• 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!

Judicial Watch Finds Documents Showing Fusion GPS Working Directly With Obama's DOJ to Frame Trump

bubbabgone said:
Nov. 2016 Steele was fired by the FBI because of his contacts with the media.

"Agents said in a series of notes from December 2016 that Ohr told them Simpson from Fusion GPS “directed” Steele to speak to press “as that was what Simpson was paying [Steele] to do.” Michael Isikoff, the chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News whose September 2016 news article based on the dossier was used to bolster the FISA applications, later said the media should have shown more skepticism over Steele's dossier, which he described as "thirdhand stuff." Steele also passed along information to numerous other media outlets."
FBI used Steele dossier in FISAs despite knowing about flaws and bias

Get that? Isikoff & Corn (Yahoo) got the dossier information from Steele - the dossier was used in the FISA warrant - and the Isikoff & Corn article was used as a verification of the dossier for the FISA warrant requests as though it was an independent source.
That circular sourcing is verboten.
Click to expand...

It wasn't Steele who contacted the media...it was McCain's guy Kramer.


"...Previously sealed court documents reveal how Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and one of his associates, former State Department official David Kramer and McCain Institute fellow, shared the Democratic National Committee-funded Russia dossier with the FBI and various media outlets. McCain previously denied being BuzzFeed's source after the outlet published the dossier.

In a 2017 court filing, Kramer confirmed that British spy Christopher Steele provided the dossier to him. Kramar then turned around and provided the dossier to reporters at McClatchy, NPR, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed and CNN’s Carl Bernstein, The Daily Caller reported.

The report was also shared with State Department official Victoria Nuland, Obama National Security Council official Celeste Wallander and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)...."

Newly Unsealed Court Documents Reveal Who Shared The Russia Dossier With The FBI And Media​


Steele made a deal with the FBI to continue investigating the Russian connections after the election. But after the dossier became public the deal was called off. Steele was never paid by the FBI....


"...Steele’s information was provided by an intermediary to the FBI and U.S. intelligence officials after the Democratic National Convention in July, when hacked Democratic emails were first released by WikiLeaks, according to a source familiar with the events. After the convention, Steele contacted a friend in the FBI to personally explain what he had found.

As summer turned to fall, Steele became concerned that the U.S. government was not taking the information he had uncovered seriously enough, according to two people familiar with the situation...

In October, anticipating that funding supplied through the original client would dry up, Steele and the FBI reached a spoken understanding: He would continue his work looking at the Kremlin’s ties to Trump and receive compensation for his efforts....

Those people say Steele’s frustration with the FBI peaked after an Oct. 31 New York Times story that cited law enforcement sources drawing conclusions that he considered premature. The article said that the FBI had not yet found any “conclusive or direct link” between Trump and the Russian government and that the Russian hacking was not intended to help Trump...

After the election, the intelligence community concluded that Russia’s interference had been intended to assist Trump...

In January, top intelligence and law enforcement officials briefed Trump and President Barack Obama on those findings. In addition, they provided a summary of the core allegations of Steele’s dossier....

News of that briefing soon became public. Then BuzzFeed posted a copy of Steele’s salacious but unproven dossier online, sparking outrage from Trump...

The development marked the end of the FBI’s relationship with Steele.

After he was publicly identified by the Wall Street Journal as the dossier’s author, Steele went into hiding...."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...6ab470-facc-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html​


The dossier was never intended to be made public. You can thank McCain and Kramer for that.
 
Last edited:
bubbabgone said:
As explained in #123, the FBI actually was derelict in their duty to use the unverified dossier for the FISA warrants while portraying media reports about the dossier as independent verification.
iow - it was all a single source - Christopher Steele who wasn't supposed to be talking to the media and he got fired for it.
Click to expand...

Well, how was the FBI supposed to verify the dossier's allegations without a warrant? Isn't it the FBI's job to investigate and verify such allegations?

Steele didn't talk to the media. See post#126
 
Bullseye said:
Yeah, like I'm gonna page through thousands of pages to find something to continue seeing your dedicated denials. :roll:
Click to expand...

Thank you for proving my point.
 
Moot said:
Yeah, so?
Click to expand...

It was said the FBI would have been derelict in not surveilling Mr. Page. They chose not to do so until after he left the campaign.
 
Moot said:
Well, how was the FBI supposed to verify the dossier's allegations without a warrant? Isn't it the FBI's job to investigate and verify such allegations?

Steele didn't talk to the media. See post#126
Click to expand...

The dossier is not what was being investigated. The dossier is what justified the warrant.
In other words, for example, the Cohen alleged trip to Prague is only interesting in that it might have helped support a claim of conspiracy. It's not illegal, after all, to go to Prague. His allegedly being in Prague is what part of what supported the larger claim of conspiracy.
 
Athanasius68 said:
The dossier is not what was being investigated. The dossier is what justified the warrant.
In other words, for example, the Cohen alleged trip to Prague is only interesting in that it might have helped support a claim of conspiracy. It's not illegal, after all, to go to Prague. His allegedly being in Prague is what part of what supported the larger claim of conspiracy.
Click to expand...


So the FBI can't investigate allegations without a warrant and they can't get a warrant without an investigation....is that what you're saying?

In light of the other findings that Russia did in fact interfere in the election with Trump's blessing...and the many Trump associates in his campaign with connections to Russia...and the many that lied to the FBI about their connections and were convicted of perjury...and Trump's obstruction of the investigation, I think the FBI would be remiss if they didn't follow up on the allegations in the dossier regardless of who paid for it.

I suspect the reason why the FBI didn't investigate Cohen's trip to Prague is because of the all the media and political hype surrounding the dossier. Had it not been made public the FBI would've likely investigated it. But who knows, maybe they did and it's in the sections of the Mueller report that were redacted.

The Mueller report didn't exonerate Trump, so the conspiracy theory continues.
 
Athanasius68 said:
It was said the FBI would have been derelict in not surveilling Mr. Page. They chose not to do so until after he left the campaign.
Click to expand...

Except the FBI was already investigating Page because three of his Russian contacts had been charged with conspiracy and he was named as "Male-1" in the complaint. From the Mueller Report....


"...In 2015, Podobnyy and two other Russian intelligence officers were charged with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The criminal complaint detailed Podonbyy's interactions with and conversations about Page, who was identified as only "Male-1". Based on the criminal complaints description of the interactions, Page was aware that he was the individual described as "Male-1. Page later spoke with a Russian government official at the United Nations General Assembly and identified himself so that the official would understand who he was "Male-1" from the Podobnyy complaint. Page told the official that he "didn't do anything" [redacted]

In interviews with the FBI before the Offices opening, Page acknowledged that he understood that the individuals he had associated with were members of the Russian intelligence services, but he stated that he had only provided immaterial non-public information to them and that he did not view this relationship as a backchannel. Page told investigating agents that "the more immaterial non-public information I gave them, the better for this country."​


I don't think the FBI should've just taken Page at his word, do you?
 
Moot said:
Except the FBI was already investigating Page because three of his Russian contacts had been charged with conspiracy and he was named as "Male-1" in the complaint. From the Mueller Report....


"...In 2015, Podobnyy and two other Russian intelligence officers were charged with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The criminal complaint detailed Podonbyy's interactions with and conversations about Page, who was identified as only "Male-1". Based on the criminal complaints description of the interactions, Page was aware that he was the individual described as "Male-1. Page later spoke with a Russian government official at the United Nations General Assembly and identified himself so that the official would understand who he was "Male-1" from the Podobnyy complaint. Page told the official that he "didn't do anything" [redacted]

In interviews with the FBI before the Offices opening, Page acknowledged that he understood that the individuals he had associated with were members of the Russian intelligence services, but he stated that he had only provided immaterial non-public information to them and that he did not view this relationship as a backchannel. Page told investigating agents that "the more immaterial non-public information I gave them, the better for this country."​


I don't think the FBI should've just taken Page at his word, do you?
Click to expand...

What does 2015 have to do with 2016?
 
Moot said:
So the FBI can't investigate allegations without a warrant and they can't get a warrant without an investigation....is that what you're saying?

In light of the other findings that Russia did in fact interfere in the election with Trump's blessing...and the many Trump associates in his campaign with connections to Russia...and the many that lied to the FBI about their connections and were convicted of perjury...and Trump's obstruction of the investigation, I think the FBI would be remiss if they didn't follow up on the allegations in the dossier regardless of who paid for it.

I suspect the reason why the FBI didn't investigate Cohen's trip to Prague is because of the all the media and political hype surrounding the dossier. Had it not been made public the FBI would've likely investigated it. But who knows, maybe they did and it's in the sections of the Mueller report that were redacted.

The Mueller report didn't exonerate Trump, so the conspiracy theory continues.
Click to expand...

Of course the FBI can investigate an allegation. They can't get a warrant without probable cause. Which means they have to vouch that the information used to justify the warrant is, to their knowledge, accurate. The warrant wasnt about proving Cohen was in Prague. His allegedly being in Prague was part of what supported the conspiracy theory.
 
Athanasius68 said:
What does 2015 have to do with 2016?
Click to expand...

2015 is when Trump came down the golden stairs to announce his candidacy.


Of course the FBI can investigate an allegation. They can't get a warrant without probable cause. Which means they have to vouch that the information used to justify the warrant is, to their knowledge, accurate. The warrant wasn't about proving Cohen was in Prague. His allegedly being in Prague was part of what supported the conspiracy theory.
Click to expand...
The conspiracy was the Russian collusion, not the Steele dossier. The Prague visit is/was an allegation that needed to be verified. So instead of putting the allegation to rest, Mueller is silent on the issue.
 
Moot said:
2015 is when Trump came down the golden stairs to announce his candidacy.


The conspiracy was the Russian collusion, not the Steele dossier. The Prague visit is/was an allegation that needed to be verified. So instead of putting the allegation to rest, Mueller is silent on the issue.
Click to expand...

Yes-- it was never verified. Part of the objection to whole Collusion conspiracy theory is that the FBI went to court and used an unverified document to obtain a warrant on an American.
While claiming it was verified.
 
Athanasius68 said:
Yes-- it was never verified. Part of the objection to whole Collusion conspiracy theory is that the FBI went to court and used an unverified document to obtain a warrant on an American.
While claiming it was verified.
Click to expand...
But I don't think the FBI requested a FISA warrant for Cohen. Perhaps you meant Page?

Again, how does the FBI verify an unverified allegation without a FISA warrant? It seems odd to require that something needs to be verified before it can be investigated to see if it's verifiable.
 
weaver2 said:
Judicial Watch is a conservative partisan political organization. Katie Pavlich, who wrote the article is a conservative political writer. The article is un-sourced and no actual documents have been posted. It's mostly "he said, he did" stuff with no direct quotes from anyone involved. It's nothing but speculation about motives with no evidence that the speculation is anything more than an opportunity to defame.

The last sentences in the article reads: "After two years of investigation, thousands of interviews and hundreds of subpoenas, Special Counsel Robert Mueller found zero collusion between any Russia operative, asset, government official or individual and the Trump campaign."

What Katie Pavlich forgot to mention was that the Mueller report did not exonerate Trump and it said Trump knew about the Russian meddling and he did nothing to stop it nor did he report it.

This is nothing but the usual Judicial Watch 1/49/50 propaganda. (1% facts, 49% speculation and 50% accusation based on the speculation)

Post something when you have some sourced facts.
Click to expand...

Anybody who believes anything from Judicial Watch may as well just write a check, and make it out to "Oligarchs".
 
Bullseye said:
If you think that's the case, I'm glad I didn't waste my time.
Click to expand...

You have absolutely no idea what’s in the documents. Judicial Watch makes an extraordinary claim, and you’ve accepted it without question.

If I posted a thousand page document I claim is definitive proof Donald Trump murdered a baby in 1987, would you just nod your head and accept my word for it?

Edit: Let’s not say it came from me. Let’s say it came from a blogger who got fired from Huffington Post for being too liberal. Better comparison. How would you take that claim?
 
Last edited:
bubbabgone said:
As explained in #123, the FBI actually was derelict in their duty to use the unverified dossier for the FISA warrants while portraying media reports about the dossier as independent verification.
iow - it was all a single source - Christopher Steele who wasn't supposed to be talking to the media and he got fired for it.
Click to expand...

It’s impossible to verify something without investigating it.
 
Deuce said:
And a list of names doesn’t suggest Trump was being framed.
Click to expand...

Drawing conclusions on relationships with no corroboration suggests playing fast and loose with investigative ethics.
 
Moot said:
So the FBI can't investigate allegations without a warrant and they can't get a warrant without an investigation....is that what you're saying?

In light of the other findings that Russia did in fact interfere in the election with Trump's blessing...and the many Trump associates in his campaign with connections to Russia...and the many that lied to the FBI about their connections and were convicted of perjury...and Trump's obstruction of the investigation, I think the FBI would be remiss if they didn't follow up on the allegations in the dossier regardless of who paid for it.

I suspect the reason why the FBI didn't investigate Cohen's trip to Prague is because of the all the media and political hype surrounding the dossier. Had it not been made public the FBI would've likely investigated it. But who knows, maybe they did and it's in the sections of the Mueller report that were redacted.

The Mueller report didn't exonerate Trump, so the conspiracy theory continues.
Click to expand...

Its clown car arguments like that which allow it to continue. A person's default legal state is not guilty until proven guilty in a court of law. Mueller invented a novel, unethical, disgusting precedent where he implied the President was guilty of multiple things without ever doing his job and proving such. Unless and until that is done, the President doesn't need to be exonerated as he hasn't been proven guilty.
 
Moot said:
It wasn't Steele who contacted the media...it was McCain's guy Kramer.


"...Previously sealed court documents reveal how Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and one of his associates, former State Department official David Kramer and McCain Institute fellow, shared the Democratic National Committee-funded Russia dossier with the FBI and various media outlets. McCain previously denied being BuzzFeed's source after the outlet published the dossier.

In a 2017 court filing, Kramer confirmed that British spy Christopher Steele provided the dossier to him. Kramar then turned around and provided the dossier to reporters at McClatchy, NPR, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed and CNN’s Carl Bernstein, The Daily Caller reported.

The report was also shared with State Department official Victoria Nuland, Obama National Security Council official Celeste Wallander and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)...."

Newly Unsealed Court Documents Reveal Who Shared The Russia Dossier With The FBI And Media​


Steele made a deal with the FBI to continue investigating the Russian connections after the election. But after the dossier became public the deal was called off. Steele was never paid by the FBI....


"...Steele’s information was provided by an intermediary to the FBI and U.S. intelligence officials after the Democratic National Convention in July, when hacked Democratic emails were first released by WikiLeaks, according to a source familiar with the events. After the convention, Steele contacted a friend in the FBI to personally explain what he had found.

As summer turned to fall, Steele became concerned that the U.S. government was not taking the information he had uncovered seriously enough, according to two people familiar with the situation...

In October, anticipating that funding supplied through the original client would dry up, Steele and the FBI reached a spoken understanding: He would continue his work looking at the Kremlin’s ties to Trump and receive compensation for his efforts....

Those people say Steele’s frustration with the FBI peaked after an Oct. 31 New York Times story that cited law enforcement sources drawing conclusions that he considered premature. The article said that the FBI had not yet found any “conclusive or direct link” between Trump and the Russian government and that the Russian hacking was not intended to help Trump...

After the election, the intelligence community concluded that Russia’s interference had been intended to assist Trump...

In January, top intelligence and law enforcement officials briefed Trump and President Barack Obama on those findings. In addition, they provided a summary of the core allegations of Steele’s dossier....

News of that briefing soon became public. Then BuzzFeed posted a copy of Steele’s salacious but unproven dossier online, sparking outrage from Trump...

The development marked the end of the FBI’s relationship with Steele.

After he was publicly identified by the Wall Street Journal as the dossier’s author, Steele went into hiding...."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...6ab470-facc-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html​


The dossier was never intended to be made public. You can thank McCain and Kramer for that.
Click to expand...
AGAIN:
- Steele went to Isikoff at Yahoo News who wrote the dossier story in September 2016.
- The first Carter Page FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign was in October 2016 (clever because Page hadn't been part of the campaign for months) and it used the Steele sourced Yahoo article as an additional source for the dossier information without noting that Steele was the source for that too. That's forbidden.
- Steele was fired from the FBI in November because he spoke to the media.
- Steele continued to feed information to the FBI through the Bruce Ohr/Nellie Ohr/Fusion connection.

You can load up your posts with whatever irrelevant stuff you want but those are the facts and those facts appear ready to sink some big names.
 
Moot said:
Well, how was the FBI supposed to verify the dossier's allegations without a warrant? Isn't it the FBI's job to investigate and verify such allegations?

Steele didn't talk to the media. See post#126
Click to expand...

They used the dossier as evidence to get the warrant. What's included as evidence in a warrant request is supposed to be verified and the warrant requests say that what's included has been verified.

Oh dear lord, give it up. Steele talked to the media. He was fired for it.
"The memo, prepared by GOP House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes, claims that the FISA application relied on the Yahoo News article to “corroborate” the Steele dossier — but that the article “was derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News.”

“One reason that kind of stuns me is obviously is the information I got from Christopher Steele was information that the FBI already had,” Isikoff said.

Isikoff said he was introduced to Steele by Glenn Simpson, the former journalist who founded the research firm, Fusion GPS, who invited him to meet a “secret source” at a Washington restaurant.

“Glenn had booked a private room upstairs so that no one would see us,” Isikoff recalled. “During the hour or so we talked that day, Steele tells me an amazing story — how one of Donald Trump’s foreign policy advisers, Carter Page, had flown to Moscow and had private talks with close associates of Vladimir Putin about lifting U.S. sanctions against Russia.”

“And Steele tells me something else that day that gets my attention: He’s taken this information to the FBI and the bureau is very interested,” Isikoff continued. “Why were they interested? What did the bureau know that would prompt them to take the extraordinary step to launch an investigation into an adviser of the Republican nominee for president?”

"Isikoff said Steele was “a serious guy” and came across as credible. “He was not interested in small talk,” Isikoff said. “It was all business. And he had what clearly he viewed as very significant information he developed from his sources.” Isikoff said his resulting story did not rely solely on what Steele told him."
Yahoo'''s Isikoff describes key meeting cited in Nunes memo
 
Deuce said:
It’s impossible to verify something without investigating it.
Click to expand...

Oh no. You too.
The warrant was to spy on the Trump campaign through Carter Page, who had left the campaign already.
What they used as verified evidence for the request was from Steele's dossier.
What they used as corroborative evidence (apparently the big boys need to corroborate in the spy business) also came from Steele but through media outlets.
"Circular reporting. Circular reporting or false confirmation is a situation in source criticism where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in reality comes from only one source. In many cases, the problem happens mistakenly through sloppy intelligence gathering practices."​
Circular reporting is normally frowned upon by the big boys and is definitely frowned upon by the FISC.

In short, the FISA warrants were not meant to verify what they presented as verified evidence in the warrant requests. It was already presented as verified and used as the evidence to spy.
The warrant requests were made so they could spy on the Trump campaign to look for additional information.
 
Media_Truth said:
Anybody who believes anything from Judicial Watch may as well just write a check, and make it out to "Oligarchs".
Click to expand...

I find more credibility (not perfections) in NGO groups, whistleblower groups like JW and Public Citizen than I do in government agencies and the mainstream sycophants.
 
OpportunityCost said:
You act like shooting the messenger is a credible tactic. Its not.
Click to expand...
You act like you cannot tell the difference from the presentation of a matter on its own and the presentation of a matter as in "So-and-so says..."

:shrug:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom