"I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016." Barr told [the Democratic-controlled House Appropriations subcommittee]Today, Barr is speaking to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is led by the GOP and includes Lindsey Graham, who said, "Once we put the Mueller report to bed, once Barr comes to the committee and takes questions about his findings and his actions, and we get to see the Mueller report, consistent with law, then we are going to turn to finding out how this got off the rails."
on Tuesday.
Barr’s inquiry is separate from a long-running investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general...
Asked about the prospect of such an inquiry, Trump told reporters Wednesday that he’s most interested in the attorney general “getting started on going back to the origins” of what the president called “an attempted coup.” He said “what they did was treason.”
Get "back to the origins" — AKA "oranges."
UPDATE: From today's testimony:
Attorney General Bill Barr testified Wednesday that he believes "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign in 2016.... "I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. … I think it’s my obligation. Congress is usually very concerned with intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane," he testified before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, while noting that "spying on a political campaign is a big deal."...
On Wednesday, Barr testified that he hasn't technically "set up a team" but has colleagues helping him as he reviews the case. "This is not launching an investigation of the FBI," he stressed. "Frankly, to the extent there were issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem of the FBI. I think it was probably a failure of the group of leaders—the upper echelons of the FBI. I think the FBI is an outstanding organization and I am very pleased Director Chris Wray is there."
He added, "If it becomes necessary to look over former officials, I expect to rely on Chris and work with him. I have an obligation to make sure government power is not abused and I think that’s one of the principal roles of the attorney general."...
Barr’s team will also review the FISA warrants issued against Carter Page. The issuance of the FISA warrants relied, in part, on the unverified anti-Trump dossier authored by ex-British Intelligence Agent Christopher Steele, who worked on behalf of Fusion GPS—a firm paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through law firm Perkins Coie to do opposition research against the Trump campaign. In the dossier, Steele accused Page of conspiring with Russians. Page was not charged with any wrongdoing in either the FBI’s Russia probe or Mueller’s....
The day following Barr’s release of his summary of the Mueller report, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said his panel also would investigate alleged FISA abuses at the start of the Russia investigation and called on Barr to appoint a new special counsel to investigate “the other side of the story.” Graham has been calling for a second special counsel since 2017 to investigate “whether or not a counterintelligence investigation was opened as a back door to spy on the Trump campaign.”
Posts
176 comments:
Bottom line: can the Queen of England be extradited to stand trial.
"He [Trump] said 'what they did was treason.'”
On the money.
I'm glad Trump is calling this an attempted coup.
There is very well known public evidence at the levels of the 2nd in command of the DoJ and FBI acting towards removal of a newly elected President. That's just the tip of that particular iceberg.
The media was the wind in the sails of the Russia-Russia-Russia phase.
Now Barr will have to sail against hurricane level headwinds.
Good luck.
Will the Post or the Times cover this?
No no no - we only look for Maddow-approved crimes. Any crime by leftists on behalf of Hillary isn't really a crime.
Deep State Target shows what it's like to be caught in the FBI's crosshairs. God they were pigs to him, and the definitely ramped it up Nov. 9.
Good thing Papadopoulos is still young and resilient.
Barr just testified before the Senate Budget hearing that he believes govt agencies in fact spied on the Presidential Campaign of President Trump. The girls at msdnc need a change of knikers, they are almost speechless and appalled...at Barr. Not the people spying in a political campaign, but for Barr saying it out loud.
This is one of the most (the if not the most) important investigations in US history. Whether they like Trump or not, people need to understand clearly and in no uncertain terms how all this was incepted, all the justifications, who did what when and why.
It's going to get ugly, even uglier than it has been over the past two and a half years. The media will continue to run interference for the various instigators of what I, and many others, believe to be a failed coup attempt. But the truth needs to come out. We can't continue as a nation with this scale of blatant corruption at the highest levels. The ruling class went to far with this one.
Comey, McCabe, and Strzok will get the blame. Sally Yates will get some, too. They were all shitcanned.
Rosenstein is playing ball with Trump. He’s going to dump on all these people.
That’s where it will end. With the people who were fired. It also clears up any bullshit obstruction against Trump. Comey and McCabe and Strzok are the weasels. Trump was right to fire them for their bullshit “insurance policy” investigation.
Deep State Target is also deeply funny, I might add.
Would make a great Coen Bros comedy.
Any guesses on where the NeverTrumpers stand on this?
I'm guessing the Bulwark Cucks will join in the Left's demonization of Barr to teach us Deplorables a lesson about minding our place. While posing as "principled"?
Or will they cast tepid support Barr's way and continue making vague unsupported assertions about Trump? Full throated opposition to attacking the missie sites that launched this? They've become so adept at Surrendering Gracefully, must be awkward for them.
The Narrative will be pounded!
btw - what ever happened to the racist who runs Virginia and his rapist side-kick?
DNC hack press swept that under the rug fast.
Point shaving. That's how the FBI conducted the investigation of Hillary.
Indict McCabe and he will sing. An FBI guy would have a hard time in federal prison.
Is rope-a-dope over? I certainly hope so. Coup d'état, conspiracy and collusion is not nice.
We need an investigation if only to get back to some sense of balance. Hopefully nothing is found, but it's best for the country to investigate.
This is one of the most (the if not the most) important investigations in US history
Especially for people like me. We are watching closely to see if the Rule of Law is still in play. If these people are above the law then they are outside the law and cannot claim its protection.
Sure let's find out what happened.
But let's also put a few Dem activists in jail for misspeaking about things that didn't happen. Then we can watch all the left wingers wail about how inappropriate revenge is as if they haven't spent the last few years cheering exactly that.
The walls are closing in! This is the beginning of the end!
Barr testifies, he thinks spying did occur against the Trump campaign, Barr will investigate what evidence existed to predicate the spying.
This trips the wire.
I have asked for months about the evidence to initiation the FBI investigation. Not a single person has been able to come up with that bit of evidence.
John Brennan’s Plot to Infiltrate the Trump Campaign
The article begins:
s Trump won primary after primary in 2016, a rattled John Brennan started claiming to colleagues at the CIA that Estonia’s intelligence agency had alerted him to an intercepted phone call suggesting Putin was pouring money into the Trump campaign. The tip was bogus, but Brennan bit on it with opportunistic relish.
Out of Brennan’s alarmist chatter about the bogus tip came an extraordinary leak to the BBC: that Brennan had used it, along with later half-baked tips from British intelligence, as the justification to form a multi-agency spy operation (given the Orwellian designation of an “inter-agency taskforce”) on the Trump campaign, which he was running right out of CIA headquarters.
The CIA was furious about the leak, but never denied the BBC’s story. To Congress earlier this year, Brennan acknowledged the existence of the group, but cast his role in it as the mere conduit of tips about Trump-Russia collusion: “It was well beyond my mandate as director of CIA to follow on any of those leads that involved U.S. persons. But I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the bureau.”
But if his role had truly been passive, the “inter-agency taskforce” wouldn’t have been meeting at CIA headquarters. By keeping its discussions at Langley, Brennan could keep his finger wedged in the pie. Both before and after the FBI’s official probe began in late July 2016, Brennan was bringing together into the same room at CIA headquarters a cast of Trump haters across the Obama administration whose activities he could direct — from Peter Strzok, the FBI liaison to Brennan, to the doltish Jim Clapper, Brennan’s errand boy, to an assortment of Brennan’s buddies at the Treasury Department, Justice Department, and White House.
Barr testifies, he thinks spying did occur against the Trump campaign, Barr will investigate what evidence existed to predicate the spying.
This trips the wire.
I have asked for months about the evidence to initiation the FBI investigation. Not a single person has been able to come up with that bit of evidence.
Got an Instalink to this post at Chicagoboyz where I speculated that the original target of the IC was Flynn, even before Trump was the nominee.
The Democrats were pushing Trump until summer of 2016 when they realized he might win. The media was still giving him tons of exposure because they still had no clue he might win but the IC was starting to worry. Hence, "Insurance Policy."
Barr has a chance to make history, Michell was a hack during Watergate.
Game on.
“That’s where it will end. With the people who were fired. It also clears up any bullshit obstruction against Trump. Comey and McCabe and Strzok are the weasels. Trump was right to fire them for their bullshit “insurance policy” investigation.”
I have my hopes set for Sally Yates, Brennan, and Clapper. Maybe Susan Rice. Someone, maybe several someones, in the Obama White House was/were involved up to their eyeballs. What would be really nice is for the various people, most if not all with law degrees, who signed the four FISA warrant applications for Carter Page, should to have their law licenses pulled for at least a bit, maybe by getting them to plead out to felonies that didn’t require prison time. They all signed applications under oath with a federal court that were highly misleading. Yates and McCabe deserve real prison time. They preapproved and rushed the first FISA application on through the approval process, likely in order to beat Adm Rogers reporting to the FISC on FBI FISA 702 searching abuses, and esp the FBI allowing contractors to make roughly 85% of the 702 searches in the first 1/3 of 2016. While subsequent FISA warrant application signers could blame the paperwork and trusting subordinates for signing the fraudulent FISA warrant applicants, those two can’t use that excuse. Both had actual knowledge of Steele’s biases and who was paying for his Dossier, that the Dossier had not been corroborated, and both caused the underlying paperwork to be rushed and rubber stamped by their preapprovals.
Perjury traps and perjury charges are not just for ordinary people.
They are for Intelligence officials too.
DOJ/FBI loves to set perjury traps and then charge ordinary people with perjury.
Let's give those DOJ/FBI (and CIA) guys a taste of their own medicine.
MSNBC isn't real news. It's DNC propaganda.
Carol at 9:48 AM
Deep State Target shows what it's like to be caught in the FBI's crosshairs. God they were pigs to him, and the definitely ramped it up Nov. 9.
BookTV recently broadcast an hour-long interview of George Papadopoulos about his new book. The interviewer asks few questions. Almost all of the hour is just Papadopoulos telling his story cogently and compellingly.
What was done to Papadopoulos was appalling and outrageous.
John Brennan is the ugliest man I've ever seen.
His inner poisonous toad squishes out of every pore and corrupt leftist wrinkle.
One can only hope that Barr has the common sense to bring in his own people to form his investigative team. If he gets a bunch of deep state lifers (aka “career Justice employees “), then the outcome is a forgone conclusion.
“Rosenstein is playing ball with Trump. He’s going to dump on all these people. “
I think that he is the real weasel, playing both sides to his own advantage. Expect that he was somehow compromised for Mueller to have gotten the carte blanc to investigate Obstruction of Justice - which was the key to keeping the investigation open so long, and preventing light to shine on the DoJ/FBI wrongdoings throughout most of 2016. It might have been his involvement in the XXV Amdt coup discussions. In any case, he seems to have been coaxed, if not coerced, back into line by AG Barr. As has apparently been Mueller. The three of them together showing a united front seems to be going a long way towards shutting down the Trump/Russia collusion narrative by the Dems. I blame that all on Barr doing a good job. But that also means that the long knives are out for him.
John Brennan MUST be investigated and indicted for treason.
Barr will investigate what evidence existed to predicate the spying.
I think it was, this Misfud spook told Papadop that the Russians had hacked Hillary's emails, and Papadop stupidly repeated it to some other spook.
Voila, collusion by Team Trump!
In prison, Peter Strzok will gradually morph from Deep State into Deep Throat....
Thing is, it was the deep state telling Papadop about the emails to begin with. They wanted the rumor to take off and for some Trump operative to own it.
John Brennan is the ugliest man I've ever seen.
Anyone who saw Brennan loitering at a playground would call the police.
Not going to get far.
The CIA station chief in London during Crossfire Hurricane is now head of the agency.
Anyone who saw Brennan loitering at a playground would call the police.
Indeed. I would. Creepiest. Creature. Ever.
What would be the most fun is if a couple perps ratted Obama and Lynch, and Clinton out with tapes to support their testimony.
Bruce Hayden beat me to it
10:14
Barr will face huge opposition trying to dig into this. A SP would be less vulnerable to media attacks. I hate to say it, but these weasels deserve some process pain...
Remember, this has nothing to do with Obama. Don't you dare even bring up his name. This whole thing probably started with one rogue agent in the Cleveland office.
Not a smidgen of corruption....
Good. Trump will have a lot to talk about on the campaign trail.
This is treason.
No one here should wonder why we all can’t get along.
Brennan and Clapper are gone. They are just media pundits now whose predictions and ravings have been discredited by Mueller. They are just perceived as loons at this point.
Barr is not going to want to go after the IC. It’s too complicated. It’s enough to shit all over Comey, McCabe, and Strzok. Throw in Sally Yates as another disgruntled anti-Trumper. Bruce Ohr will get trashed as well.
Rosenstein is going to shit all over them. That’s why Trump let him keep his job. Rosenstein is also the one who recommended Comey getting fired. He’s going to come out of this fine. Last tat standing. He outsmarted Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and Yates. Well played by him.
We should not rule out assassinations of people like Barr.
Barr also refused to say whether or not Mueller came up with enough for a probable cause determination on Trump obstruction of justice. Wait for the report.
John Brennan is the ugliest man I've ever seen.
It'd be tough to find a better physical embodiment of corrupt intelligence apparatchik from central casting. His face seems permanently contorted in disgust and hatred. It's as if he finds most other people and things to be not only beneath him, but outright affronts to his idea of decency.
It's stuff like this that makes me question if we're living in a simulation.
I have been arguing that "the insurance policy" was the FISA collection of communications that might be used -- if Donald Trump won an Electoral College majority by a narrow margin -- to convince Electoral College voters to switch their votes from Trump to Hillary Clinton. Excerpts from the collected communications would be leaked to Trump-hating journalists to publish, proving that Trump had won only by colluding with Russia.
The leaks did not have to convince many people. The leaks only had to give a few Electoral College voters a plausible justification to switch their votes.
(Later, Sally "The Logan Act Enforcer" Yates used a similar method to get rid of Michael Flynn.)
Here again I am providing a link to a Consortium News article, written by its editor and published three days before the 2016 Presidential election. The article, titled Hillary Clinton’s Ace-in-the-Hole: Russia foretold that Clinton, if she lost, intended to blame her loss on Trump's collusion with Russia.
The article begins:
If Hillary Clinton loses a very tight election her ace-in-the-hole could be Russia.
Corporate media reacted harshly when Donald Trump said in the last debate that he would wait and see what happens before accepting the election results. “I will keep you in suspense,” he said. Trump has alleged that the vote will be rigged.
If Trump loses by a razor thin margin we can expect a demand for recounts and possible legal challenges. Some of his more violent supporters have also threatened trouble.
But what if Clinton loses a close election? In the wake of Wikileaks and FBI revelations Clinton’s sizable lead has evaporated and a tight result is looking more and more possible.
On her campaign plane a few hours after the last debate Clinton was asked if she would pledge to accept the results. She ignored the question and instead launched into an attack on what Trump had said.
If Clinton should lose a squeaker, she has two options to try to overturn the election and make herself president —- and both involve blaming Russia. She can try to influence America’s bizarre electoral college system, or get at least two allies in Congress to challenge its certification of the election. ....
Blogger readering said...
Barr also refused to say whether or not Mueller came up with enough for a probable cause
Hope springs eternal in the leftist mind,.
The news media component of this conspiracy has been playing their favorite movie, "All the President's Men", in their minds. Unfortunately, they have the wrong movie. They should, instead, contemplate "Absence of Malice". I'm hoping Barr will be like the Wilford Brimley character.
Fen said...
This is one of the most (the if not the most) important investigations in US history
Especially for people like me. We are watching closely to see if the Rule of Law is still in play. If these people are above the law then they are outside the law and cannot claim its protection.
Exactly right.
It's very hard to nail the "higher-ups" in this type of Deep State power play.
Recall that in 70ss, they tried to pin Richard Helms (former head of the CIA) with all sorts of nefarious deeds such as leading the efforts to kill Castro to using LSD in mind-control experiments on the public.
In the end, he plead no contest to lying to Congress, got a 2 year suspended sentence, a $2,000 fine and a big party by his buddies at Langley.
Here, it'd be great to nail Brennan (who undoubtedly was doing Obama's bidding or keeping him advised) and possibly Clapper. But, I'd settle for neutering them, and nailing McCabe and Strzok.
Lot of hoping in these comments.
If we could read the full Mueller report I am sure the details would be there? Flynn was dirty and attached to Trump like a magnet so no wonder Trump was considered to be part of the field of corruption that surrounded him.
The Drill SGT said...
Barr will face huge opposition trying to dig into this. A SP would be less vulnerable to media attacks. I hate to say it, but these weasels deserve some process pain...
Process pain?
No.
Traitors hang.
Flynn was dirty
Examples ? Or is this just more rhetoric in lieu of facts?
roesch/voltaire said...
If we could read the full Mueller report I am sure the details would be there? Flynn was dirty and attached to Trump like a magnet so no wonder Trump was considered to be part of the field of corruption that surrounded him.
Flynn was a general that served our country for 30+years.
DC generals are generally a weasely lot but they are still better people and have done more in the defense of freedom than you are or have done.
Obviously dishonest people like you have the temerity to call Flynn dirty are just mad because Flynn was right about Syria and Obama through staggering incompetence turned the entire Middle East into a dumpster fire.
Flynn can be undirtied by a pardon. Someone suggested he be pardoned and put back in position. The deep state hates him.
“Wait for the report.”
They’d rather dive headfirst in the conspiracy theory swimming pool.
Inga: "They’d rather dive headfirst in the conspiracy theory swimming pool."
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
Yes, Inga wrote that. Just now. As if her hilarious mind-reading over the top conspiracy-mongering and calling everyone treasonous traitors for YEARS never ever happened!
Too funny for words.
And remember, Inga faithfully, with absolute confidence, advanced every fallback and contradictory obfuscation and lie from the derp staters every step of the way.
You want to know whats most hilarious of all? She STILL believes the fully exposed hoax dossier is TRUE!!
Go ahead, just ask her....and then sit back and read in wonder at the lunacy...
readering: "Lot of hoping in these comments."
Unwitting lefty unironically self-reports after 3 straight years of lefty lies.
"There has been a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Deep Staters suddenly cried out in terror."
r/v: "If we could read the full Mueller report I am sure the details would be there?"
R/V demands Barr violate the law the lefties passed in 1999...and would happily call for prosecution of Barr were he to do so.
This is what lefties/LLR's think is "sophisticated" online messaging.
LOL
republican special prosecutors are either potted plants, like david fiske, or thrown buckets of mud soil like Kenneth starr, garagos speaking of bottom dwellers, performed that latter function, along with james 'snapper organs' Carville,
Wind 'em up ....
readering: "Barr also refused to say whether or not Mueller came up with enough for a probable cause"
LOLOLOLOL
"probable cause" for an actual crime would have led to an immediate Grand Jury subpoena from Mueller to Trump, Trump would have refused, Mueller would have fought for it all the way to the SC and Mueller would have won.
But he didnt...because its all lefty/LLR lying Coup-sters all the way down and Mueller knew a losing hand when he saw it.
It is a conspiracy theory the same way evolution is a theory.
This investigation will be so welcome and necessary to the survival of the republic as it was imagined, founded and mostly lived for two centuries. I will not be happy to find out we had traitors at such high places, but I will be happy if they are caught and made an example of if they are traitors, which seems highly supported by what we actually know to be true already.
I have to be very skeptical though. With Hillary, and the Obama administration getting away with such open illegality for years, and Republicans being so feckless to do anything about it, I just can't imagine we have the balls in the right places to carry through with doing the right thing. This is no time for softball. What these people allegedly tried to do is about as bad as it can get in a free country, and why did they do it? TDS is hell of a drug. We need an intervention.
James Baker, the other one, who works for lawfare along with his colleague jack goldsmith, admits that corn was the courier for comey's memos, why would that be?
It seems like only yesterday when Inga repeatedly parroted, like the lefty/LLR automaton she is, the now exposed hoax Russia/NRA disinformation Op conjured up and executed by FusionGPS and their paid "objective" media lackeys.
Every single Hillary/DNC/Fusion Disinformation Op the lefties ever came up with.
This is actually draining the swamp, and in a much bigger way than anybody expected. I don't think many of us who have called for draining the swamp ever expected it to be this rancid and mucked up in there. We suspected there was corruption and bias, but widespread treason like this? Damn!
lokhova was awarded a 3 million dollar settlement, for defamation in 2015, and then halper goes on throws another bucket of mud on her, maybe to curry favor with his fsb pal,
Remember when readering was one of the Leftist Collectivists who had some credibility?
Good times.
Good times.
The failed coup attempt will be unearthed, completely.
Barr didn't take this job for no reason and he didn't need the job.
My best guess is he watched from the sidelines and initially thought the whole CIA/FBI/DOJ/State cabal was on the up-and-up. But like former DOJ attorney and company man, Andrew McCarthy, gradually became aware and could not deny the obvious lawlessness of the process used against Trump, et al.
I think that leaves a good government attorney like Barr angry beyond belief. I would bet he hates the corruption and the accompanying discredit brought onto institutions he believes are worthwhile - but only when their powers are properly checked. I would bet he is righteously angry, as Andrew McCarthy now is.
Check my track record, folks. When I make predictions I'm faring better than 90%.
And I'm saying there will be a great number of indictments, guilty pleas, confessions, and criminal convictions of the conspirators against President Trump.
The Church Commission won't have shit on what's coming.
Inga...Allie Oop said...
“Wait for the report.”
They’d rather dive headfirst in the conspiracy theory swimming pool.
This person has been screaming incoherently for 2 years with absolutely no evidence that Trump is a traitor and colluded with Russia because Putin has pictures of Trump paying hookers to pee on a bed.
You cannot parody this level of stupid. It is impossible to even make up a fake person that is more wrong about everything than Inga.
John Brennan's expression always reminds me of someone smelling shit. He's correct. It's in his pants.
I think the investigation here has to start with John Brennan- he seems to be the guy who was pulling the strings from late 2015 forward. I think if you really dig hard, you will find Brennan was the instigator of all the "chance" encounters of Papadopoulos and Carter Page with the likes of Mifsud, Downer, and Halper. It is even possible he was behind getting the Trump Tower meeting arranged since it required special action by the Obama DoJ to get Veselnitskaya into the country for that meeting, but that could easily have been the work of Glenn Simpson himself.
Don't forget Obama wiretap of Trump Tower....
I think Barr might be far more realistic than many of you conspiracy theorist here.
“The exchange:
Barr: "For the same reason we're worried about foreign influence in elections, we want to make sure that — I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. ... There were a lot of rules put in place to make sure that there's an adequate basis before our law enforcement agencies get involved in political surveillance. I'm not suggesting those rules were violated, but I think it's important to look at that."
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.): "But you're not suggesting that spying occurred?"
Barr: "I don't ... well ... I guess you could — I think spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur. But the question is whether it was predicated, adequately predicated. And I'm not suggesting that it wasn't adequately predicated. But I need to explore that."”
https://www.axios.com/bill-barr-spying-2016-trump-campaign-1c697d04-7187-4e33-b8b2-4cbce62da868.html
Sure look into it. Others will be/are looking too.
bagoh20 said...
This is actually draining the swamp, and in a much bigger way than anybody expected. I don't think many of us who have called for draining the swamp ever expected it to be this rancid and mucked up in there. We suspected there was corruption and bias, but widespread treason like this? Damn!
Actually you haven't seen the worst parts.
DC has been turned against the citizens in this country.
Every one of your phone calls, text messages, and emails is sitting on a government server right now.
When Five Eyes becomes public knowledge we will see what people think. You know the CIA worked with foreign intelligence services to end around constitutional protections for you and spy on you right?
readering sounds sad.
And it was wiretapp.
Remember when Democratics were insulting Trump for using two Ps?
Democratics have lost all tactiles and strategeries.
Inga admits that democrats and their operatives were spying on political opponents with federal resources.
There is no common ground with these people.
They are Stalinists and enemies of freedom in every sense.
Blogger bagoh20 said...
This is actually draining the swamp, and in a much bigger way than anybody expected. I don't think many of us who have called for draining the swamp ever expected it to be this rancid and mucked up in there. We suspected there was corruption and bias, but widespread treason like this? Damn!
Quite eye opening and frightening. And, it's not just the "news" media. Deep State too! :)
Royal ass Inga and readering:
So you're now in favor of Trump using the full force of the CIA, FBI, DOJ, IRS, and State to go after Bernie for his Russian ties. I am going to need you to state explicitly your support of domestic spying on political enemies by the party in power. Because AG Barr has said that is what happened.
Brennan was the one who had the Senate's servers, hacked to get access to Daniel Jones report, and yet three years later, they were working in tandem, with the Penn Square group, insinuating passive measures to undermine an administration, maskirovna, dezinforma, the classes of material don't really matter, does this make him the kingpin,
"Sure look into it. Others will be/are looking too."
What if he concludes the rules were not followed and there wasn't an adequate predicate? What will your reaction be? Will you call him Trump's hand-picked toady?
During Watergate a Republican administration was caught breaking into Democrat offices to spy on political opponents.
During Spygate a Democrat administration was caught listening to every phone call, reading every email, and reading every text of a political opponent for months during an election while introducing and planting agents, otherwise known as spies, inside that campaign.
We see who the hypocrites are. Who/Whom.
"I think Barr might be far more realistic than many of you conspiracy theorist here."
After almost 3 years of Democrat-and-MSM-fueled Russiagate hysteria, it's pretty funny to hear a left-winger accuse the other side of being "conspiracy theorists."
There is much more that the Obama cabal did than the spying on Trump. The Obama administration spied (by the unmasking of SIGINT) of many innocent Americans for political reasons. This is still being investigated and should be a big deal.
i'm convinced they used enemy of the state as a how to guide. in that film, will smith's patent lawyer is caught in the surveillance net, totally by accident,
Well Blogger just ate my comment.
Try again.
Both the Democratic National Committee as well as Fusion GPS—the company hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to research the Trump campaign—were using Ukrainian sources in their efforts to discredit Trump.
Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, was a common thread involved in Democratic opposition research efforts into former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. Leshchenko, along with Artem Sytnyk, the director of Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, was responsible for publicly disclosing the contents of the Ukrainian “black ledger,” which implicated Manafort, to the media.
Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael Isikoff and DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa. In addition, Leshchenko served as a direct source of information for Fusion GPS—and their hired researcher—former CIA contractor Nellie Ohr.
Michael K,
"in lieu of facts?"
Please don't use lieu and facts in the same sentence. But as of yesterday, he has a brand-new asshole, courtesy of Candace Owens, so that would be OK to use.
For "Enemy of the State" to be the proper analogue:
1) Several CIA and 5-Eyes assets would have to be placed in Will Smith's firm; and
2) Other CIA and State assets would have to compromise Will Smith's mail room guys; and
3) The FBI and DOJ would have been plotting against Will Smith; while
4) Will Smith's opposite was given a pass for obvious criminal corruption; and
5) Will Smith becomes president; and
6) Will Smith appoints Gene Hackman to root out all the criminality of the previous administration.
So that story might work.
"Don't forget Obama wiretap of Trump Tower...."
The entire Trump campaign and later transition/administration was under electronic surveillance. That is established fact. We know the Carter Page FISA existed and we know that it allowed not only surveillance of Page, but also of anyone Page was in contact with and anyone those anyones were in contact with, both before and after the FISA warrant was granted, up to September of 2017.
For all intents and purposes, Trump Tower was "wired" by the counter-intelligence division of the FBI.
Inga, should we help Birkel with his needs? (What's a royal As s anyway?)
More stuff for Trump to declassify
All of those investigative elements would likely be contained in official FBI files and notes by the investigative agents. There is no need for a contemporaneous personal account of meeting content unless Comey was constructing memos for his own protection. These memos appear to be motivated by the same mindset that caused Susan Rice to generate her email to self on inauguration day.
In the next section FBI Agent David Archey explains the scale of the memos. There are obviously far more than previously discussed or disclosed publicly. Additionally, look carefully at the way the second part is worded.
Archey is saying Comey’s written recollections should be withheld because it might affect the testimony of people familiar with the “memorialized conversations”. (page #15, Exhibit B)
Let it all hang out,.
What would be really nice is for the various people, most if not all with law degrees, who signed the four FISA warrant applications for Carter Page, should to have their law licenses pulled for at least a bit, maybe by getting them to plead out to felonies that didn’t require prison time.
Why so delicate? Did Nixon's men receive such tender consideration?
I thought the administration's role in Watergate was limited to an after the fact cover-up. Whereas in Water Closet, the administration, up to and including the SOS and POTUS, were active participants during and after the criminal and civil rights violations, and a cover-up led by, ironically, WaPo, CNN and others.
There were initial reports that the Page warrant was issued in the summer of 2016. It was issued October 19, 2916.
I do like the post hoc defenses of President Nixon that so many on the Left are forwarding.
Personally, I did not like Nixon's big government Republicanism. HW Bush, W Bush, and Nixon are my three least favorite Republican presidents of all time. The pair of Bushes in no particular order.
As reported in the Washington Monthly, "Donald Trump once complained that, with Jeff Sessions, he didn’t have an attorney general who protected him. He obviously remedied that situation with William Barr.
With the formation of a team to investigate the FBI counterintelligence probe began after Trump fired Jim Comey (as Donald told Lester Holt on NBC in 2017) because “this Russia thing with Trump” was on his mind when he fired the FBI Director. That, my friends, constitutes obstruction of justice, a felony, on the part of the President.
But Barr already has access to detailed information from government documents that back up data released to the public over the past two years that:
the CIA was regularly receiving warnings from our allies about suspicious communications between the Trump campaign and Russians; the Trump campaign was infused with people who had suspicious ties to Russia, such as Michael Flynn, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort; the Trump campaign made changes to the Republican Party platform in ways that would align it with Putin’s agenda in Ukraine, and George Papadopoulos, a member of Trump’s foreign policy advisory group, told an Australian diplomat that Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
William Barr does not have to investigate the ongoing Republican conspiracy theories designed to protect Trump. This sounds like an ongoing political ploy to get Trump through the 2020 election.
As a Title I warrant it was backward looking and allowed surveillance of anybody within "two hops" of Carter Page.
That means that by the Kevin Bacon axiom nearly a third of the world was covered by the Carter Page warrant. ;-)
Also, it was a clear 4th Amendment violation as there was no probable cause. The warrant was issued based on unsourced opposition research by a rival candidate's minions. And Carter Page was formerly a FBI informant and remains uncharged.
Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and Yates deserve prison time for their lawlessness.
gadfly supports Donald Trump's use of the CIA, FBI, IRS, DOJ, and State against political rivals.
gadfly gladly welcomes lawlessness.
yes the initial submission was with the halper and mifsud dangles, the next one was with the dossier,
Thanks for the clarification Birkel. Now kiss my distinguished commenter.
Between the two of us, I am distinguished.
But I rarely reference myself in third person.
"There were initial reports that the Page warrant was issued in the summer of 2016."
No, there were initial reports a FISA warrant was turned down in the Summer of 2016. That issue still hasn't been clarified to a fact, yet. All we have been shown is the one warrant we know to have been granted.
and yet nearly three years later, carter page still roams free,
I'm old enough to remember when Trump said (tweeted?) that his campaign was under surveillance, and all the smart people dissembled about minor details while saying that was more proof how stupid he was because of all the controls that prevented such a thing from ever happening.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/837989835818287106
Distinguished Birkel, you pay more heed to Inga than moi? (that's first person, no?)
Crossfire Hurricane was opened in late July of 2016. It is quite likely that the first steps in that investigation would have been the application for electronic surveillance warrants, both FISA and those normally applied for through the normal federal court system (I forget the terminology).
If you believe Strzok's story about this investigation's origin, then the targets of the early applications are most likely to be Papadopoulos and Manafort, with an outside shot that they attempted to get them on Trump or his sons and son in law, and those are the ones a FISA court judge wouldn't sign.
I think by the end of the year, we will actually know everything about this- I think it will all be declassified at some point.
You can have DCR, if you like.
But I'd bet you're not distinguished at all.
You're more an NPC.
I thought Page was long out of the Trump campaign 20 days before the election.
Yancey Ward,
I'd bet AG Barr will be telling Trump not to declassify - for example - all of Comey's CYA leak memos because AG Barr intends to investigate articulable facts that support criminal charges.
I'm still waiting for a single person to offer an articulable fact in support of the CIA and FBI's operations against President Trump. (PS Orange Man Bad is not enough to open an investigation.)
It doesn't matter when Page left- the warrant still allows the surveillance of any of his contacts going backwards in time. However, keep playing stupid if you like, it is a good look on you.
Title I warrants (FISA warrant) are backward looking.
All electronic communication warehoused by the NSA became available when the FISA warrant was approved.
And anybody within two hops of Carter Page could also be surveilled completely.
Do try to keep up, readering.
BTW, I partially blame Big Government Republican George W Bush for a decent portion of this mess. Bush created an enormous bureaucracy within which this sort of subterfuge and lawbreaking was likely.
Many people including yours truly warned of exactly these sorts of inevitable problems.
Big Government Republicans teed this up for Leftist Collectivist Obama.
I read the comments often just for the amusement at the lefties' reasoning, or lack of same.
Times are going to get tough for them, soon.
Isn't this about the point the media gets in the face of Democrat leadership each day and asks them to guarantee that Barr will be unimpeded in his investigation?
Times have been tough since inauguration day 2017. Soon they will get better!
Take a minute and ask yourself if any comment you make is serving any purpose whatsoever.
Unless you mean to redefine soon as Jan 20, 2025.
Trump assured us Page never had much to do with the campaign. I keep up with the story as best I can.
Distinguished Birkel, are you discouraging conversation?
Yeah, you just don't know fuck-all about how FISA warrants work.
And you're cool with BAMN so long as your side maintains power.
So, you're an ignorant, power hungry, ass hole who opines without basic facts.
But other than that, how was the play Ms. readering?
That's Mr Readering to you.
"Trump assured us Page never had much to do with the campaign. I keep up with the story as best I can."
This appears to have been true, but it doesn't mean Page didn't e-mail and converse by phone with dozens of people in the campaign- it is the hops those and their contacts that mattered. The tell is that Page was already an FBI informant and cooperator in investigations, even as late as March 2016. That a warrant taken out on him strongly suggests their only interest in Page was his connections into the Trump Campaign.
But, again, keep playing stupid.
Sticks and stones ....
For a while the new Althouse system had a moderating effect but now things are back to the way they were. So much pent up....
Sticks.
Stones.
BAMN.
Willful ignorance and a complete dedication to stupidity.
Give me 10 good men and some grappling hooks and I'd impregnate the bitch.
Full blown Retard Readering said "Times have been tough since inauguration day 2017."
Yeah, that sub 4% unemployment and wage growth are just fucking awful. All those new wars too.
They’d rather dive headfirst in the conspiracy theory swimming pool.
For two years, this snarling harpy warned us that any day now the walls were finally closing in on Trump.
And now you've got the nuts to lecture us about conspiracies?
FOAD.
Inga - to your ridiculous leftwing media hack parrot-claim you linked that claims
Bar "walked" anything back.
No, he did not.
"I think spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur."
If he wants to investigate, and isn't willing to do what you leftists like Adam Schit(D) do, which is to condemn before the facts roll in, then good for him.
PMJ:
That was a kill shot of sarcasm.
I appreciate it.
But willful ignorance will not abide.
Let's see the mainstream reporter(s) who attempt to weasel in and write "The Book" on this sorry episode of "Watergate on steroids" corruption.
Will the anointed writer and publisher actually go for the scoop of the century?
Or will it be an attempt to rely on MSM promotion to foist a new branch of cover-up by minimization and rationalization in service of the hive? Maybe it will be an onslaught of marginal books marketed on author recognition intended to confuse, confound and crowd-out?
Just one example: where's Woodward been up until now?
Fortunately, I think it will be difficult to beat the most compelling telling of this story for the ages.
Bushman of the k... said
Isn't this about the point the media gets in the face of Democrat leadership each day and asks them to guarantee that Barr will be unimpeded in his investigation?
lol.
“This appears to have been true, but it doesn't mean Page didn't e-mail and converse by phone with dozens of people in the campaign- it is the hops those and their contacts that mattered. The tell is that Page was already an FBI informant and cooperator in investigations, even as late as March 2016. That a warrant taken out on him strongly suggests their only interest in Page was his connections into the Trump Campaign.”
I think that the legal term here is “pretextual”. And you are right - picking Carter Page for the target of a FISA warrant gave the game away. Not only had he been a cooperator with the FBI and DoJ over the previous several years on multiple cases that they made using his voluntary cooperating testimony, but he apparently reached out to the FBI several times during the summer and fall, 2016, timeframe to discus what he was doing. Instead of accepting his offer, these agencies instead certified, in their FISA warrant application on him, that the sought for FISA warrant was the only realistic way to gain the sought for information. To simplify, he had cooperated in the past, had offered to cooperate right before the FISA application was first filed, and they lied under oath that they needed the warrant because he wouldn’t cooperate.
Dem Sen Schatz to AG Barr:
"Do you want to rephrase your 'spying did occur' statement? Could cause cable news freakout."
Barr: "Unauthorized surveillance. I want to make sure there was no unauthorized surveillance. Is that more appropriate?"
“I'm still waiting for a single person to offer an articulable fact in support of the CIA and FBI's operations against President Trump. (PS Orange Man Bad is not enough to open an investigation.)”
But, but, but, Gadfly just posted that the CIA (under Brennan) along with their Five Eyes intelligence community buddies, all claimed that they had concrete proof of Russian collaboration. Of course, he fails to mention that at least British and Australian spy agencies appear to have been up to their eye balls in fabricating this evidence of collusion, along with Brennan and his CIA. I will listen to their arguments, when they can justify the actions of Misfyp, Downer (Aus), and Halper (UK) in trying to entrap low level Trump campaign people. Or why the British spy chief left his job right after Trump’s election.
Blogger Nonapod said...
John Brennan is the ugliest man I've ever seen.
It'd be tough to find a better physical embodiment of corrupt intelligence apparatchik from central casting. His face seems permanently contorted in disgust and hatred. It's as if he finds most other people and things to be not only beneath him, but outright affronts to his idea of decency.
It's stuff like this that makes me question if we're living in a simulation.
4/10/19, 10:49 AM
-----------------
John Brennan's face to me is exactly what I imagine Big Brother to look like... full of hate and corruption, but also so self-assured in his own arrogant righteousness that his mind justifies any action taken against those who do not submit to is worldview....
An interesting discussion based on the recently released testimony of James Baker, FBI General Counsel
The discussion is begun by commenter Sarasotosfan:
I just about finished reading today’s testimony dump of Jim Baker.
This “thing” that the players can’t describe or categorize appears to be from Michael Sussman of Perkins Coe and could be spam communications that was introduced as proof the Trump campaign was communicating with the Russians. The so-called tech geeks acted like they had hard evidence and foisted it into the data stream to add an air of legitimacy into the investigation around the time Operation Crossfire grew wings.
This “thing”, which turned out to be nothing, was likely used to kick the Page FISA into reality.
It strikes me as the most important “evidence” that stood apart from the Steele dossier and gave all of this a backbone was this “thing”. It was a part of the FISA application.
We need to know the provenance of this “thing”.. Who were the “experts” who identified this material as relevant? The data itself has to be time stamped in some way. When does it date to? I’m sure there is more to learn here and is the only early frontier yet to be fully explored. It appeared to be the crown jewel in this Russian hoax investigation. ....
The CIA has been running amok since WW2, and the entire intelligence apparatus needs to be fundamentally dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up to prevent this from ever happening again...
They never recovered from the Church Committee. I still reading "Beruit Rules" and the CIA was a clusterfuck. They had no idea what was going on in Lebanon. Personally, if I were Trump, I would see if we could contract with the Mossad for intel services.
The CIA is 20,000 people reading foreign language newspapers.
Well Ames was their general in terms of expertise, and he was hit by a protege of his associate salameh, in mugniyeh.
“Inga, should we help Birkel with his needs? (What's a royal As s anyway?)”
He needs professional help.
“Got an Instalink to this post at Chicagoboyz where I speculated that the original target of the IC was Flynn, even before Trump was the nominee.”
Meant to respond to that post over there in ChicagoLand, but spaced it out. We had a discussion a day or two ago about this general topic, and Lucid suggested that there were three groups in the intelligence community: #1 - military intelligence; #2 - rank and file; and #3 - the intelligence industrial complex. I used white hats for MI (#1) and black hats for #3, and this appears to be fairly accurate here. Gen Flynn was not just part of MI, but he was one of their golden boys, for what he did on the battlefields of the Middle East. He apparently made enemies in #3 on several occasions, including on some personnel matter with the FBI. they probably weren’t happy when he allied himself with Trump, and may have been surveiling him through summer and fall of 2016, but my guess is that the hit order was put out when Flynn moved into the White House as Trump’s National Security Advisor. Too much power in the hands of Military Intelligence, and esp in the hands of the guy who was smart enough to let us win in Iraq. As someone pointed out in that discussion, the Strzok/Page text messages were released within a day or so of Flynn having been fired, and my suggestion was that that was payback - and it turned out to have been very expensive payback. Flynn was probably a rook level piece, at least bishop level, as was Strzok. It was those Strzok/Page text messages that ultimately caused us to be where we are now, with the AG announcing that the predicates for the bogus Russian collaboration investigation would be fully investigated. Strzok had his fingers into all of the various pieces of the various plots, so exposing his texts with his putative paramour exposed a lot of the skulduggery going on behind the scenes. It was a masterful move. And the damage it did to the Deep State/#3 players showed, I think, the value that everyone was putting on Flynn.
Blogger Michael K said...
The CIA has been running amok since WW2, and the entire intelligence apparatus needs to be fundamentally dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up to prevent this from ever happening again...
They never recovered from the Church Committee. I still reading "Beruit Rules" and the CIA was a clusterfuck. They had no idea what was going on in Lebanon. Personally, if I were Trump, I would see if we could contract with the Mossad for intel services.
The CIA is 20,000 people reading foreign language newspapers.
4/10/19, 2:16 PM
-------------------
Most eye-opening book I ever read was: "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA"... It is absolutely jaw-dropping how incompetent and corrupt the CIA has been, going all the way back to the OSS... the money and lives wasted, the lack of accountability... I honestly wonder if any good the CIA has done could possibly outweigh all the bad...
The Poor Man's LLR C**** gadfly: "William Barr does not have to investigate the ongoing Republican conspiracy theories designed to protect Trump."
LOLOLOL
Please, please, please Mr. Barr, don't go looking right over there by all that Stasi-like spying obama and his minions did against domestic political opponents!!
Why, that would mess up all of our tightly scripted moronic lefty/LLR talking points!!!
The Obama expansion has continued apace another 27 months, yet many remain torn up inside about the prospect that there has been ongoing national security surveillance of those up to no good.
readering moves seamlessly from the democrat line that only conspiracy theorists could believe obama spied on opponents to the inevitable of course he spied on opponents.
This follows the precise narrative trajectory of everything the lefty/LLR's do and say.
Remember obamacare?
No way obama would ever lie about the details of the plan to of course obama lied about, every politician has to lie to get legislation passed!
Too too funny.
Sorry readering, Team Left/LLR spend 3 years peddling a story non-stop, at full throated lefty/LLR warble, with the most dramatic of flat assertions and passion.
It's amusing you morons think you can pull a jedi mind trick to get everyone to forget about it!
But I encourage you to keep it up as it is very very helpful to our side.
Or don't keep it up, which is very very helpful to our side.
Get it?
The 1961 flotilla was typical of operations in kind in eastern Europe east Asia and other denied areas if not in quantity. The khamba the Hmong the Indonesian rebels
Next up for readering: hey man, did you see all that purposefully delayed de-regulation and policy changes allowing repatriation of hundreds of billions of dollars that obama seeded in his post-election plans?
Trunp sure was lucky about that!! Almost as "lucky" as those plucky Poles who had Stalins army march in from the East to protect Poland from Hitler!!....(wink wink)
LOL
The Obama expansion has continued apace another 27 months
Somehow the "New Normal" of 2% max has slipped your mind.
Good example, Bruce.
It was a masterful move. And the damage it did to the Deep State/#3 players showed, I think, the value that everyone was putting on Flynn
I still think Trump should pardon him and put him back in the Administration, Maybe put him in charge of carrying out Barr's findings and acting on them,
Bruce Hayden at 2:38 PM
the Strzok/Page text messages were released within a day or so of Flynn having been fired
The text messages began to be released a day after the indictment of Flynn was announced.
It's still not clear who made that decision to begin releasing the text messages. My guess is Mark Whitaker.
This all was discussed at The Conservative Treehouse. I can't get the details today. I remember (but am not sure) that it happened in early December 2017.
The walls are closing in on President Trump and his family and anyone close to him. (reported by sources close to the Mueller investigation).
Standard Issue Lefty/LLR Lie: "The Obama expansion has continued apace another 27 months"
The "obama expansion" obama said was impossible and that you would need a magic wand to create.
History begins every 37 seconds for the lefty/LLR's.
"The walls are closing in on President Trump and his family and anyone close to him. (reported by sources close to the Mueller investigation)."
Clearly, lefty/LLR "walls" dont work.
I'll second the recommendation of Legacy of Ashes.
"The walls are closing in on President Trump and his family and anyone close to him. (reported by sources close to the Mueller investigation)."
Clearly, lefty/LLR "walls" dont work.
Didn't you see the Star Wars walls scene ?
That's how Trump did it . All you need is a Wookie.
"Remember, this has nothing to do with Obama. Don't you dare even bring up his name. This whole thing probably started with one rogue agent in the Cleveland office."
Funny, and almost certainly, prescient.
“Attorney General Bill Barr testified Wednesday that he believes "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign in 2016.... "I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. … I think it’s my obligation. Congress is usually very concerned with intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane," he testified before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, while noting that "spying on a political campaign is a big deal."...”
I was just listening to a conservative talk radio show, and I think that he didn’t quite get what AG Barr was saying there. My reading of the predicated sentence is that they are going to look closely at the predicates that were used to administratively open up the Trump/Russia Collaboration investigation. The FBI is a bureaucracy, which means that there are rules and regulations for pretty much everything, from the size of offices through the requirements to officially open criminal or national security (e.g. counterintelligence) investigations. Superficially, this means that they will be looking at whether all the “i”s are dotted, and “t”s crossed. But I read his statement as indicating that they are going to go deeper. Hopefully, much deeper. Everyone and their grandmother during summer of 2016 seemed to be wanting to give the Steele Dossier to the FBI, and Peter Strzok, for one, having seen the Dossier from Steele (via Bruce Ohr), desperately needed to see a copy of the Dossier with proper provenance, and that doesn’t include receiving it from David Corn, a reporter, or from an old colleague, David Sussman, who was then at Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Crooked Hillary campaign (In his House testimony last year, former FBI general counsel James Baker indicated that he had received Dossier documents from both these nonstandard sources). Baker appears to have passed these documents to the FBI’s counterintelligence division, to either Peter Strzok or his boss, Bill Priestap. And, Strzok apparently got a copy directly from Steele. These weren’t legitimate channels though, so the information couldn’t be used to open their counterintelligence investigation. That is why, I think, that the people involved were so excited about Strzok’s trip to London, where he appears to have received the Dossier through proper channels, which was likely someone in the Five Eyes spook community, and this allowed the FBI to open up a legitimate looking investigation. I think that the thinking is that it was Stefan Halper that he got the documents from.
I'll second the recommendation of Legacy of Ashes.
I have it in my bookcase but I could not get all the way through it. Too depressing. "Beruit Rules" is also pretty depressing.
By the way, anybody who wants to break up our relations with Israel should read the book. Without the Mossad, we would be blind in the Middle East, Maybe that is what Omar and the other anti-semites are working toward. The last time we had a Congress member working to harm America was Vallandigham in the Civil War.
I thought legacy dwelled too much in the usual cold war narratives any opposition to the Soviets
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/2019/04/10/floridas-democratic-senate-leader-defends-opposition-to-bill-on-anti-semitism/
He misses the boat today:
https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/tim-weiner/
And five years ago:
https://www.thenation.com/article/why-torture-report-wont-change-anything/
Ronan Bergman had a reasonably solid first book on the Israeli side of this skirmish
Admittedly he was helpful in pointing out some of the scorpions we had invited on to our lily pad but that was largely hekmatyar:
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no3/legacy-of-ashes-the-history-of-cia.html
Rachel Maddow leads with Trump's taxes.
More magic beans, you would think she would know better.
"to the extent there were issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem of the FBI. I think it was probably a failure of the group of leaders—the upper echelons of the FBI."
Comey is out standing in his field..
in Iowa.
He can make like a curtain..but how corny can that sanctimonious POS get?
Its like my leftie Facebook feed got hit with a power outage. Not a peep. In unison they have all pivoted to Trump's tax returns. Weird. Why would that be?
National security letters
These are instruments the FBI used against the Trump to investigate (spy) on communication of the Trump campaign. This came up in some reporting a long time ago, then dropped off the radar. Barr should be able to access those to find out when, and who the investigating (spying) covered
Attorney General Bill Barr testified Wednesday that he believes "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign in 2016.... "I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. … I think it’s my obligation. Congress is usually very concerned with intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane," he testified before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, while noting that "spying on a political campaign is a big deal."...
"Congress is usually very concerned with intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane,"
Yeah, that's a nice shot at any Democrat Senator with a conscience.
Too bad there aren't any
Some further thoughts.
The Democrats, along with the MSM ("Dem operatives with bylines"), were in meltdown mode over AG Barr mentioning the word "spying". And, with Trump picking it up. They claimed no evidence, ignoring the tons of stuff that has come out over the last two plus years about what was done by the cabal. Maybe denial is the natural response here, but it is going to be counterproductive. FISC is our spy court, and they got at least four FISA warrants (or, more accurately maybe, one warrant with three extensions) that allowed them to electronically surveil a US Person (US citizen or legally resident alien) in the US, and thanks, apparently, to regulations promulgated by the Obama DoJ, they were allowed to surveil up to top hops away, and could go back in time. This means that the FBI was able to gain permission to electronically surveil much of the Trump campaign, transition, and even Administration. National Security Letters are another tool that the National Security Branch at the FBI had at their disposal for fighting terrorism and engaging in counterintelligence against other countries. (I have heard several places that one of the reasons that Mueller was happy to take Strzok onto his team was that he was still authorized to issue National Security Letters, from his former position as #2 in the Counterintelligence Division). These are all spy tools designed to be used internally against our country's enemies. Indeed, they are only supposed to be used against our enemies, which is why they had to sell the FISC that the people that they got FISA warrants to electronically surveil were indeed our country's enemies, or working closely with them. Of course, the only target who has been confirmed, Carter Page, was no demonstrably such thing.
This is, of course, a rehash of what we have been talking about here for a couple years. Only those who receive their talking points every day from the DNC or MSM are brave enough to question this here. But that wasn't the case throughout much of the MSM yesterday after Barr called what these alphabet agencies had done "spying". There was a general meltdown. How dare he question the honor of these agencies? (He really hadn't - focusing his attention at their mostly former leadership). Eventually, it seemed like the acceptable response, broadcast throughout the MSM by whatever has replaced JournaList, was that there was no evidence of "spying". Maybe an easy counter, but, in the end, I think counterproductive to their cause. Ultimately, they are going to have to defend this, or pretend that they hadn't said what they had said, when faced with the reality of FBI agents listening into phone conversations, and vacuuming up thousands (millions) of emails and text messages, looking at bank records, etc, all using tools designed for spying, and not crime fighting. The meme war has been set: Was the Deep State, in the guise of the alphabet agencies, spying on the Trump campaign? They could have set the fight to be over whether or not the spying was justified. They didn't. By denying that it existed, they have chosen that hill to fight and die on. And, when it is shown to much of the country that these agencies indeed did spy on Trump's campaign, transition, and early Administration, it will probably be too late in the meme war to argue about justification. Some there think that they can control the meme to their advantage. They should know that is wishful thinking, when dealing with Trump. The more that they deny that there was spying, the more he will beat that he was spied upon into the American consciousness. And, ultimately people are going to go to people, and he will take his victory laps.
Some pundits yesterday suggested that this less than optimal response was a sign of panic. And, indeed, the spying statement by AG Barr seemed to be in direct response to Deep State panic. They know that laws were broken, and by all rights, the people involved should be heading to prison. And, making things worse, the scandal leads straight to the Obama White House. There is evidence, at least in the Strzok/Page text messages, that the Obama WH was insisting on being in the loop. Will it reach Obama himself? Highly doubtful, because he has too many loyal people willing to fall on their swords to protect him. And, probably because of his hands off management style. Imagine that this is his ultimate legacy as President for eight years - that his Administration used our spy apparatuses to spy on the other party's Presidential candidate, and his ultimate successor.
Some talking heads on the FNC shows later in the day interpreted the "predicated" a bit differently than I had. I had suggested that the question was how the FBI got access to the information that they used for the FISA warrants (much of it from the Steele Dossier). And, that may be relevant. But I heard from several that the bigger question is the quantity and quality of information utilized to justify the FISA warrants. The FBI can spy on American citizens (and legally resident aliens) in the US. They just have to justify it at a fairly high level, and if it involves the Presidential campaign of the other party's candidate, the evidence should have to be overwhelming. And, we are pretty sure that it wasn't overwhelming, probably more contrived than anything. And, I think that we are pretty sure that one big reason that the FISC issued the warrants on at least Carter Page was that the fact that the real target of the warrants was the opposing party's Presidential candidate's campaign, transition, and early Administration, and that was fairly well hidden (from the FISC) in the FISA applications.
Above and beyond the question of the quality of the evidence utilized to predicate the opening of the counterintelligence investigation on the Trump campaign (I find it hilarious that the Dems and MSM are trying to confuse things by calling it an "investigation" - since that is how spying works in the FBI, by their performing counterintelligence or counterterrorism investigations), the other interesting thing is the source of the evidence. AG Barr made sure to warn the Deep State that he knew that the source of much of the evidence was sketchy at best. It appears that foreign assets were utilized, mostly in Europe, to quasi-legally generate the predicates for the investigation. It isn't quite clear yet whether it was a CIA or FBI operation, since, for example, the guy at the center of at least some of it, Stefan Halper, works for both agencies, as well as our military. Indeed, we may never know if he was responding to FBI or CIA orders at the time. Maybe both. Ditto for others, such as Misfyp and Downer, though I suspect that Halper was the one running both of them. We shall see. Which is the interesting thing there, is that we probably will - AG Barr would make it clear that he would try hard to figure out who did what and when. Before this, Clapper and Brennan have been sniping at Trump from their perches at CNN and MSNBC. Now their freedom is in question, and their objectivity in shreds.
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