It is no longer a secret. If you’re a trumpsterw then you’re also Russian operatitives.
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he he …
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I’ve been thinking that pretty much constantly since …say … Feb 2017…
I’m waiting… and not very patiently …for trump to be indicted, arrested and dragged out of the White House in hand cuffs.
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If anyone should know about the end of a president it would be John Dean. He and Adam Schiff let trump have it ‘right between the eyes’ today via twitter in a “he said - he said” cat fight.
I am so looking for trump to be indicted. I have some fine bourbon at hand to celebrate with should it occur.
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OT A little more good news for your weekend.
I didn’t even know Fox was being investigated, though I always thought it should. All the millions in payoffs always seemed ripe for financial shenanigans.
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Americans see working with their government as patriotism. The GOP does not.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Subject: Moniker Alert
Devin Nunes now known as the Inspector Clouseau of Fresno.
#30#
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Manafort, Kushner, and Jr. are musts, but I won’t be happy without Roger Stone in there.
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What is this, “life” of which you speak?
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Goddamn it dommyluc, beer is really expensive here in Bangkok. Quit making me spit it out (just glad it didn’t spew through my nose).
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Vox reports:
After the Schiff memo was released on Saturday, House Republicans released a document rebutting its core claims. Their response to this damning citation is — and I am not making this up — that the vital line in which the FBI discloses the information about Steele was “buried in a footnote.”
SOOO… it appears that Trump is not the only Republican who doesn’t like to read.
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Schiff is fearless. He would be fantastic as 46.
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I doubt that is anti. Anti is a much spiffier dresser and the duct tape wouldn’t be showing.
It seems clear now that Trump was always compromised and that the Russians were only looking to widen their circle of accomplices with more meetings and that they have now got the entire GOP committing treason and obstruction of justice for the Trump-Putin mafia, just for starters.
I’m also curious. However, in the long game, the Dems and Mueller don’t want to let people know how close they are to pulling up their nets. The names will all come out in good time. I trust Mueller to get this right when it all ends.
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@valgalky23 Thanks for the push to read the article. I’d seen the headline, but failed to follow it - figured I knew what it would say. My respect for Mueller grew, as did my loathing for Trump (if that’s possible, but, hey, the universe is still expanding, so there’s still room.)
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just some cued up dude … soakin’ in the info —
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The life I once led which I now occasionally drop in on but is mostly stored on a shelf.
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I read the Schiff/Minority Rebuttal to the Nunes memo. Apart from demonstrating that the Steele Dossier had no impact on the decision to start the Russia investigation and the dismissal of Nunes’ false assertions, what I found truly fascinating were the revelations about the FBI’s investigation into the Russian conspiracy. The release of this memo, following the recent indictments + guilty pleas makes this memo more effective and damning.
The key thing in this memo to me is that, when pieced together with the Mueller indictments, it tells us the Trump campaign was literally riddled with confirmed Russian assets/spies, and that contact and explorations of coordination with Russia were top priorities of both the Russians and the Trump campaign. Now that Mueller has officially stated that the Russian effort to undermine the US elections was a violation of US election laws (and other laws), and that the use of private intermediaries does not mitigate liability for anyone in the conspiracy supply chain, there is likely more than enough evidence for Mueller to indict the Trump campaign entity.
A few highlights:
The FISA warrant was sought and approved on October 21, 2016. It was renewed three times thereafter in Jan '17, April ’ 17 and June '17. As far as we know the FISA warrant extended through Sept '17. There’s no indication on whether it was renewed thereafter.
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Page is a Real Live Russian Spy. The FBI had assessed Page to be an agent of the Russian government (i.e., Spy). Not a double agent or unwitting asset, or a simple doofus who played too many football games without a helmet, but a real, live Russian agent. He had a long history with confirmed Russian intelligence officials dating back at least to 2013. For those who have dismissed Page, thought he was a double agent or found him inscrutable and therefore not a strong link to prove the Trump-Russia conspiracy (e.g., Naveed Jamali who often appears on MSNBC), from the perspective of the FBI, Page is a central and dangerous figure.
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Page’s Trip to Moscow in July 2016 Was a Big Deal to the FBI. I wrote about this following the release of the Page transcript from his House Intel Committee interview. Page’s trip to Moscow while serving as a member of the Trump campaign is enough to prove solicitation and support/assistance for the conspiracy. The FBI had several concerns about his trip, corroborated Steele’s own findings about what Page did on that trip, and know that Page initially lied in his testimony to Congress before partially walked it back.
The Russians changed Page’s itinerary to bring him to a bar to watch the Euro semifinal on Wed, July 6 2016 between Portugal and Wales. There he met several officials from Rosneft, Russian intel and the Russian gov’t (he admits to meeting one connected person, the head of investor relations at Rosneft, Andrei Baranov). The Steele Dossier states that Page talked sanctions and the Rosneft sale. Page himself admitting that both topics might’ve come up.Page later gave a speech supporting a thaw in Russia-US relations, which was interpreted to mean that Trump would be friendly to repealing sanctions. Page also made a repeat trip in December 2016.
In addition, page 4 of the memo contains a large blacked out section in which the memo describes the additional information provided by the DOJ to the FISA court obtained from multiple independent sources which corroborates Steele’s reporting re: Page.
Furthermore, page 5 of the memo, there is another blacked out section which describes some highlights of the information the FBI had obtained during the surveillance periods. This means that Page continued to behave like a Russian spy all the way through 2016 and 17, and the FBI can prove it.
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FBI was investigating multiple Trump officials with suspected Russian Connections & knew of the Russia Conspiracy & Trump Russia Connection in Real Time. The FBI had real, contemporaneous evidence of Russian interference in the elections and Russian outreach to Trump campaign officials.
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On Page 3 of the Memo, Nunes blacked out an important paragraph but it states that the FBI had opened up sub-inquiries into more individuals and then it lists their names (also blacked out). One could probably fit at least 3 or probably 4 names on that line and a half of blacked out text.
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When the Papadopoulos tip was conveyed to the FBI on or about June 2016, the FBI was already monitoring Russian interference in our elections. It is important to note that the use of stolen emails as told to Papadopoulos was conveyed to the FBI. So they knew about this risk well before the release of hacked emails at the DNC.
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We Already Knew This, But Comey’s Actions At the End of the Election Look Worse
The FBI officially opened its investigation into the Trump-Russia matter in late July 2016. Comey’s judgment in juggling the email investigation and this investigation and determining what to let the public know was questionable at best. He looks to have been pushed around by the GOP. On the one hand, he reopened the Clinton investigation after being duped by Trumpers and belatedly and hurriedly tried to walk it back. On the other hand, he allowed Trumpers in the FBI NY office to spread disinformation, falsely claiming that there was no Trump Russia investigation. It seemed to me he had an obligation to correct the record on the latter and keep quiet on the former. It was possible to correct the misinformation without revealing the existence of the investigation. A simple statement by Comey criticizing the Lichtblau article or a personal call to the NYT would’ve sufficed and would’ve pointed them back to Steele, who had already told the media the general outlines of his findings.
Steele’s perception that weird things were happening at the FBI and that there was a pro-Trumper wing which was looking to distort or cover up the evidence against Trump and instead drum up a new 11th hour scandal against Hillary Clinton made Steele back off and start talking to reporters. After that, the FBI cut off their discussions with Steele (and vice versa). There can be no doubt that Comey’s failure to police the Trumper nuts at the NY FBI and the mysterious group of retired FBIers with inside info at True Pundit caused this mess. What should’ve happened in a normal environment is that Trump got exposed for this investigation following debate #3 in which Hillary called Trump, “Putin’s Puppet”. Had that happened, I think HRC would’ve won the election by a 5-6 point margin which would’ve flipped at least 4 states her way.
In sum, the presence and actions of Carter Page and George Papadopoulos while serving as members of the Trump campaign, are (IMHO) sufficient to indict the Trump campaign for conspiring with the Russians to violate US election laws. Now, Mueller has Gates, Flynn and by extension, Manafort, to further establish and prove the level of coordination.
It also seems that the FBI’s faith in Christopher Steele’s findings has grown, not diminished. That means that what Steele alleged - from the starring roles of Manafort, Page and Michael Cohen and even the pee pee tape - are likely true.
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