not have to unmask Flynn's name, because Flynn was the wire-tap target.
I speculate that the application for the FISA warrant against Flynn was submitted soon after Election Day, November 8, 2016. Already on that day Hillary Clinton and her closest supporters decided to blame her defeat on Russian meddling aided by Trump and his associates.
On that same day, November 8, an article written by Flynn about Turkish politics was published by The Hill. Thus Flynn drew attention to himself as a lobbyist for Turkey.
Flynn's unregistered lobbying for Turkey gave the FBI grounds to get a FISA warrant to wiretap him. The FBI did not care really about Flynn's lobbying for Turkey. That was just a pretext to get a FISA warrant to wiretap him. Rather, the FBI's real purpose for wiretapping Flynn was to obtain information that could be used to accuse Trump and his associates of helping Russia to meddle in our election.
Why are the Russians involved in this at all? In Putin's Kleptocracy: who owns Russia?, Karen Dawisha explains how Putin and his pals became oligarchs. The CPUSSR owned Russia's natural resources and the USSR's foreign bank accounts. The KGB had custody of these foreign bank accounts. After the fall of the USSR, Putin & friends used the cash assets of the CPUSSR held in foreign banks to set up consortiums that controlled the external sale of Russian natural resources, like oil. They privatized CPUSSR cash held in foreign banks and leveraged that cash to buy resources at the low, internal Russia price and then sell the resources for the much higher external price. Putin had connections with Russian organized crime from his KGB days. Money laundering was his specialty. If you are a Russian oligarch in 2017 you have a big problem. You may be fabulously wealthy, but you can't move your money outside of Russia. The sanctions regime is real and it hurts you. You may not even be able to travel outside of Russia for fear of arrest. So the Russian oligarchs are working on diplomatic and business fronts to end the sanctions regime or to move money out of Russia and clean it. They often do this, or try to, using real estate. Pre financial crisis, the oligarchs bought a lot of real estate on Spain's Mediterranean coast. There are reports of Russian army draftees being used as labor to build McMansions in Costa Del Sol. By its nature money laundering will be difficult to prove. If Igor (sanctioned) gives his friend Pavel (unsanctioned) a million dollars, and Pavel gives the money to Spanish real estate investor Martin to buy a condo (for investment), how do you prosecute that? Especially if there is no document laying out a quid pro quo.
The reason I wrote the 8:38 was to show just how unlikely it is that a smoking gun linking Trump to illegal transactions with the Russians will be found, even if he is guilty of making illegal transactions with the Russians. We have no specific crime under investigation, after all. Suppose Flynn testifies that Trump told him to tell the Russians he'll stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act if the Russians give him a billion dollars. Trump will just say that Flynn is lying.
Shortly after Barack Obama began his presidency, he declared that he would re-set US-Russia relations.
Shortly before Obama ended his presidency, he expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed a couple of Russian consular facilities.
What happened in between was this series of events:
* In February 2010, Viktor Yanukovych was elected Ukrainian on a platform of improving Ukraine's relationship with Russia.
* In November 2013, anti-Russian Ukrainians in Kiev began street demonstration to overthrow Yanukovych
* In February 2014, the Russian government published transcripts of an intercepted telephone conversation between a US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, and US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. The transcript reveals that the Obama Administration is meddling in Ukrainian politics and wants Yanukovych to be overthrown.
* On February 21, Yanukovych abandons his presidency.
* As a consequence, the Russians who lived in Ukraine decided that their votes have no value in Ukraine, even when their candidate wins a presidential election.
* In March 2014, Russian-majority Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and to join Russia.
* In May 2014, the Russian-majority Donbass voted likewise to secede from Ukraine and to join Russia.
Thus the Obama administration's meddling in Ukrainian politics backfired and caused large portions of Ukraine to secede and to join Russia.
That is the background for the empowerment of counter-intelligence officials in the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to concoct various paranoid assessments and malicious actions against supposed Russian Intelligence operations in the USA.
US counter-intelligence zealots are unleashed and go wild. Throughout the US Intelligence Community, a hysteria spreads about supposed Russian Intelligence operations.
Soon after Donald Trump becomes a presidential candidate in mid-2015, DOJ/FBI counter-intelligence kooks begin concocting evidence that the Russian Intelligence service is controlling Trump and is meddling in the elections to help him win.
These counter-intelligence loons begin collecting "intelligence" about Russian purchases of Facebook and Twitter ads, about RT television broadcasts, and other such ludicrous nonsense.
As the election race proceeds, and Trump wins the Republican nomination, the paranoid zealots in DOJ/FBI counter-intelligence become hysterical because Trump, an active agent of the Russian Intelligence service, might become the US President.
The counter-intelligence zealots concoct FISA warrants against insignificant volunteer advisers on Trump's campaign staff and then leak to Trump-hating journalists that such FISA warrants have been approved.
* The existence of the FISA warrants proves that the FBI is investigating Russia-Trump collusion.
* The existence of the FBI investigation proves that Trump is colluding with Russia.
* Where there is smoke, there is fire!
The DOJ/FBI counter-intelligence wierdos figured that their leaks about the FISA warrants would warn the electorate that there was a serious danger that an active agent of Russian Intelligence might be elected President.
Now all the insanity of hysterical DOJ/FBI counter-intelligence fools is being revealed to the US public.
* The blatantly false dossier
* The deceptive applications for FISA warrants
* Intelligence reports about RT television broadcasts and about Facebook and Twitter ads
Lewis Wetzel at 8:53 AM ... Suppose Flynn testifies that Trump told him to tell the Russians he'll stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act if the Russians give him a billion dollars. Trump will just say that Flynn is lying.
Do you think it's likely that the Russians offered President Trump a billion dollars to stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act?
If the dust ever settles on the Russian collusion caper, we will find the commie-pinko Dems had more contact with the Rooskies than Trump ever did. While at the same time, making off with pallets of cash.
No. It's just an example, and not a very good one. Since Mueller is not charged with investigating any identified crime, I have to use my imagination. Blogger Mike Sylwester said... Lewis Wetzel at 8:53 AM ... Suppose Flynn testifies that Trump told him to tell the Russians he'll stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act if the Russians give him a billion dollars. Trump will just say that Flynn is lying. Do you think it's likely that the Russians offered President Trump a billion dollars to stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act? 2/9/18, 9:14 AM
As I understand the FISA process, the person the warrant is directed at (Carter Page) has to credibly be guilty of a crime. You aren't allowed to bug Carter Page because his associates are guilty of a crime. So what crime has Carter Page committed? He hasn't been indicted.
As Dep. Assist. AG for National Security Division, he was the Primary Supervisor over Counter-Intelligence work in Nat Sec. He would have had a hand in the approval ofthe FISA application on Page.
He likely had a role in the decision making on the Clinton email investigation since his section handled cases involving leaks of classified information. The deci#sions on granting immunity, and allowing conditions to be attached to the examination of computers, would have come from his office.”
“The press reporting is that he offered his resignation yesterday, effective IMMEDIATELY.”
“That's what happens when you are told that your are the subject of an OPR or OIG investigation.”
Forbes had a very useful timeline of events relating to the FBI and DOJ actions (or nonactions) during the 2016 campaign and the aftermath. The article, written by Thomas Del Beccaro, got 155,000 views and then Forbes suddenly deleted it from their site. It has been reposted at Political Vanguard:
Exiled - I second Original Mike's thank-you. I've tried to limit my "FBI/DOJ abuse" bookmarks to a small handful and the original Forbes article was one of them.
Drunk, British, ex-spy, Christopher Steele is a witness in a libel suit in England filed by one of the Russian folks Steele named in his bullshit dossier. Can't want for Steele's deposition -- but wait, Steele fails to appear. .
This is the FBI's star witness to present to the FISA court to get a highly sensitive NSA wiretap to spy on the Trump campaign during a heated election?
“As I understand the FISA process, the person the warrant is directed at (Carter Page) has to credibly be guilty of a crime. You aren't allowed to bug Carter Page because his associates are guilty of a crime. So what crime has Carter Page committed? He hasn't been indicted.”
Being guilty of having committed a crime, or planning on committing one, is irrelevant in getting a Title I FISA (wiretap) warrant. The purpose of FISA is counterintelligence. It is primarily for spying on our state enemies in their s country. Think of it as originally being the mechanism for the US to intercept the communications of the Soviet embassy in the US, and their diplomats and spies in this country. Which is why I said, way back when FISA first reared it’s head here, that of course, the US was wiretapping (or equivalent) the Russian Ambassador’s external cell phone - US has very likely had the equivalent of a standing FISA warrant for the phones of whomever had that post since the law was first enacted back in the 1970s. A crime isn’t important here to allege in a warrant application, but for US Persons, they must credibly allege that the target is an agent of a foreign power (or international terrorist group).
Two places where the commission of crimes comes into the discussion. First, if FISA sanctioned counterintelligence surveillance turns up criminal activity, that information can be turned over to the criminal side of the FBI and DoJ for prosecution. But if they prosecuted someone for a crime based on a FISA warrant targeted at criminal, and not counterintelligence, activity, then there is a good chance that the information could be suppressed at court, because the underlying warrant was procured on fraudulent grounds. In short, FISA warrants can’t be used as a shortcut for wiretapping criminal suspects. If that is what you want to do, you go to a regular judge in a regular court, showing probable cause that a crime is involved, etc.
The other place where criminal allegations are involved here, is that internal DoJ regulations apparently require that a crime be alleged to have been committed for the appointment of a special prosecutor. This was apparently not followed with the appointment of Mueller. And, yes, he may have used the results of one or more FISA warrants to get some or all of the process convictions that he was able to get - most notably, probably, for Gen Flynn for making inaccurate statements to the FBI. There are rumors that some of Mueller’s convictions might be brought back into court because the underlying wiretaps were illegally obtained. (And, the lead agent, Peter Stryck, was highly biased and partisan). Regardless of that, the Mueller investigation is probably illegitimate, because of the lack of an underlying crime, and the abuse of FISA for criminal investigations, but no one is going to stop it for those reasons the same political reasons that had DAG Rosenstein appointing Mueller in the first place. The investigation is essentially too political to stop, regardless of its legitimacy.
Jonathan Winer, Special envoy to Libya for the Obama State Department and longtime aide/buddy to John Kerry.
What does he have to do with anything?
Well, I'm glad you asked.
What if I told you that Hillary's slimebucket henchmen Blumenthal and Shearer shopped their Russia FSB collusion BS to BOTH Steele (to launder the BS info into weaponizable material for the deep staters AT THE SAME TIME those slimebuckets were laundering the same info through obama's state dept Hillary lackey's?
And what if that laundered info was provided to the FBI in a way to make it appear that Steeles Russia Collusion BS was being validated by other "independent" laundered Russia Collusion BS thru the State dept?
Yes indeed, it appears Hillary Clinton was literally able to purchase a counter-intelligence domestic spying surveillance operation against a domestic political opponent using the intelligence and law enforcement agencies of our federal government by using made up BS procured directly from Putin's pals and handed to her deep state henchmen.
You know, I'm going to go out on a limb here and gently suggest that isn't exactly kosher or cricket, if you know what I mean.
And if you don't believe this is what is emerging in this investigation, then ask yourself just what the hell the WaPo was thinking printing a pre-emptive rebuttal to these facts in its paper today.
A "Pre-buttal" from a fomerly unheard of Kerry Senate Aide/State Dept Staffer under Kerry.
The media continues to demonstrate its simply the media arm of the democrat/deep state operation.
"And what if that laundered info was provided to the FBI in a way to make it appear that Steeles Russia Collusion BS was being validated by other "independent" laundered Russia Collusion BS thru the State dept?"
Yep. Blumenthal and Shearer didn't want their filthy fingerprints on it because everyone knows what they are.
At some point I suppose Obama will realize that when he allied himself with the Clintons, he made a deal with the devil. The metaphor is apt because in deals with the devil the bargainer thinks he is getting a better deal than the devil. The devil knows better.
Blumenthal was the Clinton henchman who tried to peddle the "Monica is a crazed stalker" story to journalists. Blumenthal tried this ploy with Christopher Hitchens, and this was the genesis of Hitchens' book "No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton."
But I wonder if there is any more to be discussed about Mr. Winer? Perhaps his contributions to Hillary or the DNC?
And anyone know the names of Mr. Winer's associates at the State Department? Where was he in relation to reporting to the Secretary of State? I think we need a chart like we've seen for DOJ and FBI.
Lewis Wetzel said... At some point I suppose Obama will realize that when he allied himself with the Clintons, he made a deal with the devil. The metaphor is apt because in deals with the devil the bargainer thinks he is getting a better deal than the devil. The devil knows better.
2/9/18, 12:32 PM
Obama got his start in famously corrupt Chicago. He played pretty damn dirty himself to get to the Senate, so we're not talking about a naïf here. He's made deals with devils before.
This was more like two Mafia crime families who fought in the past, ganging up together to destroy a rival.
Obama wasn't worried about the alliance because if Hillary had won, it never would have come to light. Who would report on it? When has he had to pay for any of his sins? For Solyndra? For Fast and Furious? For the IRS scandal?
In case you missed it (at the very end of the comments to Ann's last dossier post), here is the link to the Jonathan Winer prebuttal to the anticipated Chairman Nunes memorandum regarding the State Department and their involvement with Steele's dossier published in the Washington Post.
BrylunL Re: Winer's prebuttal. It is inconceivable to me (and should be to anyone) that Russian intelligence would forge links with Trump associates, but not with Hillary Clinton associates. After all, Hillary was expected to win, and Hillary's associates have not proven to be more savvy about avoiding links with Russki's than Trump's people have been.
Today we learned that Senator Warner did indeed inform the Senate intelligence committee that he used a text app to text Russian Oligarchs that automatically deleted texts to arrange a clandestine meeting with Christopher Steele 4 months ago.
4 months ago was 7 MONTHS AFTER he tried to set up the meeting.
And why are there democrats talking to Russian Oligarchs to get a hold of Christopher Steele?
Don't worry this is a nothing burger I am sure. Nothing to see here!
Its been reported from the beginning that the D memo was not clean and would need redactions. It's further evidence of the Dems scramble to cover the dirty deeds of the Obama admin and deep state. Stay tuned. It will come out.
The Dem Memo quotes one of the FISA warrants showing that the Dossier was not the only thing the warrant was based on. That’s why they want to hide it, it blows their bullshit out of the water. Cowards.
Schiftee is not at all to be trusted. He's a hack. I will wait for Nunez to produce the FISA transcripts he gets from Collyer. Thats what was presented. Not what the D hacks say they provided.
We already have confirmation of the Nunes memo (written primarily by Trey Gowdy who was the 1 republican allowed by the DOJ/FBI to view the underlying materials per DOJ rules) by the Grassley/Graham FISA court report.
We also have additionally released Strzok texts which reference the FACT that there were actual classified documents (and marked classified, not that markings are required) within the emails recovered from Weiners laptop, not to mention obama himself, personally sending emails to the unsecured server using a pseudonym.
Worse, Strzok references the FACT that the FBI purposely sent over incomplete 302 interview notes to congress (against the oversight rules) which Strzok specifically worried would come out anyway due to FOIA requests and that the Comey Crew would have to work up talking points to deal with.
Ha ha ha ha. Schiff should have hired a better writer. Trump will say the DOJ wanted so many redactions the document would have been unreadable. Unreadable doesn’t help clarify anything. Which is why Inga is all for it. I say declassify ALL of the FISA applications and do away with summaries. Sunshine baby. That’s what we need. The D memo was a bad joke. The Ds are a bad joke lately.
Inga: "Nunez is not to be trusted he’s a Trump stooge."
It was Gowdy who provided the content and Grassley/Graham have both seen the same info and their memo confirms the Nunes memo.
Next up: Nunes memo on the role Hillary's henchmen in the State Dept played in routing the same BS Russian FSB provided dossier nonsense to the FBI as if it were an "independent" source separate from Fusion/Simpson/Steele.
Then: Goodlatte memo.
Then IG Horowitz report.
BTW, all the text info is coming out of the Horowitz investigation. No wonder Sally Yates improperly denied Horowitz Inspector General access and oversight of the DOJ National Security Division.
A ruling which Sessions properly overturned the minute he assumed the AG Role.
When the FBI tried to lie about missing 6 months worth of texts, Horowitz' staff found those texts within 3 days.
Gee, I wonder how it was that the Comey Crew was unable to find those?....LOL
So, just to recap: House republicans voted unanimously to release the democrat memo.
House democrats voted unanimously to NOT release the republican memo.
Feel free to draw reasonable conclusions.
And now, after all this time, we find all kinds of democrats and obama admin personnel actually colluding (we know names, times, content, quid pro quo's (cash, uranium)) with Putin's Russian FSB amigos.
Which is precisely why they needed to project what they had done on to Trump where we have seen.....nothing.
Seeing Red: "As a Rantburger pointed out, if they’re gone, they can’t be called to testify in front of Congress"
Plenty of documentary evidence of what they actually pulled for any follow on prosecutor/FBI investigation (under new leadership).
That's what IG Horowitz has been gathering for the last year and why the dems tried so hard to keep him out of the DOJ National Security Division, which, by the way, is where so many of the resignations have come out of on the DOJ side.
Can you imagine how happy Putin and his minions were to find out obama and Hillary were happy to collude with his Russian FSB and affiliated pals to actually run a domestic operation against a domestic political opponent?
Better yet, Hillary and obama were happy to have their minions actually PAY for the fake info!
What a party that must have been in the Kremlin.
And Putin and his pals could hardly believe their luck that the dems were happy to believe insane stories, up to and including bizarre golden showers lies! What a Russian FSB/Putin bonanza!
And even Dem senators reaching out independently, secretly, to get the same info!!
Right now, in the middle of an investigation that was looking into make-believe Trump/Russia collusion, we have already definitively discovered about 5 or 6 different pathways of actual Dem/Russia collusion to influence our election.
I mean, what would you call $100,000 (a down-payment for a promised cool $1,000,000) payment to Russian FSB sources for dirt on Trump?
If you recall, the mere suggestion of Don Jr attending a meeting with someone who claimed they might have dirt on Hillary was enough for the dems to label all the republicans traitors.
And here we have our own obama govt and Hillary campaign spending millions directly to Russians for dirt which they then injected into our political processes.
A source who read the FISA rebuttal memo told Fox News earlier this week that it is filled with sources and methods taken from the original documents. The source argued that this was done to strategically force the White House to either deny release of the memo or substantially redact it, so that Democrats could accuse the White House of making redactions for political reasons.
South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, a GOP member of the committee, said during an interview this week on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that Democrats “are politically smart enough to put things in the memo” that have to be redacted.
“Therefore, it creates this belief that there's something being hidden from the American people,” Gowdy said.
Fullmoon: "South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, a GOP member of the committee, said during an interview this week on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that Democrats “are politically smart enough to put things in the memo” that have to be redacted"
Many republicans and conservatives are saying to just release it anyway to not give the dems the talking points they certainly contrived to have.
Of course, if Trump does release the unredacted version you can already hear the howls from the dems that Trump doesn't care about national security and should be impeached.
Mary Anne Marsh actually argued both sides of that coin this evening on McCallum's show. March chastised Trump for wanting to redact sources and methods while simultaneously arguing how reckless it would be to release sources and methods.
BTW, the obama/CIA hacks colluding with the Russians paid the $100,000 for a grainy video of some dude in a room with hookers that the Russians claimed was Trump but was clearly too unrecognizable in the video.
So, think about that for a minute. In this day and age you can get perfectly clear video of just about anything you want. You can go to best buy and get the stuff to do it yourself.
But here are the Russian FSB (KGB) guys, colluding with our own CIA, but only providing 1960'/70's type grainy video!
LOL
And the CIA schmucks paid them anyway!!
We were certainly in the best of hands with the dems in charge.
“Nunes sent his senior staffer Kashyap Patel and another committee staff member to London last summer to meet with Steele, The New York Times reported early this month. The two showed up unannounced at Steele’s office, and neither Democrats on the committee nor the U.S. Embassy in London were made aware of the trip. Steele refused to meet with the Republican staffers at the time. The trip was first reported last year soon after it happened.”
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 50% of Likely U.S. Voters believe it’s at least Somewhat Likely senior federal law enforcement officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the presidency,
BTW, the obama/CIA hacks colluding with the Russians paid the $100,000 for a grainy video of some dude in a room with hookers that the Russians claimed was Trump but was clearly too unrecognizable in the video.
Uh . . . it's possible that was me, Drago. But Weinstein forced me to do it! #MeToo!
Inga: "Inga said... “Nunes sent his senior staffer Kashyap Patel and another committee staff member to London last summer to meet with Steele,...."
LOL
Inga disapproves of Nunes and his committee staffers doing their constitutionally mandated job of oversight of the intelligence agencies by interviewing one of the most important witnesses who worked with our own FBI.
Meanwhile, Inga has no problem whatsoever with Senate Intelligence committee member Sen Warner (D-Kremlin) from wanting secret meetings with Putin Pal and Russian FSB/Organized Crime figure and arranging this through a Hillary Clinton campaign amigo working as a lobbyist.
But. Of. Course.
When this is all said and done we will find that ALL of the "information pathways" that brought false info to the obama DOJ/FBI which was then weaponized against a domestic political opponent will have originated with the Clintons and their direct associates. ALL information pathways. No exceptions. Mark it down.
I should add one caveat to my previous: Glen Simpson/Fusion GPS and CrowdStrike will also have played a role in coordinating with the Clinton Gang since both of those firms will be found to have been contractors hired by DOJ/NSA to filter raw 702 data.
Simpson/Fusion GPS will be found to be a key coordination node acting as a gatekeeper for all the information as well as playing a key role (already confirmed) in planting stories in the media which were then used as "corroboration" for the other democrat Clinton dossier lies.
“I should add one caveat to my previous: Glen Simpson/Fusion GPS and CrowdStrike will also have played a role in coordinating with the Clinton Gang since both of those firms will be found to have been contractors hired by DOJ/NSA to filter raw 702 data.
Simpson/Fusion GPS will be found to be a key coordination node acting as a gatekeeper for all the information as well as playing a key role (already confirmed) in planting stories in the media which were then used as "corroboration" for the other democrat Clinton dossier lies.”
I remain unconvinced that Fusion and Cloudstrike were some of the contractors that the FBI gave access to the 702 databases. Just too convenient. Cloudstrike still appears to me to have been just a compliant IT consulting firm that was hired to tell the DNC that the Russians hacked their email server (when it was fairly obviously an inside job, given the transfer times involved). 702 access for Fusion though would explain some of the anomalies in their Dossier, such as the wrong Michael Cohen having gone to, I believe, Prague.
But that does bring up something that I mentioned maybe a week ago, and that was that we may be looking at Steele the wrong way. Instead of being the source of the salacious Russian information, it is looking more and more likely that the information was laundered through him to convert it from domestically generated opposition research to an intelligence product, that could be used for the FISA Title I wiretap warrant (of Carter Page). His role here may be key to understanding how the entire scheme was put together, which may be why the Senate Intellgence Committee has sent a criminal referral for him to the DoJ. The other key here are the Ohrs. Bruce Ohr was the #2 (ADAG) in the DoJ National Security Division (NSD), which deals with, among other things, FISA Title I warrants and Title VII database searches, as well as former director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) (he was demoted last year when his relationships with Fusion and Steele started to come out). His wife, Nellie, was a Russian expert who worked at Fusion almost identically at the same time that Steele was working for them - from May to October 21, 2016, at which time, the DoJ and FBI had their Title I warrant, and no more need for the Dossier, or Fusion. What is becoming more evident is that it was probably the Ohrs who brought Fusion together with Steele, who had apparently worked with Bruce Ohr as early as 2006. The Ohrs appear to be on pretty close terms with Glen Simpson and his wife, Mary Jacoby, who own Fusion GPS, One reason that Steele is looking more as the vehicle through which the opposition research was laundered into an intelligence product is that he doesn’t appear to have that good of Russian contacts anymore. He apparently hasn’t been to Russia in 20 years. Indeed, Nellie Ohr seems to be more expert on the Russians than he is. In any case, the latest seems to be that some of the information laundered by Steele and Fusion seems to have come from Clinton operatives, including their long time operative, the odious Sydney “Darth” Blumenthal.
The dominos keep falling. Recently, it was announced that: - Rachael Brand, ADAG (DoJ #3) is leaving to take a top legal job at Walmart. - Mike Kortan, FBI assistant director for public affairs, is set to retire next week, and - David Laufman, chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, resigned abruptly this week. He had been in charge of the Clinton email whitewash, and pre-Mueller Trump/Russia investigation.
ADAG Brand May be a negative, but apparently both Korean and Laufman figured prominently in the Strzok/Page text messages, often, apparently, not in a complimentary way.
The list of FBI officials frequently discussed in the Strzok/Page texts who are no longer in their jobs seems to grow by the day. It includes former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump; former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe; Comey’s chief of staff, James Rybicki; FBI General Counsel James Baker; as well as Strzok himself, who was booted off the special counsel investigation and sent to a job in the FBI’s personnel division, and Page, who was sent back to the DoJ.
@Inga - the Nunes memo was written specifically to minimize the amount of classified information it contained. And, indeed, it merely required a couple tweaks to get WH approval. Schiff (who apparently does not have a sister getting divorced from the son of George Soros), had the exact opposite goal - of muddying the waters, and hence most of his memo apparently consisted of classified information that he knew would not be made public. That has been his goal from the beginning - to run the defense of Obama and Lynch for their political weaponization of our counter intelligence services. You see this pretty much every time he grills a witness or talks to a reporter. Nothing new, except that more Republicans than Democrats viewed his unredafted memo.
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98 comments:
dose
This nothingburger is going right to my thighs.
Breaking: Russian Oligarchs caught talking on a yacht. They must have been discussing Trump! Busted!
Warner(D), ugly mug captain go it alone.
Throughout the text exchanges, Warner seemed particularly intent on connecting directly with Steele without anyone else on the Senate Intelligence Committee being in the loop -- at least initially. In one text to the lobbyist, Warner wrote that he would "rather not have a paper trail" of his messages.
I love that part.
So Strozk-y.
Plural of doe.
Mike Sylwester said...
dose
Damn. I screwed up my own joke. Meade's joke.
This dossiosity thing is so memorandom!
-willie
Sock stability.
Many pairs of white socks take on successive shades of iron from the water each time they're washed. For matching socks, take three from the drawer and use the two that match most closely.
The last pair is usually one really white and one really rust.
Why did Warner(D-one ugly fuck) travel to London alone to meet with Steel?
I click for dossiosity!
I am taking this opportunity to point out a YouTube video, done by someone who calls himself SonofNewo and that is titled "Susan Rice Confirms: Trump Tower Wiretapped by FBI". This video was posted in September 2017, but it still is worth watching.
SonofNewo cleverly proves (in my opinion, he proves) that Michael Flynn was being wire-tapped under a FISA warrant when he attended a meeting in Trump Tower on December 15, 2016. Susan Rice unmasked the names of a couple of the meeting's participants -- Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon -- but did not have to unmask Flynn's name, because Flynn was the wire-tap target.
I speculate that the application for the FISA warrant against Flynn was submitted soon after Election Day, November 8, 2016. Already on that day Hillary Clinton and her closest supporters decided to blame her defeat on Russian meddling aided by Trump and his associates.
On that same day, November 8, an article written by Flynn about Turkish politics was published by The Hill. Thus Flynn drew attention to himself as a lobbyist for Turkey.
Flynn's unregistered lobbying for Turkey gave the FBI grounds to get a FISA warrant to wiretap him. The FBI did not care really about Flynn's lobbying for Turkey. That was just a pretext to get a FISA warrant to wiretap him. Rather, the FBI's real purpose for wiretapping Flynn was to obtain information that could be used to accuse Trump and his associates of helping Russia to meddle in our election.
In my comment at 8:02, I forgot to provide the YouTube link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDJDoLjGMKs
Instead of the word Dossiosity, the Daily Caller website is using the phrase Dossier Drip.
Where's my daily dose of dossiosity?
"Stay thirsty my friends."
- The Most Interesting Man in the World, on DossEquis.
Dose damn Russians!
Mainstream version is MSDOSS.
Why are the Russians involved in this at all?
In Putin's Kleptocracy: who owns Russia?, Karen Dawisha explains how Putin and his pals became oligarchs. The CPUSSR owned Russia's natural resources and the USSR's foreign bank accounts. The KGB had custody of these foreign bank accounts. After the fall of the USSR, Putin & friends used the cash assets of the CPUSSR held in foreign banks to set up consortiums that controlled the external sale of Russian natural resources, like oil. They privatized CPUSSR cash held in foreign banks and leveraged that cash to buy resources at the low, internal Russia price and then sell the resources for the much higher external price.
Putin had connections with Russian organized crime from his KGB days. Money laundering was his specialty.
If you are a Russian oligarch in 2017 you have a big problem. You may be fabulously wealthy, but you can't move your money outside of Russia. The sanctions regime is real and it hurts you. You may not even be able to travel outside of Russia for fear of arrest.
So the Russian oligarchs are working on diplomatic and business fronts to end the sanctions regime or to move money out of Russia and clean it. They often do this, or try to, using real estate. Pre financial crisis, the oligarchs bought a lot of real estate on Spain's Mediterranean coast. There are reports of Russian army draftees being used as labor to build McMansions in Costa Del Sol.
By its nature money laundering will be difficult to prove. If Igor (sanctioned) gives his friend Pavel (unsanctioned) a million dollars, and Pavel gives the money to Spanish real estate investor Martin to buy a condo (for investment), how do you prosecute that? Especially if there is no document laying out a quid pro quo.
The reason I wrote the 8:38 was to show just how unlikely it is that a smoking gun linking Trump to illegal transactions with the Russians will be found, even if he is guilty of making illegal transactions with the Russians.
We have no specific crime under investigation, after all.
Suppose Flynn testifies that Trump told him to tell the Russians he'll stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act if the Russians give him a billion dollars. Trump will just say that Flynn is lying.
Stay Dossy, my friends!
Shortly after Barack Obama began his presidency, he declared that he would re-set US-Russia relations.
Shortly before Obama ended his presidency, he expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed a couple of Russian consular facilities.
What happened in between was this series of events:
* In February 2010, Viktor Yanukovych was elected Ukrainian on a platform of improving Ukraine's relationship with Russia.
* In November 2013, anti-Russian Ukrainians in Kiev began street demonstration to overthrow Yanukovych
* In February 2014, the Russian government published transcripts of an intercepted telephone conversation between a US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, and US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. The transcript reveals that the Obama Administration is meddling in Ukrainian politics and wants Yanukovych to be overthrown.
* On February 21, Yanukovych abandons his presidency.
* As a consequence, the Russians who lived in Ukraine decided that their votes have no value in Ukraine, even when their candidate wins a presidential election.
* In March 2014, Russian-majority Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and to join Russia.
* In May 2014, the Russian-majority Donbass voted likewise to secede from Ukraine and to join Russia.
Thus the Obama administration's meddling in Ukrainian politics backfired and caused large portions of Ukraine to secede and to join Russia.
That is the background for the empowerment of counter-intelligence officials in the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to concoct various paranoid assessments and malicious actions against supposed Russian Intelligence operations in the USA.
US counter-intelligence zealots are unleashed and go wild. Throughout the US Intelligence Community, a hysteria spreads about supposed Russian Intelligence operations.
Soon after Donald Trump becomes a presidential candidate in mid-2015, DOJ/FBI counter-intelligence kooks begin concocting evidence that the Russian Intelligence service is controlling Trump and is meddling in the elections to help him win.
These counter-intelligence loons begin collecting "intelligence" about Russian purchases of Facebook and Twitter ads, about RT television broadcasts, and other such ludicrous nonsense.
As the election race proceeds, and Trump wins the Republican nomination, the paranoid zealots in DOJ/FBI counter-intelligence become hysterical because Trump, an active agent of the Russian Intelligence service, might become the US President.
The counter-intelligence zealots concoct FISA warrants against insignificant volunteer advisers on Trump's campaign staff and then leak to Trump-hating journalists that such FISA warrants have been approved.
* The existence of the FISA warrants proves that the FBI is investigating Russia-Trump collusion.
* The existence of the FBI investigation proves that Trump is colluding with Russia.
* Where there is smoke, there is fire!
The DOJ/FBI counter-intelligence wierdos figured that their leaks about the FISA warrants would warn the electorate that there was a serious danger that an active agent of Russian Intelligence might be elected President.
Now all the insanity of hysterical DOJ/FBI counter-intelligence fools is being revealed to the US public.
* The blatantly false dossier
* The deceptive applications for FISA warrants
* Intelligence reports about RT television broadcasts and about Facebook and Twitter ads
* The acquisition of Ham radio licenses
And so forth and so on.
Lewis Wetzel at 8:53 AM
... Suppose Flynn testifies that Trump told him to tell the Russians he'll stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act if the Russians give him a billion dollars. Trump will just say that Flynn is lying.
Do you think it's likely that the Russians offered President Trump a billion dollars to stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act?
The foundation for the FISA warrant is crumbling - some might label it the Leaning Tower of FISA.
If the dust ever settles on the Russian collusion caper, we will find the commie-pinko Dems had more contact with the Rooskies than Trump ever did. While at the same time, making off with pallets of cash.
No. It's just an example, and not a very good one. Since Mueller is not charged with investigating any identified crime, I have to use my imagination.
Blogger Mike Sylwester said...
Lewis Wetzel at 8:53 AM
... Suppose Flynn testifies that Trump told him to tell the Russians he'll stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act if the Russians give him a billion dollars. Trump will just say that Flynn is lying.
Do you think it's likely that the Russians offered President Trump a billion dollars to stop enforcing the Magnitsky Act?
2/9/18, 9:14 AM
As I understand the FISA process, the person the warrant is directed at (Carter Page) has to credibly be guilty of a crime. You aren't allowed to bug Carter Page because his associates are guilty of a crime. So what crime has Carter Page committed? He hasn't been indicted.
“David Laufman resignation is a big deal.
As Dep. Assist. AG for National Security Division, he was the Primary Supervisor over Counter-Intelligence work in Nat Sec. He would have had a hand in the approval ofthe FISA application on Page.
He likely had a role in the decision making on the Clinton email investigation since his section handled cases involving leaks of classified information. The deci#sions on granting immunity, and allowing conditions to be attached to the examination of computers, would have come from his office.”
“The press reporting is that he offered his resignation yesterday, effective IMMEDIATELY.”
“That's what happens when you are told that your are the subject of an OPR or OIG investigation.”
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/961688261667311618.html
Forbes had a very useful timeline of events relating to the FBI and DOJ actions (or nonactions) during the 2016 campaign and the aftermath. The article, written by Thomas Del Beccaro, got 155,000 views and then Forbes suddenly deleted it from their site. It has been reposted at Political Vanguard:
http://politicalvanguard.com/biased-fbi-and-doj-officials-broke-the-law-and-tried-to-decide-the-election-an-annotated-timeline/
”Forbes suddenly deleted it from their site.”
Holy cow, they did! I had bookmarked it because the timeline is very useful. Thanks for pointing out its new home.
Exiled - I second Original Mike's thank-you. I've tried to limit my "FBI/DOJ abuse" bookmarks to a small handful and the original Forbes article was one of them.
Drunk, British, ex-spy, Christopher Steele is a witness in a libel suit in England filed by one of the Russian folks Steele named in his bullshit dossier. Can't want for Steele's deposition -- but wait, Steele fails to appear. .
This is the FBI's star witness to present to the FISA court to get a highly sensitive NSA wiretap to spy on the Trump campaign during a heated election?
@Humperdink,
The foundation for the FISA warrant is crumbling - some might label it the Leaning Tower of FISA
Thread winner!
“As I understand the FISA process, the person the warrant is directed at (Carter Page) has to credibly be guilty of a crime. You aren't allowed to bug Carter Page because his associates are guilty of a crime. So what crime has Carter Page committed? He hasn't been indicted.”
Being guilty of having committed a crime, or planning on committing one, is irrelevant in getting a Title I FISA (wiretap) warrant. The purpose of FISA is counterintelligence. It is primarily for spying on our state enemies in their s country. Think of it as originally being the mechanism for the US to intercept the communications of the Soviet embassy in the US, and their diplomats and spies in this country. Which is why I said, way back when FISA first reared it’s head here, that of course, the US was wiretapping (or equivalent) the Russian Ambassador’s external cell phone - US has very likely had the equivalent of a standing FISA warrant for the phones of whomever had that post since the law was first enacted back in the 1970s. A crime isn’t important here to allege in a warrant application, but for US Persons, they must credibly allege that the target is an agent of a foreign power (or international terrorist group).
Two places where the commission of crimes comes into the discussion. First, if FISA sanctioned counterintelligence surveillance turns up criminal activity, that information can be turned over to the criminal side of the FBI and DoJ for prosecution. But if they prosecuted someone for a crime based on a FISA warrant targeted at criminal, and not counterintelligence, activity, then there is a good chance that the information could be suppressed at court, because the underlying warrant was procured on fraudulent grounds. In short, FISA warrants can’t be used as a shortcut for wiretapping criminal suspects. If that is what you want to do, you go to a regular judge in a regular court, showing probable cause that a crime is involved, etc.
The other place where criminal allegations are involved here, is that internal DoJ regulations apparently require that a crime be alleged to have been committed for the appointment of a special prosecutor. This was apparently not followed with the appointment of Mueller. And, yes, he may have used the results of one or more FISA warrants to get some or all of the process convictions that he was able to get - most notably, probably, for Gen Flynn for making inaccurate statements to the FBI. There are rumors that some of Mueller’s convictions might be brought back into court because the underlying wiretaps were illegally obtained. (And, the lead agent, Peter Stryck, was highly biased and partisan). Regardless of that, the Mueller investigation is probably illegitimate, because of the lack of an underlying crime, and the abuse of FISA for criminal investigations, but no one is going to stop it for those reasons the same political reasons that had DAG Rosenstein appointing Mueller in the first place. The investigation is essentially too political to stop, regardless of its legitimacy.
Fron Warner (D-Kremlin) to Winer.
Jonathan Winer, Special envoy to Libya for the Obama State Department and longtime aide/buddy to John Kerry.
What does he have to do with anything?
Well, I'm glad you asked.
What if I told you that Hillary's slimebucket henchmen Blumenthal and Shearer shopped their Russia FSB collusion BS to BOTH Steele (to launder the BS info into weaponizable material for the deep staters AT THE SAME TIME those slimebuckets were laundering the same info through obama's state dept Hillary lackey's?
And what if that laundered info was provided to the FBI in a way to make it appear that Steeles Russia Collusion BS was being validated by other "independent" laundered Russia Collusion BS thru the State dept?
Yes indeed, it appears Hillary Clinton was literally able to purchase a counter-intelligence domestic spying surveillance operation against a domestic political opponent using the intelligence and law enforcement agencies of our federal government by using made up BS procured directly from Putin's pals and handed to her deep state henchmen.
You know, I'm going to go out on a limb here and gently suggest that isn't exactly kosher or cricket, if you know what I mean.
And if you don't believe this is what is emerging in this investigation, then ask yourself just what the hell the WaPo was thinking printing a pre-emptive rebuttal to these facts in its paper today.
A "Pre-buttal" from a fomerly unheard of Kerry Senate Aide/State Dept Staffer under Kerry.
The media continues to demonstrate its simply the media arm of the democrat/deep state operation.
Democracy dies in Deep State Darkness.
"And what if that laundered info was provided to the FBI in a way to make it appear that Steeles Russia Collusion BS was being validated by other "independent" laundered Russia Collusion BS thru the State dept?"
Yep. Blumenthal and Shearer didn't want their filthy fingerprints on it because everyone knows what they are.
Wasn't Blumenthal the Clinton surrogate who started the "birther" gossip?
Slimey Sid Blumenthal was the cretin employed by the Clinton White House to dish dirt on Monica Lewinsky. He was one of only a few folks who were deposed in Clinton impeachment trial
Any comments on the new dossier-related name: Jonathan Winer?
Fabi: "Wasn't Blumenthal the Clinton surrogate who started the "birther" gossip?"
He's been involved in every Clinton OP since the 90's.
At some point I suppose Obama will realize that when he allied himself with the Clintons, he made a deal with the devil. The metaphor is apt because in deals with the devil the bargainer thinks he is getting a better deal than the devil. The devil knows better.
Blumenthal was the Clinton henchman who tried to peddle the "Monica is a crazed stalker" story to journalists. Blumenthal tried this ploy with Christopher Hitchens, and this was the genesis of Hitchens' book "No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton."
Drago, I agree with you re: Winer.
But I wonder if there is any more to be discussed about Mr. Winer? Perhaps his contributions to Hillary or the DNC?
And anyone know the names of Mr. Winer's associates at the State Department? Where was he in relation to reporting to the Secretary of State? I think we need a chart like we've seen for DOJ and FBI.
Lewis Wetzel said...
At some point I suppose Obama will realize that when he allied himself with the Clintons, he made a deal with the devil. The metaphor is apt because in deals with the devil the bargainer thinks he is getting a better deal than the devil. The devil knows better.
2/9/18, 12:32 PM
Obama got his start in famously corrupt Chicago. He played pretty damn dirty himself to get to the Senate, so we're not talking about a naïf here. He's made deals with devils before.
This was more like two Mafia crime families who fought in the past, ganging up together to destroy a rival.
Obama wasn't worried about the alliance because if Hillary had won, it never would have come to light. Who would report on it? When has he had to pay for any of his sins? For Solyndra? For Fast and Furious? For the IRS scandal?
In case you missed it (at the very end of the comments to Ann's last dossier post), here is the link to the Jonathan Winer prebuttal to the anticipated Chairman Nunes memorandum regarding the State Department and their involvement with Steele's dossier published in the Washington Post.
"El Secreto Tormenta"
Howard: "El Secreto Tormenta"
Your gender and syntax are incorrect.
In any event its still better than "la tortuga secreta"
Drago: How dare you, it's a Xe program
BrylunL
Re: Winer's prebuttal.
It is inconceivable to me (and should be to anyone) that Russian intelligence would forge links with Trump associates, but not with Hillary Clinton associates. After all, Hillary was expected to win, and Hillary's associates have not proven to be more savvy about avoiding links with Russki's than Trump's people have been.
Howard: "Drago: How dare you, it's a Xe program"
Xou are correct. Well played "2018 Man". Well played.
Today we learned that Senator Warner did indeed inform the Senate intelligence committee that he used a text app to text Russian Oligarchs that automatically deleted texts to arrange a clandestine meeting with Christopher Steele 4 months ago.
4 months ago was 7 MONTHS AFTER he tried to set up the meeting.
And why are there democrats talking to Russian Oligarchs to get a hold of Christopher Steele?
Don't worry this is a nothing burger I am sure. Nothing to see here!
Today we also learned that one of Christopher Steele's sources was Sidney Blumenthal.
Yeah nothing to see here.
Is it cold at the WINTER OLYMPICS or something?
Josh Campell quits FBI because people are saying mean stuff about FBI! Writes a bunch of stupid op-ed's.
Josh Campell turns out to be Jim Comey's personal assistant at the FBI.
Josh Campell immediately is hired by CNN.
You can't make this shit up.
Trump cleared the Schiff memo or is expected to clear it. There goes another theory that he'd obstruct by refusing to release it.
Rachel Brand checked out at DOJ today. Wasn't she the Hahhvahhd girl who Sessions cited right next to Rosenstein as "the type?"
So the lobbyist warmer consulted was legal counsel to the foreign minister lavrov
Maybe hews one of his so-called sources, meaning steele.
This stuff was 95% sure never to see the light of day.
And: American Spies Paid $100,000 to Russian Who Wanted to Sell Material on Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/politics/us-cyberweapons-russia-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Turns out, our NSA and CIA as well as FBI and Justice officials are not only corrupt, but also inept.
So we got that goin for us
Which is nice!
Trump will not release Dem Memo. What does he have to hide? This is so damning to him. What an idiot.
Trump cleared the Schiff memo or is expected to clear it. There goes another theory that he'd obstruct by refusing to release it.”
Spoke too soon, didn’t you?
Its been reported from the beginning that the D memo was not clean and would need redactions. It's further evidence of the Dems scramble to cover the dirty deeds of the Obama admin and deep state. Stay tuned. It will come out.
I was speaking of the conduit:
www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/255020/how-cia-director-john-brennan-targeted-james-comey
Its the same unverified carp we've been hearing for two years
The Dem Memo quotes one of the FISA warrants showing that the Dossier was not the only thing the warrant was based on. That’s why they want to hide it, it blows their bullshit out of the water. Cowards.
No wonder Rachel Brand is leaving. This is a very dirty White House. Why would anyone with integrity want to stay?
Hey Bolivar. How’s the weather in Dnipro?
Did someone mention a "dirty White House"?
That's no way to refer to obambi's operation...
Obama CIA paid $100,000 to Putin's pals to get dirt on Trump.
Hillary and DNC paid Putin's pals to get dirt on Trump.
Our own FBI paid hack Steele's expenses while he was paying off Putin's pals to get dirt on Trump.
Dirty White House indeed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/politics/us-cyberweapons-russia-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&mtrref=ace.mu.nu&gwh=93E8D4690D7DCFF14B6B57D25D271605&gwt=pay
An entire combined Hillary/Russian FSB/DNC/Obama admin/FBI/DOJ/CIA/NSA "Op" to defeat candidate Trump and then overturn a duly elected President.
Schiftee is not at all to be trusted. He's a hack. I will wait for Nunez to produce the FISA transcripts he gets from Collyer. Thats what was presented. Not what the D hacks say they provided.
Nunez is not to be trusted he’s a Trump stooge.
Have they learned anything in the last two years, rhetorical.
We already have confirmation of the Nunes memo (written primarily by Trey Gowdy who was the 1 republican allowed by the DOJ/FBI to view the underlying materials per DOJ rules) by the Grassley/Graham FISA court report.
We also have additionally released Strzok texts which reference the FACT that there were actual classified documents (and marked classified, not that markings are required) within the emails recovered from Weiners laptop, not to mention obama himself, personally sending emails to the unsecured server using a pseudonym.
Worse, Strzok references the FACT that the FBI purposely sent over incomplete 302 interview notes to congress (against the oversight rules) which Strzok specifically worried would come out anyway due to FOIA requests and that the Comey Crew would have to work up talking points to deal with.
Too late Strzok. Too late.
This is very bad for Trump.
Start the leaking.
Ha ha ha ha. Schiff should have hired a better writer. Trump will say the DOJ wanted so many redactions the document would have been unreadable. Unreadable doesn’t help clarify anything. Which is why Inga is all for it. I say declassify ALL of the FISA applications and do away with summaries. Sunshine baby. That’s what we need. The D memo was a bad joke. The Ds are a bad joke lately.
Inga: "Nunez is not to be trusted he’s a Trump stooge."
It was Gowdy who provided the content and Grassley/Graham have both seen the same info and their memo confirms the Nunes memo.
Next up: Nunes memo on the role Hillary's henchmen in the State Dept played in routing the same BS Russian FSB provided dossier nonsense to the FBI as if it were an "independent" source separate from Fusion/Simpson/Steele.
Then: Goodlatte memo.
Then IG Horowitz report.
BTW, all the text info is coming out of the Horowitz investigation. No wonder Sally Yates improperly denied Horowitz Inspector General access and oversight of the DOJ National Security Division.
A ruling which Sessions properly overturned the minute he assumed the AG Role.
When the FBI tried to lie about missing 6 months worth of texts, Horowitz' staff found those texts within 3 days.
Gee, I wonder how it was that the Comey Crew was unable to find those?....LOL
Think Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
“I say declassify ALL of the FISA applications and do away with summaries.”
I agree.
Sunshine baby.
So, just to recap: House republicans voted unanimously to release the democrat memo.
House democrats voted unanimously to NOT release the republican memo.
Feel free to draw reasonable conclusions.
And now, after all this time, we find all kinds of democrats and obama admin personnel actually colluding (we know names, times, content, quid pro quo's (cash, uranium)) with Putin's Russian FSB amigos.
Which is precisely why they needed to project what they had done on to Trump where we have seen.....nothing.
Inga: "I agree"
LOL
The dems are fighting tooth and nail to not allow this.
I wonder why that might be?...
And now Rachel Brand is leaving just in time to appoint someone who is not a democrat partisan/deep stater.
No wonder the left is panicking.
Not that it will help. IG Horowitz at this point cannot be stopped.
As a Rantburger pointed out, if they’re gone, they can’t be called to testify in front of Congress.
Seeing Red: "As a Rantburger pointed out, if they’re gone, they can’t be called to testify in front of Congress"
Plenty of documentary evidence of what they actually pulled for any follow on prosecutor/FBI investigation (under new leadership).
That's what IG Horowitz has been gathering for the last year and why the dems tried so hard to keep him out of the DOJ National Security Division, which, by the way, is where so many of the resignations have come out of on the DOJ side.
Can you imagine how happy Putin and his minions were to find out obama and Hillary were happy to collude with his Russian FSB and affiliated pals to actually run a domestic operation against a domestic political opponent?
Better yet, Hillary and obama were happy to have their minions actually PAY for the fake info!
What a party that must have been in the Kremlin.
And Putin and his pals could hardly believe their luck that the dems were happy to believe insane stories, up to and including bizarre golden showers lies! What a Russian FSB/Putin bonanza!
And even Dem senators reaching out independently, secretly, to get the same info!!
Right now, in the middle of an investigation that was looking into make-believe Trump/Russia collusion, we have already definitively discovered about 5 or 6 different pathways of actual Dem/Russia collusion to influence our election.
I mean, what would you call $100,000 (a down-payment for a promised cool $1,000,000) payment to Russian FSB sources for dirt on Trump?
If you recall, the mere suggestion of Don Jr attending a meeting with someone who claimed they might have dirt on Hillary was enough for the dems to label all the republicans traitors.
And here we have our own obama govt and Hillary campaign spending millions directly to Russians for dirt which they then injected into our political processes.
And then accusing Trump.
Well.
A source who read the FISA rebuttal memo told Fox News earlier this week that it is filled with sources and methods taken from the original documents. The source argued that this was done to strategically force the White House to either deny release of the memo or substantially redact it, so that Democrats could accuse the White House of making redactions for political reasons.
South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, a GOP member of the committee, said during an interview this week on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that Democrats “are politically smart enough to put things in the memo” that have to be redacted.
“Therefore, it creates this belief that there's something being hidden from the American people,” Gowdy said.
Fullmoon: "South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, a GOP member of the committee, said during an interview this week on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that Democrats “are politically smart enough to put things in the memo” that have to be redacted"
Many republicans and conservatives are saying to just release it anyway to not give the dems the talking points they certainly contrived to have.
Of course, if Trump does release the unredacted version you can already hear the howls from the dems that Trump doesn't care about national security and should be impeached.
Mary Anne Marsh actually argued both sides of that coin this evening on McCallum's show. March chastised Trump for wanting to redact sources and methods while simultaneously arguing how reckless it would be to release sources and methods.
Typical.
Did you catch the earlier key point?
obama/dems spent US TAXPAYER MONEY to collude with Russians to get political dirt on Donald Trump.
A domestic political opponent.
Think about that for a minute or two...
BTW, the obama/CIA hacks colluding with the Russians paid the $100,000 for a grainy video of some dude in a room with hookers that the Russians claimed was Trump but was clearly too unrecognizable in the video.
So, think about that for a minute. In this day and age you can get perfectly clear video of just about anything you want. You can go to best buy and get the stuff to do it yourself.
But here are the Russian FSB (KGB) guys, colluding with our own CIA, but only providing 1960'/70's type grainy video!
LOL
And the CIA schmucks paid them anyway!!
We were certainly in the best of hands with the dems in charge.
Top. Men.
“Nunes sent his senior staffer Kashyap Patel and another committee staff member to London last summer to meet with Steele, The New York Times reported early this month. The two showed up unannounced at Steele’s office, and neither Democrats on the committee nor the U.S. Embassy in London were made aware of the trip. Steele refused to meet with the Republican staffers at the time. The trip was first reported last year soon after it happened.”
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-angry-mark-warner-tried-speak-dossier-author-christopher-steele-so-did-801934
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 49% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 50% of Likely U.S. Voters believe it’s at least Somewhat Likely senior federal law enforcement officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the presidency,
Mrs. Brand found a job in the private sector just in time to avoid congressional oversight.
The rats are jumping ship.
Walmart HR will be confused when she requests a post in ANY country that lacks an extradition treaty with the US.
Blogger Drago said...
BTW, the obama/CIA hacks colluding with the Russians paid the $100,000 for a grainy video of some dude in a room with hookers that the Russians claimed was Trump but was clearly too unrecognizable in the video.
Uh . . . it's possible that was me, Drago. But Weinstein forced me to do it! #MeToo!
Inga: "Inga said...
“Nunes sent his senior staffer Kashyap Patel and another committee staff member to London last summer to meet with Steele,...."
LOL
Inga disapproves of Nunes and his committee staffers doing their constitutionally mandated job of oversight of the intelligence agencies by interviewing one of the most important witnesses who worked with our own FBI.
Meanwhile, Inga has no problem whatsoever with Senate Intelligence committee member Sen Warner (D-Kremlin) from wanting secret meetings with Putin Pal and Russian FSB/Organized Crime figure and arranging this through a Hillary Clinton campaign amigo working as a lobbyist.
But. Of. Course.
When this is all said and done we will find that ALL of the "information pathways" that brought false info to the obama DOJ/FBI which was then weaponized against a domestic political opponent will have originated with the Clintons and their direct associates. ALL information pathways. No exceptions. Mark it down.
I should add one caveat to my previous: Glen Simpson/Fusion GPS and CrowdStrike will also have played a role in coordinating with the Clinton Gang since both of those firms will be found to have been contractors hired by DOJ/NSA to filter raw 702 data.
Simpson/Fusion GPS will be found to be a key coordination node acting as a gatekeeper for all the information as well as playing a key role (already confirmed) in planting stories in the media which were then used as "corroboration" for the other democrat Clinton dossier lies.
“I should add one caveat to my previous: Glen Simpson/Fusion GPS and CrowdStrike will also have played a role in coordinating with the Clinton Gang since both of those firms will be found to have been contractors hired by DOJ/NSA to filter raw 702 data.
Simpson/Fusion GPS will be found to be a key coordination node acting as a gatekeeper for all the information as well as playing a key role (already confirmed) in planting stories in the media which were then used as "corroboration" for the other democrat Clinton dossier lies.”
I remain unconvinced that Fusion and Cloudstrike were some of the contractors that the FBI gave access to the 702 databases. Just too convenient. Cloudstrike still appears to me to have been just a compliant IT consulting firm that was hired to tell the DNC that the Russians hacked their email server (when it was fairly obviously an inside job, given the transfer times involved). 702 access for Fusion though would explain some of the anomalies in their Dossier, such as the wrong Michael Cohen having gone to, I believe, Prague.
But that does bring up something that I mentioned maybe a week ago, and that was that we may be looking at Steele the wrong way. Instead of being the source of the salacious Russian information, it is looking more and more likely that the information was laundered through him to convert it from domestically generated opposition research to an intelligence product, that could be used for the FISA Title I wiretap warrant (of Carter Page). His role here may be key to understanding how the entire scheme was put together, which may be why the Senate Intellgence Committee has sent a criminal referral for him to the DoJ. The other key here are the Ohrs. Bruce Ohr was the #2 (ADAG) in the DoJ National Security Division (NSD), which deals with, among other things, FISA Title I warrants and Title VII database searches, as well as former director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) (he was demoted last year when his relationships with Fusion and Steele started to come out). His wife, Nellie, was a Russian expert who worked at Fusion almost identically at the same time that Steele was working for them - from May to October 21, 2016, at which time, the DoJ and FBI had their Title I warrant, and no more need for the Dossier, or Fusion. What is becoming more evident is that it was probably the Ohrs who brought Fusion together with Steele, who had apparently worked with Bruce Ohr as early as 2006. The Ohrs appear to be on pretty close terms with Glen Simpson and his wife, Mary Jacoby, who own Fusion GPS, One reason that Steele is looking more as the vehicle through which the opposition research was laundered into an intelligence product is that he doesn’t appear to have that good of Russian contacts anymore. He apparently hasn’t been to Russia in 20 years. Indeed, Nellie Ohr seems to be more expert on the Russians than he is. In any case, the latest seems to be that some of the information laundered by Steele and Fusion seems to have come from Clinton operatives, including their long time operative, the odious Sydney “Darth” Blumenthal.
The dominos keep falling. Recently, it was announced that:
- Rachael Brand, ADAG (DoJ #3) is leaving to take a top legal job at Walmart.
- Mike Kortan, FBI assistant director for public affairs, is set to retire next week, and
- David Laufman, chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, resigned abruptly this week. He had been in charge of the Clinton email whitewash, and pre-Mueller Trump/Russia investigation.
ADAG Brand May be a negative, but apparently both Korean and Laufman figured prominently in the Strzok/Page text messages, often, apparently, not in a complimentary way.
The list of FBI officials frequently discussed in the Strzok/Page texts who are no longer in their jobs seems to grow by the day. It includes former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump; former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe; Comey’s chief of staff, James Rybicki; FBI General Counsel James Baker; as well as Strzok himself, who was booted off the special counsel investigation and sent to a job in the FBI’s personnel division, and Page, who was sent back to the DoJ.
@Inga - the Nunes memo was written specifically to minimize the amount of classified information it contained. And, indeed, it merely required a couple tweaks to get WH approval. Schiff (who apparently does not have a sister getting divorced from the son of George Soros), had the exact opposite goal - of muddying the waters, and hence most of his memo apparently consisted of classified information that he knew would not be made public. That has been his goal from the beginning - to run the defense of Obama and Lynch for their political weaponization of our counter intelligence services. You see this pretty much every time he grills a witness or talks to a reporter. Nothing new, except that more Republicans than Democrats viewed his unredafted memo.
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