Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump[W:895]

[Atomic Kid]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

Here is what you need to grasp, Trump is not the subject of this thread. Continue to try to steer the conversation that way and I guarantee you won't like the outcome. I will ask you directly, do you feel there was value, politically, in the Steele dossier?

Are you threatening me? "Trump" is in the title thread. So don't even start to think that you are going lecture me as to what the subject matter of this thread is or what I can or cannot post. So I'll bid you good day because I have no interest in arguing with an obstinate fool.

 

[Athanasius68]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

I'm 0 for like 20 on this question. Not that people can't provide a GOOD answer - no one attempts AN answer. It's really simple. How would the FISC's decision about the warrant be affected if the person paying the bills was, say, DNC or a 501(c)(4) with $100 million in dark money funding efforts to elect Hillary? The evidence supported the warrant or it didn't. Part of the evidence was a dossier the FISC was told was commissioned to "discredit the Trump campaign" so they assume some bias in the preparation and focus. I can't imagine why it matters if Hillary of a dark money group cut the check.

And if Page was engaged in wrongdoing, or the FBI had evidence to indicate he might be an agent of a foreign government, I hate to break it to you but it's not 'corrupt' to investigate that. That's one of the jobs we task FBI to do - investigate political corruption! It's no more corrupt for FBI to investigate Page than it was to investigate Hillary, then or now, if the evidence supports an investigation.

The dossier is a collection of unverified stories from annonymous Russia(!) sources.
Its not the FBI who sought out a warrant based upon it. Its the Obama Administration which sought out such a warrant. By extention, it was President Obama who sought out such a warrant.
President Obama had endorsed Mrs. Clinton for president.
In other words, Mr. Obama was seeking a warrant on an American citizen built upon a report put together by a political ally of his.
1 for 21.

As far as Page and the warrant--- again, it was based upon an unsubstantiated report (from annonymous Russian (!) sources) by the Clinton campaign.

By all means, the FBI is expected to investigate where wanted.
But consider- the Obama Admin went full bore over unsubstantiated annonymous Russian(!) sources regarding the GOP candidate.
Meanwhile, it declined to prosecute a political ally of the president when the FBI reported that there was evidence of criminal activity by that ally.

Why the difference?

 

[Atomic Kid]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

Sure.
So now we look at how the FBI and the Justice Dept. investigated Mrs. Clinton. Comey himself has basically admitted thst the Obama Justice Dept. had no desire to prosecute Mrs. Clinton for mishandling classified information.

What he said was that the feedback he was getting was that the general consensus was that after 10 months of investigating the investigation was likely not going to get to place where a prosecutor would bring forth charges based upon what they had so far.

 

[Athanasius68]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

What he said was that the feedback he was getting was that the general consensus was that after 10 months of investigating the investigation was likely not going to get to place where a prosecutor would bring forth charges based upon what they had so far.

They had evidence of a crime. Whether the Obama justice department acted upon it was not the problem of the FBI.

Meanwhile they had unverified info from the Clinton campaign. And went all out on it.

 

[Atomic Kid]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

They had evidence of a crime. Whether the Obama justice department acted upon it was not the problem of the FBI.

Meanwhile they had unverified info from the Clinton campaign. And went all out on it.

You do know that FBI is a part of Justice Dept, don't you? Also Comey said that while Ms Clinton was quite careless in her handling of classified information that it did not however rise up to the level of meeting the criteria for it to be judged as being criminal.

 

[Athanasius68]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

You do know that FBI is a part of Justice Dept, don't you? Also Comey said that while Ms Clinton was quite careless in her handling of classified information that it did not however rise up to the level of meeting the criteria for it to be judged as being criminal.

That would be the job of the prosecutors to decide in the Justice dept, not the FBI.

 

[Atomic Kid]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

That would be the job of the prosecutors to decide in the Justice dept, not the FBI.

As I understand it that was the general consensus of the Justice Dept as well.

 

[JasperL]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

So you only care about transparency when its easy.

That's not what I said or implied.

Fusion GPS Paid Top DOJ Official's Wife To Dig Up Dirt On Trump

LOL, well, you have me a link, but nothing in the article indicates Perkins Coie told Fusion who the client was. Looks like you picked a random article with McCabe's name in it....

Contracting a foreign national to pay Russian contacts for information. Funny you can only see collusion depending on the party of the people involved.

That's not a crime and it's not "collusion." Who colluded with whom, and on what did they collude? A plot to reveal illegal acts by Trump? You'll have to be a little bit specific here. There is nothing illegal in paying someone to do opposition research, even a foreign national!

No, it isn't. We disagree here. I suggest you quit trying to define the crime based on which party the ox being gored belongs to.

Yes, I know you disagree as do others - what none of you can do (I'm like 0-20 here) is even ATTEMPT a rational explanation. It matters because.....it MATTERS!!! Surely you can see how weak an argument that is. It's what parents do with little kids - Mommy said so, that's why!

You think its baseless. I don't. Based on the firings occurring within the FBI and the OIG reports coming out and the criminal referrals, neither does he.

There's another report coming out that will tell us more about the basis for the investigation - the special counsel's report! The funny thing is when this started, the Trump people and Trump lied day after day "No meetings!" Then we find out everyone in the campaign is meeting regularly with various Russian operatives, but so it's "Sure, we met, of course we met, all the time, including in Trump TOWER! but we didn't talk about the campaign." And then we get emails talking about dirt on Hillary and the story changes again! Well, sure we talked but we didn't DO anything - nothing came of those talks with Russians about dirt in Hillary involving key members of the Trump campaign!!

And after all that you don't believe the FBI had a legitimate basis to do an INVESTIGATION. Don't you see how pathetic that line is to non-lemmings?

Her use of that email server gave the Chinese and Russians information on secret information originating in the state department because it was not secure. Mishandling classified information for political purposes remains a crime. Again, you only care about crimes when there isn't a D in front of their name.

You illustrated my point nicely, so thanks. You're fine with using the government to investigate a candidate in the middle of a campaign, so long as you agree with the investigation and the investigation targets that other candidate.

 

[JasperL]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

The dossier is a collection of unverified stories from annonymous Russia(!) sources.
Its not the FBI who sought out a warrant based upon it. Its the Obama Administration which sought out such a warrant. By extention, it was President Obama who sought out such a warrant.

Well, the FBI is part of the "Obama administration" so I'm unsure what distinction you're trying to draw, if any. There's zero evidence Obama directed, encouraged or even knew the investigation was going on. And what you appear to be saying is it's almost by definition 'corrupt' if the FBI under a Democratic president investigates any republican. That's nonsense of course.

President Obama had endorsed Mrs. Clinton for president.
In other words, Mr. Obama was seeking a warrant on an American citizen built upon a report put together by a political ally of his.
1 for 21.

You didn't answer the question, so I'm 0-21. And the evidence is the warrant included the dossier and much more evidence to support the warrant. We don't know what that was or how persuasive it was, but you can't just pretend that it doesn't exist.

As far as Page and the warrant--- again, it was based upon an unsubstantiated report (from annonymous Russian (!) sources) by the Clinton campaign.

By all means, the FBI is expected to investigate where wanted.
But consider- the Obama Admin went full bore over unsubstantiated annonymous Russian(!) sources regarding the GOP candidate.
Meanwhile, it declined to prosecute a political ally of the president when the FBI reported that there was evidence of criminal activity by that ally.

Why the difference?

You're assuming things into evidence that aren't in the public domain. How much of the dossier has been confirmed or debunked by Mueller's team? Fact is you have no clue - you're ignorance approaches 100% on that question, same as me. What evidence other than the dossier was included in the Page FISA request? You have no idea, same as me.

 

[Parrish]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

If we are to believe Simpson, who runs a smear shop. I am skeptical.

Has he been charged or indicted?

 

[Athanasius68]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

As I understand it that was the general consensus of the Justice Dept as well.

And President Obama had said in early 2016 that he didnt think Mrs. Clinton had done anything illegal. How much of an influence on that decision did Obama's comment have?

And consider this: An argument against Trump is that he tried to get the Clinton emails from Russia. Which sort of implies Russia had the emails. Which suggests they got it from her sloppy handling of them. Are we really going to seriously say there is no evidence Mrs. Clinton broke no law?

Meanwhile, this very same Obama Justice dept decided to seek out warrants on its politial opponents based upon unverified reports.
Come on.

 

[Athanasius68]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

Well, the FBI is part of the "Obama administration" so I'm unsure what distinction you're trying to draw, if any. There's zero evidence Obama directed, encouraged or even knew the investigation was going on. And what you appear to be saying is it's almost by definition 'corrupt' if the FBI under a Democratic president investigates any republican. That's nonsense of course.



You didn't answer the question, so I'm 0-21. And the evidence is the warrant included the dossier and much more evidence to support the warrant. We don't know what that was or how persuasive it was, but you can't just pretend that it doesn't exist.



You're assuming things into evidence that aren't in the public domain. How much of the dossier has been confirmed or debunked by Mueller's team? Fact is you have no clue - you're ignorance approaches 100% on that question, same as me. What evidence other than the dossier was included in the Page FISA request? You have no idea, same as me.

We already know -- no dossier no warrant.
When the warrant was issued, Mueller wasnt in the picture. Seeking a warrant to find evidence to support issuing of the warrant doesnt strike me as particularly savory.

 

[Atomic Kid]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

And President Obama had said in early 2016 that he didnt think Mrs. Clinton had done anything illegal. How much of an influence on that decision did Obama's comment have?

And consider this: An argument against Trump is that he tried to get the Clinton emails from Russia. Which sort of implies Russia had the emails. Which suggests they got it from her sloppy handling of them. Are we really going to seriously say there is no evidence Mrs. Clinton broke no law?

Meanwhile, this very same Obama Justice dept decided to seek out warrants on its politial opponents based upon unverified reports.
Come on.

There is no evidence that the Russians had gotten anything off of Ms Clinton's personal server. Ironically in retrospect it might even have been more secure than the State Department's own servers.

 

[Athanasius68]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

There is no evidence that the Russians had gotten anything off of Ms Clinton's personal server.

This is true . Which would suggest that Russia never had the emails. Maybe Mrs. Clinton drstroyed them like she said.
So then what was Veselnitskaya and Papadapolous 'professor' all about?
Yep-- screwing with the election.

Btw- there is also no evidence that Russia hacked the DNC. The assumption is of course they did because Russia is an evil rotten country. And maybe they did.
But if they are to hack the DNC, why wouldnt they stoop so low as to hack Mrs. Clinton?

 

[JasperL]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

We already know -- no dossier no warrant.
When the warrant was issued, Mueller wasnt in the picture. Seeking a warrant to find evidence to support issuing of the warrant doesnt strike me as particularly savory.

You're just splitting hairs. You are also roughly 100% ignorant about what part of the dossier if any was confirmed or debunked by the FBI as of October 2016, and you are roughly 100% ignorant about what other information was included in the FISA request. In short you have NO basis to evaluate whether or not the FISA warrant was properly issued - none of us has seen the application or the evidence underlying it so we cannot evaluate that document or the decision made by several layers in FBI, senior members of DoJ and the FISC judge that granted it, or the three different judges, all of them GOP appointed, that signed off on renewals of the original warrant.

 

[Athanasius68]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

You're just splitting hairs. You are also roughly 100% ignorant about what part of the dossier if any was confirmed or debunked by the FBI as of October 2016, and you are roughly 100% ignorant about what other information was included in the FISA request. In short you have NO basis to evaluate whether or not the FISA warrant was properly issued - none of us has seen the application or the evidence underlying it so we cannot evaluate that document or the decision made by several layers in FBI, senior members of DoJ and the FISC judge that granted it, or the three different judges, all of them GOP appointed, that signed off on renewals of the original warrant.

Mr. Comey testified in early 2017 that it was unsubstantiated. Could scarcely have been substantiated in 2016.

 

[Atomic Kid]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

This is true . Which would suggest that Russia never had the emails. Maybe Mrs. Clinton drstroyed them like she said.
So then what was Veselnitskaya and Papadapolous 'professor' all about?
Yep-- screwing with the election.

Btw- there is also no evidence that Russia hacked the DNC. The assumption is of course they did because Russia is an evil rotten country. And maybe they did.
But if they are to hack the DNC, why wouldnt they stoop so low as to hack Mrs. Clinton?

The Russians hacked the DNC's server. They found malicious codes previously associated with Gruccifer 2.0 and Russian Military Intelligence known as APT28 and APT29. It is said that there is evidence that they may have hacked the RNC's as well. If they did hack the RNC's maybe they saving that for another time. If Veselnitskaya's meeting with Trump Jr was so innocent then why did Trump Jr accept the meeting after Goldberg had promised him 'dirt' on the Clinton campaign was in the offing and why the President concoct a cover story for it on Air Force One? After which a White House lawyer immediately resigned his position because he thought it could be construed as an act of obstruction and did not want associated with it. Veselnitskaya has since admitted that she only has worked closely with Prosecutor General of Russia, Yury Yakovlevich Chaika, also known as the "King of Kompromat". But was also an informant to him. She also admits having worked with and for the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence). Papadopoulos knew not only that the Russians were in possession of the DNC emails

 

[JasperL]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

Mr. Comey testified in early 2017 that it was unsubstantiated. Could scarcely have been substantiated in 2016.

He actually didn't. We've been through this many times. The out of context quote used by lying hack Nunes was referring to the "pee tape" part of the dossier. Later in that same testimony Comey was directly asked about the 'dossier' as a whole and he refused to answer in open testimony. I've quoted that direct question and the answer a dozen times on DP, so won't do so again, but this talking point is BS. One more reason why only a moron or partisan hack trusts Nunes or the majority on the House intelligence panel to report the actual truth.

 

[Athanasius68]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

The Russians hacked the DNC's server. They found malicious codes previously associated with Gruccifer 2.0 and Russian Military Intelligence known as APT28 and APT29. It is said that there is evidence that they may have hacked the RNC's as well. If they did hack the RNC's maybe they saving that for another time. If Veselnitskaya's meeting with Trump Jr was so innocent then why did Trump Jr accept the meeting after Goldberg had promised him 'dirt' on the Clinton campaign was in the offing and why the President concoct a cover story for it on Air Force One? After which a White House lawyer immediately resigned his position because he thought it could be construed as an act of obstruction and did not want associated with it. Veselnitskaya has since admitted that she only has worked closely with Prosecutor General of Russia, Yury Yakovlevich Chaika, also known as the "King of Kompromat". But was also an informant to him. She also admits having worked with and for the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence). Papadopoulos knew not only that the Russians were in possession of the DNC emails

Shrug. The DNC servers were never examined by the FBI.

But we are now back to screaming about the perfidy and derangement of Russia when it comes talking about Trump.
And when it comes to Clinton, Russia's honor and integrity must not be lightly questioned.

 

[Kal'Stang]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

Moderator's Warning:

To OC: First and foremost, do NOT play mod. If you think someone is not sticking to the subject of a thread then report the post. Don't try and take matters into your own hands and try to intimidate people into only talking about what you think should be talked about. Here is what you need to grasp, Trump is not the subject of this thread. Continue to try to steer the conversation that way and I guarantee you won't like the outcome. I will ask you directly, do you feel there was value, politically, in the Steele dossier? To AK: The only ones allowed to "threaten" anyone at DP are Moderators (and even then only during Moderator duties such as this in-thread). If you think someone is doing such then report the post. Do not make your own personalized post making personal comments such as you did here towards other posters. Are you threatening me? "Trump" is in the title thread. So don't even start to think that you are going lecture me as to what the subject matter of this thread is or what I can or cannot post. So I'll bid you good day because I have no interest in arguing with an obstinate fool. Generalized: Let's stick to the topic of the thread and not make posts personal folks.

 

[Waddy]

Witch hunt. From day one. Now to drag it out as long as possible......

BTW; What is "collusion"? And can someone point out the law that makes it illegal?

 

[OpportunityCost]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

Has he been charged or indicted?

They are involved in a pay to play scandal with media outlets, the various Trump investigations as well as Prevezon, and their associations with Derwick Associates in the South American oil company shakedown so bad the DOJ is investigating Derwick.

Fusion GPS acted as an agent for several foreign entities and did not register any of them. I expect they will be charged.

 

[OpportunityCost]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

That's not what I said or implied.

Fusion GPS Paid Top DOJ Official's Wife To Dig Up Dirt On Trump

LOL, well, you have me a link, but nothing in the article indicates Perkins Coie told Fusion who the client was. Looks like you picked a random article with McCabe's name in it....



That's not a crime and it's not "collusion." Who colluded with whom, and on what did they collude? A plot to reveal illegal acts by Trump? You'll have to be a little bit specific here. There is nothing illegal in paying someone to do opposition research, even a foreign national!

So its collusion when DJT Jr meets with a Russian but it isn't when cutouts are used to separate gathering information from Russian sources? Such hypocrisy.

Yes, I know you disagree as do others - what none of you can do (I'm like 0-20 here) is even ATTEMPT a rational explanation. It matters because.....it MATTERS!!! Surely you can see how weak an argument that is. It's what parents do with little kids - Mommy said so, that's why!

Because political campaigns and people should not be allowed to direct intelligence agencies and police powers, its corruption and its wrong.

There's another report coming out that will tell us more about the basis for the investigation - the special counsel's report! The funny thing is when this started, the Trump people and Trump lied day after day "No meetings!" Then we find out everyone in the campaign is meeting regularly with various Russian operatives, but so it's "Sure, we met, of course we met, all the time, including in Trump TOWER! but we didn't talk about the campaign." And then we get emails talking about dirt on Hillary and the story changes again! Well, sure we talked but we didn't DO anything - nothing came of those talks with Russians about dirt in Hillary involving key members of the Trump campaign!!

Emotional diversion noted.

And after all that you don't believe the FBI had a legitimate basis to do an INVESTIGATION. Don't you see how pathetic that line is to non-lemmings?

On Trump? No. On Gates and Manafort, yes. On Papadopoulos? Yes. On Flynn? Yes.

You illustrated my point nicely, so thanks. You're fine with using the government to investigate a candidate in the middle of a campaign, so long as you agree with the investigation and the investigation targets that other candidate.

The Clinton investigation began well before the campaign. Plant that garbage in the circular file where it belongs.

 

[JasperL]

Re: Nunes: There Was NO OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED to Start DOJ Spying on Trump

So its collusion when DJT Jr meets with a Russian but it isn't when cutouts are used to separate gathering information from Russian sources? Such hypocrisy.

No, not when he "meets" with a Russian. If you want to have a serious debate, you can describe what's been alleged or suspected with better accuracy - you know better.

And there is a fundamental difference between engaging in wrongdoing, and someone being paid to discover the wrongdoing. It's the difference between drug dealers and police who investigate them. If the former 'colludes' with someone to sell drugs, and the police 'collude' with an informant to discover that, under your theory they're equivalently unethical or illegal acts, but that's BS of course.

Because political campaigns and people should not be allowed to direct intelligence agencies and police powers, its corruption and its wrong.

I agree, but I'm not aware of anyone in Clinton's campaign directing the FBI's investigation. What you're actually saying is 'wrong' is a campaign discovering possible crimes by the other side, including treason, and turning over their findings to the FBI. By your ethical standards, the candidate finding something out is obligated to keep that to themselves, and if they do go to FBI, FBI is obligated to sit on the information AT LEAST until the campaign ends.

Emotional diversion noted.

Not really - I'm pointing out that the Trump campaign lied repeatedly at every step about the meetings, how many, who was involved, what they were about. We know this. Now they ask us to believe they lied about all that, but NOT about the serious stuff - the actual "collusion." Well, why would we?

On Trump? No. On Gates and Manafort, yes. On Papadopoulos? Yes. On Flynn? Yes.

Great, but it's impossible to investigate all those people in the Trump campaign and not at least in some way investigate Trump. Furthermore, it's like investigating everyone in the mob, including those sitting right under the big guy, and telling investigators - leave the person at the top OUT - he's clueless and can't be involved!

The Clinton investigation began well before the campaign. Plant that garbage in the circular file where it belongs.

LOL...

 

[Atomic Kid]

Witch hunt. From day one. Now to drag it out as long as possible......

BTW; What is "collusion"? And can someone point out the law that makes it illegal?

The legal term is conspiracy. Not collusion. 923. 18 U.S.C. § 371—Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.