You mentioned them “needing to happen.” Does that not point straight to the result? Do Russian national elections NEED to happen?
I’m not missing the backstory, I’m just not blind to its motivations. There was plenty of cause for Benghazi investigations. After the first 3 months, the politics kicked in hard (as if they weren’t going full steam prior).
Which is why when you asked if the investigation was politically motivated, my answer was ABSOLUTELY.
As someone who also actually watched a large portion of Clinton’s Benghazi testimony, I can confirm that a “fucking spit roasting” is the correct verbiage for what Clinton was both subjected to and had coming.
edit: but, you know, “what difference does it make?”
From a bureaucratic standpoint, yes, congress did need to investigate how that all went wrong and try to find a solution to prevent it from happening again. Diligence, if you will.
The public opinion didn’t “need” to happen, not that I disagree with it.
A guy at work once clocked me in the head with a deck plate. In the following days, there was a safety review and changes to procedure when placing deck plates with a crane. That needed to happen.
That people no longer trusted the guy who did it and thought he was an asshole is up to them.
Neither am I. I just parse it out a little more.
Sure they did. And after the first couple months of the investigation turned into the first couple years, I called bullshit.
So when you asked whether or not I thought the investigations had political motivations, you were being rhetorical?
No, it isn’t. FISA judges are exactly that - highly qualified federal judges who have to weigh bias in virtually every single application they see, because - as in regular law enforcement - tipsters and informants often have personal axes to grind that have to be evaluated. Steele - whatever his motivation or interest - isn’t anything unusual for a judge. And a judge knows how to ask a question to evaluate the credibility of the underlying allegations, they’re frankly experts at it.
Trumpkins pretend that the audience of the FISA application is some uninformed amateur who is blindly duped into granting an application by slick lawyers deliberately withholding certain details. It’s what the slithery Nunes hopes they’ll believe, and doggonit, if a number of people haven’t fallen for it. But it’s horseshit.
Nunes now admits the application included disclosure of the dossier’s political nature. The Republicans made a gross error in compiling this memo in the first place (it was obviously dragted for public consumption, not as an internal analysis). This stunt has been revealed for what it is. And it’s blown up in the GOP’s face.
How can I know that allegations concerning blackmail-able sexual improprieties on the part of a major-party candidate that took place on Russian soil are relevant to an investigation concerning the undisputed fact that Russia meddled in our election?
No. There is a difference between partisan motivation and due diligence though.
Are you of the mind that congress should not investigate any possible wrong doing or negligence, regardless of who is leading the inquiry or who is being investigated?
If you are, then our bureaucracies would be truly beyond reproach.
Sure there is. But that doesn’t mean they have no ability to influence one another. Look at the time period this all happened. If it were ANYONE but HRC, the headlines would have read “Obama’s state dept kills soldiers.” They knew she’d be running for POTUS, and they clearly needed the ammo.
Absolutely not. But I think reasonable people can look at the timeline of the SERIES of Benghazi investigations, which parts were crucial for actual good, and conclude that a very large portion of it, if not politically motivated, serve zero purpose at all.
It’d be nice to include some context, or at least the full quote, when you guys throw this line around. But I know that doesn’t help your narrative.
Clinton: "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senato
The full quote makes that FB share a little rougher to earn though.
No. How can can you know that the dossier is valid and applicable to the current investigation?
Do you have access to the distilled intel that may be used in this investigation?
Speaking of which…
Really? I thought that it exposed a pattern of negligence from the top down.
They questioned everybody involved. Not a single person had any good reasons as to why any of that happened. Kinda made the whole department of state look bad. She was the head of that department. She looked bad.
Different strokes.
Me, personally? I can’t of course. That’s the purview of the FBI and the FISA judge. All I have asserted is that the allegations are relevant to the investigation.
See? Neither can I. That isn’t so bad to admit.
I have my opinion, which is totally fallible, and also why I take the “time will tell” approach, while still holding the opinion that if he did collude with Russia, I want to see him… well I already expressed that.
When the FBI first got the dossier, it corroborated intelligence they already had. As it’s been mentioned on this thread multiple times already: the current investigation is not based on the dossier; it was George Papadopolous drunkenly spouting off to an Australian diplomat about foreknowledge of the DNC hacks by Russia.
Thats why I referred to this current news cycle as a two tiered shell game at the start of the convo with ED.
I understand we have drifted off into the weeds a bit,and can see where I misspoke, which would lead you to respond in such a way.
Thank you though.
It did. In the first month. Hell in the first 24 hours.
Would you say, off the top of your head, more positive (non politica) change came out of the findings of the first 3 months of the investigation or the following 4 years?
Off the top of my head- If it becomes the thing that reminds people in that department that the procedures are in place for a reason and that they need to earn their pay checks- therefore this type of tragedy never happens again, then it was very useful, but that has yet to be seen. You usually don’t know whether a safety measure has worked until a good while after the fact.
Obviously, I’m no big fan of Hillary, so whether it affected her political career or how is probably not a question I can answer accurately. I’d say it was a drop in a bucket, but keep in mind that there is a bucket.
So neverending investigations that don’t provide tangible value are fine as long as the goal is to keep the govt employees in line? Sounds like writing the govt a blank check for political games. I’ll have to hard deviate on that one. That sounds like a terrifying world where pols get even more power to abuse than they already have.