December 21, 2019

"The Steele dossier was central to obtaining the Page warrant, and the leaks about the dossier fanned two years of media theories about Russian collusion..."

"... that was one reason Mr. Mueller was appointed as special counsel. Mr. Mueller owed the public an explanation of how much of the dossier could be confirmed or repudiated. Instead he abdicated, and the mystery is why. Perhaps as a former FBI director, Mr. Mueller wanted to protect the bureau's reputation... A less generous explanation is that Mr. Mueller was more a figurehead as special counsel, and that the investigation was really run by his deputy Andrew Weissmann.... On the evidence in the Horowitz report, the special counsel team had to know the truth about the Steele dossier and false FBI claims to the FISA court, but they chose to look the other way."

From "Robert Mueller's Dossier Dodge," an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

And also in the Wall Street Journal from "FISA Court Owes Some Answers" by Kimberley Strassel in the Wall Street Journal:
Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer... blasted the FBI for misleading the court ...  The order depicts a court stunned to discover that the FBI failed in its "duty of candor," and angry it was duped. That's disingenuous. To buy it, you'd have to believe that not one of the court's 11 members -- all federal judges -- caught a whiff of this controversy until now. More importantly, you'd have to ignore that the court was directly informed of the FBI's abuses nearly two years ago....

[The court is] predictably pointing fingers at the FBI, but the court should itself account for its failure to provide more scrutiny, and its refusal to act when [Congressman Devin] Nunes first exposed the problem [in February 2018, when he was chair of the House Intelligence Committee]. The FBI is far from alone in this disgrace.

193 comments:

Geneo said...

Wow!! I have never commented but this is one writing that rings of the truth.

gspencer said...

I'm hoping the FISA black-robed dudes and dudettes start, sua sponte to use some legal lingo, demanding some answers. Even if CYA-ing is the motivation, lets get some more information. Name the names.

wendybar said...

If nothing is done, and they get away with it, NOBODY is ever going to trust ANY Government agency again. We aren't as stupid as they think we are.

rcocean said...

My impression of Mueller is that he was halfway to senility and just a figure head. He didn't seem "up to speed" on his own investigation. Its obvious, that he did no interviews during his 2 year investigation, not because of the need for secrecy, but because he didn't really care/know what was going on.

But then his reputation for being a "straight shooter" comes from the same people who told us that Life-long-Republicans Comey and McCabe were honest, honorable men. TO which i reply, we've seen what a sleazeball Comey is, so why would GREAT MAN Mueller be Best Friends with him?

Finally, there's a suspicion that Muller "accidentally" left his cell phone in the oval office after his interview with Trump for nefarious reasons. AND was talking to Rosenstein about investigating Trump BEFORE Comey was fired.

David Begley said...

The Steele dossier was false and the FBI knew it was false. It never told FISC that Hillary paid for these lies.

I’ve written Judge Collyer (FWIW) to convene a contempt hearing so that the public’s confidence in the judiciary is restored.

People need to go to jail or this happens again. People must pay a price.

What if the FBI started spying on the Biden campaign because of Joe’s ties to China?

There is lots of unwarranted outrage these days, but the Russia hoax deserves real outrage. And law enforcement action!

mccullough said...

You can see why Giuliani has done so well for so long. Guy is just a lot sharper than the Mueller,, Comey, and Weismann types.

Rudy was running the Nunes investigation.

He’s the guy in Ukraine.

Rudy the Ronin.

Trump picks his people well.

rcocean said...

Its amazing how long and how often the Establishment press gives us a version of events, or tells us how wonderful Person X is, and then later, much later, we find out differently.

The Pentagon papers, FDR's lies, LBJ's lies, The lies about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, Hillary and Bills behavior, Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Comey, the 2008 housing scandal, the list goes on and on.

I've gotten to the point where if the Wapo/NYT calls someone a "Life long republican" I know they're a fake and really a liberal democrat.

mccullough said...

Collyer was in on it.

They all were.

mccullough said...

Rudy prosecuted The Five Families. He cleaned up NYC.

Comey prosecuted Martha Stewart. Mueller couldn’t catch the Anthrax Killer.

Rudy’s the guy who gets the job done. Comey and Mueller are the other guys.



AllenS said...

There is a good possibility that Collyer was just as uninterested in everything as was Mueller. Collecting their paychecks were more important.

mccullough said...

Weismann was at The Hillary Defeat Party on election night. Fucking loser

Lincolntf said...

What's the punishment for being the one who poisoned the tree that produced the poison fruit?

rhhardin said...

There are probably lots of women on the FISA court. They go with the narrative.

robother said...

Collyer, a Bush appointee, is being replaced Jan.1 by CJ Roberts (stepping down for "personal reasons"): Roberts is naming an Obama appointee to her place as chief judge of the FISA court. So that guy will no doubt get to the bottom of all this. It wouldn't be much of a Deep State if it only included Democrats now would it?

PB said...

Seems like charges of professional malpractice should be lodged against Weismann and he should be considered for disbarment. He had to know of exculpatory information of individuals and the fraudulent nature of the Steele report (motivating purpose of the SC), yet he persisted in service of the resistance.

Honest services theft.

rcocean said...

Mueller's failure to look into the Steele Dossier only becomes "puzzling" if you believe he was a "straight shooter" out for the truth. And not a Trump hater.

Does Strassel forget Mueller was friends with Comey and Rosenstein and beloved by Chuck Schumer, Obama, and the New York times? Does she forget that he stabbed Alberto Gonzales in the back and helped drive him out of the AG job?

Does she forget that Mueller not only hired Hillary supporters, he hired Page, Storkz and the whole FBI team that were behind the whole Steele Dossier fraud to being with? Its surprising that Mueller didn't hire Steele himself to help investigate trump!

mccullough said...

Colliers term on the FISA court ends in a few months.

She was a W appointed Swamp rat.

Trump should respond to her order to the FBI.

“Here’s what I’m doing. I fired Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Paige, Priestap. A few of their underlings in the Counter-Intelligence Division are cooperating now. Indictments against your friends are imminent. So avoid the cocktail party circuit for awhile. Probably best for you to retire. I’m making America Great Again and you are part of the problem.”

David Begley said...

All sorts of people think FISC was in on the coup attempt and the illegal spying.

That’s EXACTLY why there needs to be a contempt hearing for Comey et al.

And I know from some other legal research that if one repeatedly says “I don’t recall” and that’s not credible, that a person can be found in contempt or found guilty. It was like being late for work because of constant flat tires.

mccullough said...

Take away the FISA appointment power from Roberts.

mccullough said...

No FISA Judge should be on a court within 500 miles of DC.

The judges should be in the Dakotas and Kansas.

Collyer is a swamp rat.

David Begley said...

Collyer’s term expires March 2020.

David Begley said...

MC

Look at the website. Judges from all over the country.

PB said...

Comey uses the Steele report as the basis to trigger the special counsel, yet either he knew it it could not be verified or he didn't bother to ask if it had been verified. Gross misconduct of the highest order. To the extent that he enlisted others to distribute and publicize the Steel report, he was directing/initiating a conspiracy to obstruct or remove the duly elected President. This is treason.

doctrev said...

https://spectator.org/nixons-resignation-reconsidered/

This isn't the first time the Democrats have fronted a figurehead while secretly conspiring against the President and American people. It's absolutely fascinating to see why it succeeded, and why this latest iteration failed. I have to believe that this knowledge played some role in how President Trump responded to seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

The fact no information from the Mueller investigation resulted in impeachment charges, which rely exclusively on abuse of power in the Ukraine, is the ultimate testimony to how desperately the Democrats want to sever the investigation. It won't work.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

The left want to buy the Steele Dossier. It's true if they shut their eyes and pray real hard.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

The corruption ring is so big on the left - they had to impeach Trump.

mccullough said...

Begley,

I know. I said no Judge should be in or near DC. Collyer is a DC judge like a couple of others. So is Roberts.

They are friends with these fiends.

YoungHegelian said...

Maybe Claude Rains is on the FISA court.

PB said...

Collyer received information from Nunes in early 2018 that the FISA warrant request was fraudulent, yet she basically brushed him off. Twice. It should have caused her to review the warrant submission, yet she didn't. This is judicial malpractice. Grounds for impeachment. As a Bush appointed judge, I'm sure the Dems would be happy to oblige.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Dear President Trump,

Keep turning over those rocks, exposing the corrupt bureaucrats and the corrupt Democrats that infest this great country. THAT is why they impeached you - for daring to expose Biden's corruption.

Signed,
A very reluctant 2016 but enthusiastic 2020 voter.

mccullough said...

The FISA court has 11 judges. 3 of them are DC judges, including the Chief Judge Colkyer.

There are 95 federal judicial districts in the US.

Roberts gets to appoint the FISA judges. Roberts is a DC judge and a swamp rat who has done his level best to undermine Trump.

If the FISA Court isn’t abolished, it should be changed so that (1) The president appoints the judges and (2) no judge is anywhere near DC.



Michael K said...

Weissmann has a long history of quasi criminal behavior, which is why he ran the "Mueller" team.

Weissmann's chief distinction is he managed a 9-0 Supreme Court reversal of his destruction of Arthur Anderson Accounting in which 5,000 people lost their jobs and the company was destroyed.

I agree Collyer was in on it and the FISA law should be repealed.

Kim Strassel is the only reason I still subscribe to the WSJ.

Anonymous said...

Somebody needs to do a Brimley on the whole group. Starting with Comey, Yates, and McCabe who attested under oath to the veracity of the FISA filings.

tds said...

Chief Justice Roberts hand-picked and appointed FISA court judges. Does he have power to audit and remove them?

mccullough said...

And get rid of Senior Status judges.

Either do the full job or retire.

Congress needs to amend the statutes to get rid of this bullshit.

William said...

The FBI was involved in a number of past scandals, and no one involved went to jail. Why should this be any different?.....I don't want to see these men go to jail. I'd just like to see someone other than Trump supporters criticize them for their zeal and dishonesty. The problem is that their co-conspirators were the media, and they exceeded the Mueller team in their zeal and dishonesty.

mccullough said...

The corruption ring isn’t just on the left.

Biden’s Cokehead Son isn’t the only bag men for funneling money to the swamp.

There’s a reason Pelosi isn’t sending over the Articles of Impeachment and there’s a reason McConnell wants no witnesses at a trial.

Trump has McConnell by the balls.

Giuiluani has been out doing his job.

mccullough said...

These men deserve to go to jail and their assets seized and signed over to the people they tried to fuck over.

Comey is a sociopath. So is Strzok.

So us Brennan.

Their families should be allowed to leave the country.

Mark said...

The Mueller team knew that the "Steele dossier" was fraudulent on the first day, just as Comey-appointed Patrick Fitzgerald knew who "leaked" Valerie Plame's name (and who did not) on the first day, but the fraud was ignored because otherwise the investigation should have immediately been shut down and they needed a pretext in order to go after (and coup) Trump.

narciso said...

holman Jenkins, has been uneven, but the only other editorialist who has looked into the issue,

ah mueller, who was weld's deputy in boston, then when he moved to head the criminal division, regardless none of bulger's men were pinched in the 80s, his firm has represented Barclays in a transaction with Qatari investors, as well as deutsche bank, in the past, then there the honoraria granted him by banamex, a year before their settlement for money laundering,

David Begley said...

Recall the vital role the federal judiciary played in Watergate. So far the Judiciary has completed failed in the Russia hoax. All three branches must do their jobs.

narciso said...

so then you tie in mifsud, which was doing counter terror work from the med to the indian ocean, as chris blackburn points out, the local contact was arvim binder, halper who was a legacy by way of his father, a factotum of dubious reliability, then you have downer, who was on the board of haklyut, which has interesting ties to the panama papers in china, and his own board seat with Huawei,

robother said...

So. Obama appointee Boasberg takes over as chief Judge of FISA January 1.. Collier steps down from that role Jan.1, but demands that the FBI report on its abuses by Jan 10. Talk about a shambolic gesture on her way out. Typical Life Long Republican DC insider move.

narciso said...

yes if it wasn't for Sirica, hunt and co don't break, the Watergate taskforce had series issues with their as proven by my friend clarice's reversal of the charges against the city manager of san diego, re an unrelated matter,

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

William @ 11:50

The media are the co-conspirators, indeed.

Molly said...

I heard IG Horowitz testifying to a Senate committee. He explained that the next step for his office was to examine some number of other FISA warrants. Either he will find similar misrepresentations in those applications (not related to Trump), which would indicate a systemic problem. Or he will find that non-Trump-related applications do not have similar misrepresentations, which would indicate anti-Trump bias in the case of the Carter Page applications. This sounds like a reasonable approach to me.

narciso said...

that's the pattern that suggests itself, they would be the control group, why has it taken so long,

Hagar said...

The "Steele dossier" has its origin in AG Eric Holder publicly regretting he did not do a better job in hiding his tracks in overseeing the perjurious affidavit submitted to FISA in the James Rosen case. The dossier was concocted here and sent for a tour abroad to be rinsed in foreign waters and - Presto! - becoming "intelligence gathered from foreign sources" matching the language in the FISA legislation.
The responsible people in both the "intelligence community" and the FISA courts need to be named and prosecuted for perjury and abetting.

Bob Smith said...

I knew that.

Narayanan said...

Mueller was presented to Trump for possible FBI Director failing which he got to be Special Counsel.

Coup Team had bases loaded still couldn't score any runs.

Trump's a Magnificent Bastard.

narciso said...

then there's this,


https://quodverum.com/2019/07/193/flynngate-how-an-islamist-organization-set-up-a-top-member-of-the-trump-administration-with-the-complicity-of-a-venal-press-and-corrupt-politicians-.html

Sebastian said...

"Mr. Mueller owed the public an explanation of how much of the dossier could be confirmed or repudiated. Instead he abdicated, and the mystery is why."

There was no mystery. The very investigation was an abdication, a way to postpone the reckoning and cover up deep-state malfeasance. Mueller did not abdicate: he did what he needed to do.

Of course, we commenters here were onto them all along. Everything we cynically suspected turned out to be true--if not worse.

The spying on Trump empowered the deep-state progs, and the investigation hamstrung his administration. You can see the function their machinations served. But as we have discussed before, they nonetheless gambled brazenly, since the Brennans and McCabes and Weissmans had to know that they did not have the goods to kill the king.

mccullough said...

Trump has Rudy.

The Coup Team’s players suck. That’s why their records of achievement are trash.

The W DOJ went after steroids in baseball. The Obama DOJ went after Edwards and McDonnell.

These were incredibly petty cases brought by petty morons. None of these guys were even convicted.

Meanwhile, the guys on Wall Street walked away. They fund the swamp.

Rudy is a player. The rest of these guys aren’t even bench warmers.

Narayanan said...

Rudy the Ronin.
_____&&&&&+++++
De Niro was Ronin in movie.
But he's clueless without script(ure) from coast elites.

traditionalguy said...

The B-2 Bomber is staring to drop bombs. B-2= BB=Bill Barr.

bagoh20 said...

"...but they chose to look the other way."

Wow, that's being generous. Analogy: The burglars knew the stuff they were stealing belonged to someone else, but they chose to look the other way. It was just a mistake that it all ended up being stolen. They were just trying to do their job.

narciso said...

Then you have the nain event



https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=HtXYExjlpwk

bagoh20 said...

You know, many of the commenters here were right all along about most of this stuff, and they have been for years now despite running upstream against the mainstream. I'm proud and lucky to have been a regular reader here. You peeps is smart - stable genius level.

Narayanan said...

Blogger The Drill SGT said...
Somebody needs to do a Brimley on the whole group
______&&&&&&-------++++++++
And we've his doppelganger in Durham.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcRhD9bBkUM1flgvvpVjcD4Oizzzz5EKCQrcszd0yiq0IFpUr39B

Bruce Hayden said...

A couple things to keep in mind about Mueller. He was running the FBI in 2010 when the agency requested IRS files from Lois Lerner’s tax exempt entities unit concerning TEA Party groups. He was also FBI Director when the DOJ and FBI politically militarized FISA in 2012. While maybe not up to his eyebrows in corruption like Comey and esp McCabe, he definitely had skeletons in his closet that needed protecting.

Narayanan said...

Wasn't it known already in 2016 that Hillary had commissioned Steele for dirt on Trump?
She was never asked about it ? was she?

She would be in jail as Trump said on stage.

Narayanan said...

mccullough said...
And get rid of Senior Status judges
_____&&&&&-----+++++
Do I have it wrong?
Does it not open up seats to fill?

Maybe RBG could go senior!

Narayanan said...

Additionally, senior judges do not occupy seats; instead, their seats become vacant, and the president may appoint new full-time judges to fill their spots.

gadfly said...

The FISC is not like a normal court. There are no cops patrolling the streets to make sure no one breaks the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law the FISC oversees, and then charging scofflaws. Violations of FISA get discovered in just three ways. Hypothetically, defendants prosecuted using evidence collected under FISA sometimes can ask to review the underlying process for any problems, but aside from a few times prosecutors have told defendants the government spied on their conversations with lawyers, that has never once worked in practice.

So, even in this case, Rosemary Collyer did not call for the FISC itself to do anything different. FBI may likely provide a plan implementing the FISC-based recommendations made by Inspector General Michael Horowitz, as well as additional updates to operating procedures.

This is, unfortunately, an order deferring to the government to fix the problem, not an order designed to impose new requirements from the court until FBI proves it has cleaned up its act to the extent that the law permits.

FISA is likely a violation of the constitution that is not attributable to the FBI.

Ray - SoCal said...

Aargh - my head is starting to hurt with all the false information that was done as part of this coup.

Good news is it’s slowly coming out.

Is Guccifer 2.0 A CIA Creation?
https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2019/12/is-guccifer-20-cia-creation.html?m=1

The posing by the Fisa court judge bothers me, Nunes memo and her lack of follow up discredited her.

Narayanan said...

Choice to make

Brimley - Absence of Malice
Trump => Paul Newman

Brimley - The Firm
Trump => Tom Cruise

Hagar said...

It is questionable whether it is appropriate to have either a police agency (FBI, DEA, BATF) or an intelligence agency (FBI (WWII added duty?)) under the Department of Justice. It does lead to the bad guys being on the inside and the department investigating itself when malfeasance is suspected.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The "Steele dossier" has its origin in AG Eric Holder publicly regretting he did not do a better job in hiding his tracks in overseeing the perjurious affidavit submitted to FISA in the James Rosen case. The dossier was concocted here and sent for a tour abroad to be rinsed in foreign waters and - Presto! - becoming "intelligence gathered from foreign sources" matching the language in the FISA legislation.
The responsible people in both the "intelligence community" and the FISA courts need to be named and prosecuted for perjury and abetting.”

IG Horowitz found the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Trump/Russia Collusion sufficiently predicated. This means that they had enough evidence with proper provenance to justify opening the counterintelligence investigation. It involved the claim that George Popadopolis had heard from Russian intelligence asset Joseph Mifsud that the Russians had Crooked Hillary’s missing emails (the ones that Peter Strzok, soon to be heading the CH investigation, had allowed her attorneys to delete, when he was heading the MYE investigation into her illegal email server). Apparently the information came from the Australians in London, the story being that either their ambassador (Alexander Downer), or his female assistant, had met with Popadopolis for drinks, at which time he supposedly disclosed the Mifsud claim to the Australians. Of course, we know now that Mifsud was almost assuredly a Western, and not a Russian, intelligence asset, and that it is very likely that the entire operation was run by Steven Halper in London, who earned millions from an obscure DOD Intelligence agency. But the key here is that Strzok, McCabe, and even Comey could claim with straight faces that they had received the intelligence that they used to open the CH investigation from legitimate, foreign, sources. Essentially from our Five Eyes Intelligence allies. Can’t be more legitimate than that.

We have known this for several years now. It wasn’t exactly clear how this tied into the FISA warrants against Carter Page (turns out they didn’t have sufficient evidence against George Popadopolis, with that Mifsud/Downer email story, so went with Carter Page warrants, relying on the Steele Dossier for evidence). It didn’t really matter which one they used, since either would have worked to allow them to electronically surveil Trump, his campaign, transition, and early Administration, while also legally justifying the illegal FISA 702(16)(17) political surveillance being done by FBI contractors up until April or so of 2016.

Now things are getting interesting. The Brits and the Aussies weren’t working all by themselves to setup and compromise Popadopolis, along with at least three others (Page, Flynn, Manafort). They wouldn’t have dared. We continue to be the senior member of the Five Eyes intelligence group, because we spend more money than probably the other four members combined. They wouldn’t have dared without at least CIA, if not White House, approval. And that leads directly to the likely next link, the Trump hating, communist sympathizing, former CIA Director, John Brennan. He had to have at least approved the operation. Wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Much more likely, he organized and executed it (though I think that his boss, DNI Clapper, had to have also been involved, to get the Halper funding). Brennan’s job was to use his power as CIA Director to generate the predicate for opening a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, and then to have it delivered, from our Five Eyes allies to the FBI, who would, and did, take it from there. The predicate had to appear to be legitimate from the point of view of the FBI, and the delivery had to have proper provenance (and not something that Peter Strzok brought back from his frequent trips to the CIA).

Now however, John Brennan is under investigation by USA Durham. The walls are closing in.

Marshall Rose said...

bagoh20

Many of the commentators here are well informed from other sources, read The Conservative Treehouse, if you don't already. They have been spot on for all of this for years.

Temujin said...

There is so much to say here, and I don't want to bore this smart crowd. But...from the Russia Collusion hoax to the Impeachment Show, this entire thing has been a massive coup attempt. The criminality in this entire project makes Watergate look like a child's tea party. This is a coup attempt, with the press as a willing participant.

Andrew Weissmann should have been disbarred years ago for his criminal efforts in the Enron Task Force. He sent innocent men to jail, destroying lives and families. He destroyed a 100 year old world renowned accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, and with it, 85,000 jobs globally. 85,000 jobs lost, an entire company's history tossed out so Andrew Weissmann could get front page pub and get his promotions. Weissmann's tactics included withholding evidence from the defense, threatening witnesses to perform as he needed them to. To this day many people think the Enron case was an open and shut case, but it was not. Attorney Sidney Powell fought Weissmann and the US judicial system to get the innocent people out of jail. After years of appeals, the Supreme Court finally threw out all of Weissmann's convictions. Innocent men were let out of jail. But...who do they go to, to get their lives back? Their time back? Their reputations and finances back? What about Arthur Andersen? The entire company was forced to close after over 100 years of reliably high quality service. For no reason other than a politically motivated attack by government deep state employees.

Now move on to Mueller. His main attacker: Andrew Weissmann again. Again it's corrupt from the top down. Again innocent people have gone to jail. Again- there is no standing conviction based on the original claims.

This entire thing is a disgrace. It is disgusting. And if ever there was a time to clean house, this is it. There should be no Dem elected for 2 generations. Clean them out. And...the Weissmann's, Schiff's, Pelosi's, Mueller's, McCabe's, And- yes- Collyer's of our government need to be shown the door. In Weissmann and Schiff's case- the jail door.

It's time for a real house cleaning. NoDems42Gens.

Mark O said...

There might be someone here who can explain two things: Why is Weissmann still employed by the DOJ, and why has he not be disbarred for his fraudulent behavior?

I'd wait for an answer, but there will be none coming.

Michael K said...

Brennan is an interesting guy. I keep wondering if he resembles Kim Philby. How did he get to where he is ? Who pushed him?

He has admitted that he was a communist at one time. Station Chief in Saudi, where he may have converted to Islam.

He was an analyst and his rise all seems to have been with Obama.

J.J. Angleton might have been interested in him.

Ralph L said...

I'm waiting for some 5 am searches and arrests.

Original Mike said...

Wall Street Journal: "How could the special counsel have ignored the Steels dossier?"

I hope the WSJ isn't this dumb. The special counsel was appointed to bury the Steele dossier. He would have succeeded too, if Trump hadn't cashiered Sessions.

Mark O said...

Bruce Hayden correctly writes "IG Horowitz found the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Trump/Russia Collusion sufficiently predicated." That finding was disputed by Barr and Durham. The opening of any FBI investigation can be done on the basis of a rumor. There was no sufficient predicate for the FBI to engage all its spying tools based on the beginning. Remember, there was an attempt to obtain a FISA on Papadopoulos (before they thought they had him with $10K in cash at the airport--how would they know he had cash?). They did not have enough. Enter the Steele dossier that was unverified and the source was unverified. That is the point at which predication failed, and it failed over and over again. By January 2017 the FBI knew the dossier was unsupportable but continued to use it at FISC. When the FBI learned that Steele's source said the entire thing was gossip, the FBI told FISC that the source was "credible." True, but the FBI did not explain what the source told them.

Sebastian said...

Bruce Hayden, in the spirit of the holidays, AKA Christmas: thanks.

Your analyses have been spot-on, and better than just about anything in the MSM.

Original Mike said...

I see none of the usual suspects have had the nerve to weigh in. I understand. It must be demoralizing.

Bruce Hayden said...

It has traditionally been hard to bring the CIA to Justice. And this wasnt going to be any easier. The Intelligence Community IG, Michael K. Atkinson, wasn’t going to be a help, as DOJ IG Horowitz had, because he was up to his eyebrows in the scandal already, having been in the DOJ NSD at the time when they were approving all of the Carter Page FISA warrants. If he had done his job while still at the DOJ, none of those warrants probably would ever have been filed. Plus, we saw how his IG office changed the rules on whistleblowing to allow Eric Ciaramella to work with HSCI Chair Schifty to File a whistleblower complaint (back) with the HSCI that was completely devoid of any first hand knowledge. No, IG Atkinson is not someone who will work diligently to get to the bottom of the CIA side of the SpyGate scandal.

But Trump did something interesting. He gave AG Barr full declassification authority over anything related to the scandal. And that includes over IC documents tha normally only the DNI and CIA Director can declassify. And, indeed, that has traditionally been their first line of defense - classifying everything even remotely relevant. Barr then delegated this authority to USA Durham, who was assigned to investigate the scandal. And he appears to be making headway, and John Brennan appears ever more panicked, as the walls close in. I think that it is highly likely that they have already documented that Joseph Mifsud was Western Intelligence, and that means that the entire scheme collapses into a fairly obvious CIA operation. Both Barr and Durham were in Italy a month or two ago, watched a video by Mifsud, and retrieved several cell phones of his. Moreover, both the Australian and UK governments seem to be bending over to cooperate (not wanting the somewhat vindictive Trump to hold their participation in SpyGate against them).

The big question, for me, is how quickly do Barr and Durham disclose what they have against Brennan and company.

Original Mike said...

"(before they thought they had him with $10K in cash at the airport--how would they know he had cash?)."

Durham has that cash now. I assume the FBI had the smarts to wear gloves because, you know, they're The FBI.

Rory said...

"Wasn't it known already in 2016 that Hillary had commissioned Steele for dirt on Trump?"

Who paid for the dossier leaked in late 2017.

hstad said...

LOL - hold your breath everyone -"...FISA Court Owes Some Answers" by Kimberly Strassel in the Wall Street Journal..." The 'Fix' is already happening! The Chief FISA Court Judge who dared to criticize the FBI has left her position, because of health reasons - LOL! Guess what? Chief Justice John Roberts, from the Supreme Court, appointed an Obama appointed Judge to replace her as Chief Judge of the FISA Court. Coincidence - given this is the Government - don't think so!

Original Mike said...

"[The court is] predictably pointing fingers at the FBI, but the court should itself account for its failure to provide more scrutiny, and its refusal to act when [Congressman Devin] Nunes first exposed the problem [in February 2018, when he was chair of the House Intelligence Committee]. The FBI is far from alone in this disgrace.". (emphasis added)

A certain LLR went out of his way to trash Nunes in several threads a few days ago. It seem a bit odd at the time. Now I understand why the marching orders came down.

The FISC has a lot to answer for.

Gk1 said...

Isn't it striking that most of the unearthing of this whole dossier scam had been happening on the blogosphere like at Conservative Treehouse or the hypergolic, Zerohedge, while Drudge has been sidelined and co-opted by the establishment? All the mainstream media has provided thus far is leaked talking points from the scammers in the CIA & FBI and probably NSA. Very little actual journalism going on by our so-called "Watchdogs in the media". Why is that?

Bruce Hayden said...

“There was no sufficient predicate for the FBI to engage all its spying tools based on the beginning. Remember, there was an attempt to obtain a FISA on Papadopoulos (before they thought they had him with $10K in cash at the airport--how would they know he had cash?). They did not have enough. Enter the Steele dossier that was unverified and the source was unverified. That is the point at which predication failed, and it failed over and over again.”

You need to look at this from the point of view of a bureaucrat, and in particular, a bureaucrat working for either the DOJ or FBI. The question was never whether the Mifsud/Popadopolis discussion was sufficient to file a FISA warrant. It obviously wasn’t, as evidenced by the FBI ultimately not filing such. Instead, the question was whether there was enough evidence to open a preliminary counterintelligence investigation based on that evidence. IG Horowitz believes that there was enough there. It came via our Five Eyes Intelligence partners, which means that it had extremely good provenance (much better than if Strzok had brought it back from the CIA in one of his visits there). In short it looked good to the FBI bureaucrats. That was all that they needed to open the investigation, sufficient rumor to believe that it was a real possibility.

The thing about Barr and Durham is that they know that the whole predication for opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was fabricated. Very likely by Brennan and his CIA. But not by the DOJ or FBI. All that IG Horowitz can do is go with the documentary evidence he has available, and interview any current government employees still hanging around. And these are smart bureaucrats who didn’t leave any documentary evidence of smoking guns lying around.

TJM said...

INGA,

We are waiting with baited breath for your keen analysis! This should be good

mccullough said...

I wouldn’t let John Roberts pick anything other than his own nose.

Get the appointment power out of his hands now.

Seeing Red said...

The usual suspects might not weigh in.

They’ve been hosed for 2-3 years, no matter what was pointed out.

But as long as Trump has a mark on his permanent record, the damage done to our foundation is worth it, because they are patriotic and the smart ones and we’re the great unwashed.

Michael K said...

Popadopopulis book is worth reading. The stuff that was done to him was creepy. He was smart enough, after a weird guy gave him $10,000 cash as a "retainer," to give the cash to a Greek lawyer he knew. The FBI grabbed him in Dulles Airport with no warrant and no customs inspection. They were gobsmacked when he did not have the $10,000 cash on him. The story reads like a Keystone Kops script as they floundered to figure out what to do with him. He should have a pretty good false arrest charge against the feds.

He also had lousy lawyers, which the FBI must have counted on.

Dave Begley said...

McCullough:

You are right about Judge Boasberg taking over as Presiding Judge of the FISC on January 1, 2020. I sent him a letter just now.

He's a Yalie but played basketball. Maybe he's normal. But here he has a chance to be a real hero and restore the public's confidence in the FISC and federal judiciary.

The FISC judges weren't a part of the coup. They fucked up and believed the FBI when the FBI was lying to them. I'd be mad as hell but, then again, I'm not a federal judge.

Aside: I saw one of our federal judges at the Bar Ass'n meeting and he cut the lunch line to join his wife. I said, "No cuts. Looks like an impeachable offense to me." His response? "Impeach away."

He'd be a great one of the FISC court. Super smart, regular guy (funny too) and zero questions about his integrity.

Achilles said...

It is pretty obvious John Roberts is in on this too.

Willingly or unwillingly he has been on the other side from the start.

Achilles said...

narciso said...
Then you have the nain event



https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=HtXYExjlpwk


One way or another Biden is finished.

I want to know how much Obama is worth now too.

Original Mike said...

"The FISC judges weren't a part of the coup. They fucked up and believed the FBI when the FBI was lying to them."

How do you know? How do you explain Collyer's treatment of Nunes and the House Intelligence Committee letters?

Seeing Red said...

Via Rantburg:

Twitter is saying Chief Justice Roberts is the supervisor of Collyer in her position as head of the FISA courts so the whole FISA court operation can be seen as being under the Chief Justice..... Now the Chief Justice has to preside over any Presidential Impeachment in the Senate Trial - so should Roberts be recusing himself?

mccullough said...

DB,

Not all of them were aware of what was goin g in.

Collyer was. I’d look at the others as well, especially the DC ones.

We need to know how the applications were assigned within the FISC. It was t random.

Seeing Red said...

Via Rantburg:

UPDATE: Late Friday night, George Papadopolous responded to the reports that Italian prosecutors in Agrigento, Sicily believe the Maltese Professor Joseph Mifsud is dead.

Marc in Eugene said...

Someone just the other day pointed out to me that Mr Mueller's name ought to be pronounced (more or less) 'Mawler' (rather than the 'Muller' or 'Muler' I've all this time been supposing to be correct): is that right? The one advantage to television etc is that I would hear how the great and good pronounce the names of their fellows.

tim in vermont said...

"We are waiting with baited breath for your keen analysis!”

Are you looking for chum?

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

@traditional guy
stealthy? check #3671

mccullough said...

Keystone Kops is right.

The thing that bothers me most about these guys is how mediocre they are. I was expecting better villains. But these were W and Obama and Clinton guys, so it explains a lot. Took Trump a short time to fire them.

While Trump was bemoaning how bad Deputy Dog was, he had Rudy out doing his thing. He set these guys up beautifully. It was a smart play. Sessions played his part perfectly because he didn’t even know he was playing a part.

This strategy Likely would have worked on even Smart Operatives unlike Comey, Brennan and the rest.

Trump got Rosenstein by the balls early. Then used him. Rod played his part. Now he gets to go free and collect his pension. He was smart to take the deal.

mccullough said...

Sending Collyer the Nunes Memo was a smart play by Rudy. A brushback pitch.

Original Mike said...

"We are waiting with baited breath for your keen analysis!”

Funny. Here we have a thread specifically discussing What Mueller Knew and Inga is AWOL.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Inga KNEW Trump colluded with Russia. She was glued to maddow each night with special guest star --- ADAM SHCITT.

mccullough said...

Schiff was no match for Rudy. He thought he was playing against Nunes until it was too late.

Rudy was much too valuable to be Attorney General.

David Begley said...

Original Mike

Maybe Judge Collyer just wants to get along and go along. Not rock the boat too much.

Original Mike said...

"Maybe Judge Collyer just wants to get along and go along. Not rock the boat too much."

Then she shouldn't be on the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court.

tim in vermont said...

"The thing that bothers me most about these guys is how mediocre they are. I was expecting better villains”

Like Hans Gruber in Die Hard. There was a competent villain. These guys are more like the FBI in Die Hard.

Hagar said...

@Marc,
Ue is the English transcription for the Germanic vowel y or û, pronounced as the y in syntax but slightly longer.
Oe is the English transcription for the Germanic vowel ø or ö, pronounced as the u in turn but slightly longer.

So they are all pronouncing Robert Mueller's name wrong.

narciso said...

there was a character on the blacklist in the second season, who was like mueller, he was part of the cabal, then there was the unassuming deputy atty general, who was the mastermind of everything that had gone on for three seasons, on ncis la, similar deepstate figures appear in most investigative dramas, in the last decade,

re rise of skywalker, the way it unravels the redemption ark of the skywalker family is problematic,

Mark said...

The thing that bothers me most about these guys is how mediocre they are. I was expecting better villains.

Look at history. Nearly every one of the most evil tyrants in history, the worst of the worst, have been banal mediocre men.

Carol said...

Rudy was much too valuable

Rudio Delecto, is that you?

Lewis Wetzel said...

I've known for at least two years that the Steele was the primary, if not only, material used to justify the Mueller investigation.
How? Simple, it was the only evidence that was public and acknowledged. Comey & others said it was just a minor addition to the material presented to the FISA court, but the other mountain of evidence was never identified, or leaked. This should have been obvious to even the brain-dead press.

Original Mike said...

"This should have been obvious to even the brain-dead press."

Don't assume it wasn't.

John henry said...

Narciso,

Mifsud is dead and has been for some time. Say the Italian prosecutors


http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/mifsud-ora-giallo-sospetto-procura-quasi-certamente-morto-1801685.html

Via Gateway Pundit https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/12/italian-prosecutors-believe-mysterious-maltese-professor-joseph-mifsud-almost-certainly-dead/

I believe this is translated from the Italian article by GP:

But who was Mifsud? And what did he do? Until 2013, the Maltese professor was president of the university center of Agrigento. In its management, however, something went wrong: budget holes and crazy expenses risked killing the institution. For this reason, the Agrigento prosecutor has launched an investigation against him. But there has been no trace of Mifsud since 31 October 2017 and now, as highlighted on InsideOver, a tragic suspect is winding through the corridors of the Agrigento court: Mifsud may be dead. A hypothesis that prosecutor’s sources believe “80%” true: “The chances that he died confirm by the court are very high”.

John Henry

John henry said...

12/21/19, 3:03 PM
Blogger Michael K said...

He was smart enough, after a weird guy gave him $10,000 cash as a "retainer," to give the cash to a Greek lawyer he knew.

Perhaps he was a Donald Westlake fan. A plot point in The Hot Rock (I think. One of the Dortmunders, anyway) involves NYC Police superintendent getting stopped at gunpoint by persons unknown as he drove home. They insisted he take a bago of money, $10-20m IIRC. He did but first thing he did when he got home was to lock in in his safe and call the station house to file a report.

"Chief Aloysious (mumble) had served in NY's finest long enough to know to NEVER take a bribe from someone you do not know and trust." (Quoting from memory)

I've learned a lot reading Westlake's oeuvre.

John Henry

narciso said...

that's why I referenced Montalbano, when did he die under what circumstances, he was Riyadh in the fall of 2017, and in paris, not long before,

MikeR said...

Either the FISA courts will do something about it, or they won't. If they do something serious, holding people responsible, it doesn't make sense to complain that "surely they already knew".
If they don't, then they're complicit.

narciso said...

Stephen roh, certainly didn't think so in the spring of last year, this was around the time the dnc had declared him dead, very convenient,

Beasts of England said...

Sundance (Cracker) at CTH has been known to lift arguments (verbatim) from comments at other websites and turn them into blog posts - without attribution.. He’s done it at least twice via JustOneMinute. I appreciate his enthusiasm and all, but ya know...

John henry said...

Thanks for the Rantburg link, Seeing Red,


UPDATE: Late Friday night, George Papadopolous responded to the reports that Italian prosecutors in Agrigento, Sicily believe the Maltese Professor Joseph Mifsud is dead.

“Lil Joey Mifsud is not sleeping with the fishes,” Tweeted Papadopolous. “More to come.”


Maybe Mifsud killed Epstein. If Epstein is really dead.

And speaking of the (maybe) dead, here is a neat trick to play on Starbucks or any other place that you have to give you name which is announced when your order is ready. Give your name as "Clinton Kildepstein"

It will come out as Clinton killed Epstein

Thanks to John & Adam at Noagendashow.com for the tip, though I think they were passing it along from someone else.

John Henry

Michael K said...

A hypothesis that prosecutor’s sources believe “80%” true: “The chances that he died confirm by the court are very high”.

Yes and if the Democrats ever get into office, my guns are going to be the victims of a terrible canoe accident.

John henry said...

Sometimes, lying in bed at night, my mind racing turns to thoughts of conspiracy.

What if the CIA has taken over the country via subterfuge and blackmail. They remain bumbling along in the background looking incompetent. They have dirt on all the senators, reps, judges and other pols as well as top bureaucrats and officials that it could use to destroy them.

Lots of people know that something needs to be done. Perhaps to the extent that the CIA (and other agencies?) needs to be burned to the ground.

Chuck Shumer and his colleagues can't do it because "They can burn you seven ways from Sunday."

So secretly, Shumer and others get together and put on this huge charade that has been playing out for the past 4-5 years. They put Donald Trump at the head of it because he is pretty much Teflon as far as anything they might throw at him.

By bumbling around, turning over rocks like Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Mueller, Biden and many others, seemingly by accident, they are exposing the corruption and discrediting the agencies. They do things like ruin trust in the FBI, CIA and FISA courts so when the time comes, and CIA et al need to use their blackmail, the public thinks it is just more lies and FUD (it might or might not be)

Shumer, Pelosi, Schiff and others are all in on the game.

This is not something new but has been building for more than 50 years. Ever since the CIA found Matsushita's gold in the Philipines it has been self-funding black off the books deep cover operations. Maybe, just maybe, Buwaya is the Philipines connection! (Just kidding)

Perhaps all this is in cahoots with Soros and other globalists.

Occasionally, laying in bed, my mind racing, I wonder if any sane person could come up with these kinds of conspiracy theories.

Eventually I go to sleep, have some troubling dreams and wake up feeling better.

John Henry

Beasts of England said...

I watched Barr’s excellent interview on Fox (linked at PowerLine) and he said Durham could be finished in a few months. I guess that’s a more honest estimate than two weeks. :)

Rabel said...

None of this would have happened if Jeff Sessions was a better man.

Beasts of England said...

’None of this would have happened if Jeff Sessions was a better man.’

I believe McCabe had an open investigation, re: Sessions before the process began. I think he was trapped, but we may learn more details once all the dust settles.

narciso said...

an interesting theory, il estado profundo, in Italy, that wends its way from angleton to Andreotti to berlusconi

narciso said...

this is why because of mifsud's various organizational ties, he could be anywhere in that long crescent where he's operated, bonini, their sy hersh, doubted the nature of the tape as well,

Mark said...

None of this would have happened if Jeff Sessions was a better man.

Don't deflect. The Dems were talking impeachment long before Sessions became AG. When he was still a senator in fact.

If not this, then something else. Any manufactured excuse would have done.

BUMBLE BEE said...

The Man of the Year truly is Admiral Mike Rogers, without whom we'd all be facing ultimate extermination. One man and The Donald.

narciso said...

he's followed the other big story, out of mifsud's bailiwick

https://manueldelia.com/2019/12/carlo-bonini-checkmate-in-valletta/

pacwest said...

Just saw this on this thread. Misfud probably dead. Forget the green new deal, Clinton is going to reduce the population by enough before this is all over that global warming won't be a problem.

And if any Clintons are reading this I swear I know nothing. I swear. Nothing. Please don't kill me.

Rabel said...

"Don't deflect."

Each and every one of the FBI and DOJ personnel who were behind this worked for Sessions.

To protect himself he cut and ran.

Beasts of England said...

’Each and every one of the FBI and DOJ personnel who were behind this worked for Sessions.’

Yeah, for a brief three months before Mueller started his investigation.

Rabel said...

"Yeah, for a brief three months before Mueller started his investigation."

His cowardly recusal allowed all that followed.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Mukasey: I.G. Horowitz "Basically Took Everybody's Word For It" Because He Doesn't Have Subpoena Power

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Cowardly recusal indeed. The democrats are corrupt. You never play by their rules.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Intel Community Blog Founder Admits Nunes Was Right About Spygate From The Beginning

Chuck said...

Althouse when did you start reading OpinionJournal.com?

Yancey Ward said...

Chuck,

Her eyes are opening- no longer depending on WaPo and NYTimes. Let me guess- you think the editorial is completely wrong.

narciso said...

The dudes got it right,

Yancey Ward said...

Collyer probably was not "in on it". As I wrote here a few nights ago when Collyer first issued her "order" to the FBI, I described the Carter Page warrants- the four applications were a total of about 400 pages, of which 90% was redacted, and what wasn't redacted was double-spaced type- took me less than hour to read it- and yet, reading such material is deadly dull. I think the judges don't read these applications at all- they just make sure all the proper boxes are signed and then rubber-stamp it. All this boiler-plate about rigorous insurance of validity and procedure is just bullshitting smoke screen.

Yancey Ward said...

In hindsight, when you go back and look at the signatures of all of the people on the various Carter Page applications, none of them are really accountable in that they were swearing that they reviewed all of the evidence and properly disclosed to the court via the application. And when asked by Horowitz- the ones who agreed to be interviewed- every single one of them claimed they were relying the professionalism of people who weren't signing the application, but were part of the investigative team. The entire approval process, in hindsight, is clearly designed to remove all accountability by making a pretense of accountability. The investigative agents and lawyers, when speaking to Horowitz, had no one to blame, so every single one of them played stupid...."I don't know how that happened", "I wasn't aware we had that evidence", "I was on vacation during that application renewal", etc. It was a comedy show of feigned ignorance.

Yancey Ward said...

Really, the interviews with the investigative team will make you think Ralph Wiggam is a fucking genius.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Chuck -
You do realize CNN isn't actually news, right?

CNN Is Not a News Network

Original Mike said...

Chuck, can you address anything in the editorials? No, you can't. What a sad excuse for commenter you have become.

Original Mike said...

"Collyer probably was not "in on it"."

I'm curious, Yancey. Did you read the Strassel piece?

Yancey Ward said...

Yes, I did Mike.

Original Mike said...

So Nunes told Collyer the same thing Horowitz did, 18 months earlier.

Yancey Ward said...

And, Mike, she just believed the media reports that Nunes was full of it. Doesn't make her corrupt, it makes her stupid and incompetent.

What she is doing now is corrupt- running away after issuing a CYA memo.

Original Mike said...

Nunes had evidence. The media had bupkus. Collyer approved renewals after the Nunes letters (the first for sure, and maybe the second as well). On what basis do you absolve her? Your assertion would carry more weight if you had some reason for it.

walter said...

Chuck said...Althouse when did you start reading OpinionJournal.com?
--
Slither on over to Charlie & Chuckie's BullWART!

walter said...

"she just believed the media reports that Nunes was full of it. Doesn't make her corrupt, it makes her stupid and incompetent."
--
Or media reports were quite convenient.

MD Greene said...

Temujin said:

Andrew Weissmann should have been disbarred years ago for his criminal efforts in the Enron Task Force.

Yes. There were definitely some bad guys at Enron, but not as many as were punished.

One executive -- who joined when Enron bought the utility he ran -- had a clean record and a good reputation. He went to prison for approving two anodyne press releases.

One of my relatives (CPAs and teachers in my fam) was an Andersen partner who did nothing wrong. Cost him a couple million.

Most of the newer AA partners had taken out loans to buy their stock over time, and Andersen hyhpothecated the loans (sold them to banks); those new partners were left with no income and hundred of thousands of dollars of personal debt.

At least two of the remaining big accounting firms have committed malfeasance as bad as that of Andersen's Houston team, but there is no appetite to prosecute because the system needs at least a few of those firms to survive.

Equal justice under law is a noble idea, but the government loses sight of it more frequently than it should.

walter said...

Not so incidentally, Sydney Powell is is in the current mix...

Bruce Hayden said...

“In hindsight, when you go back and look at the signatures of all of the people on the various Carter Page applications, none of them are really accountable in that they were swearing that they reviewed all of the evidence and properly disclosed to the court via the application. And when asked by Horowitz- the ones who agreed to be interviewed- every single one of them claimed they were relying the professionalism of people who weren't signing the application, but were part of the investigative team. The entire approval process, in hindsight, is clearly designed to remove all accountability by making a pretense of accountability. The investigative agents and lawyers, when speaking to Horowitz, had no one to blame, so every single one of them played stupid...."I don't know how that happened", "I wasn't aware we had that evidence", "I was on vacation during that application renewal", etc. It was a comedy show of feigned ignorance.”

I am pretty sure that wasn’t the intent of Congress when they required that the #1 or #2 of both DOJ and FBI “certify” the applications. I had assumed that that meant making sure that the applications were correct, instead of just all the paperwork was in order. I had also assumed that it was DAG Sally Yates who made this change, as she did others in order to open FISA up to political usage by the Obama Administration. But I think that change was probably earlier.

agentlesoul said...

Still waiting for the NYT editorial apologizing to Rep. Nunes.

Also ready with 12-gauge in hand in case any porkers fly past.

narciso said...

I wouldnt wait


https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesHasson20/status/1208622507298902016

Chuck said...

So this kerfuffle is all about the crime of “media” having “fanned flames for two years”?

Nobody was wrongfully prosecuted. Nobody was wrongly convicted. No false evidence was used in any prosecution. A bunch of people were convicted or pled guilty to a variety of charges that don’t have a lot to do with any of this.

And most critically, none of this was fodder for the media before the 2016 election. And none of it led to an impeachment of Trump.

I chose not to get lost in the weeds of the Steele Dossier. I am much more interested in the real, current news which is impeachment. Whereas Althouse declared she had become disinterested from the beginning of the House Intel Committee’s public hearings into Trump and Ukraine.

narciso said...

There was no reason for afisa warrant hence no reason for an investigation, nor aspecial prosecutor other than that...

Original Mike said...

"I chose not to get lost in the weeds of the Steele Dossier."

Wow, even with your past history I am still sometimes shocked at your mendacity. It's not the "weeds of the Steele dossier". The FBI lied to the FISA court maliciously and repeatedly to illegally spy on US citizens and the Presidential campaign of the opposing party and your response is 'no biggie'' because it was against your opponent.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Chuck
The Dossier was used by top elite people and agencies who we are supposed to trust -
A dossier was created by camp Hillary and used by the FBI to spy and lie. Chuck is OK with it, because lying in the direction of Trump is OK.
Nice lack of principles you have there.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Awwwww.... so you and your flock of semi-simpletons are still interested in all this stuff? How cute. That's so adorable!

Excuse me while I go watch my cat lick his balls.

Qwinn said...

"Nobody was wrongfully prosecuted."

General Flynn actually can be reached for comment.

Michael K said...

Nobody was wrongfully prosecuted. Nobody was wrongly convicted. No false evidence was used in any prosecution

The mendacity is breathtaking,. And you claim to be a lawyer.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

We are not surprised the leftists sat this thread out. spoiling and up-ending your lie machine is a big hair ball. Because you're so moral and stuff.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Comey-Schitt-Strokz-Brennan-Hillary. The left's favorite top people. Top top elite crooks and liars - who inspire yawns from the morally broken leftwing collective.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And we're not surprised you spent a day taking the microscopes to something so boring and loading it into your conspiracy machine.

Qwinn said...

The guy who named himself "President Pee Pee Tape" now declares any news about the falsity of the Steele Dossier to be "boring" and a "conspiracy".

I'd say you can't make this stuff up, but the whole point is they can and did and signed court documents attesting to them.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Must be tough competition for a right-wingie to root out corruption legends to dangle in front of the public imagination when their own president's been impeached and that Devin Nunes guy himself used his own phone to coordinate a way into/out of the Ukrainian scheme. Oh, the butt-hurt. It stings! Guess that's why we don't hear all that much from that guy any longer, right? But at least he thought he could sue the news for $435 million in "damages" over it. LOL!

This guy's hurt feelings and reputation is worth $435 million! Republicans must have more lucrative feelings and reputations than the GDP of actual nations. The whiny, snide elitism reaches epic levels!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The guy who named himself "President Pee Pee Tape" now declares any news about the falsity of the Steele Dossier to be "boring" and a "conspiracy".

Well, it wasn't boring 3.5 years ago when President Delusional Psychopath - the same one who fucks porno "actresses" without rubbers and has to pay them $100k for a lay - got up at the presser and turned his face from orange to beet red while whining about how BuzzFeed was a steaming pile of garbage for talking about it. That part was definitely not boring!

But you guys should definitely catch up. It's so boring now that the he's gotten impeached and Nunes' cell phone records (the same guy in charge of exonerating the president) catches him up in the same snare.

Say hi to Lev Parnas, Furman and whatever other high-rolling losers Giuliani's palling around with.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Pee pee tape real! pee pee tape real! Because hate and feelz. +HIllary paid for it!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

...hate and feelz.

LOL! Go tell it to your House Intelligence Ranking member - with the $435 million bill he's charging for his OWN hurt feelings and reputation!

Don't worry. I'm sure that with guys as creepy as Parnas and Furman for the president's lawyer to be such good friends with nothing could go wrong! Iron-clad credibility as strong as those open shirts with the gold chains etc.! Vegas mobsters have more style and gravitas than these schmucks!

Suck it, Replugs. GO have a mutual whining session with your impeached president over it.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

What loyal democrats know is real:

-Trump colluded with Russia to beat Hillary.

-Jill Stein is a Russian Agent

-Tusli Gabbard is a Russian Agent

-Hillary never took a dime of money in international pay-to-play, not on cent in pay-to-play from secret Russian Uranium deals and million dollar speeches given by Bill.

-Hillary's Private Server while head of the State Dept is NO BIG DEAL + shut up.

-Trump, who is a known germophobe, hired hookers to pee on beds in Russia

-Trump asked about Biden's brags about firing a prosecutor in exchange for US tax payer dollars - but that makes Trump a criminal. NOT Biden.

-FISA abuses and FBI lies are all OK when it comes to fighting Orange Man Bad.

CNN and MSNBC are real newz!

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Mueller - the old figurehead was used by the hack-D press to layer phony gravitas on top of their BULLSHIT investigation.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Keep bitching about investigations. We know Reflubs hate knowing things, especially the truth. Point is, the day it ended he reflexively went into 100% bribery mode and got himself impeached. WHAT A LOSER!

Totally incapable of learning anything. Just like his flock.

Never mentioned "corruption" once on that phone call. Just a U.S. citizen he has a beef with that he asked a foreign government to harass and slander for cash. Most people know that this is wrong. The Ukraine-2016 hoax behind it is long debunked.

As far as "germaphobia," you sound more and more like a single old spinster who's never gotten a guy to go near you, let alone gotten laid. Trump is about as creepster bullshit lounge-lizard pervy as they come. He fucks pornographers for cash and without condoms. Gross. DO you even know what a condom is? I mean, I realize how hard it must be to get someone to come near your lady parts but do try to keep up.

You must want a dick in you real bad to let Trump rape your Republicanism. But enjoy, if you really like it as much as you seem to pretend that you do.

Chuck said...

Blogger Michael K said...
Nobody was wrongfully prosecuted. Nobody was wrongly convicted. No false evidence was used in any prosecution

The mendacity is breathtaking,. And you claim to be a lawyer.


Okay, “Doctor.”

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...
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Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What great character it shows of Reflubs to defend the foreign government-mediated harassment and attempted slander of a U.S. citizen who lost a wife and child in a car accident at age 30 and another son to cancer, veteran and attorney general, 43 years later.

This is what they need to do to win elections.

This is the kind of people they are.

And all for a guy as sleazy as Donald Trump, and all the power they want him to have.

Gross.

JAORE said...

So many damning facts about rogue intelligence agencies and the FBI. But, no matter, Orange Man Bad trumps (IYKWIMAITYD) all.

Kind of like it's wrong to commit violence, unless you punch a Nazi. And I get to label the Nazis.

Michael K said...

Ritmo is up. Must not have worked the late shift.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Orange Man Bad trumps (IYKWIMAITYD) all.

Resembling an orangutan with a tanning bed-addiction is what makes him orange.

What makes him bad is that he's a tax cheat deciding tax policy with no character or sense of accountability.

And I get to label the Nazis.

If you can't understand why Trump fanboy Richard Spencer is a Nazi then you kind of remove yourself from being considered in a conversation about what what Nazis are up to and why they get hit in the face.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Say something original, Dr. K.

It's not too late for an old fart like yourself to wake up to the 20th century. Or even the 19th.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Hey there, Dr. K. I know that underneath your bullshit you're a pretty sensitive/emotional guy. (At least when it comes to yourself).

So what do you think about recruiting foreign governments to harass and slander U.S. citizens? Especially one who lost a wife and kid in a car accident at age 30 and another son years later to cancer? One who was a veteran and attorney general?

Is this the kind of strength of character you identify with?

Let's hear it. Character to character. We know the facts elude you and all that you care about are feelings and how decent you think people are (at least to yourself). So go on and tell us about these character-building exercises when it comes to the defense of what the GOP is.

Go on, do it. No one cares about your stupid sneering wisecracks about fast food restaurants. Recycle something else for a change.

cronus titan said...

It is now obvious Mueller was appointed to block inquiries into the shenanigans of the DoJ, FBI, CIA to influence the 2016 election, and selectively leak information to influence the 2018 midterm elections. He succeeded for a good while but was unable to continue the scam through 2020.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Pee pee tape should be an expert witness for Schitt.

Yancey Ward said...

Mike,

By the time Nunes sent Collyer the evidence he had, the Carter Page warrant had been allowed to expire (it expired in September of 2017).

Jamie said...

I know there are lawyers on this thread. Can one of you please point me to the statute that protects from investigation those who have tragically lost a child?

Come on, commenter-of-long-dumb-name. You keep saying "the President was going after an American citizen" when you transparently mean (but cannot support the allegation, of course) "the President was going after our best chance to beat him in 2020." You know that particular allegation cuts both ways, right?

Just listened to a long podcast in which I learned that the new Ukrainian president dissolved the Ukrainian Parliament and called a snap election shortly after his own election in an attempt to drain his own country's swamp. In what world is the American President acting corruptly if he tries to determine whether the brand-new government of a notoriously corrupt nation had sufficient control and stability to use in defense offensive weapons given as military aid? Or if he tries to determine whether that new foreign government has already been coopted, as its predecessor had been? Zelensky has said that the reason he dissolved Parliament was because he determined that it only took 6 months for a new Ukranian government to become so corrupt that it was no longer functional.

But I see: if you want immunity from investigation, be sure to be a Democrat pol while there is a Republican President in his first term in office. Once you've done that, voila, you're home free.

Go on. Call us some more names and tell us again that the only possible reason for Trump to want Zelensky to stick to his corruption-investigation gone was because he wanted to take Biden down. And present, again, as "evidence" the fevered imaginings of disgruntled holdovers. After all, it's all you've got.

I Callahan said...

You’re utterly insane, Ritmo. Please, get help.

walter said...

President Toilet Paper Shoe's Perfect Phone Call said...
Awwwww.... so you and your flock of semi-simpletons are still interested in all this stuff? How cute. That's so adorable!
Excuse me while I go watch my cat lick his balls.
--
Pure gold. though the effort to prop up (Biden without naming him) as a sympathetic character comes close.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Pee pee tape would make a fabulous Schitt expert witness.

daskol said...

Delay, claim it’s yesterday’s news. That’s about all I’ve seen lately in terms of legal and rhetorical approaches to avoiding a reckoning and accountability for this shitshow of an attempted coup. Annoying, but ultimately encouraging as those are weak tactics and insufficient to make this go away. But man; this takes a lot of patience when it’s been obvious to you what went down here.

daskol said...

Biden has had more than his share of family tragedy. That does not mean his kleptocorat ways, or really his bosses’, should be ignored. The strongest argument I’ve heard in Biden’s defense was my dedicated Dem uncle’s frustration with singling our Biden: the Burisma thing by his reckoning is less than most have done, and what we might do in his position. Looking out for your kids, especially a wayward one. Pure emotional appeal like pee pee tape. That’s not going to cut, I don’t think. And he’s not even giving credence to the Chinese money at the hedge fund—still too undernews.