Reports: Weiner-Abedin computer may have thousands of pertinent emails
DOJ reportedly blocking further FBI access, but FBI may already know enough to know they are important.
As the Hillary email-Weiner sexting scandals and investigations unfold, we are learning that there are thousands of emails that the FBI believes to be work-related correspondence between Hillary and Huma Abedin.
Abedin is saying she has no idea how those emails got on the co-owned computer, and considering that saying otherwise would reveal a crime (i.e. perjury and/or lying to the FBI—the latter is how Martha Stewart earned her stay at Club Fed), that is not surprising.
Comey stated in his letter to Congress that the investigative team working on the Weiner sexting case briefed him on the emails they found to and from Hillary.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent to the investigation,” Comey wrote the chairmen. “I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
What those agents said to Comey about the emails in this briefing is not known, but it seems unlikely he’d have sent that letter to Congress if he didn’t think there was a there there. Perhaps it was just the sheer volume of the Hillary-Abedin work-related emails found that prompted the investigative team to brief Comey and/or prompted Comey to act, we just don’t know at this point.
What is known is that there are thousands of such emails.
WSJ: 650,000 emails on Weiner's laptop; metadata shows thousands to/from Clinton server—unclear how many duplicates https://t.co/TAjAbJqUoD pic.twitter.com/dADiW8fd4D
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) October 30, 2016
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Federal agents are preparing to scour roughly 650,000 emails contained on the laptop of former Rep. Anthony Weiner to see how many relate to a prior probe of Hillary Clinton’s email use, as metadata on the device suggests there may be thousands sent to or from the private server that the Democratic nominee used while she was secretary of state, according to people familiar with the matter.
The review will take weeks at a minimum to determine whether those messages are work-related emails between Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide and the estranged wife of Mr. Weiner, and State Department officials; how many are duplicates of emails already reviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and whether they include either classified information or important new evidence in the Clinton email probe, which FBI officials call “Midyear.”
The FBI has had to await a court order to begin reviewing the emails, because they were uncovered in an unrelated probe of Mr. Weiner, and that order was delayed for reasons that remain unclear.
New @HillaryClinton email probe – FBI Source: Thousands of records involved. pic.twitter.com/Ii7Zqfnn4R
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 30, 2016
The emails were found on a previously unknown (to agents in the Hillary email investigation) computer used by Weiner and found by the FBI as they searched the computer for child pornography.
The Wall Street Journal continues:
The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a minor, they had recovered a laptop with 650,000 emails. Many, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter.
Those emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop that both Mr. Weiner and Ms. Abedin used and that hadn’t previously come up in the Clinton email probe. Ms. Abedin said in late August that the couple were separating.
The FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography, people familiar with the matter said, but the warrant they used didn’t give them authority to search for matters related to Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement at the State Department. Mr. Weiner has denied sending explicit or indecent messages to the teenager.
In their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many messages, apparently in the thousands, that were either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton’s home that had been the focus of so much investigative effort for the FBI. Senior FBI officials decided to let the Weiner investigators proceed with a closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back to them.
It was McCabe–yes, that McCabe–who told the Hillary email investigation team to speak with the Weiner investigative team to determine if the emails might be relevant to their own investigation. The two teams determined that the emails were “potentially” relevant; it is not known, however, in what way or ways they are potentially relevant.
Mr. McCabe then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner investigators and see whether the laptop’s contents could be relevant to the Clinton email probe, these people said. After the investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially relevant.
Mr. Comey was given an update, decided to go forward with the case and notified Congress on Friday. . . .
The Washington Post is reporting that the agents on the ground knew “weeks” before briefing Comey about the emails. The above process probably took weeks to accomplish and to work its way up the chain, so unless something nefarious is revealed about the “weeks” it took to get to Comey, it’s unlikely to be remarkable.
What is remarkable is that the Justice Department appears to be blocking the FBI’s access to the Hillary emails on the Weiner-Abedin computer.
The Justice Department has yet to allow the FBI access through a warrant to any of the newly discovered Huma Abedin emails, Yahoo News reported Saturday night. But that may not mean other law enforcement agencies in communication with the FBI did not have access to the new material.
“We do not have a warrant,” a senior law enforcement official said. “Discussions are under way [between the FBI and the Justice Department] as to the best way to move forward.”
Speculation now abounds about the status of the Hillary email search as there is no warrant as yet issued—apparently blocked by Justice—and about whether or not Weiner gave the FBI permission to review the laptop beyond the scope of their initial search.
Breaking now on #FNS per @BretBaier — Anthony Weiner is said to be cooperating with the FBI investigation.
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) October 30, 2016
I emailed that 2 sources say Weiner is cooperating w/ FBI- & co-owned laptop. Also NY FBI had info 4 a few weeks- pressure was building https://t.co/AHbQVtvQzg
— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) October 30, 2016
Watch:
https://youtu.be/x13hBwS9q2c?t=37m28s
Chris Wallace says in the above segment:
And the news is breaking while we’re on the air. Our colleague Bret Baier has just sent us an e-mail saying he has two sources who say that Anthony Weiner, who also had co-ownership of that laptop with his estranged wife Huma Abedin, is cooperating with the FBI investigation, had given them the laptop, so therefore they didn’t need a warrant to get in to see the contents of said laptop. Pretty interesting development.
Meanwhile, Huma has lawyered-up. I’d say Hillary should, too, but with Loretta Lynch and the full power of the DOJ protecting her, what’s the point?
UPDATE:
JUST IN: FBI obtains warrant needed to start reviewing emails found on laptop used by Clinton aide Huma Abedin https://t.co/qRmSUE6hT2 pic.twitter.com/3HCUyny3zD
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 30, 2016
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Meanwhile, Huma has lawyered-up.
And, she might wanna start looking for a nice dark outfit that doesn’t show bus tracks.
The FBI sent that letter so Congress would subpoena the Emails before the DOJ could destroy them.
Just a head’s up: The magic words this week will be, “Pedophilia ring.”
Huma violated the agreement with the FBI about turning in ALL classified materials. Wiener volunteered to give the computer to the FBI for a lenient sentence down the road. Now for $65,000 question: Does Huma roll over and implicate Hillary before she gets lead poisoning? Or gets pardoned by Obama? The world waits with baited breath.
I don’t think Huma knew the emails were there. If they were using IMAP (email protocol), I don’t think they are on the computer (at least I can never find them). But if they were using POP (a different email protocol) then they probably were (I have always been able to find emails that used POP).
The problem is probably that the emails show that HRC didn’t turn in what she had. The FBI is probably looking at obstruction of justice.
IMAP and POP are both download protocols — before accessing an email on IMAP, the email downloads to your computer, and the local client then displays the local copy. POP is download-only; once you download an email, the server deletes it so you don’t download it again and again. IMAP can work the same way, or it allows for the server to set a “has been downloaded by X client” flag, so that the same computer won’t download it again, but you can still download that email from a different computer.
Looove to see Huma’s browser history for the last couple of days; I’ll bet it involves a lot of “Google.com” and “countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the U.S.”
She could ask Julian. He knows a lot about non-extradition countries.
WSJ reporting that there are “roughly 650,000 emails”.
ABC, CBS and NBC now reporting that FBI has gotten the earch warrant needed to begin the search.
Here’s the kind of varmint I am…
If I’m in charge of a FBI team and get hold of that lap-top, the FIRST thing I’d do is have a techie make a mirror of every stitch of memory on the thing. It doesn’t go anywhere til that’s done.
I MAY not be able to use any of the information in a court, but it still has its uses…
Reports are surfacing that the staff PC’s supposedly destroyed by the FBI – have not been destroyed yet.
I’ve seen those same reports. It would be very interesting if true. I could see a real legal tangle coming if the FBI asked for a search warrant for Clinton emails on supposedly destroyed computers.
I am puzzled. I thought emails and other content were kept somewhere in that vast Internet remembery and that removing material from an individual computer did not delete its existence elsewhere. Physically destroying a computer or other device does not erase the content that is stored elsewhere in those cyber-locations that are a mystery to everyday users (non-programmers). I thought Bleach-bit and the like were used to erase material from hard drives. Does it also remove material from all other locations in cyberspace? Isn’t everything that Hillary, Huma, Cheryl, et al. still somewhere out there in regions that computer-savvy investigators can locate? And doesn’t NASA have it all anyway? Can they be required to turn over copies of anything subject to a warrant or subpoena or other ongoing investigative efforts?
The short answer is that it depends.
When mail goes through the internet, every computer which sends it along is *supposed to* delete it after transmitting a copy — UNTIL the message reaches the mailserver, which is effectively the part of an email address after the @, e.g. gmail.com, yahoo.com, state.gov, etc. Note that there is no technical reason why any of the intermediate computers couldn’t keep copies; it’s simply not the way things are done, and probably illegal, to do so.
Once mail is at its penultimate destination (the mail server, not the actual email recipient) how things are handled depends on the way that mail server handles mail. If you use gmail or any other webmail system, your mail lives on google servers until you delete it (with or without making a local copy first. If you use a system with POP3, your local computer makes a copy and the server is supposed to delete its copy when your computer confirms receipt. If you use IMAP, your local computer makes a copy and the server may or may not be supposed to delete its copy; that depends on the way you configure your IMAP client. (You could, for example, have 3 devices which store your IMAP email, and manually delete email from the server. Or you could have 2 devices which download your IMAP email without deleting it, and 1 which downloads and deletes it.)
I thought emails and other content were kept somewhere in that vast Internet remembery and that removing material from an individual computer did not delete its existence elsewhere.
Correct.
Physically destroying a computer or other device does not erase the content that is stored elsewhere in those cyber-locations that are a mystery to everyday users (non-programmers).
Correct.
I thought Bleach-bit and the like were used to erase material from hard drives.
Correct. From any writable storage device; hard drives, thumb drives, CMOS, etc.
Does it also remove material from all other locations in cyberspace?
No.
Isn’t everything that Hillary, Huma, Cheryl, et al. still somewhere out there in regions that computer-savvy investigators can locate?
Somewhere, yes. At least for a while. E-mails consist of two distinct parts, the message (including attachments, images, etc) and the metadata (information about the e-mail). Although the data and the metadata travel together as one e-mail, they are handled differently by servers, and may be retained for different lengths of time. Months after a message was sent, you may still be able to tell that it was sent, by whom, addressed to whom, who got copies, what files were attached, the size of the whole package, etc; but the message itself might not also be retrievable. It all depends on how the servers have been configured.
And doesn’t NASA have it all anyway?
They’re not going to admit it.
NSA (?) probably has far more metadata then it does actual messages. It probably knows when you sent a message to North Korea, but not what the message said.
Metadata is safer to keep as it excites fewer privacy concerns—the government knowing that you called your bookie is not the same as the government knowing what you said to your bookie—and is very unlikely to run afoul of national security; metadata about an e-mail containing classified material is not itself classified. At least, it’s not easy to see how it could be.
Can they be required to turn over copies of anything subject to a warrant or subpoena or other ongoing investigative efforts?
You have to be able to find it before you can demand that it be turned over. So, where is it? Legitimate State Dept business is probably still on other correspondent’s .GOV e-mail accounts, but the criminal and underhanded stuff probably wouldn’t be. The metadata would tell investigators where a copy of a message is likely to be stored; and that’s probably why Hillary was careful to remove the metadata from the e-mails she turned over to State.
So, rags, does this mean you are no longer working hard to get her elected? Or as you prefer to say it, to defeat Trump? Or do you still live in a fantasy world where defeating him doesn’t elect her?
So, VaPigman, when are you going to stop lying about me, my position, and anything else you can pull out your ass?
Soros may have cut off his weekly troll check.
I see your lying T-rump sucker check must have cleared.
Lying T-rump sucker.
Did I miss a comment Rags made to you or about you? Because it seems to me you are the one trolling and picking fights. We do realize how much fun it is to instigate and then play victim when you get the rise you are clearly trolling for.
It’s getting old. Really really old. You’re not even original or witty, you say the same thing over and over … for months on end.
[Insert your same tired refrain here]
Yes, you did, Fuzzy. You apparently missed it completely.
Oh, sorry then, VaG. I looked again and couldn’t find anything Rags said that would prompt your strange attack above, so I am guessing that it’s some held-over resentment from another time you attacked him out of the blue and then feigned shock and outrage when he hit back.
Anyway, you are not the only one playing this game: Rags make a perfectly reasonable comment or doesn’t even comment at all, you or someone starts flaming him with the same litany of nonsense accusations and drivel, Rags responds as you all know he will, and then you all wail about how rude he is.
It’s quite a show . . . until you’ve seen it play out literally hundreds of times in exactly the same manner. With exactly the same results.
We get it. Some of you dislike Rags. You don’t want him here. We get it. We got it months and months ago. We. Get. It.
Rags is not going anywhere because of this trolling activity aimed at purposefully provoking him. How do I know this? Because the same thing has been going on for months, and he’s still here.
Are you all really going to spend the next year or so doing the same thing and expecting different results? Or do you think it might be time to accept that it’s not working and quit playing the doomed “let’s poke Rags with a stick, shriek in horror when he pokes back, leap onto a chair, lift our skirts, and shiver in revulsion demanding he be banned” game?
Personally, I am hoping that you all stop this nonsense. I’d far rather read your thoughts, ideas, and supplemental information about LI posts and the issues raised in them, but perhaps I dream an impossible dream.
Well said, FuzzySlippers.
Frankly, there’s plenty Rags says I vehemently disagree with, but ffs, just as I’ll support letting Nazis march in their stupid parades, I’ve got to stick up for Rags posting stuff I consider tripe.
tl;dr – if you’re going to disagree, do it in an interesting way, repetitive trolling is boring.
Thanks, jhk, I often disagree with Rags, too, and he with me. But like you, I don’t have a problem with that.
Fuzzy,
Read this long exchange and then come back and tell me what you think.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/06/why-sen-manchin-is-wrong-on-due-process/comment-page-1/#comment-680427
Thanks for the link, VaG. 🙂 This is actually a perfect example of my point.
What I see is Rags making a perfectly reasonable comment to someone (not you) about his respect for that person (not you) reaching their own conclusion about supporting Trump. He then goes on to share his view OF TRUMP (not you or the person to whom he was responding). What is wrong with what he wrote in his comment responding to the other person, again, not you (assuming it’s not “wrong” to hold an opinion contrary to your own)?
You then jumped in, of your own volition, and proceeded to proclaim his view a “cartoon” and to declare that he doesn’t think about his positions (anyone reading this blog for any length of time knows that’s laughable) and “hates” in a thoughtless, knee-jerk fashion (again, there is no evidence of this at all and certainly not in what Rags actually wrote.).
Rags, as is his way, came back with both barrels blazing. I don’t fault him for that; you inserted yourself into that discussion (a perfectly reasonable thing to do, btw, in a comment section) and chose your words and your tone. He responded to your insults with far more critical hits (he’s right, too, btw: in this thread, you don’t seem to understand what “ad hominem” means since you were the one to first employ it, not Rags.), but that’s what Rags does (and why it’s not a good idea to provoke him). That you found yourself out of your depth is not Rags’ fault.
You, in this thread, provoked Rags and then jumped onto your kitchen chair, clutching your skirts, complaining about his “verbal abuse” (um, didn’t this all begin when you call him, in essence, a drooling idiot clown who couldn’t’ think his way out of a paper bag?). Your subsequent (and current) victimhood stance just doesn’t withstand even surface scrutiny.
Note that in Rags’ initial comment, the only person he insults is Trump, and Trump, you must know, is fertile ground for insults. He also is expressing his respect for someone (the person to whom he was responding–not you) for thinking things through and coming to their own conclusion. He was doing the exact opposite of being belligerent and nasty.
You chose to make it personal (from the comment thread, apparently because Rags doesn’t like Trump, a feeling he shares with tens of millions of right-leaning voters). Rags went with the rules you created in your initial ad hominem attack.
He got nastier than you did, sure (and said things I would not have). But so what? You poked him with a stick, and he responded with a few clean shots. Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, right?, and you picked that fight. You lost. Move on.
You asked what I think, and that is what I think. And that is what happens time and again. I’m seriously tired of it and wish you all would just stop.
Fuzzy,
If you look in the link you will find that rags jumped into the thread I started at (| June 18, 2016 at 5:51 am). That was a discussion of what #NT’s plan was to deal with the consequences of a Hillary presidency which I postulated was the likely result of a successful #NT movement. In other words, I did not butt into rags discussion, it was the reverse. In fact, the post rags replied to was a direct reply (first level indent) to my post.
Rags was the one who introduced cartoons into the discussion. He used a Simpsons cartoon to ‘refute’ the argument of the poster he replied to. He then performed a classic ‘You’re free to believe what you want to, BUT if you’re smart like me…’ If anyone insulted anyone, he insulted the poster he replied to.
I did not ‘proclaim’ his view a cartoon – if anyone did, he did it when he used the cartoon to ‘refute’ the previous post. I replied sarcastically. If, as rags said, it was life imitating art, the artist deserved credit – ‘Thank you Homer Simpson.’ Since he used the cartoon to defend what is essentially the #NT position, I, again sarcastically, agreed that the #NT position was cartoon like. I said #NT had offered no plan to deal with the consequences of the action they advocated. It was true then and it’s still true. I said that #NT was driven by their hatred of Trump. It was true then and it’s true now. Then I offered my reasons why I thought a plan was necessary. You have totally mis characterized that exchange and what followed.
Rags thoughtful reply started out:
“First, I note nobody was addressing your stupid ass.”
And that’s a great segue into the real meat and potatoes discussion. This exchange has been about why you find my behavior on LI unacceptable and why you want me to change it. Specifically, what you see as my unfair behavior toward rags. When I gave you the link to our prior exchange, you vigorously defended rags behavior (Rags, as is his way, came back with both barrels blazing. I don’t fault him for that;). You said I shouldn’t have provoked him since it leads to his ‘both barrels’ rejoinders. Sorry, I could not disagree more strongly. Rags is not some harmless English lord chasing butterflies across the field while quoting Chaucer whom you engage in conversation at your own risk because he’s a little dotty. He is, in fact, a foul mouthed bully whose behavior should be unacceptable to you, not defended by you. Your advice not to provoke him is an admission that his behavior is unacceptable. No one on this forum should have to put up with or be subjected to his name calling, foul mouthed language and graphic descriptions of oral and anal sex acts. And he has done all of that many times. In your harangue of me, you accuse me of taking it personally.
Yes I did, you bitch. (Oh was that personal? Did your BP go up 30 points? Do you now understand why his behavior is not acceptable?)
I left another forum that was unregulated. If was a jungle where it was easy to engage in rags behavior. I’ll plead guilty. I’ll also tell you that it always ends badly. Good people leave because they don’t want to lower themselves to reply in kind and get tired of the abuse.
In the link I gave you, I asked rags 2x to be civil. His response was to double down. I had 3 choices: leave, reply in kind or involve the moderators. I chose to involve the moderators (what you refer to as lifting my skirt and jumping on the chair). The mods did nothing.
What I’ve always wanted is civility. You claim you want the same. My offer to you. I will modify my behavior on the forum towards rags (and everyone although I think only rags has been involved) provided rags modifies his behavior towards everyone. It sounds like a win / win to me. If nothing else we’ll find out who you should be upset with. You had no problem criticizing me, maybe he’ll listen to you.
Deal??
VaG, this is just silly. It’s not “your” thread, and the fact that Rags responded to someone in “your” thread is irrelevant. You jumped in, instigated him, and then wailed like a baby when he hit back twice as hard. That’s what the thread you linked to me tells me; you asked what I thought, and I told you.
Let’s see how your asking Rags to be civil went . . . something like this: You suck, you slobbering idiot who can’t string two thoughts together; Rags responds more vehemently; you respond by saying, Gee, let’s be civil after I attack you out of the blue and call you names; Rags, for some bizarre reason, finds this laughable. You leap on your chair, gather your skirts, and screech at the top of your lungs. Boo. Hoo.
You don’t have to like my assessment, right? You asked what I thought, and I told you. Nothing you say after this changes my initial impression. Calling me a bitch doesn’t change a thing. You, as far as I can see from this thread, were in the wrong. Indeed, calling me a bitch does nothing but reinforce my impression of you as an instigator.
By the way, I am not Rags, and if you think that you have any power to incite me, you are sadly mistaken. Call me a bitch all day long. I will spare you my opinion of you as you have not asked, but you did ask my opinion of this thread in which you purposefully provoke Rags and then act like a whiny child when he hits back.
Rags has already, as you say, “modified his behavior,” but he cannot be expected to ignore spiteful personal attacks on him. If you have a gripe with Rags’ argument, sure, go ahead and respond. You just look small when you attack him for no reason at all (beyond some pent up rage you feel toward him, a person you do not know).
You go on to say that you have left unregulated forums in the past. Please don’t feel any compunction to reject this pattern in our case. No one here (that matters) will beg you to stay, but I do suspect you have things to say that are worth hearing. It’s just you spend all your time and energy instigating fights that I can’t be sure.
34 hours and no reply. Guess we don’t have a deal. Looks like it was a Mother Oh So Superior drive by.
Oh good grief. I responded a bit ago. I happen to have an actual life, and I am the weekend editor, so I don’t spend a lot of time on LI during the week (except to read the fantabulous articles). You can mock me all day long and find ways to provoke Rags all day long, but you may find your life fuller and richer if you actually did something besides obsess about people who comment on a blog. /just a thought
Fuzzy,
so good to see you back, although we disagree as to the time you arrived. My questioning your absence is time stamped 11/2 4:19pm. Your reply is time stamped 11/3 1:25 am. By my little Timex, that’s almost 9 hours after I posted the question. Yet, your answer now appears out of time order and BEFORE my post. In all my time on LI I have never seen posts in the same indent level in anything but chronological order. I can assure you that it wasn’t there when I asked the question (as the time stamps prove). Yet you imply (your post 11/3 1:53am) that my request was unnecessary because you had already answered. I would hate to think that someone with higher permission levels on LI forced it into the slot. I guess we’ve stumbled on one of life’s great mysteries.
Unfortunately that’s not the only factual issue with your reply. I have noted a theme with your arguments with me and others where you twist the meaning of what people post and put words and meanings into their mouth that they never said to buttress the argument you want to make. Let’s look at your exchange in this thread with Fen. It covers the same subject matter so when we come back we won’t have to readjust.
Fen raised some of the issues I did in re rags behavior. He points out that he has been dealing with rags in the manner you defended rags using with me and hopes you don’t attack him for doing it. He then says, “A simple apology from him would go a long way towards clearing the slate and starting fresh, but that’s not in his character.”
You reply to him falsely characterizes his post: “Fen, this is LI, not ThinkProgress; we don’t apologize or insist others apologize for having our or their own worldview, opinions, and values/principles, and we certainly don’t apologize to bullies like you who implicitly threaten to continue behavior they’ve been notified is unacceptable . . . unless their demands of an apology are met.”
Fen is clearly discussing rags behavior. At no time does he attack rags right to have and express opinions. At no time does he DEMAND an apology from rags. Your statements that he does are falsehoods. From those falsehoods you build an entire fantasy world where Fen is guilty of a number of sins that exist only in your imagination. You then attempt to shutdown criticism by: “As to your silly taunts about me . . . shrug. I truly don’t care what you think of me. I feel zero need to defend or justify myself or my principles to you (or to anyone else, for that matter).” Fuzzy, the unaccountable critic – the hit and run artist. Attacking others behavior while claiming to be beyond reproach. Unwilling to answer the question of whether you apply the standards evenly or hypocritically (Fen’s question to you). And at the end you can’t resist a bit of smarmy where you defend your champion by attacking his opponent’s intellectual prowess.
Now lets get to your current (11/3 1:25 am) reply to me and see if the pattern repeats.
.
I never claimed ownership of the thread. Your statement that I did is a falsehood. I replied to your false claim that I had entered into a discussion between fags and another ‘of your own volition’ by responding that I had in fact started the discussion.
Your characterization of my request for civility and the rest is a fantasy that exists only in your mind. From those falsehoods you build an entire fantasy world where I am guilty of a number of sins that exist only in your imagination.It is so divorced from reality that I have to conclude I am no longer dealing with an honest broker. Nothing I say will change your mind, so we will just move on. Those interested have the link above and can compare your portrayal to the facts in the link and draw their own conclusions.
You say, “Rags has already, as you say, “modified his behavior,” but he cannot be expected to ignore spiteful personal attacks on him.” The logic of that is clear – he hasn’t modified his behavior. Your statement is just a rehash of his current behavior – he explodes when he wants to.
And finally, you close with smarm.
The pattern repeats.
So, end of line. We don’t have a deal. You could have just said no.
VaG, I don’t reply in the post itself; instead, I reply to individual comments in the LI dashboard. This means that when the thread gets dense and the “reply” buttons disappear on individual comments, I don’t see it. Therefore, my comments may appear to be out of sequence, but they are not because I am hitting a “reply” button on a comment to which I am actually replying (as is not the case for readers in lengthy discussion posts; for example, you probably keep hitting “reply” on your own “Yes, you did Fuzzy” comment because that is the nearest “reply” button available.). Your time stamp detective work, in other words, does not take into account that your view of LI and mine are different. I rarely read comments in the post itself (and increasingly have little interest in reading them at all).
I won’t address the rest of your comments because Fen has discredited himself in my view with his bizarre request that we at LI write about when it would be a good idea to “apply the 2nd Amendment as our founders intended” / i.e. some crazy notion of starting an armed revolution. That’s so far beyond the pale that I really have nothing more to say to him. Or about him.
As to the rest, you just keep on keeping on, VaG. If you want to keep picking fights and then dancing off demurely as the offended party when you succeed in getting the fight you picked, that’s your right. Just know that’s what it is and that’s how it’s viewed.
Here you go Fuzzy – here’s the modified behavior you just sold your reputation to defend.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/11/u-k-court-parliament-must-vote-on-brexit/comment-page-1/#comment-710061
VaG, it’s hard to take this all seriously when up thread, someone you’ve been cozying up to in this discussion asked an LI author to write about when would be a great time to start a revolution / civil war. https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/11/u-k-court-parliament-must-vote-on-brexit/comment-page-1/#comment-709859
Needless to say, that’s an absurd suggestion. If you guys want to read nutter stuff like that, this is not the place you’ll find it. Ever.
Fuzzy,
In re your post 11/5 11:26am.
Your explanation of how the posts came to be out of sync is, I am sure, correct. However, both my posts were there before you posted your first reply to them. The point of my detective work was to show that your second post was unnecessary and unjustified. You have not addressed that issue.
By the standard you set in your second paragraph (P2) you should never had entered into a defense of rags. In a post on LI re gun control after a Hillary court, he opined that it probably wouldn’t happen but, if it did, he would hide his guns and defy the law. Yet, you ignore that just as you ignore all his behavior.
Your claim in P2 that my argument was about Fen is also false. As I clearly stated in my post I used that snippet as an example of the pattern of the behavior you exhibit when dealing with critics – manufacturing false arguments which you then ascribe to them. A pattern you repeated in P2. Fen’s arguments are immaterial to the discussion of rags behavior and your defense of it.
After using the false narrative of P2 to excuse yourself from replying to the substance of my post, you then accuse me of ‘dancing off demurely’. BS.
In re your post 11/5 11:12am.
After I posted a link to an example of rags behavior which makes a lie of your claim that he has changed his behavior, you again try to shift the focus to Fen’s statements. I repeat – what we are discussing (at your request) is rags behavior and your defense of it. A subject you seem to want to avoid and deflect attention from.
VaG, in the dashboard view of comments, I read the most recent first, typically. Or I just scan them (or in come cases, not yours, I ignore them). Or I might keyword search my name to see if anyone replied to me (that’s how I found this comment of yours). In other words, I have no idea what you posted when without making a concerted effort to figure it out. Frankly, I can’t be bothered. I just respond to comments that I see when I see them (again, I’m not usually around on week days). From what you are saying, it sounds like one of my comments was a pile on; in this case, I apologize. I just responded to what I read, and you are right, I had only just responded to some other comment and was simply annoyed that you were timing how long it took me to reply and concluding (inaccurately) that I had nothing to say. I always have something to say. About everything. That’s one of my primary problems. 😛
I will not discuss or get dragged into a discussion about Fen. As to the substance of your post, you see things differently than I do. That’s all. What you think is “substance” may not be so to someone else. This was a lesson I learned when I first started blogging. I’d write these posts with a specific purpose in mind, and when commenters didn’t “get it,” I would be indignant. But I quickly realized that people will respond to what they see or feel about a topic, rather than to what is written or implied. That was a revelation for me, and though it sounds obvious, it’s really important to let people have their own responses, their own feelings and thoughts. We can’t control others, right? We can only control ourselves.
That’s why it’s absurd to demand that people see things as you do; they simply won’t. No matter what. And that goes both ways. You don’t see the years of Rags on LI; the thousands of comments he’s made, the support and friendship he offers, the quite lovely, if irascible, person we see and know, have known for many years. Rags isn’t some fly-by-night, out of the bowels of the internet commenter, he’s an LI fixture. You don’t see that, but we do. It’s okay to have different views, but at some point, back when I started blogging, I realized I had to give up trying to make people read what I wrote the way I wanted them to. They did their thing, and I had to see that was okay.
Look, the bottom line is that I don’t dislike you; indeed, I think you and Barry are both decent people (in fact, there are many here who don’t like Rags–or me–that I very much like and find amusing or witty or insightful or all of the above). Maybe that’s why I get so aggravated with this weird, impotent obsession with Rags. I just think that you and many of your fellows are better than that, and when I see evidence to the contrary, I get disappointed.
The fact, the truth, the bottom line, the final word is that Rags will not be banned. You can choose to accept that and let Rags be Rags, or you can choose to fight that and, in the process, make yourself small. The Virginia gentlemen I know would never choose spite and snipe over composure and dignity. /Just saying
That is *exactly* what law enforcement forensics will do to a suspect computer in cases such as this. They image the entire hard drive, including unallocated space, deleted files, etc… off to a second device with a checksum generated for verification purposes in court. That virtual drive then can be picked to pieces without any concern about changing anything on the original drive, which includes recovery of any Outlook .OST files, deleted files, etc… That secondary image becomes a ‘master’ image from which the lab makes copies for analysis, while the master image is locked away, maintaining the chain of custody.
With Hillary’s tendency to throw highly-classified emails around, the FBI team who works on those images better have really, really high clearances.
That would be a clone of the drive. A mirror would be less useful.
A clone would have all the deleted files which hadn’t yet been overwritten. A mirror or a drive image wouldn’t. Mirrors and images are great for backups, but not quite the thing for investigations.
To recover files which had been overwritten and not just deleted, investigators would need the original drive. Programs like Bleach-bit use multiple overwrites to make recovery of overwritten files essentially impossible. But without the multiple overwrites, there’s enough residual magnetism on the disk to allow reconstruction of the strings of ones and zeros. Personally, I find it hard to believe, but people who might possibly know what they’re talking about tell me they’ve managed to do it.
Rags:
Exactly right.
The FBIers in NY probably have a couple of complete copies stored offsite.
On Sunday, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid scolded Comey as well, saying in a letter that he “demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be clear intent to aid one political party over another.”
Reid added that his office determined that Comey may have violated the Hatch Act, which bars government officials from using their authority to influence elections.
I guess Reid didn’t quite think out the implications of the Hatch Act when, as Senate Minority Leader, he used his office to accuse Comey of sitting on explosive information linking Trump to Putin.
Reid is well aware that his target audience is black-hole-stupid.
Generally, the Hatch Act would not apply to Dirty Filthy Harry.
It only applies to employees of the executive branch, as a generality.
There’s no one who knows more about having double standards than Harry Reid.
No reasonable prosecutor (Remember that phrase?) would be able to find a violation of the Hatch Act in Comey’s actions. So expect AG Lynch to file charges this week. After all, reasonable and Democrat are two unrelated words.
So Comey’s previous announcement that the FBI would not recommend Hillary’s prosecution didn’t influence the election? Reid can’t have it both ways. The reopening of the investigation neutralized Comey’s previous statement about the investigation that was public knowledge (it was not your usual secret FBI probe). To have sat on the reopening of the investigation could have also been interpreted as an act that influenced the election, because it would have allowed voters to act within a false frame of reference based on his earlier public statement about the investigation. If the public deserved to hear from the FBI that it was not recommending Hillary’s prosecution, the public likewise deserves to hear that circumstances have changed and that Comey’s previous pronouncement is (Nixon-like) “inoperative.”
I agree with your PRACTICAL analysis.
But the law says the first instance in July was OK. The second, this close to the election, was not.
Now, does Comey really stand in any practical jeopardy? I doubt it.
I think he did the right thing…for whatever motives. I also firmly believe he HAD to make the revelations he did because they were going to be leaked if he didn’t, and that would be worse.
Black swan prediction – Huma gets caught forwarding classified materials to jihadis.
If (when) they throw Huma under the bus, I’m not sure if the bus is going to be able to make it over that bump. She’s so close to Hillary, I can’t see any scenario where the blowback isn’t catastrophic.
As for the Hatch act, I blame the Ds – don’t nominate a candidate under FBI investigation, and you won’t have surprises from the FBI.
Yikes! I didn’t even think that Huma might be forwarding classified info to her jihadi relatives and contacts. I don’t want to believe that, but with Team Hillary, anything is possible and all things must be considered.
My sense of all this is that Weiner is not a happy camper now that his only “in” with the people he sees as the best of the best, the most powerful of the powerful has left him. He’s been abandoned by Abedin, he’s an outcast from the Hillary “in” circle he most esteems, and he’s seeing red (not, of course, thinking about how his position is self-inflicted).
I suspect that he has managed to blame the Clinton machine for his loss in his bid for NYC mayor, and he realizes his political life, the only life he cares about, is over. Is he desperate and vindictive enough to have stashed information to bring down Abedin and Hillary? Maybe. Until we find out what these emails are and what they contain and how they came to be on this computer, we can only speculate . . . but my dollar bill is on Weiner making a kamikaze move against the (very dangerous) Hillary machine that he likely sees as having abandoned him and left him behind.
Okay, maybe I just hope so. 😛
I nominate you for Comment Of The Month .
Let’s see the lawless DOJ get a quick indictment against Comey, which, of course, would not be done with the intent to aid the democrats in the upcoming election.
But would that really help them? You want to make the ‘rigged’ comments believable to a wide swath? Try immediately going after the guy who I see investigating the candidates.
Sigh: Of course it would not help them.
I suppose I need to dust off the /s/ indicator.
They got the warrant.
Clinton & Company looking like the gang who couldn’t shoot straight.
Oh Henry, but I do not like contradicting you, however as a gang shooting straight, since they were in their late 20’s they have raped, riddled, rolled, grabbed pussy and cash and have made it to near 70. They are still close to grabbing the most powerful position in the world.
Depending on your sense of ethics or lack thereof, they have done pretty well for themselves. I mean, in your golden years are you setting up deals with Russia for uranium? Are you running a charity that takes in millions for the poor people of Haiti and builds nothing but pocket the rest?
If you take away normal moral standards and only judge by profits and power, they are shooting right a the bulls eye.
Agreed, with the caveat that they could not have gotten away with a lifetime of crime if they were not protected by a corrupt media apparat.
What I meant was that after all this time they’ve still got thousands upon thousands of emails still lying around, so to speak, on devices they failed to get rid of either. They apparently allowed Anthony-freakin’-Weiner access to material that could potentially lead to prison. A ten year federal bite is essentially a life term. I just worry about dear, sweet Hillary. Did you know she’s worked her entire life for chldren and for families like yours and mine? It’s true. I saw it in a TV ad.
They cannot shoot straight, but it makes no difference. Among their absolute and unquestioning allies and defenders are more than half the federal politicians, probably the same for state politicians, and more than half of the judiciary, about half of the American public and most of the executive branch.
Admittedly off topic, yet I think that come Nov. 8 it will be a cryin’, damn shame if Mike Pence is not our Vice-President Elect!
That may be the best case scenario… Trump wins but never serves for whatever reason.
By implication, Donald Trump would be President-Elect. And, with the help of an able staff and the grace of God, if he achieves only a part of what he has outlined, America will be in a much better place.
So, no, I don’t wish him any ill-will.
Surely there’s a smoking gun in there somewhere.
Give the Clinton Crime Family and their cronies a fair trial, then hang them from the highest tree for treason. If we’re lucky, Zero will be implicated in this hot mess too ~
George W. Bush’s ethics lawyer filed a complaint yesterday against the FBI for violations of the Hatch Act. Via NYT:
http://nyti.ms/2dSGqpa
Painter is a #NeverTrump loser
“(For the sake of full disclosure, in this election I have supported Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Hillary Clinton for president, in that order.)”
And according to the law, there’s a good prima facia case. About the last and stupidest thing Hellary would want is to have that can of worms open and thrashing come Nov. 8th.
Maybe W is using strategery on her…
And he has standing, how?
Doesn’t independently-developed evidence have the potential to vitiate previously-granted immunity? Even if this trove contains the same emails the FBI already has, it may permit them to prosecute people who thought they were free and clear. Yes?
Also, what if Huma had been squirreling away dirt on Hillary as a precaution against the possibility of Hillary threatening to throw her under the bus at some future date? Or maybe she had a plan with Carlos Danger to spill the beans on the Clintons in the event of her demise by “suicide” or “botched robbery”? Too many possibilities present themselves with this bunch of thieves.
Well, not knowing the first thing about Huma, but any half-bright woman would know not to put her insurance on a lap-top kept around the house. Hell, Huma could have put it with virtually anyone, including her Muslim Brotherhoodlem relatives in Egypt. Possibilities abound…
It depends on whether the people who might be in jeopardy were granted use or absolute immunity. If they were granted absolute immunity, they’re free and clear as long as they kept their side of the bargain, regardless of what other evidence manifests. If they were granted use immunity, they’re only safe until a case can be made which *in no way* depends on what they communicated after being granted use immunity.
Would that include immunity from perjury charges?
No, even absolute immunity doesn’t include perjury charges committed in order to get the deal. Even if the point of the immunity deal is to get perjured testimony on the record, you cannot immunize people against their future conduct (say, the perjury you’re going to commit tomorrow.) I also suspect judges would throw out agreements to immunize people against perjured testimony the prosecutors wanted as contrary to public policy. You can get immunity for past perjury, though, just like any other past crimes. I suspect that’s a common arrangement, when someone wants to walk back perjured testimony without going to jail for it and prosecutors are willing to pay that price for getting the goods on a bigger fish.
This is currently being spread around. Bombshell if true. Bombshell if even half true, and only Bill’s involvement outlined.
Gotta wonder if this was the BIG ONE wikileaks was referring to that they’re going to drop. Or is their big one something entirely different? An interesting week before election day coming up, in the Chinese Curse meaning of interesting.
I meant to add that the oath of office that both FBI agents and police officers take, the one where they support and defend the Constitution, almost requires they make evidence like this public when they see it, as an obligation over and above the Hatch Act.
They say Weiner is singing like a canary, and cooperating with the FBI
Now, if he freely offered up his laptop and information in his posession, why would the FBI need a warrant?
I don’t think they need a warrant to accept information from him.
The warrant could/would serve as insurance to deflect legal moves later on. Consent searches of property to which multiple people have access or control when only one of those people give the consent can have problems. Claims that closed or locked interior doors, or separate, passworded sections of the memory create private spaces that the consenting party had no authority over; he could only give consent to his personal material and to clearly common spaces…but not her “private” material. The privacy of that material could be granted by a judge many months or years in the future and there would be no way to backtrack and rehab the evidence.
Finding the lowest rational number has been a challenge for mathematics, but I think Tony’s chances of a Huma hummer are pretty close.
Some fundamental observations.
1) Hillary has no “reasonable expectation of privacy.
The only two people who do are Huma and her Weiner.
That pretty much says they are targeting Huma for something.
2) 650,000 ~ 20x #33,000
What else is in there? Who were some of the other emails to/from?
3) Huma has not been seen in the lat day.
No I am not suggesting she has committed suicide by shooting herself in the back of the head. I asked yesterday whether Huma would do some form of “taking the fifth”. She has. I’m sure Hillary is not to pleased with that.
4) There goes the “let Comey release the emails” narrative. Can’t very well argue that when Huma is taking the fifth.
3) Huma has not been seen in the last day.
Can’t serve a subpoena on somebody you can’t find. All she has to do is claim stress made her take off to a cabin in upper New York with her phone turned off and no TV until November 9.
“Huma has not been seen in the lat day.”
I’m confused on this. Is she hiding from the media and FBI, or is she hiding from the Clinton camp?
I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that she hasn’t been seen around with Hillary. Like they had a falling out.
All this has been openly discussed for weeks at reddit.com/r/the_donald.
It’s true that people discussing conspiracy theories on the internet generate a high percentage of BS, but they also provide the means to sort it out. The one source that hasn’t failed yet is Wikileaks.
And, oddly enough, Trump. He seems to have been privy to the Leaks for a long time.
He’s been privy to the Washington and New York gossip for a long time.
The Washington Post covers most of what passes for the political news, and they take their own, sweet time punishing anything unfavorable to Democrats. Gossip, however, slips out, so that there are a lot of open secrets. There’s nothing magical, here.
“Rags went with the rules created in [VA’s] initial ad hominem attack. He got nastier than you did, sure (and said things I would not have). But so what? You poked him with a stick, and he responded with a few clean shots”
Glad that is your standard. Because that’s exactly how I respond to Rag’s little ad hom attacks – he pokes me with a stick, I nuke him, he plays the victim.
I’m assuming that you aren’t a Democrat and so your principles aren’t situational. Remember what you said here when you want to complain that I am too hard on him. He brings it on himself.
A simple apology from him would go a long way towards clearing the slate and starting fresh, but that’s not in his character.
Fen, this is LI, not ThinkProgress; we don’t apologize or insist others apologize for having our or their own worldview, opinions, and values/principles, and we certainly don’t apologize to bullies like you who implicitly threaten to continue behavior they’ve been notified is unacceptable . . . unless their demands of an apology are met. Did you make a wrong turn on your way to read up on the latest from the Kos kids?
You’ve been around LI, off and on, for quite some time, Fen. Tell me your sense of the prof’s reaction to anyone trying to bully or otherwise force his hand. Do you really see him as a spineless jellyfish or as an Appeaser in Chief or as your private piece of Play-Doh that you can mold in your own or Trump’s image? Heck, you don’t even have to be a long-time commenter to get this one right.
tl;dr: Save your demands and the implied threats that accompany them; no one, including the prof, is impressed. At all.
Furthermore, did you actually just try to force someone to apologize as a condition of achieving a “clean slate” at LI? The supreme (and inexpressibly misguided) arrogance of that statement is almost incomprehensible. Who on earth do you imagine you are? Rags does not need your “clean slate” to comment at LI; the very idea is well and truly beyond ludicrous.
So, I’m curious, what do you imagine you can do to or about Rags’ ability to comment at LI if he fails to meet your unhinged demand for an abject apology? Or under any other realistic circumstance, for that matter? I’ll go out on a limb and say that the coerced apology will never happen. Not because Rags’ has a bad character (he does not), but because you just revealed that you might . . . and it’s clear as day who is being disruptive and who is merely mopping up the splatter following his verbal victories.
As to Rags attacking you, personally, out of the blue, please provide me the link/s to those comments. I’m fed up with this nonsense, and if there is a broader picture, I want to see it.
As to your silly taunts about me . . . shrug. I truly don’t care what you think of me. I feel zero need to defend or justify myself or my principles to you (or to anyone else, for that matter).
As an aside: I’d be truly interested in reading any thread in which you believe you got the better of Rags (this is unrelated to this discussion or your standing on this site; I’m just curious because you don’t strike me as the brightest bear in the woods, so seeing what you believe to be your besting Rags on the battlefield of ideas is of interest to me for, if nothing else, its potential entertainment value).
“But mom! Rags started it!”
LOL. Rags, without trying, is controlling about a half dozen children in the comment section.
Girl, you can be brutal!
Remind me to never get myself in your naughty list.
Darn! I called you “girl”. Am I in trouble?
LOL, Exiliado, never! I thought it was funny and smiled when I read you calling me “Girl.” 🙂 Heck, I’m a conservative, you won’t find me stepping on some femisogynist platform whining about what a victim I am.
(Sorry to be so long responding, I haven’t been around and then I was researching and writing. You know how it is.)
Good grief! There it goes again.
Unsubscribe.
fuzzy and rags should get their own channel and stop hogging
the network…there is obviously some LUV going on there???
Um, are you seriously engaging in a sing-song “K.I.S.S. sitting in a tree” thing here? Are you twelve?
I think Lynch is going to be taken down with this.
In most cases Rags has brought it on himself. Banter is entertaining, but Roma burns. In many cases, Rags draw first blood with calling people lairs. I don’t need to dig up my posts that move me to start calling him JB Rags but it grew organically out of his condescending personal comments towards me and others.
As for Raggedy Slippers, time to get a new pair. Lets stay focused on the issues, which I think has been the problem with Rags strong position on NeverTrump.
I am concerned about the level of support for Clinton by GOP folks. Watching the reactions, I am starting to think that Watergate is just a pimple compared to this.
Trumps inter-circle is what I am looking at; Sessions, Newt and Giuliani. These are guys I would pick for me team. I think Sessions is behind a lot of Trump success. I think Giuliani is his link to source information.
I can’t wait to see the voter fraud lid get blown off. I am looking forward to the next 9 days. I think it is going to be even more exciting after the elections. Time to buckle up.
Dunno if you were around for earlier during election season, when we were infested with some Trumpkin trolls. What they are pleased to call “memes” and “shitposts” as well as some very immature insults, have made some of our members lose patience.
Right now, there is a lot of rumbling at the subreddit The Donald, some of which may yet prove true. However, the worst of it is still at the speculation stage. Speculation is a very important part of investigation, because it gives people clues about where and what to look for, but it is not useful here, until it is supported.
In brief, the dots have to be assembled, and connected with reason and argument. Then the information has to make it past the media screen. This is happening, but it takes time. Until that happens, you will continue to see support for Clinton among savvy GOP folks, because they refuse to presume guilt on anybody’s part.
Been hanging around LI since the Zimmerman/Martin stuff.
It has been a regular stop. Rags going overboard and the focus on Mika/Joe was pushing me away, but I still checked. LI seems to be back on track again, so I make my daily visit.
Would have preferred that if we are looking at Mika/Joe that we also look at HuffyPost and Daily Kos to counter their Bs.
As for connecting the dot. I have been to several subreddit sites and they are not giving much more information that what I am getting from other sources. I thought it was funny that Breitbart has a story about subreddit.
Pro-Trump Subreddit Takes Over Reddit Front Page After Algorithm Error
The dots were connected long ago and thousands of times. The Clintons should be in jail. BO should be impeached. The Ds have special polarization glasses that they are required to wear to get party money. Those glasses prevent you from seeing the lines.
I think we are at the tip of the ice berg to see how those dots are connected. We will not understand the magnitude of those connecting lines until after the election. Just sooner if Trump wins.
Maybe some of the legal eagles can chime on on this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/30/was-it-legal-for-the-fbi-to-expand-the-weiner-email-search-to-target-hillary-clintons-emails/?utm_term=.0ccbc74732c4
Question: If the authorities have a warrant to search location X for evidence of crime Y but then stumble on evidence of another crime, what should/can they do?
Essentially what they HAVE done…get another warrant, just to make sure. There’s an argument they can use what they find during a legal search that falls outside the scope of the warrant they have, but you nail things down with another warrant, which they’ve obtained.
That is kind of what I expected. I’m guessing the first search warrant results becomes the probable cause to get a second warrant, which they got.
I feel intrinsically filthy just reading about all of this corruption in the Clintons, the MSM, and government. Which is why I have to cleanse my soul most every evening by watching cute animal videos.
Hillary has just sent Huma a double-purposed condolences card, sympathizing with a) her inability to travel with the campaign any longer, and b) with the sudden, unexpected suicide of her estranged husband.