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Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 12:31 pm
by flockofseagulls104
Bob78164 wrote:
flockofseagulls104 wrote:
Bob78164 wrote:He's not, and never was, a dirty cop, even if the disciplinary panel was right. And given what appear to be clear procedural irregularities, the panel's findings are, to say the least, subject to question.

Sadly, I am quite confident that the current Congress will refuse to ask those questions. So we'll have to wait until January to start getting the answers we deserve. --Bob
If you are going to claim there were procedural irregularities, please list them and justify your claims.
Sure. When John Yoo was subject to departmental discipline for writing the torture memos, he got six months to respond to the panel's findings. McCabe got four days. After Yoo submitted his lengthy brief contesting the panel's action, the Department took another six months to consider the matter before reducing the recommended discipline. Here, the Department made the decision in one day.

More generally, it is routine for the Bureau to allow similarly situated agents to retire or resign rather than firing them. But in this case, Donny's very public victory lap, expressly linked to the ongoing investigation into his conduct, makes clear that what was really going on was a warning shot to any current federal employees who might have information adverse to Donny.

It may be that the panel's decision was, in fact, supported by the facts, and I understand that eventually its report will be made public so we'll be able to better judge its merits. But from where I sit, this bears all the hallmarks of a political hit designed to intimidate potential whistleblowers. --Bob
Aside from your legal mumbo-jumbo, a very logical and well thought out response.
From the lay person's viewpoint, it leaves some questions.

One of the major facts in this case that I can understand is that McCabe admitted to leaking stuff to the WSJ, and said he got permission from Comey to do it, who swore to the Congress he never gave permission to anyone to leak anything (except he himself admitted later to leaking his memos so he could jumpstart the special prosecution). Obviously, one or both of these public servants is lying under oath. Unless, of course, I am missing something.
Someone like me, one of the unwashed, just doesn't understand why something like this should take six months, let alone two days, to adjudicate. It must have something to do with ethical lawyering that I don't understand.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 12:37 pm
by flockofseagulls104
Donny's very public victory lap, expressly linked to the ongoing investigation into his conduct, makes clear that what was really going on was a warning shot to any current federal employees who might have information adverse to Donny.
Please provide specific evidence to support your claims, if you are presenting this sentence as fact.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 12:42 pm
by Bob78164
flockofseagulls104 wrote:
Donny's very public victory lap, expressly linked to the ongoing investigation into his conduct, makes clear that what was really going on was a warning shot to any current federal employees who might have information adverse to Donny.
Please provide specific evidence to support your claims, if you are presenting this sentence as fact.
Donny's tweet got extensive news coverage. I'm sure you can find it. --Bob

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 12:51 pm
by Bob78164
flockofseagulls104 wrote:One of the major facts in this case that I can understand is that McCabe admitted to leaking stuff to the WSJ, and said he got permission from Comey to do it, who swore to the Congress he never gave permission to anyone to leak anything (except he himself admitted later to leaking his memos so he could jumpstart the special prosecution). Obviously, one or both of these public servants is lying under oath. Unless, of course, I am missing something.
You are missing something. You have your facts wrong. McCabe's account wasn't that he had Comey's permission. McCabe's account was that as Deputy Director (the same position once held by Mark Felt) he was authorized to discuss matters with the press on his own authority.

And as I recall, the mechanism for providing information to the Wall Street Journal was that McCabe authorized other agents to talk to the paper, not that he did so personally. But that latter detail is immaterial to the present point. --Bob

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 6:12 pm
by flockofseagulls104
Bob78164 wrote:
flockofseagulls104 wrote:
Donny's very public victory lap, expressly linked to the ongoing investigation into his conduct, makes clear that what was really going on was a warning shot to any current federal employees who might have information adverse to Donny.
Please provide specific evidence to support your claims, if you are presenting this sentence as fact.
Donny's tweet got extensive news coverage. I'm sure you can find it. --Bob
I am well aware of his tweet. That is not evidence, that is your opinion. I wrote extensively about this very subject just a few days ago. Try and concentrate, bob-tel. You can get it. It's not a difficult concept.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 6:55 pm
by silverscreenselect
flockofseagulls104 wrote: Try and concentrate, bob-tel. You can get it. It's not a difficult concept.
Merely one that's eluded you for the 15 years or so I've known you on this Bored, Flock.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:44 pm
by flockofseagulls104
silverscreenselect wrote:
flockofseagulls104 wrote: Try and concentrate, bob-tel. You can get it. It's not a difficult concept.
Merely one that's eluded you for the 15 years or so I've known you on this Bored, Flock.
silverscreenselect wrote:
flockofseagulls104 wrote: Try and concentrate, bob-tel. You can get it. It's not a difficult concept.
Merely one that's eluded you for the 15 years or so I've known you on this Bored, Flock.
You are emulating BJ more and more each day.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:56 pm
by Bob Juch
flockofseagulls104 wrote:
silverscreenselect wrote:
flockofseagulls104 wrote: Try and concentrate, bob-tel. You can get it. It's not a difficult concept.
Merely one that's eluded you for the 15 years or so I've known you on this Bored, Flock.
silverscreenselect wrote:
flockofseagulls104 wrote: Try and concentrate, bob-tel. You can get it. It's not a difficult concept.
Merely one that's eluded you for the 15 years or so I've known you on this Bored, Flock.
You are emulating BJ more and more each day.
Thank you.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:06 pm
by jarnon
Bob78164 wrote:McCabe's account wasn't that he had Comey's permission. McCabe's account was that as Deputy Director (the same position once held by Mark Felt) he was authorized to discuss matters with the press on his own authority.

And as I recall, the mechanism for providing information to the Wall Street Journal was that McCabe authorized other agents to talk to the paper, not that he did so personally. But that latter detail is immaterial to the present point. --Bob
Here is the DOJ Inspector General's report (courtesy of the New York Times):
A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe

It's quite long, so they considerately provided a summary:
As detailed below, we found that in late October 2016, McCabe authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to discuss with [WSJ reporter Devlin] Barrett issues related to the FBI’s Clinton Foundation investigation (CF Investigation). In particular, McCabe authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to disclose to Barrett the contents of a telephone call that had occurred on August 12, 2016, between McCabe and the then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General (“PADAG”). Among the purposes of the disclosure was to rebut a narrative that had been developing following a story in the WSJ on October 23, 2016, that questioned McCabe’s impartiality in overseeing FBI investigations involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and claimed that McCabe had ordered the termination of the CF Investigation due to Department of Justice pressure. The disclosure to the WSJ effectively confirmed the existence of the CF Investigation, which then-FBI Director Comey had previously refused to do. The account of the August 12 McCabe-PADAG call, and other information regarding the handling of the CF Investigation, was included in the October 30 WSJ article.

We found that, in a conversation with then-Director Comey shortly after the WSJ article was published, McCabe lacked candor when he told Comey, or made statements that led Comey to believe, that McCabe had not authorized the disclosure and did not know who did. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.5 (Lack of Candor – No Oath).

We also found that on May 9, 2017, when questioned under oath by FBI agents from INSD, McCabe lacked candor when he told the agents that he had not authorized the disclosure to the WSJ and did not know who did. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath).

We further found that on July 28, 2017, when questioned under oath by the OIG in a recorded interview, McCabe lacked candor when he stated: (a) that he was not aware of Special Counsel having been authorized to speak to reporters around October 30 and (b) that, because he was not in Washington, D.C., on October 27 and 28, 2016, he was unable to say where Special Counsel was or what she was doing at that time. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath).

We additionally found that on November 29, 2017, when questioned under oath by the OIG in a recorded interview during which he contradicted his prior statements by acknowledging that he had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ, McCabe lacked candor when he: (a) stated that he told Comey on October 31, 2016, that he had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ; (b) denied telling INSD agents on May 9 that he had not authorized the disclosure to the WSJ about the PADAG call; and (c) asserted that INSD’s questioning of him on May 9 about the October 30 WSJ article occurred at the end of an unrelated meeting when one of the INSD agents pulled him aside and asked him one or two questions about the article. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath).

Lastly, we determined that as Deputy Director, McCabe was authorized to disclose the existence of the CF Investigation publicly if such a disclosure fell within the “public interest” exception in applicable FBI and DOJ policies generally prohibiting such a disclosure of an ongoing investigation. However, we concluded that McCabe’s decision to confirm the existence of the CF Investigation through an anonymously sourced quote, recounting the content of a phone call with a senior Department official in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership, was clearly not within the public interest exception. We therefore concluded that McCabe’s disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in this manner violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.
The President tweeted a more succinct summary:
Donald J. Trump wrote:DOJ just issued the McCabe report - which is a total disaster. He LIED! LIED! LIED! McCabe was totally controlled by Comey - McCabe is Comey!! No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and lowlifes!

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 11:17 pm
by jarnon
Back to the original topic. DOJ just released the (heavily redacted) application for a warrant against Carter Page that got Nunes so upset.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/docume ... cation.pdf

It does cite "Source #1" (Steele) who claims Page met with two shady Russians. It says that Steele, besides being a longtime FBI informant, was also a paid investigator for Trump's opponents. The FBI still finds his information credible.

The warrant was renewed three times. Each application adds a bit more detail. Steele gets fed up with the FBI's revelations about Clinton's emails and blabs to the press, and the FBI stops using him as an informant. They still consider his earlier reports to be credible. Carter Page insists to the press and directly to Comey that he never met with the two Russians, and the allegations against him are lies fabricated by the Clinton campaign. There are also pages of blacked-out text, presumably evidence the FBI collected since the original warrant.

Altogether, four judges concluded there was sufficient evidence to keep investigating Page.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 7:37 am
by silverscreenselect
jarnon wrote: Altogether, four judges concluded there was sufficient evidence to keep investigating Page.
Police rely on biased, unsavory sources all the time in ordinary police work. Whenever someone rats out a drug dealer or other lowlife, it's not usually an upstanding concerned citizen who happened to witness something unsavory going on. It's another crook, looking for revenge or to get ahead or to curry favor with the police. If they couldn't use information from "biased" sources, we wouldn't have many warrants issued or arrests made.

Although I disagree with the categorization of Steele, the fact remains that four judges who were aware of his history looked at all the information involved in the warrant applications before issuing them. To somehow say that calls for a blanket disqualification of Steele would mean that political informants were inherently less reliable than drug dealing slimeballs who rat each other out all the time.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:32 am
by jarnon
Page is on TV again today proclaiming his innocence. From what we can see of the warrants, the FBI tried to be fair by including Page’s side, which they’re not required to do.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 10:14 pm
by Bob78164
So to summarize, when Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee claimed that the Court had been misled about the political motivations for Steele's work, they were lying. In fact, the application contained a full page describing his political motivations and explaining why the FBI considered his dossier credible anyway.

And when Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee claimed that the Court had been misled into thinking that a Yahoo! article was used to corroborate Steele's dossier even though Steele was a source for the article, they were lying. In fact, the article was used to demonstrate that Page was denying the allegations. We know that because the heading of the portion of the application that cited the article was called, "Page's Denial of Cooperation with the Russian Government."

In short, the job of Congressional oversight is to take the information we're not allowed to see (because of security concerns) and use it to help the public guide our country's democratically elected representatives to the policy choices we want. So for the people who have that job to deliberately lie to the American people about what's in the documents that we're not allowed to see is (or should be) unforgivable. Every single Representative who signed that lying letter should be removed from the Intelligence Committee.

What's next? Republican politicians lying to get us into an unnecessary war? Oh, wait! --Bob

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 12:29 am
by Estonut
Bob78164 wrote:And when Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee claimed that the Court had been misled into thinking that a Yahoo! article was used to corroborate Steele's dossier even though Steele was a source for the article, they were lying.
Do you have a link? Yahoo! rarely, if ever, writes news articles.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:52 am
by Bob Juch
Estonut wrote:
Bob78164 wrote:And when Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee claimed that the Court had been misled into thinking that a Yahoo! article was used to corroborate Steele's dossier even though Steele was a source for the article, they were lying.
Do you have a link? Yahoo! rarely, if ever, writes news articles.
Wrong, Yahoo writes original news articles every day.

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2018/02/03 ... ier-597444

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 8:19 am
by Bob78164
Estonut wrote:
Bob78164 wrote:And when Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee claimed that the Court had been misled into thinking that a Yahoo! article was used to corroborate Steele's dossier even though Steele was a source for the article, they were lying.
Do you have a link? Yahoo! rarely, if ever, writes news articles.
Jarnon linked to the application a few posts up. You can see for yourself what information was provided to the Court and to the four (appointed-by-Republican) judges who approved the application and its renewals. --Bob

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 10:35 am
by jarnon
Bob78164 wrote:
Estonut wrote:
Bob78164 wrote:And when Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee claimed that the Court had been misled into thinking that a Yahoo! article was used to corroborate Steele's dossier even though Steele was a source for the article, they were lying.
Do you have a link? Yahoo! rarely, if ever, writes news articles.
Jarnon linked to the application a few posts up. You can see for yourself what information was provided to the Court and to the four (appointed-by-Republican) judges who approved the application and its renewals. --Bob
The Yahoo News article is the one that the warrant calls the September 23 article. You can read it yourself:
U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin
Steele appears to be the source of two of the facts in both the warrant and the article, that Page met with Sechin and Diveykin. Even after Steele's dossier, some of which is far-fetched, was published, the FBI still believed Steele was right about those meetings. And the judges, looking at all the evidence in the warrant, kept re-approving it.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2018 11:11 am
by jarnon
Trump's newest bogeyman:
Donald J. Trump wrote:The big story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is lowlife Christopher Steele’s many meetings with Deputy A.G. Bruce Ohr and his beautiful wife, Nelly. It was Fusion GPS that hired Steele to write the phony & discredited Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary & the DNC....
Do you believe Nelly worked for Fusion and her husband STILL WORKS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF “JUSTICE.” I have never seen anything so Rigged in my life. Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed - not pretty. IG Report soon? Witch Hunt!
Steele and the Ohrs are old friends. Ohr didn't work on the Clinton or Russia investigations, but his mere presence is more proof that DOJ is infested with Trump's enemies.

Re: More interference with the FBI

Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2018 12:10 pm
by silverscreenselect
I'd note that regardless of what one might think of Christopher Steele, his dossier has never been proved to be "phony or discredited," unless by discredited you mean attacked without proof by Trump and other right-wingers.