Althouse: "Former FBI top lawyer James Baker just admitted involvement in FISA Warrant and further admitted there were IRREGULARITIES in the way the Russia probe was handled."

January 22, 2019

"Former FBI top lawyer James Baker just admitted involvement in FISA Warrant and further admitted there were IRREGULARITIES in the way the Russia probe was handled."

"They relied heavily on the unverified Trump 'Dossier' paid for by the DNC & Clinton Campaign, & funded through a big Crooked Hillary law firm, represented by her lawyer Michael Sussmann (do you believe this?) who worked Baker hard & gave him Oppo Research for 'a Russia probe.' This meeting, now exposed, is the subject of Senate inquiries and much more. An Unconstitutional Hoax."

Trump tweets this morning — here and here.

Here's the news as reported by Fox, "Former top FBI lawyer personally involved in FISA warrant for Trump aide, other Russia probe irregularities, transcript shows."

49 comments:

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Nothing in the DNC press.; 1/22/19, 10:55 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: anyone else getting an "access denied" message?; 1/22/19, 10:57 AM
MikeR said...: 'anyone else getting an "access denied" message?' Yup. Alta-lanche.; 1/22/19, 10:59 AM
Achilles said...: So Trump is pulling out his trump card.

He could have played this before the election. But he must have wanted a Democrat house to play it against.

He is playing a long game here.; 1/22/19, 11:00 AM
rcocean said...: Too bad Trump's AG never did anything about it.; 1/22/19, 11:02 AM
Mark O said...: Trump will be gone in 2 or 6 years. The corruption in law enforcement, at the highest possible levels, will remain unless Trump takes action. It seems that media, the Democrats, and the NeverTrumpers are more than willing to trade the most dangerous corruption for relief from Trump.

The country could use another Church Committee.; 1/22/19, 11:02 AM
Mike Sylwester said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/22/19, 11:04 AM
Nonapod said...: Whether they admit it or not, everyone damn well *knows* that the FISA warrent was obtained due to a completely made up from whole cloth report. This has been obvious to anyone who is being objective and fair minded for a long time now. I wouldn't be surprised if the FISA judge him/herself was fully aware that the whole pretense was complete and utter bull excreta. It's just that now evidence more people are admitting it on the official record.; 1/22/19, 11:05 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: The Steele Dossier was a buncha uncorroborated, third-hand lies designed to make political and legal trouble for Trump. The FBI - then hijacked by poseurs Comey and McCabe -- instead of trying to verify it, used it to get the FISA taps to cause a lotta mischief.

None of this would have seen the light of day, had Hillary won.; 1/22/19, 11:10 AM
Gospace said...: Fox normally doesn't allow hot linking. Whenever I get an access denied to any site I copy the URL and paste and go in another tab. Very annoying, especially since the site that don't allow hot linking should realize by now THAT'S where their traffic comes from, the eyeballs that see their sites and read their ads.; 1/22/19, 11:13 AM
wendybar said...: Duh. More of the propaganda the MSM has run with for the left to get President Trump.; 1/22/19, 11:17 AM
JayDee77 said...: This is what happens when you nationalize Chicago-style corruption. The country will never be the same.

Every single person who voted for the man who calls himself Obama should never be allowed to vote again.; 1/22/19, 11:18 AM
traditionalguy said...: Dan Bongino, who is breaking all the FBI Treason news these days, uses the descriptor phrase for these FBI/DOJ guys as "Legalized Treason." They gleefully broke very standard and rule known to the FBI expecting big rewards and promotions from President Hillary.; 1/22/19, 11:20 AM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Fox News confirmed”...

Woooo, bombshell.; 1/22/19, 11:23 AM
Mike Sylwester said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/22/19, 11:23 AM
traditionalguy said...: And keep in mind that the supposedly erased text messages of Strozk and Page discussed ways of assassinating the President of the United States for being too pro-Russian, just like the FBI Secret Police did to our President JFK. What should be the penalty for that???; 1/22/19, 11:25 AM
Mike Sylwester said...: I speculate as follows:

Michael Sussman was the lawyer at Perkins Coie who managed the Democratic National Committee (DNC) contract to link Donald Trump to Russia. Since Sussman's special expertise was prosecuting cybercrimes, the Perkins Coie focus from the beginning was the supposed Russian hacking of Democrat (DNC and Clinton) computers.

Sussman contacted FBI General Counsel James Baker in order to clarify the FBI's legal considerations for establishing an FBI investigation of supposed Russian hacking of US political entities.

Sussman told Baker that he had hired the CrowdStrike computer-security company to study the DNC computers. CrowdStrike found that Russia had hacked DNC. Therefore Sussman wanted FBI to investigate this matter.

Furthermore, Sussman urged that the FBI should contract CrowdStrike to study also Donald Trump's computers and communications. The FBI should arrange for CrowdStrike to search through all of Trump's computers and communications in order to find any indications of Russian hacking.

=====

Relationships between Perkins Coie and President Barack Obama:

* Obama's personal attorney and White House counsel was Robert Bauer, a partner at Pekins Coie.

* Obama directed Judith Corley, a Pekins Coie partner, to obtain his long-form birth certificate from the Hawaii state government.; 1/22/19, 11:26 AM
Drago said...: Inga the Hoax Golden Dossiet Gal: "Woooo, bombshell."

I can understand your confusion.

Instead of a hoax buzzfeed made up story with no facts which you embraced enthusiastically, this is merely the under oath testimony of the senior FBI Counsel who was central to all of these activities with conplete documentary evidence (FISA warrants, meeting notes, etc.)

I mean, whatever, right?!

LOL

Back to buzzfeed and the Hillary/Putin pals Hoax dossier for Inga!!

Too funny.

Mueller and his team of hacks know it too...which is why they jumped to, for once, knock down the lunatic lefty lies in an unprecedented fashion with Barr comming aboard.

Which is also why the dems want all their unverified lefty lies and innuendo included and released in the Mueller "report"...

So moronically transparent its awesome!!; 1/22/19, 11:33 AM
Yancey Ward said...: No one has denied the content of the leaked transcript, Inga- no one, not even Baker himself. This is one case that isn't Fake News.; 1/22/19, 11:35 AM
Drago said...: Yancey Ward: "No one has denied the content of the leaked transcript, Inga- no one, not even Baker himself. This is one case that isn't Fake News."

The MSM/lefties/dems/LLR's/antifa better find another group of high schoolers to target for destruction to keep this out if the news!; 1/22/19, 11:37 AM
Drago said...: Not even LLR Chuck on his best #DemDefense day could make this look better for the dems.; 1/22/19, 11:38 AM
Yancey Ward said...: In any case, Jeff Carlson, who also writes for Epoch Times has the details first. Note how his account confirms that he has actually seen the transcript- compare this to the BuzzardFeed story from last week which only describes the evidence that the reporters may or may not have laid their eyes on.; 1/22/19, 11:39 AM
Original Mike said...: "Whether they admit it or not, everyone damn well *knows* that the FISA warrent was obtained due to a completely made up from whole cloth report."

Nobody knows what Inga knows.; 1/22/19, 11:40 AM
hombre said...: If this stuff keeps surfacing, even Mueller, his button men and the leftmediaswine will be unable to whitewash the Obama/Mueller/Holder/ Comey/Lynch DOJ/FBI.; 1/22/19, 11:41 AM
Yancey Ward said...: And if you want to take a deeper dive on Sussman, start here and work through the links within. Mike Sylvester will know this link.; 1/22/19, 11:43 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Fox normally doesn't allow hot linking. Whenever I get an access denied to any site I copy the URL and paste and go in another tab. Very annoying, especially since the site that don't allow hot linking should realize by now THAT'S where their traffic comes from, the eyeballs that see their sites and read their ads."

Why are they doing that?; 1/22/19, 11:49 AM
Yancey Ward said...: "What are they doing that?"

Could be a way to prevent DOS attacks. I imagine FoxNews is a frequent target of such things.; 1/22/19, 11:58 AM
narciso said...: Hence the alpha bank nothingberger, foer allowed under his own byline.; 1/22/19, 11:59 AM
rehajm said...: Why are they doing that?

Sometimes it's a bandwidth issue where the host is bearing the bandwidth burden for hosting its own content on someone else's site.; 1/22/19, 12:00 PM
Drago said...: Baker testified, under oath, that he met PerkinsCoie hack Sussman 3 times, knew this (the hoax dossier/dem smear job) was all BS, argued that Hillary should be charged for what she did, etc etc etc.

But hey, he was just the General Counsel of the FBI who was central to all meetings and discussions and helped draft the BS FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.

But we cant listen to him because he isnt a hack lefty/LLR buzzfeed smear merchant with an astonishing history of open lying (remember the hoax Rove Has Been Indicted "story?....yep, same Buzzfeed guy).

My favorite quote of the Leopold hack and fake journalist?

We he asserts that breaking one of his "stories" gives him a rush like when he uses cocaine.

Literally.

But thats the guy Inga says we should trust!!

And why not? A LLR Chuck by any other name....; 1/22/19, 12:02 PM
Original Mike said...: "Could be a way to prevent DOS attacks. I imagine FoxNews is a frequent target of such things."

Nooooooo.. The (what did Althouse call them?, the good people?) would never do that.

Would they?; 1/22/19, 12:06 PM
Sam L. said...: Oh, NOOOOOO. SURELY they wouldn't do that!; 1/22/19, 12:42 PM
Anonymous said...: 'Rogan and Weiss talk about how the word "Nazi" has been expanded so that it covers a 16-year-old in a MAGA hat and irrationally justifies violence against him. Weiss says: "That's what a lot of people in very high positions of power in this country — at least in the culture — actually believe, and they don't understand the implications of hollowing out words like that."'

I think they understand the implications perfectly well. Their point is to demonize and drive out of public life *any* disagreement with their project. There is nothing "irrational" in the strategy being used justify ostracizing, deplatforming, depriving of employment, ruining career prospects, and yes, violence against anyone who refuses to accept their holy dogmas.

The dogmas are irrational, but the strategy is perfectly rational. It's been working nicely. What was MOR or even pretty far toward the left end of "liberal" just yesterday is now utterly beyond the pale "racism", or "misogyny", or various flavors of "-phobe" invented two hours ago.

No, the strategy won't succeed in the long run (because their dogmas are batshit insane), but any historically literate person knows how long "the long run" can be, how deep the destruction can go before their insanity runs its course. (To paraphrase the old market saw, self-righteous powerful people can stay crazy and in power a lot longer than you and I can manage to remain employed, solvent, or alive.)

Right now there's no sign at all that they're sobering up or encountering sustained successful opposition or reversals. And after all this time and so many examples, people (including our hostess) are still discussing this incident as if there was something unprecedented going on in this latest co-ordinated "pile on the evil white boys" action. Maybe this time they got some pushback that they didn't expect. But we still don't even know if the idiot adminstrators at their school have drawn back from their hop-to-it obedience to the Cause. And meanwhile who else is getting demonetized or sacked or deplatformed or deprived of access to financial networks for wrongthink?

I'm really puzzled by people who are still at the "we just have to point out how irrational and unjust this all is" or "golly, they just don't understand where their actions are going to lead" stage.; 1/22/19, 12:48 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Nonapod,

I wouldn't be surprised if the FISA judge him/herself was fully aware that the whole pretense was complete and utter bull excreta.

The utter silence of the FISA judiciary in this "whole pretense" is leading me to believe that there was no real FISA court review of the second application based on the Steele memo. The FBI made up the paperwork for a FISA review & passed it off as legit.

Seriously, in light of all of the other malfeasance by the FBI, do you really think they would shy away from forging a FISA warrant?; 1/22/19, 12:51 PM
Gk1 said...: Heh, "irregularities". Yeah sure, and the Titanic "took on a little ice". I think my BS meter completely exploded when I found out Baker received Pee gate files from Perkin's & Cole in the fall of 2016 but then went on to be part of the "investigation". This thing stinks to high heaven and the FBI's continual foot dragging in revealing that makes the whole thing a farce. End this witch hunt now.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/4/michael-sussmann-hillary-clinton-lawyer-gave-fbi-r/; 1/22/19, 1:13 PM
Sebastian said...: "they relied heavily on the unverified Trump 'Dossier'"

It was worse: they knew it was oppo-research BS and did not inform the Court.

The collusion with Fusion GPS, Perkins Cole, Steele, and the Russian informants was all deliberate. The dossier did not just happen to remain "unverified."

Ohr and Baker have now exposed some of the collusion. But some things we still don't know, for example Brennan's exact role as instigator and the FISA judges' actual role in reviewing the "application."; 1/22/19, 1:29 PM
Gk1 said...: One thing I will say for Joe Rogan is he is a subset of comics like Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld that see the left as being way more dangerous to comedy and their livelihood than all of the right wing bogeymen that Hollywood can conjure up. Like Sam Harris, Joe had made the mistake of pissing off the left in condemning jihadist terrorism. He even went as far as wondering aloud why the U.S would want to import more Syrians when we had no idea who they were.; 1/22/19, 1:46 PM
Drago said...: Sebastian: "The collusion with Fusion GPS, Perkins Cole, Steele, and the Russian informants was all deliberate. The dossier did not just happen to remain "unverified."

Don't forget the parallel "op" by Brennan to insert provocateurs into the Trump camp to place rumors and then have other identified-Clinton affiliated folks (the Australian Downer, Clinton Foundation donor and pal of the Clintons) show up and query the "marks" on the rumors planted by Brennan's operatives.

We know of at least 4 and apparently there are references to as many as 3 more. Up to 7 agents inserted to set up the Trump campaign.

On top of all that you had the FBI/Fusion/LLR's coordinating to ensure these rumors made it into the press and to key persons on Capital Hill (Harry Reid, John McCain, Adam Kinzinger, Adam Schiff-ty, Mark Warner....) so that multiple, apparently "independent" pathways for this information to flow would flow right into the CIA/StateDept/FBI/DOJ and, golly gee, with all this, like, totally "independent" verification, gosh darn it we just have to set up an investigation!!!!

The lies are so transparent they are LLR Chuck-like.; 1/22/19, 2:13 PM
narciso said...: yes it's the journalist/iran echo chamber mo

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/426171-barrs-first-task-as-ag-look-at-former-fbi-leaders-conduct; 1/22/19, 3:19 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I haven’t been able to find the transcript in order to read it so the following cares the caveat IF TRUE so popular with the MSM with their recent Michael Cohen fiasco.

It will be interesting to see who is leaking these transcripts. So far there is no real pushback as to their validity. Someone in the House is leaking them for strategic reasons. My guess is that the Mueller investigation has been able to keep much of the dirt discovered on FISAgate, etc locked up and away from the public, due to claims of an ongoing investigation. That seems to have been one of the reasons they started up that investigations in the first place. And we saw with former ADAG Bruce Ohr’s testimony being so much more open than that of those who had worked for the FBI, that that is where the worst of the stench seems to be, which is interesting because you would probably expect the DoJ to be the more politicized, and thus, under Lynch and Yaes, the dirtier of the two. But it is apparently the FBI lawyers that are keeping so much of the dirt hidden, ostensibly to protect the Mueller investigation’s integrity, but many of us believe, more and more, that it it is to protect the reputation of the FBI (which is not a legitimate or legal reason to keep the dirt from Congressional oversight).

So, maybe no surprise that someone, almost assuredly on the Republican side, in the House is leaking right now. Compounding that, Adam Schaffer’s, one of Nancy Palsi’s closest minions who was on her cancelled flight to Brussels, etc, has been caught lying through his teeth about the investigation in the previous Congress, based on some of the previously leaked transcripts. No doubt, from his previous attempts to protect the Deep State, esp in the FBI, he very likely intends to bury those unrealsed transcripts in the deeepest hole he can find, as the new committee chair. Instead of continuing to dig out the truth, he has apparently declared that he is going to concentrate first on the meeting in Trump Tower with the Russian attorney. Which was, of course, perfectly legal. No one should be the least surprised - he announced we’ll before the election that he would concentrate on impeachment.; 1/22/19, 3:44 PM
Paul said...: So the DOJ hated Trump.. who knew!; 1/22/19, 4:16 PM
iowan2 said...: @Bruce Hayden,
The House report that was written by the Dems (Schiff) to answer the Nunnes report is hard evidence of Schiff knowingly lying in the report. Can't Republicans demand an ethics investigation? That's what happened to Nunnes, he had to step down for a time as the chair of the committee. Of course the report is hard evidence so maybe Schiff would be forced to step done for good from the committee chair.; 1/22/19, 5:02 PM
Birkel said...: IRREGULARITIES means criminal acts by CIA/FBI/DOJ/State and et cetera.

The author of this (headline and article) is hiding the truth.; 1/22/19, 5:04 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: These allegations, IF TRUE, suggest to me that the FBI and DoJ may have criminally violated the civil rights of everyone they electronically surveiled by intentionally violating their 4th (and maybe 5th) Amdt rights by knowingly intercepting their electronic and telephonic communications under color of law pursuant to knowingly fraudulently acquired FISA warrants. At some level, significant material information was knowingly and intentionally omitted from the FISA warrant applications. Information that they almost assuredly knew would have caused the FISC to deny the applications. The federal government, possibly excluding exigencies circumstances, not present here, requires, under the 4th Amdt, a warrant to intercept electronic or telephonic communications, without a valid warrant. That warrant here was apparently knowingly fraudulently acquired. Which, I think makes it worse than if they hadn’t gotten one in the first place. And, of course, intentionally and knowingly violating a civil right under color of law is a criminal Civil Rights Act violation.

I don’t think that everyone who signed one of the warrant applications probably committed a Civil Rights Act violation, but those who knew the provenance of the Steele Dossier, like Andrew McCabe, and probably Sally Yates, are much more likely to have committed crimes there.; 1/22/19, 6:29 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “Of course the report is hard evidence so maybe Schiff would be forced to step done for good from the committee chair.”

Wishful thinking there. The purpose of House ethics rules is to trip up or take out Republicans, not Democrats. Esp when the Democrats are in charge. Ignoring ethical violations of Democrats in Congress goes back at least decades. Remember the House bank, and how powerful Dems treated it like their private bank for years?; 1/22/19, 6:34 PM
gadfly said...: This is an old subject that was included in Devin Nunes' GOP report last summer. Nunes admitted in the report that the Mueller investigation began as a result of the discovery of contact between George Papadopoulos and the Russians. This contact occurred before the FISA warrant was sought for Carter Page - who has not been charged in the Mueller probe as yet. But the following news item is significant:

“Page had been the subject of a secret intelligence surveillance warrant since 2014, earlier than had been previously reported, US officials briefed on the probe told CNN.” In 2013, it seems, Russian spies tried to recruit Page as an intelligence source, and Page passed documents to an agent of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

James Baker has been charged with no crime, nor have any of the other FBI people that Trump has had fired in his fake conspiracy supposedly involving Trump's own FBI and DOJ. Like all of his other public utterings on the part of a very stupid man, Trump keeps repeating his unsubstantiated charges as if this will somehow make them true.

As I understand it, this GOP - Trump reasoning revolves around the FBI asking that Carter Page be electronically monitored and that occurred three separate renewals in front of three FISC judges. No one seems to know why the surveillance was extended. But Mueller has progressed to the point that the collusion is an established fact (without Page) because of revelations obtained from Trump team members - Manafort, Flynn, Papadopoulos, Gates and Cohen.; 1/22/19, 10:29 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “But Mueller has progressed to the point that the collusion is an established fact (without Page) because of revelations obtained from Trump team members - Manafort, Flynn, Papadopoulos, Gates and Cohen”

Huh? I am unaware of any hard evidence supporting that assertion. So far, what we have from Mueller are convictions for crimes that occurred before these people worked for Trump’s campaign or having anything to do with Trump, process crimes (e.g. lying to the FBI) manufactured by the DoJ (FBI or Mueller’s investigation itself), and indictments of Russians who are highly unlikely to ever see the inside of a courtroom in the US (excluding the one case where they did show up, and Mueller’s attorneys are fighting Iike crazy to avoid discovery). For example, Gen Flynn, at the time the US Nat Security Advisor, was setup by FBI DDir McCabe who dispatched agents to the White House under false pretenses to meet with him. He talked Flynn into not having an atty present, and instructed his agents not to warn Flynn about the penalty for lying to them. They then quizzed him about the contents of a completely legal phone call that he had had with the Russian Ambassador, that they had a transcript of (but legally shouldn’t have), and he didn’t. The point is that they had no reason whatsoever to go to the WH that day except for the perjury trap, since apparently the only subject they quizzed him there on was the phone call, that they knew the contents of (and shouldn’t have), and he didn’t completely remember. That is the sort of crimes that you appear to have built your sand castle from. Oh, yeh, and a lot of illegal leaking on their part.; 1/23/19, 1:31 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Moreover, the absence of indictments does not even come close to suggesting lack of guilt. Rather given published Congressional testimony under oath, it suggests being protected - in this case, by the DoJ and FBI Deep State and the Mueller investigation itself. Using your logic we would be led to believe that Crooked Hillary was innocent of > 30k Official Records Act violations, hundreds of Espionage Act violations, lying to the FBI, and orchestrating, at a minimum, almost $90 million in illegal campaign contributions ( tied up in litigation due to Senate Dems refusing to allow the FEC to have a full complement of members, thus preventing any investigation of her). Of course, it turns out that the underlying reason that she was never prosecuted was that the political leadership in the DoJ (Lynch/Yates) prevented any prosecutors from working with the FBI in their investigation of her (from the Lisa Page testimony).; 1/23/19, 1:46 AM
JAORE said...: The Steele Dossier was a buncha uncorroborated, third-hand lies...

Can't be, I've heard high officials say that not EVERYTHING in the dossier has been shown to be false....

I LOLed.; 1/23/19, 5:30 AM