May 24, 2018

At the Springtime Café...

P1170296

... blossom.

83 comments:

Achilles said...

It has been a glorious sunny beautiful week.

Drago said...

So, the FBI completes Jared Kushners background check with every bit of data in Kushner that the entire federal govt can produce and for over a full year....and there are NO investgation concerns..

..so Kushner is given the highest level clearance for a White House staffer.

That can mean only one thing for the left: Kushner is a traitor...

LOL

Sydney said...

I spent some time this week at the American Museum of Natural History. They sell a lot of merchandise with the slogan, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.” We saw this merchandise after watching a planetarium show that explained how different our understanding of the universe is today from just the last century, and before wandering through an exhibit on the origin of man which repeatedly stated that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens never interbred, a belief now known to be false. I have three recommendations for the museum. 1) Stop selling that silly slogan. 2) Create an exhibit on the history of science that illustrates how our understanding and scientific beliefs change with time and new knowledge. 3) Update your human origins display. Just had to get that off my chest.

Chuck said...

Althouse are you following the intriguing and amazingly readable story as it is being developed in New York magazine; about the likelihood that it was Trump, and not Elliott Broidy, who impregnated Miss November 2010?

Take Stormy Daniels, add one million dollars, plus an alleged abortion paid for by the most unlikely hero in the history of the evangelical right, and top it all off with wildly illegal presidential bribery.

Oh and all of the records, computers and cellular phones of Michael Cohen now being reviewed by the FBI.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Lovely.

We had great tree blossoms this year but they were cut short again by harsh hail and cruel heavy rain.


Sydney - the never ending lectures from the preening know-it-all left. ugh.

rhhardin said...

Scythed front yard
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rhhardin/40527937250/sizes/o

Big Mike said...

Latest news is that Kim wants the negotiations back on again. Well played, Donald Trump.

Drago said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Drago said...

LOL

LLR Chuck doing everything he can to avoid talking about how his beloved democrat operational allies turned the entire federal govt into an East German-Stasi-like operation against domestic political opponents for probably the entirety of the obama admin!

Who could possibly have guessed LLR Chuck would do that?......besides every single person alive!

There is clear desperation showing on the part of the dems/lefties and LLR Chuck as the layers are peeled back one by one.

Chuck you are going to really up your game to cover for your lefty pals 'cuz it ain't looking good for them right now.

And Durbin and Blumenthal look like idiots! LOL

That's gotta be killin' you!

Big Mike said...

I was watching Jay Leno’s Garage on YouTube, and I recalled him mentioning something about Trump needing a punch in the mouth so he can learn how to negotiate with people. I wonder if Jay is reconsidering? Nah!

Ken B said...

How politics has declined.
Deep Throat: “Follow the money.”
Chuck: “Follow the sperm.”

walter said...

Kasich has never been suspected of bedding a playboy model.
(His Father worked for the post office after all)

Achilles said...

Chuck said...

Oh and all of the records, computers and cellular phones of Michael Cohen now being reviewed by the FBI.

The 4th amendment are just words to the leftists. Words they want to burn.

Good to know Chuck is a fan of using the government to spy on political opponents.

Ken B said...

Interesting isn’t it that Chuck thinks investigation proves guilt? Setting aside the 4th amendment and so on, he is clearly arguing “no smoke without fire” and also “any FBI interest is smoke”. Accusations are proof.

walter said...

However..don't be surprised if Kasich in this loop:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/us/politics/republicans-democrats-coalition-trump.html

Michael K said...

Poor chuck. None of the high class pussy for you, I see.

Don't you think the guy who paid a million would have asked for DNA if he was not the guy ? Of course, she immediately aborted once the check cleared.

Nice, chuck.

steve uhr said...

I spend half my time convinced that trump is a moron and half my time convinced he is an evil genius. I need a drink.

Browndog said...

Spring was late. Leaves are still not fully out on the trees. Robins had to make nests in eves of houses.

walter said...

Since Donald J. Trump began dominating American politics more than two years ago, Democrats concerned about his policies and behavior have taken solace in a group of influential Republicans who have consistently assailed the president as anathema to the values of their party, and the country more broadly.

In the past year, however, influential liberal donors and operatives have gone from cheering these so-called Never Trump Republicans to quietly working with — and even funding — them. Through invitation-only emails and private, off-the-record meetings, they have formed a loose network of cross-partisan alliances aimed at helping neutralize President Trump, and preventing others from capitalizing on weaknesses in the political system that they say he has exploited.

While this network has mostly eschewed electoral politics, some involved see the potential for it to help form an ideological — and possibly financial — platform to back candidates, including a centrist challenge to Mr. Trump in 2020, possibly from within the G.O.P. or even a third party.

The network — composed of overlapping groups led by Democrats such as the donor Rachel Pritzker and several veteran Obama administration operatives, as well as leading Never Trump Republicans like Evan McMullin, Mindy Finn and William Kristol — aims to chart a middle path between a Republican base falling in line behind Mr. Trump and a liberal resistance trying to pull the Democratic Party left.

Mike Sylwester said...

Mark Steyn has published on his blog an interesting article titled "Tinker, Tailor, Clapper, Carter, Downer, Halper, Spy".

Steyn writes about a conference that took place at Cambridge University on July 11-12, 2016. The conference's title was "2016's Race to Change the World: How the U.S. Presidential Campaign Can Reshape Global Politics and Foreign Policy". The featured speakers included former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former MI6 Director Richard Dearlove.

Steyn's article includes the following passages:

[quote]

.... The conference appears to have been put together at a couple of weeks' notice by Steven Schrage, former "Co-Chair of the G8's Anti-Crime and Terrorism Group" and a well-connected man on the counterterrorism cocktail circuit ... among the small number of strangely prestigious attendees at Mr Schrage's conference were:

~ Carter Page, a petroleum-industry executive and Trump campaign volunteer;

~ Christopher Steele, the former head of the Russia house at MI6;

~ Stefan Halper, a University of Cambridge professor with dual UK/US citizenship.

.... Herewith a note on the academic circuit: emeritus professors and visiting fellows are popular covers with espionage agencies because there's minimal work and extensive foreign travel, to international talking shops like the one above. If you make the mistake of being a multinational businessman and go to foreign countries to meet with other businessmen, you'll be investigated up the wazoo. But, if you're a professor and you go to foreign countries to meet with other professors, the world is your oyster. You also get to meet young people, who are the easiest to recruit.

[end quote]

https://www.steynonline.com/8667/tinker-tailor-clapper-carter-downer-halper-spy

steve uhr said...

God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state. Who do they think they are?

walter said...

You mean a former sec of state turned candidate of Uranium One and "reset" fame?

Browndog said...

What allegations, Steve?

narciso said...

Something to think about:


https://mobile.twitter.com/ThomasWictor/status/999842334396370944

narciso said...



Let me try that again:

https://babalublog.com/2018/05/23/anti-communist-fighter-and-hero-luis-posada-carriles-rip-a-key-figure-in-reagans-anti-communist-central-american-policy-so-castro-wanted-him-murdered-and-obama-holder-wanted-him-deported/

walter said...

narciso,
I knew of the lowly NK infantryman who crossed over laden with parasites..but.
Things are more dire than I thought if that is the product of their premiere translation team.
but all can agree that "hostility to hostility" is a sticking point..

narciso said...

Meanwhile abenatti gets socked with a,10 million dollAr lawsuit

Browndog said...

Thomas Wictor is a thinker, a patriot, and a good man at heart. He is also a mere theorist, that only allows information that supports his theories to be presented.

He still believes that Jeff Sessions is a White Hat, secretly plotting with Trump to ensnare the Deep State.

6 Months ago, maybe. You have to be somewhat delsuinal to believe that today.

narciso said...

Perhaps but his instincts re the gulf states are sharper, sessions operates in an environment where there is a knife around every corner, and that is just the kitchen staff, there is still a bushfire rebellion in Iran, for instance.

Mike Sylwester said...

steve uhr at 10:21 PM
God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state.

Christopher Steele's allegations?

The FBI investigated by interviewing Christopher Steele. He said:

* Donald Trump was being blackmailed by Russian Intelligence

* Carter Page was working as a secret agent of Russian Intelligence

Steele knew this because he was informed by Russian Intelligence insiders.

Did the FBI ask Steele to identify those insiders? I doubt that Steele identified any of them to the FBI. So, Steele's assertions sufficed for the FBI.

Do you, steve uhr, think that Steele's assertions sufficed for the FBI to intercept and study all of Page's private communications for many months?

Furthermore, some of the people conducting this surveillance of Page leaked to journalists that Page was the subject of a FISA warrant. They leaked this secret information in order to cause the public to believe that Trump and his campaign staff -- in particular, Page -- were colluding with Russian Intelligence.

Keep in mind that this FBI operation included the following two elements:

1) Wiretapping based on one person's assertions

2) Leaking to the public that an FBI wiretap investigation was being done.

walter said...

" there is still a bushfire rebellion in Iran, for instance."
Gonna need a translation..including relevance to DOJ

Browndog said...

As to Wictor, it is possible to be right about many things, and still wrong about others.

He's a good read--thought provocative--glad you found him.

narciso said...

The funny thing is Steele couldn't travel to russia so he had to interview then in London or paris or rome, assume waldman who has worked for two Russian principles was one, Milan perhaps mifsud was ticked into the files who would know (The last is known in at leAst two of those venues)

Big Mike said...

Oh and all of the records, computers and cellular phones of Michael Cohen now being reviewed by the FBI.

I don’t see how an honest and honorable man could possibly be happy about this happening. Least of all someone who purports to be a lawyer.

narciso said...

Some,players like prietap laufman one seem to be singing what key is,left unclear.

narciso said...

Cernovich pointed to laufman as a principal mutineer but I had to dig up his bio back to the company and irancontra and October surprise investigation.

Browndog said...

Obama used the full force of the federal government to spy on Trump long before he was a viable candidate.

Let that sink in, then ask why John Roberts changed his mind, then re-wrote Obamacare to be a tax.

Big Mike said...

@steve uhr (10:09), consider the possibility that both options are wrong. Trump is clearly vastly smarter than the people lined up against him, so “moron” is out. Everything he’s accomplished so far has made life better for most Americans, so “evil “ is out. But you are right about one thing. You do need a drink.

Mike Sylwester said...

steve uhr at 10:21 PM
God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state.

The FBI does not have the right to conduct unreasonable investigations of Carter Page, Donald Trump and their associates.

Christopher Steele was a professional spy (i.e. a professional lying, secretive sneak) who was earning his living by writing derogatory reports about people. In this particular, case, Steele was being paid large amounts of money by Hillary Clinton to write derogatory reports about Donald Trump.

If Steele's derogatory reports were essentially the basis for the FBI's investigation of Trump's campaign staff, then it was not a reasonable investigation.

The investigators are discredited by their leaking to journalists, by their personal hatred toward Trump and by their entrapment tactics against Trump's associates.

Browndog said...

Sundance, of Conservation Tree House, is as good as it gets when it comes to investigative journalism.

walter said...

Mike,
There was also a very..selective/exclusive..degree of briefing to Trump.

walter said...

(because otherwise didn't suit Comey's purposes)

narciso said...

They aggregate well the wilderness of mirrors sometimes,their conclusion.

Steele resembles the protagonist of drydens red to black, except he doesn't have a beautiful and resourceful kgb female associate, he was burned by the British snowmen Tomlinson along with 200 others this was before putin knocked the chessboard over, his info was very outdated except for litvinenko a fellow fsb burn out with Chechen sympathies,

Browndog said...

*Conservative Tree House.

narciso said...

Litvinenko in turn fee info to politskayava Avery brave but totally putin deranged syndrome afflicted reporter

narciso said...



You can't make this ip

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/24/washington-dc-capitol-police-evidence-house-hacking-suspect-attorney/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=site-share#pq=ukdP1y

Btw the black list had a story about a senate intelligence committee hack

narciso said...

Fed, so after litvinenko was,poisoned, Steele farmed himself to the bureau, following much of the leads,of Glen Simpson.

His,portfolio was the fifa corruption inquiry that where his bonafides come from.

narciso said...

So he's as reliable as landsdale aide Fletcher prouty who reinvented himself as a railroad executive.

Achilles said...

steve uhr said...
God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state. Who do they think they are?

What crime are they investigating?

Is it now legal to use counter intelligence investigations against political opponents who are protected by the 4th amendment?

Hint: The answer is "no."

Original Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
narciso said...

So the notion he would actually have contact with general erovkin and he would share anything about Gazprom investment strategies is ludicrous he is wormhole from man in Havana or Pender from the Panama book with le carre.

Original Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike Sylwester said...

steve uhr at 10:21 PM
God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state.

During the 1960s, the FBI intended to remove Martin Luther King from his leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. The FBI said that Russian Intelligence was meddling in the Civil Rights Movement and was controlling King secretly. Based on that justification, the FBI wiretapped King for years.

The FBI wiretaps recorded King's sexual adultery, and the FBI leaked that information to journalists who were criticizing King.

The FBI used these tactics with the intention of removing King from his leadership position and further of causing him to commit suicide.

Unfortunately, the FBI has been using similar tactics again. The FBI leadership has been trying to cause political and personal problems for Donald Trump and to remove him from the Presidency.

As the FBI did with King, the FBI justifies its tactics with secret, stupid claims that Russian Intelligence is meddling in US political activities.

As the FBI did with King, the FBI cleverly insinuates and leaks about sexual adultery.

The FBI's investigation of King was not reasonable, and its investigation of Trump is not reasonable. The FBI has been using an investigation as excuse to remove a US citizen from a leadership position in a political movement.

narciso said...

Wormold Guinness character his Austrian doctor was based of hnalmar schacht the notorious German banker, who got involved in a complicated scheme with Aristotle onassis and Saudi oil.

Original Mike said...

Blogger steve uhr said...”God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state. Who do they think they are?”

So I suppose this is right. But surely you accept that their actions need oversight. Otherwise, unscrupulous people could do whatever they wanted. Do you have a problem with oversight?

narciso said...

King did have some red flags notably jack o'dell and Stanley levinson two lefty lawyers, this was in part why rfk agreed to the taps probably against his better judgement, the first rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club.

Original Mike said...

... because they sure seem to have a problem with oversight.

narciso said...

Why it comes full circle is because the subject of the babalu link was framed for a crime he didn't commit by a,confidential informant for many agencies, he revealed this at the tail end of a very long deposition in an unrelated matter.

narciso said...

This,habit isn't particularly unique among security services half of mi 5 suspected Wilson as a,Soviet agent of influencd the asis felt the same about giug Whitlam ( that was the pretext for boyce)

narciso said...

Gough whitlam, now his successor Malcolm Fraser was no great prize either

Ot i skimmed through salters ghosted mccain memoir and we find somethings of note, he was more charitable about the huntress still defends Dan Jones hmm, but also thought Libyan Islamist bel hadj was Victor laszlo.

Yancey Ward said...

Chuck wrote:

"Althouse are you following the intriguing and amazingly readable story as it is being developed in New York magazine; about the likelihood that it was Trump, and not Elliott Broidy, who impregnated Miss November 2010?"

They will eventually find payments to Chuck's mother about around the time Chuck was born.

chickelit said...

If Chuck didn’t exist here at Althouse, she would have to invent him. What a boon to readership.

chickelit said...

So we know who Chuck is at Althouse, and we know who Lucy is too. So who is Linus?

Achilles said...

Chuck said...
Althouse are you following the intriguing and amazingly readable story as it is being developed in New York magazine; about the likelihood that it was Trump, and not Elliott Broidy, who impregnated Miss November 2010?

Take Stormy Daniels, add one million dollars, plus an alleged abortion paid for by the most unlikely hero in the history of the evangelical right, and top it all off with wildly illegal presidential bribery.



Watching Chuck do an endo off the deep end means it was a bad day for democrats and a good day for our country. =D

Bruce Hayden said...

"God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state."

They weren't, of course, doing that initially. Rather, it started with, essentially, the CIA trying to build the case that the Russians were coming, or at least infiltrating a Presidential campaign. One operative set the hook, claiming that they had a connection to get Crooked Hillary's missing emails from the Russians, which would be the ultimate opposition research data against her, since it very likely contained the details of her pay-to-play scheme that made the Clintons so rich during the time she was Sec of State. Then, a bit later another operative tried to reel them in by asking about the emails. This was supposed to be the justification for the counterintelligence probe for Russian involvement, which would let them spy on Trump and his people. Step three, after they were supposed to have found some crimes, was a criminal investigation.

The first problem they faced was that Adm Rogers had just shut them off from using the NSA's FISA Title VII database to doing opposition research on Trump. He caught the FBI allowing what appear to have been Clinton and DNC contractors having free rein to search such to their heart's content. So, to regain the ability to surveil the Trump campaign, they needed some sort of justification for an FBI investigation. A criminal investigation was initially out, because of the pesky 4th Amdt requirement for probable cause that a crime had occurred. That is where the counterintelligence investigation came in - to "accidentally discover" the criminality that they knew must be there, justifying a criminal investigation. But they couldn't start their counterintelligence investigation until they had proof of Russian involvement, which is where the CIA came in, to generate the suspicion of Russian involvement, and the FBI would take it from there. And did, despite the Trump people refusing to play along - the FBI started their counterintelligence operation based on the information that the CIA had wanted to generate and failed to, and then started their criminal investigations without any real crimes having been committed (one of the places where DAG Yates and her Logan Act theory fit in).

One big reason that the Spygate, and the subsequent FISAgate are falling apart is that the plotters were sloppy and in a hurry. And assumed that Crooked Hillary would be in the White House, and Clapper, Brennan, and Lynch could clean up what needed to be cleaned up, having all been retained, thanks to their loyal service to the queen. So, instead of actually waiting for Russian collusion to be shown, they just assumed it, despite the Trump people having not not fallen for the CIA's attempts to manufacture it. And they jumped into a criminal investigation based on a likely unconstitutional 200 year old statute that was used twice in the 19th Century, but never resulted in convictions, when they couldn't find any real criminality. Their problem, of course, is that Trump won, set the IG loose, that Yates had bottled up, and isn't allowing the career DoJ/FBI people to slow walk any Congressional investigators through their control of the classification system, until they gave up in frustration.

Bruce Hayden said...

"God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state."

Which, of course, is a totally BS excuse for Spygate., manufactured two years after the spying actually was supposed to have been justified. Several problems with this bogus justification:
- If there had actually been any infiltration, the CIA wouldn't have used such elaborate measures. They set the hook with one operative, telling Trump people that the Russians had the missing Clinton emails, then had another operative (who was a good friend of the first one) ask the same target about the Clinton emails supposedly in the hands of the Russians. Oh, with some Russian honeypots thrown at the target just to make things interesting.
- Carter Page had been an FBI informant, working with the FBI for years, up until a month or two (probably up to 3/2016) before the CIA tried to entrap him (and notice that this minor fact was not told to the FISC either, when the DoJ and FBI were later acquiring the 4 FISA warrants on him). There was never an real need to do any of this, because he, no doubt, likely believed that he was still an FBI informant, and would have told the FBI anything that they wanted to know, if they had just asked. My guess that the reason Page was picked, was that everyone, including the FBI and Russian intelligence, knew that he was a useful, well meaning, idiot.
- Why didn't the CIA and/or FBI just tell Trump that they thought that his campaign had been infiltrated? The answer, of course, is that that pretext for spying, etc, was never the real reason, but rather a years later fabricated pretext to justify clearly highly illegal and immoral actions by those involved.

Bruce Hayden said...

Further evidence that the scheme is being rapidly unwound is that assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division E W (Bill) Priestap is finally being allowed to testify before Congresssional committees. He was originally scheduled last January, but that, along with the appearances of several orders, called by Congress to testify were quietly dropped. My guess is that IG Horowitz, along with USA Huber, told Nunes, etc, that they needed a clean investigation in order to have the best chance of criminal convictions, and Congressional testimony would screw that up. They wanted the grand jury to hear these witnesses first, and have the resulting arrest warrants in hand before Congress got to interview these witnesses. And, significantly, the OIG has their second report coming out most likely in the coming week.

Bill Priestap is significant here for a number of reasons. He is maybe the only high ranking person involved who has not been demoted, reassigned, forced to quit, or fired. He reported directly to Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok was his assistant. And, importantly, he was apparently the one who told Comey not to report the Carter Page FISA warrants to the Gang of 8, like he was legally required to. What is going on there? I think that he was mostly a white hat, and was quickly flipped by the IG, after having been allowed to investigate the DOJ NSD and FBI Counterintelligence Division, upon the firing of DAG Yates by Trump. One of the things that I saw, having read a number of Strzok/Page text messages, was that getting around Priestap was a continuing problem for Strzok. He would say things like "I will bring it up with Andy, if Bill isn't at the meeting, because I can't control it then" (not actual quote - just illustrative). Priestap should have been at the center of everything, from the Clinton email investigation forward, but likely was intentionally kept partly out of the loop (as I suspect Comey was). Everything, including collaborating with the CIA, the FISA warrants, picking Mueller and his team, etc. except that I don't think that he really was, which is why I think he still has his job, and why his testimony is probably going to be important.

Humperdink said...

steve uhr said: "I spend half my time convinced that trump is a moron and half my time convinced he is an evil genius. I need a drink."

It's comments like these that have me convinced the commie-pinko lefties have completely lost their marbles. Say what you want about Trump, but labeling him a moron is not one of them. You steve, might want to verify your own intellectual capacity.

steve uhr further stated: "God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state. Who do they think they are?"

Not only did they have the temerity, they had an obligation. But they failed to alert the Trump campaign, which revealed their true colors. They were only after Trump, not the Rooskies. You may want to re-think your moron comment steve.

traditionalguy said...

Watching the always Anti-Trump media shows this AM is like watching Baghdad Bob muttering to himself over and over. They are in a freefall to a psychotic break. The pretty acolytes sitting there listening to it seem strangely aware they are watching insanity.

Darrell said...

The writers behind the Playmate of the Month November 2010 Shera Bechard and Trump rumor are quite clear that it is a theory made up out of whole cloth. Just like the FBI/CIA/NSA investigation of Trump.

I have it on good authority that Chuck was the first person to successfully fuck himself when he stepped into an interdimensional rift and the molecular distortion allowed the act to take place. He can be clearly seem on CVS security tapes buying a six-pack of Fleet Enema single-use laxatives, while muttering about "butt-babies." I doubt he will confess here because it is clear he got himself to sign a NDA with a $1 Billion payment--the exact amount he bet Trump for a winner-take-all golf match. The evidence is overwhelming.

tim in vermont said...

"God forbid the FBI would have the temerity to investigate allegations that a presidential campaign had been infiltrated by an enemy foreign state. Who do they think they are?”

This is from Snopes’ incoherent “debunking” of the Uranium One deal, which the FBI showed little interest in, once it was linked to Clinton. It comes in the form of an “update”:

On 17 October 2017, The Hill reported obtaining evidence that Vadim Mikerin, a Russian official who oversaw the American operations of the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, was being investigated for corruption by multiple U.S. agencies while the Uranium One deal was up for approval — information that apparently was not shared with U.S. officials involved in approving the transaction. The Hill also reported receiving documents and eyewitness testimony “indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow,” although no specifics about who those Russian nuclear officials were or how the money was allegedly routed to the Clinton Foundation were given. In any case, none of these revelations prove that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton participated in a quid pro quo agreement to accept payment for approval of the Uranium One deal.

I love the bolded text. We have had revelation on revelation as to how FBI fixers covered for Hillary, even changing the language “gross negligence” to “extreme carelessness.” But the above paragraph pretty much flatly contradicts the authoritative “debunking” Snopes had written during the campaign.


Jersey Fled said...

Beautiful summary by Bruce this morning. Three long posts, but we'll worth the time to read them. This is a complicated story, but Bruce is correct when he states the real start to this was when Adm. Rogers locked Hillary's "contractors" out of the NSA database. That started a hasty scramble to find another way spy on Trump.

And if you don't think that the Whitehouse was complicit in this, you are sadly misinformed.


Michael K said...

"the FBI allowing what appear to have been Clinton and DNC contractors "

The DNC "contractor" was Crowdstrike, the outfit that supposedly "examined the DNC server which was not provided to the FBI.

The reason is that the FBI cyber guys would immediately recognize that Crowdstrike was not called in because of the "hack" but was there all along screening NSA intercepts. It was they that Rogers shut down.

narciso said...

Is this the same new york magazine that dropped the Weinstein story in October 2016, which was going all Cosby 24/7

Bruce Hayden said...

""the FBI allowing what appear to have been Clinton and DNC contractors ""

"The DNC "contractor" was Crowdstrike, the outfit that supposedly "examined the DNC server which was not provided to the FBI.

The reason is that the FBI cyber guys would immediately recognize that Crowdstrike was not called in because of the "hack" but was there all along screening NSA intercepts. It was they that Rogers shut down."

Do you have some hard Evidence that one of the contractors was Cloudstrike? The FISC opinion has that information redacted, and everything else I have seen seems to be conjecture. Fusion GPS seems more logical to me, since they were in the business of opposition research, we are pretty sure that the FBI was allowing contractors to search the databases for such, and that company seems to have been in possession of information that almost assuredly came from a search of those databases (that the wrong Michael Cohen had been in Prague, found in their Steele Dossier).

Cloudstrike, on the other hand, is apparently an IT company, and the FBI's failure to demand access to the DNC could maybe be better explained by orders from the top (Obama and Lynch), due to realistic fears about what else compromising they might find on the server. Moreover, the Russian Hacking claim was probably unlikely to survive a comprehensive FBI audit of the DNC server, if for no other reason than the transfer time stamps strongly indicate an inside job. Cloudstrike Could be trusted with the data on the server. The FBI, maybe not - potentially too many straight arrows over there.

In any case, I have heard a lot of assertions about these two firms, but never seen any hard evidence, either way which is what I am looking for.

Michael K said...

The Crowdstrike story was on CTH and , as you know, those things are hard to pin down.

The DC story about the shenanigans with the DC police and the House Democrats' Pakistani IT people is also interesting.

It seems the DC police are part of the swamp.

narciso said...

Crowdstrike was mentioned in tbe esquire piece in the fall of 2p16, sussman the partner at perkins was mentioned but not singled out,

As for contractors I think Matt taits capital partners who came from ghcq and Google zero probAbly did the data mining.

Michael K said...

One link to Crowdstrike and NSA.

916
CrowdStrike, a global provider of security technologies and services focused on identifying advanced threats and targeted attacks, announced it is one of seven companies accredited by the National Security Agency (NSA) under its National Security Cyber Assistance Program (NSCAP).

The NSA developed the accreditation program in response to a need for trusted resources for victims of computer network breaches. Companies that qualified for the accreditation were assessed in 21 critical focus areas including intrusion detection, incident analysis and containment and remediation.


July 2014.


narciso said...

Yes but Shawn Henry was handpicked from fbis cynerdivision, he worked in Romania, for a time, their first erroneous,attribution was the Sony hack.

narciso said...

They raised a million dollars based on the fAulty dnc attribution.

Bruce Hayden said...

CTH has seemingly over the last month moved from suggesting that Cloudstrike might be one of the contractors allowed by the FBI to access the NSA Title VII databases, to assuming it, without my seeing the documentation for this. Sundance does a good job of providing links to older stuff when tying stories together (better than most), but haven’t seen this documented. Note - I am not saying that Cloudstrike wasn’t one of the contractors, but rather that for me, the jury is still out. I am convinced that the FBI was illegally allowing contractors to search these databases, that they legally shouldn’t have been, and that they were misusing the information that was retrieved. And think that it was being driven from the White House (not maybe Obama himself, but more likely, I think, his inner circle, including Jarrett, Powers, etc). A lot of bad stuff going on - I just am not yet convinced that Cloudstrike was on the inside there.

On the other hand, maybe, the NSA certification makes much more sense. And their NSCAP certification explains why Clapper, Brennan, and maybe Comey, could claim, with straight faces, that they were credible. But keep in mind that the DNC server hacking that they claimed was Russian based is essentially irrelevant here, except as a diversion. Whether they were Russian hacked, as claimed by Guccifer 2.0 (with his ties to the Obama Administration), or an inside job, as essentially claimed by Julian Assange, they were available to all on Assange’s Wikileaks. The critical emails were the missing 33,000 or so that had been on Crooked Hillary’s illegal personal server 4 years earlier, and were then bleach bited after Congress issued a subpoena for them. Were they all about Chelsea’s wedding and yoga practice? Or were some, if not many, about the Clinton pay-to-play operation when she was SecState? She has essentially admitted setting up the server to avoid accountability, including FOIA (which is why Comey’s lack of intent exoneration of her was always so silly). Yet, there wasn’t really that much incriminating found. Almost as if someone had only turned over the fairly innocuous ones to the FBI, and deleted the rest.... Those missing 33,000 Crooked Hillary emails were the opposition research gold mine that was the bait in the Deep State/Obama Administration plot to implicate the Trump campaign. And the Russians very plausibly had their hands on them. Of course, if the Russians hacked her insecure server, so probably did the NSA, but we will probably never know.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The DC story about the shenanigans with the DC police and the House Democrats' Pakistani IT people is also interesting.”

Something big going on there and being covered up. There have been allegations that the Pakis had been able to access the HSCI server through their control of computers of Dem members of that committee (chaired by Nunes, with Schiff replacing him if the Dems retake the House in Nov). The Pakis illegally move everything for a number of Dem Congress critters off their own servers, onto one they ran. And there is some evidence that they were tied somewhat to Pakistani intelligence. Normally, they all would be in jail until the national security implications could be worked out before they are moved to Gitmo. But this time crickets. A bunch of foreigners being paid many times what they are worth to manage the computers of a large percentage of the Dems in the House. And, of course, the one Congress member who first hired them, then continued to pay them, even after the first arrest, up until their leader was arrested on his way out of the country, is former DNC Chair Debby Blabbermouth Schultz. The obvious supposition is that they had her by the figurative balls somehow. And probably others, given how little this has progressed. My supposition is that they were maybe able to blackmail a number of prominent Dems with the information that they had acquired through supporting their computer systems. Think of that for a minute - five foreign nationals from a country that is sometimes hostile to us, controlled the computer systems of dozens of prominent Democrats in Congress, and their staffs for several years.

Michael K said...

Think of that for a minute - five foreign nationals from a country that is sometimes hostile to us, controlled the computer systems of dozens of prominent Democrats in Congress, and their staffs for several years.

Yes and the capital police and DC USA are covering for them. DWS brother is an assistant USA.

I agree that Sundance has not proven Crowdstrike was the "contractor" but it is suggestive that they were given NSA cert in 2014, just before the unmasking began in support of the Iran deal.