Sounds like great grounds for a mistrial in the collusion case 
To be fair, as time goes on this shows to be fairly true. Nobody gets to the top without stepping on some throats.
“There is a Russia investigation without a dossier. So to the extent the memo deals with the dossier and the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] process, the dossier has nothing to do with the meeting at Trump Tower. The dossier has nothing to do with an email sent by Cambridge Analytica.”
[Gowdy] added that the dossier has “nothing to do with George Papadopoulos’s meeting in Great Britain.”
“It also doesn’t have anything to do with obstruction of justice. So there’s going to be a Russia probe, even without a dossier,” he said.
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You have no idea how correct you are. This is the Putin’s “grand unspoken bargain” with the Russian people, the same that is being sold to the Polish electorate by the Trumpian Law and Justice Party - “Ignore everything but the economy. I’m a crook, all the others are crooks, so why care and why vote at all and care about some silly transgressions?”
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Yeah, but we need these functional delusions to operate as a society.
What are we going to do when people realize that some of the most powerful departments in our nation are run by craven douchbags and persnickity pricks?
Probably the same thing people that have realized it have already done. Shrugged their shoulders and keep walking. Given how spectacularly bad supporting the “drain the swamp” candidate in that regard has gone, I’d doubt the public is going to be buying into that for a bit.
Big changes very very rarely happen without at least a few generations passing through. And that’s just recently. Used to take 10+ generations to see any type of major social change. Change is slow and painful.
Hey, Puff!
I think we BOTH arrived at a misunderstanding!
I was speaking more of the general OVERALL Battle-lines that people have drawn…not anyone here specifically. (…and ESPECIALLY not you!). The Political Climate is VERY “Tribal” now.
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People will do nothing.
Wish I could like this more than once. Spot on.
Article below, not written by Fox News or Russians, BTW.
My opinion. No, the memo doesn’t vindicate Trump in anyway… But this is concerning, folks. It’s not a nothingburger.
Pardon large wall of text. Paywall.
The memo released Friday by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was the product of necessity, not choice. Even before its release, the debate over its provenance, motive and effect was obscuring the crucial point that it is the underlying facts the memo alleges that present the real issues.
The committee’s memo says that yet another memo, which goes by the cloak-and-dagger title “Steele dossier,” provided at least part of the basis for a wiretap of Carter Page, a U.S. citizen who had volunteered as a foreign policy-consultant to the Trump campaign. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted the wiretap application from the FBI and Justice Department two weeks before the 2016 election. In order to obtain the warrant, the government had to show probable cause that Mr. Page was acting as the agent of a foreign power and that in so doing he had committed a crime.
The Steele dossier is 35 pages of opposition research on Donald Trump, described by former FBI Director James Comey as “salacious and unverified.” It was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who had a luminous dislike for Mr. Trump and was also an informant for the FBI.
The House memo reports that the FBI and Justice Department did not advise the FISA court that the dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. It also reports that the government’s cited support for the accuracy of contentions in the wiretap application—statements in a news article—had originated in a leak from Mr. Steele himself. Mr. Steele was fired by the FBI for a later unauthorized disclosure to the press, a cardinal offense by an informant. But the FBI continued to receive information from him through a Justice Department employee whose wife worked for the opposition-research firm that employed Mr. Steele and was paid by the DNC and Clinton campaign through a law firm, which acted as a cutout to conceal the source of the payments.
All that and more was known by the FBI and the Justice Department, according to the House memo, but not disclosed to the FISA court. That is certainly scandalous, but how consequential it is would seem to depend at least in part on what role the Steele dossier played in the application for the warrant.
According to the House memo, the FBI’s then deputy director testified in December that there would have been no application for the warrant but for the dossier. The committee’s Democrats deny he said that. In any case, it appears the Steele dossier played some role in the FISA application. The dossier, thanks to a long-ago leak, is publicly available; if you’d enjoy a swan dive into a cesspool, go read it. The FISA application is not available. How come?
Such applications are at the highest level of classification. They often contain sensitive intelligence information that can betray confidential sources and methods; disclosure can severely damage national security. But notice that the FBI’s only objection to the House memo at the time of its release was that it was incomplete, not that it disclosed sources and methods. Thus it is possible to summarize parts of a classified document to disclose information relevant to a public issue without disclosing secrets.
It is also possible to redact a classified document to the same end. It should be possible to disclose the parts of the FISA application that are alleged to come from the Steele dossier to see if there is any there there. That was not done because the FBI and the Justice Department resisted, and the committee had to make do with a summary. That is why the memo was a product of necessity, not choice.
Those critical of its release say it is intended to damage special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. How does possible misconduct by senior FBI officials, which is certainly bad enough, intersect with the Mueller investigation? As follows: The Justice Department regulation that authorizes the appointment of special counsels requires a determination that a “criminal investigation” is warranted, and that there is a conflict or other good reason that prevents ordinary Justice Department staff from conducting it.
The regulation that governs the jurisdiction of the special counsel requires that he be “provided with a specific statement of the matter to be investigated.” The letter from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing Mr. Mueller says he is to “conduct the investigation confirmed by then-Director James Comey before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20, 2017,” which covers “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” and any matters that may arise “directly” from that investigation.
But the investigation then disclosed by Mr. Comey was not a criminal investigation; it was a national-security investigation. Possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election is certainly a worthy subject for a national-security investigation, but “links” or “coordination”—or “collusion,” a word that does not appear in the letter of appointment but has been used as a synonym for coordination—does not define or constitute a crime. The information, and misinformation, in the Steele dossier relates to that subject.
If partisan opposition research was used to fuel a national-security investigation that has morphed into a series of criminal investigations, and the special counsel has no tether that identifies a specific crime, or “a specific statement of the matter” he is to investigate, that is at least unsettling. By contrast, the Watergate, Iran-Contra and Whitewater investigations, whatever you think of how they were conducted, identified specific crimes. The public knew what was being investigated.
Here, none of the charges Mr. Mueller has brought thus far involved “coordination” or “collusion” with the Russians. Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos both pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, the latter over the timing of conversations with Russians in which he was allegedly offered but never received “dirt” on Mrs. Clinton, including her emails. He also attempted to set up a meeting between the Russians and Mr. Trump, but the campaign blew off that effort. Notably, Mr. Papadopoulos did not plead guilty to participating in any plot that involved “coordination.” The Paul Manafort and Rick Gates indictments charge fraud on the government through receipt of and failure to disclose payments from a pro-Russian Ukraine politician.
What to do? I believe that at a minimum, the public should get access to a carefully redacted copy of the FISA application and renewals, so we can see whether officials behaved unlawfully by misleading a court; and Mr. Mueller’s mandate should be defined in a way that conforms with the legal standard of his office. Both would go a long way toward assuring that we do more than talk about a “government of laws.”
Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general (2007-09) and a U.S. district judge (1988-2006).
This is pretty much the gist of the WSJ article I posted about the Russian use of disinformation, and it’s goals.
I agree with both of these statements, from both of you. I think the part we’re all uncertain about is exactly how much of this disinformation and half truths are not exactly disinformation and half truths. The Dems seem to like the idea of disinformation and lies, except when they want to believe that it’s all true about Trump and his associates. Personally, I have no idea but this seems unlikely. Not saying Trump will be vindicated. I have no clue.
The WSJ is a solid rag…with great exception to its editorials. They are Fox News in print. It’s pure, unadulterated propaganda.
They’ve been pretty critical of Trump, if that’s the case. I don’t watch Fox, or listen to conservative talk radio, but the WSJ is now “fake news?” Huh…
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No, the WSJ is solid, as I said. But the editorials are right out of Murdoch’s Fox News playbook.
Got it. I read over that. Well, as I said a lot of their Op Eds have been very critical of Trump. Scathing in fact. Take that for what it’s worth. I’m just pointing out that there aren’t three groups of opinions on this, from what I can tell. By three I mean Dems, Russians, and Fox News and Rush listeners. haha.
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I get it, but it appears you may be falling for the Trump/Nunes sleight-of-hand ala the first WSJ piece you posted tonight (“The Steele Dossier Fits the Kremlin Playbook”). The Russia investigation was not kicked off by the SD; it was George Papadopolous’s drunken conversation with an Australian diplomat months before that did it (which the Nunes Memo clearly/stupidly admits on the last page).
Also, and trying to make this quick because I’ve got to get my kids to bed, Steel was hired by Fusion GPS (Steele never knowing who was paying), who was initially hired by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative rag, to do opposition research on Trump by the GOP during the primaries. Once Trump secured the nomination, the DNC took over the contract.
The Washington Free Beacon retained Fusion GPS to do research on various Republican candidates, just as they did with other firms for HRC.
They have gone on record stating that they did not pay for the Steele dossier, had no knowledge of, or contact with, Steele; and that none of the work they received is present in the Steele dossier (as all material provided to them was from public records).
Steele was brought in by Fusion GPS after the DNC/HRC campaign funneled money to them through their attorney for oppo research targeted at Trump.
“Since its launch in February of 2012, the Washington Free Beacon has retained third party firms to conduct research on many individuals and institutions of interest to us and our readers. In that capacity, during the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton. All of the work that Fusion GPS provided to the Free Beacon was based on public sources, and none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier. The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele. Nor did we have any knowledge of the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, and the Clinton campaign.”
See the comments of Trey Gowdy (not exactly a Dem apologist) I linked above regarding the (un)importance of the dossier vis a vis the Trump investigation. And when you read Gowdy’s comments, bear in mind that he is the only GOP member of the House Intell Cmte to actually read the underlying FISA warrant and related classified supporting documents. That, coupled with the fact that he is an unimpeachably conservative member of Congress, makes his opinions particularly compelling.
The memo reports many things which are known to be inaccurate and/or misleading. This is one of them. By reliable accounts, the judge was told that the dossier was political oppo research. There is no requirement (legally or ethically) that the judge be told who specifically paid for the work. (Consider: If the entire memo had been paid for by the Cruz campaign, would that make it any more or less reliable?)
As Mr. Steele was never employed by the FBI, and received no remuneration from them, this is simply a bald-faced lie.
Facts not in evidence. The memo is a deeply flawed document that cannot be treated as a gold-standard of truth.
Once again, the content of this hit-piece is being treated as if it were reliable, when it’s already been shown to be anything but. Further, the Dems (who were present for the aforementioned testimony) have pushed back hard on this characterization; details will be forthcoming in their memo if Trump agrees to declassify it (which I sincerely doubt he will do). Also, recall that the dossier was not part of a FISA application, it was part of a FISA re-authorization. Page has been under FBI surveillance since 2013, and that surveillance has been fruitful enough that four separate FISA judges have authorized/re-authorized it four times.
Finally, I would again refer you to Gowdy’s comments vis a vis the relationship between the dossier and the investigation.
Uh, yeah. No thoughtful person could conclude otherwise.
Another incorrect statement. There is no prima faciae reason oppo research cannot be included as evidence in a FISA warrant, so long as the judge is made aware of its nature. As for whether the special counsel has a “specific crime” in mind, I’m at a loss as to how the author (who is not privvy to the investigation) can conclude he doesn’t.
This proves exactly nothing. As we all know, defendants are allowed all the time to plead guilty to lesser crimes in exchange for cooperation. As we know the author is too sophisticated to be this obtuse, obfuscation could be his only intent here.
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Trey Gowdy also said in that exact same interview that the FISA applications would not have been authorized without the dossier.
As well, Gowdy not only read the underlying material, but was involved in drafting the memo. Just something to keep in mind if we’re going to rely on his opinions regarding it’s scope while, at the same time, disregard the totality of the information he’s speaking about.
Also, the Oct2016 FISA application was the original application, which was followed by three 90-day extensions.