November 28, 2020
"Carter Page sued fired FBI Director James Comey, fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, the FBI, and others involved in the improper Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act snooping..."
"... on the former Trump campaign associate that relied upon British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier to obtain approval from the FISA court."
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66 comments:
How about jim wolfe who leaked the dossier...to miss watkins, or whoever gave to julia ioffe
Someone needs to sue Adam Schitt.
Someone needs to sue Joe, Hunter and brother Jim Biden for their corruption.
Good,
The FBI and its leaders need to pay full price for their crimes and their misdeeds.
let discovery begin
Why didn't you use the article from the Washington Post for this post? I thought the Washington Examiner was one of those yucky conservative newspapers that wasn't worthy of linking to. Oh, that's right. The WAPOO ignored this story. Wonder why.
Was it ignatius who was the designated hitman in this matter.
The first snowball of the avalanche to come.
They should immediately petition a change of venue. The courts in D.C. are unfriendly to those that oppose tyranny.
Great, but should have happened before the election
Where's the investigation into Biden, Pelosi and Clinton international cash? What they do is completely corrupt and completely covered by our corrupt google press.
All corrupt democrats should be sued, and flushed down the toilet. The next generation of D-whore grifters want their share!
Of course like costigan in the departed page was working for the good guys (see robert kelley in the hanson case)
Is the significance of the word "fired" (presumably for cause) that those individuals will not receive defense/indemnification from the US government?
And like the departed the source danchenko was actually an enemy agent.
I am guessing that Page was waiting to see what Durham’s investigation would produce. But it looks like Durham successfully slow-walked his investigation, so civil suits are all that’s left.
Thats the most fascinating part of the stiry a russian agent was allowed to savage an american patriot and businessman anonymously
I also wonder why this was delayed to after the election. should have been filed a year ago when all the evidence became public.
i suppose they were worried that the case would be dismissed out of hand if they pulled an obama judge.
Did Durham and Barr think that by slow-walking the investigation they were protecting the FBI and the rest of the DoJ? Seems to me they just make it look like the rot is more widespread than a couple bad apples at the top and some flunkies who valued the boss’s favor over their agency’s integrity.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and prohibits search warrants without probable cause.
The supposed basis for the FBI investigation of Carter Page was a conversation between George Papadopoulos and Alexander Downer in a London bar. According to Downer:
[Papadopoulos] suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama).
Based on that flimsy statement, the FBI leadership presumed that Russia must have given this "suggestion" to one or more of four members of "the Trump team":
1) George Papadopoulos
2) Carter Page
3) Paul Manafort
4) Michael Flynn
Within a few days, the FBI decided that the culprit was Carter Page. He received the suggestion from Russia.
The FBI did not have any evidence against Page at all.
The FBI's Trump-haters selected Page to be the suggestion-receiver only because wiretapping him was the most convenient way for the FBI's Trump-haters to collect communications of anybody who 1) was an associate of Trump and 2) was involved in discussions about Russia.
When necessary, the Trump-hating officials in DOJ/FBI would use such collected information to bring down Trump's team-members and ultimately Trump himself. The DOJ/FBI Trump-haters would twist the secretly collected communications and then leak them to Trump-hating journalists. This was the method that was used to bring down Michael Flynn.
Probably safe to believe that his lawyers have done the necessary research on immunity, the FTCA, and Bivens (1971).
Now this is hard hitting journalism
https://mobile.twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1332527088373469184
So, Democrats spied on Americans, imprisoned Americans, extorted concessions, and disrupted government for 16 trimesters based on what was effectively a single affidavit signed by a British ex-spy, and, of course, diverse, anonymous JournoListic sources. Nice.
i suppose they were worried that the case would be dismissed out of hand if they pulled an obama judge.
American roulette. With the appointment of conservative judges, we are improving the odds of justice in lieu of social justice.
On one of my blogs, I have published an article titled Events Leading to the Tipping Point. My article's first six paragraphs:
The Horowitz report says (page 53) that a report about a conversation between Alexander Downer and George Papadopoulos was a "tipping point" for the FBI to open the counterintelligence the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. FBI Headquarters received the report on Thursday, July 28, 2016, and opened the investigation on Sunday, July 31.
The report had been written more than two months previously, in May 2016 (the Horowitz report does not specify the date). Downer, the Australian Government's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, had invited Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy advisor on Donald Trump's campaign staff, to a conversation in a London bar. Downer secretly recorded the conversation. After Downer and Papadopoulos parted, Downer (I think) gave the recording device to a subordinate, who wrote a summary of the conversation. The conversation was not transcribed, because it did not seem sufficiently important.
However, on Friday, July 22, Wikileaks released to the public many hacked e-mails from the computer server of the Democratic National Committee. This release caused a panic among Hillary Clinton's supporters, including Downer. The Democratic Party's convention was about to take place during July 25-28, and many of the released e-mails indicated that the DNC had treated Clinton preferentially over her main rival, Bernie Sanders. The e-mails surely would cause trouble for Clinton during the convention. Future e-mails might cause Clinton more trouble also during the general election race.
Clinton's supporters strove to portray Wikileaks as a tool of Russian Intelligence, which allegedly had hacked the DNC server and was trying to cause political trouble for Clinton.
In these circumstances, on about Monday, July 25, Downer brought the written summary of the May conversation to the CIA's Chief of Station, Gina Haspel, in her London office. Downer told Haspel that the summary might be useful to Clinton's supporters in the US Intelligence Community.
From one perspective, Downer was acting on behalf of the Australian Government, because he was, after all, Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. He did not, however, take this summary report to Haspel with the approval or even knowledge of the Australian Government. A more correct perspective on Downer' action was that he was acting as an informant to the CIA's official Haspel. Perhaps Haspel was even the CIA case officer for Haspel.
Blogger Jess said...
They should immediately petition a change of venue. The courts in D.C. are unfriendly to those that oppose tyranny.
Yes, I wondered why they could not file in another jurisdiction. DC juries are notorious. Geoff Craig walked on the same charges that put Manafort in prison. The difference? Clinton connection.
He was working for haklyut which is an apprndage of the security services.
This suit is simply another Civ Nat cope imo. "[P]ut not your trust in princes," or in federal judges & courts, fam. This move gives Trump's dead-ender base another cope, gives the Conservative Inc. grifters another scam opportunity, & the Q-anon types something new to post about, but in the end is merely sound & fury, signifying nothing. Page might get some personal satisfaction perhaps, but likely nada. The DoJ will assign this case to Judge Sullivan or a similiar type & it will die. Face it fam, the Left won this time. Their coup worked. Get on with your life.
Have you heard the Good News, friend?
Deprivation of civil liberties under color of law.
You always have to look at narciso’s links
WaPo: “Trump broke so many norms, one of which was to not have a pet in the White House.”
I bet if you took a survey of people who travelled multiple times a week by jet, you would find that the norm was to not have a pet. Except Bond villains.
According to libtards there is no such thing as "improper" snooping on Republicans or Conservatives. They think all these people should he spied on because they are Nazis.
I've read the complaint and know a few things about DC courts and Page's legal team. My advice to Carter: Forget it, Carter, it's Chinatown.
OT:
Corrupt-The-Vote
CBS LA: Duplicates And Dead People: Hundreds Of Thousands Of Questionable Ballots & multiple Ballots Sent Out To LA County Voters
Blogger n.n said...
American roulette. With the appointment of conservative judges, we are improving the odds of justice in lieu of social justice.
I liked McConnell's statement the other day that he will keep banging out Trump judges until the very last minute he can do so.
How many more is that? 5? 10? More?
Good for him.
John Henry
Hack the Vote
Flood the zone with ballots. That's how your drag an old crook across the finish line. Why would we trust a party who Rachel-Maddow-Schitt lied to us and hammered in every direction from every outlet, for 4 years, that "Trump is illegitimate"
That's how you get people to do your bidding.
"...so civil suits are all that’s left."
Durham doesn't matter.
Civil suits are where the money is.
Here is what I speculate about Alexander Downer's memo.
Downer had been Australia's Minister of Foreign Affairs during 1996-2007. Then he was Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2014 to 2018. Downer was a very important person.
In May 2016, this VIP Downer invited George Papadopoulos to a London bar to drink wine and talk politics. Papadopoulos had been a volunteer foreign-policy advisor to Republican candidate Ben Carson. After Carson dropped out of the Republicans' primary race, Papadopoulos became a volunteer foreign-policy advisor to Republican candidate Donald Trump. Soon afterwards, Papadopoulos was invited to drink wine and talk politics by Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
I speculate that Downer befriended Papadopoulos at the behest of Gina Haspel, the CIA's Chief of London Station. I speculate that Downer secretly recorded his conversation with Papadopoulos. I speculate that Papadopoulos did not say anything incriminating or even remarkable, and that Downer reported so to Haspel. Downer kept the recording, but he did not get it transcribed.
A couple months later, after July 22, Haspel asked Downer to listen to the recording again, to look for anything incriminating against Russia.
At this point, it's important to understand that Papadopoulos was a specialist on petroleum issues in the Eastern Mediterranean. Papadopoulos had no special knowledge about Russia.
On July 22, Wikileaks had released to the public a lot of e-mails from the Democratic National Committee. The Democratic Party's national convention was about to take place on July 25-28. The e-mails generally revealed that the DNC had unfairly favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the Democrats' primary-election race.
The Trump-haters in the leadership of the US Intelligence Community foresaw that Wikileaks might cause political trouble for Clinton all the way until Election Day, November 8, 2016. That Trump-hating leadership had to prepare for the possibility that Wikileaks would cause an October Surprise by releasing, just a few day before the election, politically devastating information about Clinton's corruption.
If that happened, then the US Intelligence Community's leaders would have to inform the public that the October Surprise was a Russian plot. Russian Intelligence had hacked files and then had manipulated them to create a false impression that Clinton was corrupt. This Russian plot to meddle in the US election had been discovered by US Intelligence. Furthermore, there was evidence that members of "Trump's team" had colluded with the Russians.
In this situation, Haspel asked Downer to listen again to his recording of his talk with Papadopoulos. The best that Downer could do was to write a memo saying vaguely that:
[Papadopoulos] suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama).
Downer brought his memo to Haspel in the USA's London Embassy. Haspel sent a copy to FBI Headquarters, where its Trump-hating leadership urgently needed just the slightest justification to begin wire-tapping Trump and Trump's associates, especially any such associates involved in discussions about Russia.
Within a few days, the Trump-hating officials in the FBI leadership decided that the most convenient person to wiretap would be Carter Page, who was Trump's foreign-policy advisor who specialized in Russian issues.
Great, but should have happened before the election
That was my thought, but the news would have been suppressed and not reached many undecided voters.
Here is my speculation about the hacking of the DNC server in March 2016. Many of those hacked files were released by Wikileaks on July 22, 2016.
That release -- a few days before the Democratic Party's national convention -- caused Gina Haspel to ask Alexander Downer to listen again to his recording of his March 2016 conversation with George Papadopoulos. Haspel asked Downer to find any statements that could be used to incriminate Russia as a meddler in the current election race in the USA.
Page filed multiple suits before the election that were dismissed.
Sorry, Chuck, Page is way ahead of you:
The lawsuit also raises a claim under Supreme Court precedent from Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents (1971). In that case, the Court ruled that a plaintiff is entitled to damages from the individual government actors responsible for violating the plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures when the defendants act willingly, knowingly, or with a reckless disregard for the truth.
One of the fascinating things that Dr Carter’s complaint brought up was that we have long known that Comey, et al, had actual knowledge of the falsity of the claims against Carter, but signed the FISA warrant on behalf of the FBI nevertheless. His excuse has always essentially been that his underlings screwed up the paperwork, and he signed based on their screwed up paperwork. Carter’s complaint cuts through that by asserting that Comey knew, then he signed, despite actual knowledge of the falsity of the charges. He got more actual knowledge of the falsity of the charges, yet signed again. Rinse and repeat one more time, before Comey got himself fired, giving his DD (McCabe) the chance to perjure himself on the fourth application.
This has always bothered me. FISA requires certification by the #1 or #2 of both the DOJ and FBI for a reason, when warrants are requested on US Persons (citizens and legally resident aliens) in the US, and part of that is because they are protected by the 4th Amdt against unreasonable searches and seizures. FBI agents have to swear under penalty of perjury to obtain Wiretap Act warrants in District Courts. FISA warrants are potentially far more intrusive, not requiring the applicants to specify how they plan to target their quarries, but instead, giving them full access to any surveillance methods they can find, as well as accessing electronic intercepts and records in real time, as well as back in the past, as long as they may wish. (And allows the FBI to do this two hops away, which was the reason for the FISA warrants in the first place). But Comey’s claim all along has been that he can’t be expected to verify each and every FISA application that comes across his desk because he has to deal with a lot of them every month. But the critical difference with this one is that he had actual knowledge, when signing the first three warrant applications, under oath, on behalf of the FBI, that they were false and misleading. He presumably did not have that actual knowledge of falsity when he signed ones for other FBI targets. This is something the sort of smoking gun that litigation attorneys love finding, because it ties the CEO to the crime, but somehow Comey believes that the bar should be much lower for government employees, like him, when depriving citizens of their 4th Amdt rights, than for employees of private corporations when merely defrauding the public.
And by the way:
Four times, four states, where live video of MSM sources on election night captured votes being subtracted from Trump's total and the same number added to Biden's total:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/four-videos-four-states-votes-switched-live-tv-away-president-trump-biden/
But the MSM keeps saying there was no evidence of fraud! Apparently too busy to look at their own broadcast footage.
“Because President Trump was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the plaintiff’s claim arose, the United States will file a motion to substitute itself for President Trump in this action [for claims falling under the Federal Tort Claims Act]."
Comey, McCabe, et al, acted outside the scope of their employment when they falsified information in the Carter Page FISA warrants, and swore to their accuracy. They swore to protect and abide by our Constitution when accepting employment with the US government. These warrants very clearly violated Carter’s 4th Amdt rights, and, thus, knowingly filing false documents with the FISC is outside the scope of their federal employment. Hence Bivens.
“ That release -- a few days before the Democratic Party's national convention -- caused Gina Haspel to ask Alexander Downer to listen again to his recording of his March 2016 conversation with George Papadopoulos. Haspel asked Downer to find any statements that could be used to incriminate Russia as a meddler in the current election race in the USA.”
This wouldn’t be the same Gina Haskell who replaced Bill Brennan as Director of the FBI?
Of course, we all know that it is, which perfectly explains why there has been almost no light so far on the obvious CIA involvement on the front end of the scandal.
From what I can tell, Mr. Page is likely to win this lawsuit. Alas, it's very unlikely that the perps will be held individually liable - it will be their employer, the federal government, i.e., you and me, who are shelling out to recompense Mr. Page.
Federal Tort Claims Act has a time bar: two years after the claim accrues. When did accrual occur for Carter Page’s (many, and grievous) injuries at the hands of Comey, McCabe, Strzok, et al? Was it not obvious by about 2018 that he had been most royally screwed?
...This wouldn’t be the same Gina Haskell who replaced Bill Brennan as Director of the FBI?...
Since the Director of the FBI is Christopher Wray, and since it is Gina Haspel who is the Director of Central Intelligence, I am going to go way out on a limb and suggest that “Gina Haskell” is somebody else.
“ Federal Tort Claims Act has a time bar: two years after the claim accrues. When did accrual occur for Carter Page’s (many, and grievous) injuries at the hands of Comey, McCabe, Strzok, et al? Was it not obvious by about 2018 that he had been most royally screwed?”
But when does that clock start running? At the time of the injury? Or at the time that it was discovered, made public, and became known by Dr Page?
I come at this from my experience in trade secret law. Almost all states follow the discovery rule. It really isn’t reasonable to expect an injured party to sue before they know that they have been injured. I briefed this to my management when it came up when I was working in TX. My original thoughts were that the first rule was unfair. But cooler heads prevailed, since we were more likely to be a defendant, than a plaintiff, in this sort of case. Then, I was involved on the periphery when the Lawrence Livermore lab, run by UC Berkeley, stole confidential information, but then hid the theft throughout the run of statute of limitations period for the CA TS law (until a patent application, falsely claiming inventorship by one of the parties that they had illegally disclosed the confidential information to, was published). CA Supreme Court said, essentially, “Ha! Ha! On you. You sued the state of CA, and that means us too”, and threw out the case. Last I knew, the Discovery Rule was the rule for 49 states in TS suits. Just not in CA.
Federal Tort Claims Act claims must be filed in Court of Federal Claims. No jury.
Bruce Hayden @ 12:19: much respect for your comment (and all your comments, IMVHO they add enormously to the blog discussions). I very much hope that when applied to the facts of Carter Page’s case the discovery rule will not cost him his chance at vindication. Because by God has he earned it.
In my dreams Comey, McCabe and Strzok (and God willing others) end up living under a bridge and trying to hustle handouts at the train station. And their children, too.
Bruce Hayden @ 11:22: “... , but somehow Comey believes that the bar should be much lower for government employees, like him, when depriving citizens of their 4th Amdt rights, than for employees of private corporations when merely defrauding the public.”
Lovely stuff. Thanks.
“ Since the Director of the FBI is Christopher Wray, and since it is Gina Haspel who is the Director of Central Intelligence, I am going to go way out on a limb and suggest that “Gina Haskell” is somebody else.”
Nope. Google “Gina Haskell”, and you get Gina Haspel. Same gal. The problem here is that Apple’s Spellcheck tries to correct “Haspel” to “Haskell” (and I didn’t catch Apple’s substitution in my previous comment).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Haspel
“Gina Cheri Walker Haspel (born October 1, 1956) is an American intelligence officer serving as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since 2018. She is the first woman to hold the post on a permanent basis[1] and was previously the Deputy Director under Mike Pompeo during the early presidency of Donald Trump.[2][3][4]”
...
“After the service in Thailand, she served as an operations officer in Counterterrorism Center near Washington, DC.[23] She later served as the CIA's station chief in London and, in 2011, New York.[27][47]”
Same gal - though I think that it was cute when they suggested that she was London station chief before she was station chief in in DC, starting in 2011, when the reality is the opposite - she was in DC, then London. About as much whitewashing as they could get away with.
The MSM is memory-holing this story.
https://ground.news/article/rss_3575_1606512443699_1/carter-page-sues-james-comey-andrew-mccabe-the-fbi-and-others-for-75m
A small point, in all the sound and fury, but this word "salacious". Has anyone ever mentioned the Steele Dossier without describing it as "salacious"? Has anything else ever been described in a news medium as "salacious"?
I believe that what supposedly makes the Steele Dossier salacious is the claim that Russian prostitutes were paid to urinate on a bed in a hotel room in Russia once briefly occupied by Barack Obama (Talk about easy money!). So what is "salacious"? The prostitutes? The urination? Russia? Obama? The image of a striking blonde Russian prostitute kneeling, perhaps not altogether discreetly clad, on a vast bed in a Russian hotel, allowing her pale yellow (yes!) urine to flow copiously onto the pristine white sheets, as the Winter's gale beats against the tall, curtained windows, and the cameras click and whirr unobtrusively? These guys in DC are sick. FBI, DNC, DOJ, WaPo, all of them. Sick!
Qualified immunity to the rescue?
Declassify 0bamagate.
I've seen Page interviewed on the tube from time to time, and I thought he seemed kind of flaky. But that actually helps his new case. If you were the FBI/CIA looking for a fall guy, someone to plant the "murder weapon" on, how could you do better than Page? Could you honestly believe that he was the 007 of Russian-Trump collusion? As the "President Elect" says, Come on, man!
“ Qualified immunity to the rescue?”
Maybe for some of the low level FBI agents, but not the attorneys like Lisa Page and Clinesmith, and certainly not for Comey, who before becoming FBI Director had been the SDNY USA, then DAG. Deputy Attorney General, in charge of the day to day operation of the DOJ. ALL OF IT. In order to get qualified immunity as a government employee they pretty much had to not know any better. The former DOJ #2 knew better.
It would be so great if this was the case that the Supreme Court used to eliminate or severely limit qualified immunity.
Chuck is the hall monitor of the blog. Thanks Chuck for that correction. Too bad none of your posts are as worthwhile as Bruce's.
I wish the standard for qualified immunity was that they had to not know any better. A lot more lawless cops would face liability. Unfortunately it's much higher. But that's irrelevant to the claims here, which will fail for more prosaic reasons.
narciso said...
Thats the most fascinating part of the stiry a russian agent was allowed to savage an american patriot and businessman anonymously
narciso said...
Now this is hard hitting journalism
https://mobile.twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1332527088373469184
The most fascinating--and disturbing--part of the story is the story's not getting told, at least not for most people, as your cat story highlight reel suggests. This is so for most people of influence, at least for now--at stake is their influence in a race with their ignorance. They can't both win a race to the bottom. I don't want to sound like gloomy doomful Buwaya, but we've steeply declined lately, and need to hope for another Trump-like bounce against the craggy shores of reality rather than crash. Our elites may have managed to get their grasp on the Presidency, but it wasn't cheap, and they're more transparently debased than ever. Until tomorrow.
Since the Director of the FBI is Christopher Wray, and since it is Gina Haspel who is the Director of Central Intelligence, I am going to go way out on a limb and suggest that “Gina Haskell” is somebody else.
Hey Chuck: what... is the capital of Assyria?
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