WWTBAM Bored

Please provide factual information, first hand data and documents to support and prove that accusation. Until you can, it is only your opinion, which is clouded by your stated declaration of war on trump. And it is just as valid as anyone else's, including mine.

The Nunes memo is exactly that. The unfounded public attacks on the FBI's credibility are exactly that. Nunes's coordination of the White House he was supposed to be investigating is exactly that. Ryan's approval of Nunes's tactics is exactly that. McConnell's refusal to bring to the floor a bill to protect Mueller's independence is exactly that.

Donny firing the FBI Director because he wouldn't back off the Russia investigation is exactly that. Donny's attempt to fire Mueller is exactly that. That's just off the top of my head. I'm quite sure there's more that doesn't immediately come to mind. --Bob

“The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow,” the memo says. “This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News.”

The memo's claims about the roles of the dossier, authored by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, and the Yahoo article in obtaining a warrant are difficult to verify because the application is sealed. But The Washington Post reported Monday that “Page had been on the FBI’s radar for years — long before agents were in possession of the dossier. The application cited, among other things, contacts that Page had with a Russian intelligence operative in New York City in 2013, which had surfaced in an earlier case, U.S. officials said. In addition, the application said Page had other contacts with Russian operatives that have not been publicly disclosed, according to the officials who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.”

The memo's assertion that the Yahoo article was key seems dubious, too. The argument is that the FBI used circular logic to make its case for a warrant. According to the memo, the agency presented the dossier as evidence against Page, then presented the Yahoo article as additional evidence — even though the dossier and the article were based on the same source, Steele. The accusation is that the FBI used Steele to corroborate Steele.

In reality, the article made was not “derived” from Steele. Isikoff, citing “multiple sources,” reported that U.S. intelligence officials had briefed senior members of Congress on Page's activities in Russia. Isikoff cited a “congressional source familiar with the briefings” to report that “some of those briefed were 'taken aback' when they learned about Page's contacts in Moscow, viewing them as a possible back channel to the Russians that could undercut U.S. foreign policy.”

Isikoff quoted an unnamed “senior U.S. law enforcement official,” who confirmed that Page's Russian contacts were “on our radar screen” and “being looked at.” Isikoff also quoted a “U.S. official who served in Russia at the time” when Page, a few years earlier, first attracted attention for being “a brazen apologist for anything Moscow did.”

Steele does not match the descriptions of these sources. He does match the description of a “well-placed Western intelligence source” cited in the last two paragraphs of the article, whose claims about meetings involving Page also appeared in the dossier. It is wrong to say that this “Western intelligence source,” presumably Steele, formed the foundation of an article in which at least three other sources featured more prominently.

And it is hard to see how the article could have been a big factor in obtaining a warrant because it contained little, if any, information that the FBI did not already possess or which was not in the public domain. Beyond the Page-focused intelligence briefings with members of Congress, Isikoff reported on a follow-up letter that Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate's minority leader at the time, sent to the FBI's then-director, James B. Comey.

That was a good scoop, but the FBI obviously did not need to reference a Yahoo article to inform a FISA court of Comey's participation in briefings or receipt of a letter. The FBI did not need a Yahoo article to inform a FISA court that Page was on the “radar screen” of federal law enforcement. The FBI did not need a Yahoo article to inform a FISA court of Page's publicly known work for Merrill Lynch in Moscow or his publicly known (and previously covered) speech at a Moscow school in July 2016, all of which Isikoff mentioned.

Without seeing the warrant application, it is impossible to know for sure whether the article was “cited extensively,” as the memo claims. But the assertion warrants skepticism, as does the suggestion that the article played a significant role in persuading a FISA court to improperly issue a warrant.

Flock, you take great joy in willful ignorance.

But please answer one question.

Why won't Nunes and Trump release the Democratic memo on the same material?

There's a lot more flaws in what went on, but as a stickler for you think any court would do, I'd say that as a start, a court would give both sides an opportunity to be heard before rendering an opinion in any matter as seem extremely eager to do in this case.

The Nunes memo sounds exactly what Page's or Trump's defense lawyer would attempt to do, cast doubt on the proceedings by any way they can, including a selective reading of "facts." These "facts" include who hired Fusion (the company that hired Steele) in the first case and the reading of Strzek's e-mails to conclude a bias against Trump from them (there were a number of anti-Hillary e-mails as well). But without the memo from the other side, presumably rebutting some or all of these "facts" or placing them in context, you are more than willing to toss out the entire investigation. And every time one of us liberals brings up people like John McCain and the other Republicans and former FBI agents who have a lot of problems with this Nunes memo, you dismiss it as all people who are out to get Trump. But here's the thing, if the evidence shows Page, Trump, and others are guilty, then prosecutors are out to get them. That's their job. They do have a duty to make informed judgments about how to proceed and once charges are brought to give exculpatory evidence to the defense. But at this point there are no charges and no defense to present evidence to.

And your claims that the Steele information was "shown to be inaccurate." Since the memo doesn't say exactly what information from Steele that was part of the warrant request, you can't say it was inaccurate. And I know you'll dismiss this as "fake news," but here's what the Post says on these same issues:



You are convinced Trump and his cohorts have done no wrong so you reject anything that surfaces against them. Apparently the only thing you will believe is if he confesses in open court, which we know won't happen.

But Flynn will testify in court and there's probably some others who will spill their beans for a lighter sentence.

So the central premise of the Nunes memo -- that this information was hidden from the court that granted the application -- is a lie.

Unless Schiff is lying. I wouldn't believe anyone on either side. Release the application!

Carter Page was known to the United States government for his involvement with the Russian government long before he joined the Trump campaign. Court documents show that Russian intelligence operatives attempted to recruit Page in 2013. One spy thought that Page was “an idiot” who wants to “rise up” and “earn lots of money.”

Then-candidate Donald Trump named Page a part of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team on March 21, 2016. In July 2016, with the explicit approval of the Trump campaign, Page traveled to Moscow to give a speech on “the future of the world economy” and to meet with Russian officials. Despite several public accounts of these meetings, Page would later deny any contact with the Russian government. By August 2016—when it had become apparent that the Russian government was working to undermine the election—the Trump campaign began to distance itself from Carter Page. Later reports show that, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Page admitted to meeting with Russian officials and to briefing at least one “senior person” on the Trump campaign about those meetings. None of this information relies upon the Steele dossier.

So, to be clear: Carter Page was, more likely than not, an agent of a foreign power. The Department of Justice thought so. A federal judge agreed. That consensus, supported by the facts, forms the basis for the warrant issued by the FISA court. The Russian government waged a massive campaign to discredit our election. Carter Page appears to have played a role in that effort. The FBI has a responsibility to follow these facts where they lead. The Nunes memo would have us sweep this all under the rug. And for what, exactly?

The Nunes memo does not show that the government relied solely, or even substantially, on the information provided to the FBI by Christopher Steele when it made its application to the court. It does not show that Steele’s work was compromised by the source of funding. It does not show that Fusion GPS—the firm that hired Steele to do this work—was any more or less diligent when it worked for Democratic clients than when it worked for Republicans. And, amazingly, the Nunes memo does not provide a single shred of evidence that any aspect of
the Steele dossier is false or inaccurate in any way.

In September 2015, the conservative Washington Free Beacon retained the services of Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump. When President Trump emerged as the Republican candidate, the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee hired Fusion GPS for the same services. As part of this project, Christopher Steele produced what became known as the Steele dossier.

Christopher Steele is one of the world’s leading experts on Russian organized crime. His job was to uncover the facts. Many feared during the election that the Trump campaign had been compromised by the Russian government. Two guilty pleas and two indictments later, those fears seem well justified.

Although the original memo the Democrats drafted remained classified, Congressman Nadler released his own response yesterday. It's not classified because it doesn't reference anything that isn't either in the Republican memo or in the public domain already. And, Nadler has the advantage that he at least read the underlying materials that the Republican memo is based on, unlike Devin Nunes who drafted it.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/TODAY/z_Cre ... 20Memo.pdf




If a Hillary Clinton aide had done what Carter Page had done, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Republicans would have been screaming nonstop to lock the aide and Hillary up.

They did and we have.

Please provide some documentation. First, look up what Carter Page has done before you start throwing around wild claims.

I have many more questions that we will probably never get answers to. The truth will be thrown into the swamp.

Many questions, some of which have been floating around for years like about Benghazi, but no documentation that any Hillary aide was as deeply involved with Russia as Carter Page.

As for why Carter Page isn't in jail, just wait. It's either coming or he's cut a deal.

Why don't the questions about Hillary bother you as much as the ones about trump? Do you have any answers that I missed?

The questions about Hillary don't bother me as much as the ones about Trump because Hillary and Bill Clinton have been investigated more than any two people in this country's history and no one has found anything. But rather than accept the fact that the reason these investigations come up empty is because there is nothing to find, you would rather believe some vast conspiracy dating back a couple of decades to protect the Clintons.

Trump, on the other hand, has never been seriously investigated until now, and rather than let the investigation run its course, as every investigation of the Clintons did, you want to cut it off. You don't have access to the same information the FBI did, but you can't believe that they couldn't find anything that they felt would yield a successful prosecution. Yet you conclude, based on nothing but your reading of a sentence in Comey's press release that anyone else who did what Hillary did would be in jail. Since the FBI didn't release the detailed findings of their months of investigation to you and I presume to the military people you spoke to, you can't know the circumstances around the decision not to prosecute. But you presume this was Comey's attempt to shield Hillary.

As for Benghazi, Hillary was investigated for four years. If lying to the press was a criminal offense, Donald Trump would have been arrested about two minutes after his term began.

You also can't believe that the FBI under Obama wasn't somehow the tools of him and his attorney general, when such a relationship has never existed between any President and the FBI.

You still suffer from Clinton Derangement Syndrome and an unwillingness to accept the most obvious explanation... the reason people have found nothing for a quarter century is that there is nothing to find. But you will harp on some minor discrepancy here or there as somehow more probative than years of police and Congressional investigations at all levels.

The questions about Hillary don't bother me as much as the ones about Trump because Hillary and Bill Clinton have been investigated more than any two people in this country's history and no one has found anything. But rather than accept the fact that the reason these investigations come up empty is because there is nothing to find, you would rather believe some vast conspiracy dating back a couple of decades to protect the Clintons.

Trump, on the other hand, has never been seriously investigated until now, and rather than let the investigation run its course, as every investigation of the Clintons did, you want to cut it off. You don't have access to the same information the FBI did, but you can't believe that they couldn't find anything that they felt would yield a successful prosecution. Yet you conclude, based on nothing but your reading of a sentence in Comey's press release that anyone else who did what Hillary did would be in jail. Since the FBI didn't release the detailed findings of their months of investigation to you and I presume to the military people you spoke to, you can't know the circumstances around the decision not to prosecute. But you presume this was Comey's attempt to shield Hillary.

As for Benghazi, Hillary was investigated for four years. If lying to the press was a criminal offense, Donald Trump would have been arrested about two minutes after his term began.

You also can't believe that the FBI under Obama wasn't somehow the tools of him and his attorney general, when such a relationship has never existed between any President and the FBI.

You still suffer from Clinton Derangement Syndrome and an unwillingness to accept the most obvious explanation... the reason people have found nothing for a quarter century is that there is nothing to find. But you will harp on some minor discrepancy here or there as somehow more probative than years of police and Congressional investigations at all levels.

Oh, by the way, according to Rep. Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee, the application did, in fact, disclose that the Steele dossier likely had a political motivation. So the central premise of the Nunes memo -- that this information was hidden from the court that granted the application -- is a lie. --Bob

But I know the difference between fact and opinion, and I don't take anything I read on the internet as fact.

Unless it comes from some right wing source in which case you treat it as if it were etched in stone and had just come from Mt. Sinai.

Do you have an answer for me, or do you just want to call me more names?

It's interesting how even the Republicans who appeared on various Sunday talk shows are now trying to distance themselves from the memo. It's only die-hard Kool-Aid drinkers like Nunes and Flock who still believe it proves a massive anti-Trump conspiracy.

It's interesting how even the Republicans who appeared on various Sunday talk shows are now trying to distance themselves from the memo. It's only die-hard Kool-Aid drinkers like Nunes and Flock who still believe it proves a massive anti-Trump conspiracy.

Avoiding the question, just like bob. Why don't the questions about Hillary bother you as much as the ones about trump? Do you have any answers that I missed?

The questions about Hillary don't bother me as much as the ones about trump because she's not in the White House.