• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

House Intelligence Committee releases Dem rebuttal to GOP FISA memo

Mach said:
I can understand why the paid and politicians lie and carry on without ethics to further their positions/income, but I for the life of me don't understand why average people partake. It makes no sense whatsoever. If they caught a blurb on TV and kind of half-believed it because it's all they saw and it seemed plausible...that I understand. But to see it discussed in-depth, and they still persist...spooky.
Click to expand...
There's an entire industry devoted to reinforcing what conservatives believe.

I think a lot of times when conservatives buy into these talking points, it's hard for them to ever admit they got duped. It's hard for human beings in general to do that, so when people are highly political and see everything as "use vs them" in any dynamic, it becomes almost impossible to snap them out of it. They'd rather go down with the ideological ship, than admit it was easy as pie to sell them poorly crafted lies.

I've dealt with the same kind of thinking in discussions regarding creationism, vaccines, and climate change denial, which is also led by many of the same players that run in conservative politics.
 
Last edited:
GDViking said:
You honestly are so naive to believe That the fisa court is so inept to recognize that?

Obviously there was other collaboration that is not public. The only info released was the Yahoo article because it was already public.

You do understand these are SECRET courts right?
Click to expand...

Before I retired I dealt with FISA court material for decades.
There may or may not have been other corroboration. That doesn't change anything.
 
MovingPictures said:
Riiight, because if a bunch of Democrats inside of Clinton's campaign were charged with those kind of crimes, you wouldn't hang it over Clinton's head. :lol:
Click to expand...

Timing is everything, they say.

Considering who was paying Fusion GPS who was paying Steele for his dossier, not as far fetched as you might believe.
 
Jack Hays said:
Before I retired I dealt with FISA court material for decades.
There may or may not have been other corroboration. That doesn't change anything.
Click to expand...

Okay I will bow to your experience, in your professional opinion do you believe this warrant was issued by the court ( 9 judges right?) Solely on a Yahoo article? O
 
GDViking said:
You honestly are so naive to believe That the fisa court is so inept to recognize that?

Obviously there was other collaboration that is not public. The only info released was the Yahoo article because it was already public.

You do understand these are SECRET courts right?
Click to expand...

Who knows? As you pointed out, a secret court. To all outward appearances it seems the FBI was negligent in presenting the complete information surrounding the dossier which was their foundation, or a significant part of their foundation for obtaining the FISA warrant and extending it several times to the FISA judge.

Eventually all the documentation will make it to the public, perhaps in 20 years, than it'll only then that will the public know for a certainty, and perhaps not even then, depending on how redacted what's released will be.

No, not obviously. But then I 'get it' that you'd just as soon convict without proof and evidence. Just look at the tactics of the #MeToo movement, destroying people with ex-judical actions, accusal without proof or court proceedings. Rather McCarthyistic if you ask me.
 
GDViking said:
Okay I will bow to your experience, in your professional opinion do you believe this warrant was issued by the court ( 9 judges right?) Solely on a Yahoo article? O
Click to expand...

I have no idea and I really don't care. My only point is that false confirmation is a professional error.
 
GDViking said:
You honestly are so naive to believe That the fisa court is so inept to recognize that?

Obviously there was other collaboration that is not public. The only info released was the Yahoo article because it was already public.

You do understand these are SECRET courts right?
Click to expand...

A FISA warrant on an American citizen requires probable cause that that citizen was engaging in criminal actions in connection to national security concerns.
Page had had FISA warrants issued prior to the dossier. Where are those indictments and prosecutions? Why weren't those alleged criminal actions utilized as probable cause instead of the dossier or a news article?
 
eohrnberger said:
Timing is everything, they say.

Considering who was paying Fusion GPS who was paying Steele for his dossier, not as far fetched as you might believe.
Click to expand...

Steele was unaware of who was paying, he was hired to xo a job and he did it.

This is not some strip mall PI this is a man at the top of his profession, and if all trump and his supporters have left.is to attempt to discredit him, Mueller,and the FBI, they are grasping at straws and hae already lost.
 
GDViking said:
Steele was unaware of who was paying, he was hired to xo a job and he did it.

This is not some strip mall PI this is a man at the top of his profession, and if all trump and his supporters have left.is to attempt to discredit him, Mueller,and the FBI, they are grasping at straws and hae already lost.
Click to expand...

Steele would have been a fool not to learn who was paying, and I've seen no evidence he was a fool.
 
Jack Hays said:
Steele would have been a fool not to learn who was paying, and I've seen no evidence he was a fool.
Click to expand...
Countless people have been investigated for political purposes only to be tried and convicted for crimes.

It's not just irrelevant, it's EXPECTED. Why as a "professional" do you think we have multiple political parties in the first place? Who has more incentive to watchdog a political party, if not the opposition party? It's the entire point. It was a journalist that dug up the dirt on Roy Moore, did they throw it all out because it was someone looking for a story? The guy heard Moore was going national, and he'd heard rumors, he figured this guy was hiding some stuff, and he hit pay-dirt. Smart play, we should thank him.

Same thing here, except it wasn't a journalist they hired. Republicans hired Fusion (the competition of Trump) then the primaries were over so they searched for a Dem to pick up the tab (the new competition), and all this Russia stuff was in the news and in the rumor mill, so they hired the top Russian intelligence guy that was working freelance, a guy that routinely provided intelligence to the U.S.

The rest is history.
 
Athanasius68 said:
A FISA warrant on an American citizen requires probable cause that that citizen was engaging in criminal actions in connection to national security concerns.
Page had had FISA warrants issued prior to the dossier. Where are those indictments and prosecutions? Why weren't those alleged criminal actions utilized as probable cause instead of the dossier or a news article?
Click to expand...

If there is contact with a foreigner on foreign soil a warrant is not even required.

You are confusing fisa warrants with standard warrants. Because of the patriot act all rights are out the window.

In my opinion this investigation is the first time tbe Patriot has had a positive effect.
 
Mach said:
Countless people have been investigated for political purposes only to be tried and convicted for crimes.

It's not just irrelevant, it's EXPECTED. Why as a "professional" do you think we have multiple political parties in the first place? Who has more incentive to watchdog a political party, if not the opposition party? It's the entire point. It was a journalist that dug up the dirt on Roy Moore, did they throw it all out because it was someone looking for a story? The guy heard Moore was going national, and he'd heard rumors, he figured this guy was hiding some stuff, and he hit pay-dirt. Smart play, we should thank him.

Same thing here, except it wasn't a journalist they hired. Republicans hired Fusion (the competition of Trump) then the primaries were over so they searched for a Dem to pick up the tab (the new competition), and all this Russia stuff was in the news and in the rumor mill, so they hired the top Russian intelligence guy that was working freelance, a guy that routinely provided intelligence to the U.S.

The rest is history.
Click to expand...

Yes, and . . . ?

If Steele were going to carry out inquiries in Russia he would have considered it critical to his own safety to know who was his sponsor. I know I would have.
 
Jack Hays said:
They have avoided entirely the problem of false confirmation in FBI using a Yahoo News article based largely on Steele to confirm the Steele dossier. It would seem they are conceding that point.
Click to expand...

No they didn't. First of all, Nunes never claimed the Yahoo article was used to corroborate anything. You read that into the memo, and it wasn't ever there. Now we know Nunes was a partisan hack writing the memo to deliberately imply something that didn't happen. Not shocked. He showed his colors long ago.

It's hard to quote but page 7, first full paragraph says the Yahoo article was included to inform the court of Page's public denials.
 
holbritter said:
Well, here's the problem. I've only read a few pages, and already someone is lying. I don't know which party is telling the truth. The co-owner of Fusion stated in his testimony that Steele went to the FBI in July with his information. He and Steele were wondering what was going on with it, and finally heard back from the FBI in September.

This rebuttal memo is saying that the FBI was not contacted until September. Which is it?
Click to expand...

Steele contacted FBI in Europe. The Schiff memo asserts that the unit investigating Trump's team wasn't contacted by the FBI team contacted by Steele because the Trump team's work in HQ was highly classified. See page three, top paragraph.
 
JasperL said:
No they didn't. First of all, Nunes never claimed the Yahoo article was used to corroborate anything. You read that into the memo, and it wasn't ever there. Now we know Nunes was a partisan hack writing the memo to deliberately imply something that didn't happen. Not shocked. He showed his colors long ago.

It's hard to quote but page 7, first full paragraph says the Yahoo article was included to inform the court of Page's public denials.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that doesn't pass the smell (or laugh) test. It is a risible claim that the Yahoo News article selected to show Page's public denials was -- coincidentally -- largely sourced to Steele.
 
Jack Hays said:
Apparently the FBI did not believe the other sources were adequate, otherwise why cite Yahoo News? Whether the Steele dossier was or was not accurate is a question whose answer requires more information than I have. What is indisputable is that the FBI seems to have claimed corroboration to the FISA court on the basis of false confirmation.
Click to expand...

It's odd you claim expertise in this stuff and appear to be deliberately misreading or not reading the Schiff response. It's not indisputable at all, in fact it's highly doubtful because, again, Nunes never claimed the Yahoo article was used to corroborate anything.
 
MovingPictures said:
Page had been under surveillance by the FBI prior to Steele ever coming along, so this is not some innocent doe-eyed angel we're talking about. We're talking about a guy that was unwittingly passing information to Russian operatives engaging in espionage.

Page made statements in public that he never met any Rosneft executives, as alleged in the Steele dossier. It appears that the corroboration was the FBI's own surveillance of Page knowing about these secret meetings Page had with Kremlin operatives. Page of course, did come clean about these meetings before Congress, in a stunning recant of his previous statements.

How and why Yahoo would be used as source is something I can't comment on without seeing the warrant, but suffice to say you can't use a news outlet alone as evidence of anything -- there must be other sources to meet the criteria for a warrant.
Click to expand...

Schiff covered it in the memo - page 7, first full paragraph. The memo claims it was used to document his public denials, which sounds reasonable enough...
 
Jack Hays said:
Regardless of what else may (or may not) have been cited, citing the Yahoo News article at all was false confirmation. My issue is professional, not political.
Click to expand...

Professional how?
 
JasperL said:
It's odd you claim expertise in this stuff and appear to be deliberately misreading or not reading the Schiff response. It's not indisputable at all, in fact it's highly doubtful because, again, Nunes never claimed the Yahoo article was used to corroborate anything.
Click to expand...

Deny as you wish.
 
Grim17 said:
Here's a few key things I noticed about the democratic memo:

1. The republican memo claimed that Andrew McCabe testified that without the dossier, the FBI would have never sought a warrant. That claim has been disputed publicly by democrats, but is not disputed or even addressed in the democratic memo.

2. The democratic memo claims that the dossier was corroborated by multiple, independent sources, all of which are redacted. That claim directly contradicts the sworn testimony given under oath in mid 2017 to the Senate Intelligence Committee by then FBI director James Comey, who said that he felt the need to brief president elect Trump in January 2017 about the dossier, even though the dossier was in his words quote "salacious and unverified".
Click to expand...

He never testified that the "dossier" was salacious and unverified. He claimed the pee-tape part of it was. When asked directly about the "dossier" he refused to answer in open session. This lie has been debunked about 100 times now.

3. The republican memo claimed that the FISA court was not informed about the dossier being opposition research funded by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign. The democratic memo does not dispute that assertion, but instead attempts to justify why that information was withheld from the judge, citing that it was to protect sources. That doesn't fly with me because the reason that the FBI protects information sources, is when revealing such would compromise national security or put people's lives in danger (such as exposing the name of a covert operative or an ongoing covert intelligence operation). I can't see how revealing who funded the dossier, or the fact that it was opposition research, could be seen as information that had to be protected.
Click to expand...

The Schiff memo includes the footnote where the court was informed about the intent of the memo - to discredit Trump.

4. The democratic memo does not address what Steele said about not wanting Trump to be president.
Click to expand...

Why does this matter?

So the main claims made by republican, the ones that are the most damaging, are not directly refuted by the democrats in their memo. This leads me to wonder what the democrats hoped to accomplish by putting out their memo in the first place?
Click to expand...

Two of the big "claims" were the court wasn't informed that the memo was essentially opposition research on Trump. The court was informed about that. The second claim was the Yahoo crap, which was also debunked.
 
Jack Hays said:
I'm retired, and while I have some knowledge of the FISA process I have no non-public knowledge of this case. The claim of false confirmation made in the Nunes memo has not been denied by anyone.
Click to expand...



Enough information in the warrant has not been released to confirm the Nunes claim of false confirmation, either. Just as there may be information yet released, and there is much, that could refute the claim of "false confirmation."
 
bluesmoke said:
Enough information in the warrant has not been released to confirm the Nunes claim of false confirmation, either. Just as there may be information yet released, and there is much, that could refute the claim of "false confirmation."
Click to expand...

Let me know when that happens.
 
Jack Hays said:
Deny as you wish.
Click to expand...

Quote the Nunes memo where he makes the claim. We've been through it and you cannot. He said:

1) The application included the Yahoo news article, and
2) That the Yahoo article did not corroborate the Steele information.

He implied, dishonestly, that the Yahoo article was included to corroborate the dossier but that claim wasn't in the memo.

Besides, the Schiff memo directly addresses this. You know this, so why pretend that it didn't. The facts in the Schiff memo actually make sense, and would be an appropriate use of a news article. For some reason you're jumping to conclusions that this team of FBI agents committed professional malpractice when there wasn't ever any evidence for it - just a hack writing a crap memo that led you to that BS conclusion.
 
JasperL said:
Quote the Nunes memo where he makes the claim. We've been through it and you cannot. He said:

1) The application included the Yahoo news article, and
2) That the Yahoo article did not corroborate the Steele information.

He implied, dishonestly, that the Yahoo article was included to corroborate the dossier but that claim wasn't in the memo.

Besides, the Schiff memo directly addresses this. You know this, so why pretend that it didn't. The facts in the Schiff memo actually make sense, and would be an appropriate use of a news article. For some reason you're jumping to conclusions that this team of FBI agents committed professional malpractice when there wasn't ever any evidence for it - just a hack writing a crap memo that led you to that BS conclusion.
Click to expand...

Please see #65.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom