Nunes Memo Alleges FBI Used Dossier to Get FISA Warrant on Trump Campaign Member
The dossier “formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application.”
We finally have the memo written by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA). It alleges that the FBI did in fact use the disputed dossier to receive FISA warrants to spy on members of then-candidate Donald Trump’s team.
The memo is not a nothing burger, but it’s also not a bombshell. In fact, it leaves us with more questions than answers. In order to receive full transparency, the FBI and DOJ has to release all of their documents.
It goes on to say that the FISA application says that dossier author Christopher Steele did not provide the information to Yahoo! News for an article on Page’s trip to Moscow that the website published in September 2016.
However, as the memo states, that Steele did admit that “he met with Yahoo News-and several other outlets-in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS.” It also alleges that Perkins Coie, the alw firm that hired Fusion GPS, knew about Steele’s “media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.”
The memo then goes into detail about Steele’s relationships within the DOJ even after his termination as a source. That man is then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who we have blogged about before due to the DOJ demoting him because of contacts at Fusion GPS. That contact was his wife and she worked at the firm during the election.
Yup. I had blogged that the mystery around Ohr continued to deepen once we found out that his wife as the contact. There was something there. His wife wasn’t just an employee…she was there to help with the opposition research on Trump.
These are the last two points:
****MORE TO FOLLOW
House Intelligence Committee Report On FISA Abuses by The Federalist on Scribd
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Reads like Seven Days in May. An attempted coup d’Etat by members of the Democrat Party and elements of the Republican Party.
This stuff makes Watergate look like amateur night in Dixie. The Watergate Burglars only tried to wiretap the DNC. Hillary and her corrupt cohorts in DOJ actually did it to the President elect.
Who was it here that had info that Watergate was actually a Democrat Party action? I’m curious.
BREAKING!
FISA Memo Release – Here It Is…
“Tip of The Iceberg” – The Pending Intelligence Memo is The Beginning, Not The End…
FISA Memo Release – Here It Is…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/02/fisa-memo-release-here-it-is/
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. – Marcus Tullius Cicero
Softness to traitors will destroy us all. – Maximilien Robespierre
It is the just decree of Heaven that a traitor never sees his danger till his ruin is at hand.
Pietro Metastasio
– RedBallExpress
And this is a summary? I wonder what the IG is holding in confidence from FBI whistle blowers?
Lee Zeldin Tweets:
✔
RepLeeZeldin
W/out dossier, there would’ve been no FISA warrant. Was admitted under oath by McCabe. DOJ/FBI already knew dossier’s source was unreliable & shouldn’t be used, but filed applic w/it anyways. Waited until after to fire Steele. Then applied for extensions on warrant anyways.
Via http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=373674
Well, it’s not like you can have treason from without. As the Romulans say, “You can’t betray your enemies.”
Bottom line: elements of the Department of Justice, the Clinton Campaign and the Obama White House used a piece of opposition research to wiretap the President Elect of the United States of America. Makes Watergate look like small potatoes. Nixon could not get the FBI to do anything that corrupt.
“FAKE RESEARCH!”
Who signed the applications, and what is the oath that the signer(s) made?
Now having read the memo: the signers are identified in the memo.
The four FISA surveillance applications were signed by, in various combinations, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rod Rosenstein.
What is quite apparent is that nobody reads the FISC warrant requests that they sign.
I saw Leon Panetta pontificating on TV on the need to protect sources and methods yesterday. Other than the very corrupt and biased Christopher Steele what sources and methods were disclosed in this memo dear Democrats?
Well Sandra Fluke Panetta!
Yes, why do we need to protect phony “sources” like Steele and Fusion GPS and totally fabricated dossiers?
And why do we need to protect “methods” like FBI and DOJ deliberately deceiving FISA judges by knowingly withholding material information about phony “sources”?
Panetta is not this big of an idiot. He knows his argument is completely nonsensical. This is just the politician’s version of “when you don’t have the facts on your side, pound the law; when you don’t have the law on your side, pound the facts, and when you don’t have either the facts or the law on your side, pound the table.” Panetta is pounding the table.
Scribd is down.
Probably crashed, at it is probably hottest item on the internet today.
I’ll bet it is being hammered right now. LOL
Try this link:
https://graphics.axios.com/2018-02-02-memo/HMTG-115-IG00-20180129-SD001.pdf
Thank you!
You’re welcome. 🙂
can we get a .doc version somewhere ?
It was scanned in from a paper version that had the classification striken and the unclassified status stamped on it.
There might, somewhere, be a doc in the House, but that will have a ‘classified’ header, and will never be given out A: because it can be modified more easily, and B: would be redundnat from the standpoint of release of information.
Eventually someone may transcribe the text, but that won’t be the most readily available version.
See the link below – download it as a .pdf and convert it.
Here’s a backup link to the memo:
https://graphics.axios.com/2018-02-02-memo/HMTG-115-IG00-20180129-SD001.pdf
A special counsel is needed to determine what information was gathered as a result of this
FISA warrant, with whom it was shared, who the players were and pursue any leads that arise from this and follow them as far as they go (to the end of the world if necessary).
Question for lawyers – if this FISA warrant is deemed to be tainted because of the players involved, does this taint any information obtained and could some plea deals be reversed because of it? I know the deals related to “process crimes” of lying, but would they have ever been asked the questions that they got caught on?
I also wonder what were the material omissions that would have changed the tone of the memo.
“The exclusionary rule reaches not only primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure, but also evidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality or “fruit of the poisonous tree.” The exclusionary rule does not apply, however, if the connection between the illegal police conduct and the discovery and seizure of the evidence is “so attenuated as to dissipate the taint.””
Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796 (1984)
If Hillary had won, many of these patriots would have been promoted and given huge bonuses which, via trickle down, would have helped the economy far more than Trump’s tax cut crumbs.
Nancy
Not true, but for you to suggest it shows your ignorance. DNC broke the law.
Do you need a /sarcasm tag for that post?
Agree, but only up to and including the word “bonuses.”
Any party in power in the White House can spy on any candidate out of power if they simply manufacture an unverified dossier of information that alleges crooked stuff, and hide behind process.
Anybody, and I mean anybody, can be the victim of unverified allegations. It is so easy to create something superficially damning.
See, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria and Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy for where this is going.
Not challenging this would be tantamount to allowing unparalleled abuse of power going forward.
Obama used all these dirty tricks in each one of his elections. He approved all of this dirty work on Trump.
Probably not just for “his” elections, but any hotly contested Senate or House campaign.
We never really got a good explanation as to why SCJ John Roberts okayed Obamacare.
“Why SCJ John Roberts okayed Obamacare….”
Likely extorted, like we know john boehner was.
Insecure wimps who finally get a taste of power and get its perks are easy to extort (for example: an attractive woman was always out of their reach – hustlers suddenly are available for fun, but they taint you.) Handsome alpha males who get power already had experiences with attractive women; hustlers were laughed off. Hence, no extortion later on.
It’s hard to extort a guy like Trump.
Does the FBI have a dossier submission portal and can anybody submit a dossier or is it confined only to Democrats or friends of DOJ/FBI employees ?
It’s clear as day that the FBI and DOJ lied to the court to get the FISA warrants approved.
Mueller’s whole investigation is now seriously tainted. I wonder how pissed off he is at this moment?
Also, when Comey “briefed” Trump on the Dossier, he hid the fact that it was opposition research, even though Comey had known for months that it was opposition research.
And the real reason Comey “briefed” Trump wasn’t to give Trump any info, but rather to allow CNN to run a story on the “briefing” and give them an excuse to start leaking all of the contents of the Dossier to the public, in hopes of swinging the election.
Yes, this was a criminal conspiracy to try and rig a national presidential election.
These guys are so slimy, that’s amazing.
Yes, they are all as vile and evil as Mueller, Obama and Clinton.
Endorsed! #ILoathThesePeople
Nunes commented today on the contention that Comey now claims he didn’t know.
Hopefully, he and the other conspirators will some be wearing some chrome played jewelry. Oh heck, zip ties would be okay too.
He probably already knew, but was crossing his fingers that he could ride the gravy train as long as possible.
“Alleges”? McCabe confirmed that they used the dossier to get FISA warrants.
…To get them Illegally!
CNN is promoting “spin” that McCabe did not say that they couldn’t have gotten the FISC warrant with the “Steele dossier”.
Apparently, he was recorded saying it.
I don’t care about people being “demoted” over this. Someone needs prison time! So what are the plans for prosecution?
Over to you AG Sessions!
Oh. Sorry. I got excited for a moment there. Then reality set in.
Amen, lots of people require a lot of prison time.
You can get more prison time robbing a store using a Popsicle stick than any of these jokers will ever do.
It’s not surprising that the same people who looked the other way at 100 million dead from communism, who wear Che T-shirts, who praised Castro’s health care system and who thought Hillary Clinton was a supporter of women, who after singing praises to “All The President’s Men” would look the other way at this abuse of spying on Americans.
They are a joke. They complain about slavery over centuries ago but look away from slavery happening today. They say, “Never Again”, but whistle past the graveyard of today’s mass graves. They want tolerance but HATE HATE HATE Christians and Zionists, and white men. They are all about women, except the beautiful women forced to walk around in body bags that have a status beneath our dogs. I’m so sick of them.
They praise a movie about the people who stood up to Nixon while looking the other way at spying on Trump.
Hypocrites. I’m sick of them. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”
OK, you win. There are no hypocrites on the right.
Similarly, no right-winger ever committed atrocities.
I am convinced of my errors. But I will have to wipe all of history from my mind (except for some choice talking points). How did you do it?
No, you’ll just have to admit the truth that Hitler was on the Left as well.
Your mind is so simple, yet you think yourself so smart. You can only see right versus left, not right versus wrong. Overlooking slavery was bad in 1860. It is bad today. Nixon spying was bad in the 70’s. This is far worse.
But I am old enough to see you would rather crucify someone rather than admit you are wrong. Like they said in Mississippi burning, if you ain’t no better than a white Christian, who are you better than?
You are a pathetic laughingstock. You are a sniveling, spineless, pathetic, LOSER. You are a complete, utter joke of a man. Your existence hinges upon the most pointless, empty, idiotic scripture of partisan idiocy. You are an empty soul. A loser. A pathetic, sad, soulless loser.
Here’s an archive copy.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180202171802/http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180129/106822/HMTG-115-IG00-20180129-SD001.pdf
Time for heads to roll, in the figurative, American sense of losing jobs, new rule-making to prevent similar occurrences, and potential civil suits and criminal prosecutions.
In addition to violating our laws, ethical rules and procedures, these people have failed a test of decency. If there are any normal Democrats left in the Party, it is time, and past time, to clean house.
Well…..death sentences have always been the traditional punishment for traitors guilty of treason…..
Mueller should be fired today.
Sessions should be fired on Monday – if he hasn’t appointed a special counsel by then.
Rosentein needs to be canned, immediately.
I wouldn’t mind if he was caned before he was canned.
Immediate imprisonment – you know for their own protection….
Question:
When did Robert Mueller learn about the origins of the “Steele dossier” ?
Who on his staff knew before him ? .. and when ?
Has Mueller looked into members of the Clinton campaign who stood silence when this farce was gumming up the new Administration ?
Has Mueller considered “Obstruction of Justice” charges for those or originated this farcical “Steele dossier” ? Why not ?
These questions need to be brought to the attention of the White House and or DOJ.
Aren’t you yet convinced that the DOJ is so corrupt that they’d fix any investigation about them?
I’m just going to assume Mueller was in the thick of it helping write the fake dossiers …..
It’s the only way to be sure.
Sessions ?????
who is this hoser ?????
If Comey hadn’t been fired, none of what we know now would ever have seen the light of day.
At best, Mueller would have reported “no collusion” and a few “process crimes”.
Of course, the one thing that comes up in the clearance process, the ability to be blackmailed would still be in play. Imagine the Russians blackmailing the head of FBI counter-intelligence.
Where’s my main man Milhouse?
I’m sure he’ll be along.
I do find it interesting that Rags has disappeared from the blog. It’s almost as if what’s good for America is bad for Rags.
Perhaps he was put in the “time out” corner by the Professor?
Maximilien Robespierre?
One can but hope.
Oh, dear God. I just realized that I’m beginning to sound like Michele Obama. I think I picked the wrong week to give up sniffing glue…
You mean, eating it. Barack is the sniffer.
Give him a break. It takes time to find the Democrat talking points and read them.
When you have T-rump set as a hot key it’s fast to type though.
I’ll say this again here. This is NOT the “Nunes Memo”. It isn’t the “Republicans Memo”, nor is it the “Trump Memo”. This is the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Memo”, or simply the “House of Representatives Memo.” You’re as bad as the Washington Post and New York Times.
And the dems have made yet another huge tactical error in claiming that they have their own memo which is going to “counter” this. According to some who’ve seen an early rough draft, the democrat memo contains almost no reference at all to any of the abuses listed here, but is simply a litany of personal attacks against Chairman Nunes.
They don’t even understand how pathetic that is going to look now that this info is out in the public sphere.
So how high up in DOJ and the Clinton Campaign knew about this? How much did the Obama White House know? And now why are some of those named still working and not fired? Reassignment means nothing.
Oh, what is Rothestien’s role is this?
we shall never know
I don’t see anything in the memo that hadn’t been reported already. The question is, what actions will follow?
USA cannot be a nation of laws if top “law makers” and law enforcers break the law.
#ReleaseAllInformation
#HoldThemToAccount
#ObamaOrangeJumpsuit
#HillaryOrangeJumpsuit
#ArrestTheseMoFos
This most fascinating bit, for me, was Sally Yates was a signer. Her Executive Order drama that led to her firing now makes complete sense.
Oooh. I think some FBI & DOJ people are going to get a reprimand in their permanent file.
Or at least a stern verbal warning.
Oh. No! Not the stern verbal warning.
This is disbarment territory for every lawyer involved. That will probably take three years.
Well as Wolfe (Fire & Fury) said, if it rings true then it must be true.
I see that the FBI and DOJ knowingly misled the FISA court to get and renew a warrant for Carter and allowed extensive unmasking combined with unprecedented distribution of the unmasked intelligence–basically spying on many Americans who communicated with Page. And I read that there is more yet to come–maybe some more on the altered 302–which may bring more to light on the partisanship of the DoJ.
While this seems clearly sufficient to fire people, is there anything criminal so far reported? I have read one lawyer/commenter I respect (Gabriel Malor) voice the opinion that nothing revealed so far was criminal, though I suppose someone somewhere in all of this lied to the FBI.
Perhaps because it seems to be a bit underwhelming in revelations compared to the hype, I wonder if that’s why we heard that some WH people were being cautious about the release.
I disagree. I find the incestuous relationship between the Obama DoJ/FBI and the Hillary campaign to be deeply disturbing. This is the first proof that the scurrilous dossier, paid for by the Clinton campaign and the FBI (assuming I read the memo correctly), was used to justify FISA warrants. The ‘echo chamber’ effect, popularized by Obama henchman Ben Rhodes, where by the person/persons who wrote the dossier leaked the information to the media which reports were used as further justifications for a warrant is deeply disturbing as well.
Combined with the massive unmasking perpetrated by the Obama administration holdovers and the increased broad distribution of unmasked intelligence–basically exposing any American who was speaking to Carter Page–turns this slimy episode into a complete politicization of the DoJ/FBI for leftist purposes.
Nixon resigned for less than this.
Other questions I now am very curious about regard the use of written interview notes as justification for obstruction of justice/lying to FBI charges. Given this blatant politicization that seems rampant in the DoJ/FBI how on earth can I–a schmuck citizen with no power at all–believe any of the process crimes turned up by Mueller and his crew of Democrat headhunters??
You have it figured out correctly.
Also this: “….incestuous relationship between the Obama DoJ/FBI and the Hillary campaign….”
When examined in context the document is utterly devastating. Using unreliable information, paid for in part by the Clinton campaign, partisans at the Justice Department (with the cooperation of actors in the Obama White House) obtained a warrant to listen in on the conversations of a person close to the President Elect. From that warrant they eavesdropped on conversations of transition team members and perhaps the President elect. Under the aegis of Samantha Powers and other White House officials, the content and identities of people caught up in the eavesdropping were unlawfully “unmasked”. An orchestrated campaign of press leaks with the aim of destabilizing the President elect followed.
It’s very difficult for a lawyer who hasn’t worked with FISA warrants to state if anything criminal has or hasn’t been alleged.
Since these applications are all ex parte to the judge, I assume the legal requirements of disclosure are more rigorous, but I haven’t read the statutes in play. If you make a statement under oath which statement is a knowing lie, then those statements may amount to perjury with a criminal penalty.
Ex parte applications are heavily disfavored precisely because the other party is not present to refute the allegations made. The statute probably has high standards for complete disclosure.
Frankly, anyone that says this memo is underwhelming, has simply been overexposed to the information already. If this was the first time you saw it, you’d be stunned, shocked and appalled.
As a lawyer, I can say I would fear disbarment. Easily.
There is a great deal of secrecy surrounding the processes used in the FISA courts, but it would be a violation of the Fourth Amendment for a LE officer to submit a warrant application (which must be sworn under oath) to a judge knowing that the application intentionally omitted material facts. The FBI and DOJ attorneys who signed off on these FISA warrant applications knew that the applications did not disclose material information about the lack of credibility of their main source. There is also the matter of the multiple “unmaskings” of various Trump associates who were illegally surveilled. Many of those unmaskings were done by government agencies at the request of someone who used U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power’s credentials. Power testified under oath before congress that it was not her and she knew nothing about it. So who did it? If Power told the truth, then somebody used her identity, without her knowledge or consent, to request the unmaskings. So either Power committed perjury in her congressional testimony, or somebody illegally impersonated Power to request the unmaskings. Either way, it’s criminal.
It bothers me to think of the R party apparat as politically competent, strategically or tactically. Seriously, what happened — aliens showed up and trans-reversed their brains?
Tactically, they released this competently. Yes, write it. Yes, have it reviewed in committee. Yes, capture the party-line vote. Yes, let congresscritters review it first. Yes, go through the executive review for release. (I can make a case that there’s nothing classified in this memo as it stands. That said, the meticulous cover letter from presidential council is a better way to do this.)
Strategically, this endeavor has created layers, and layers of pickles for the opposition – sorry, “resistance” – party.
Every time the Shiffelator bloviates, “Hey, that ain’t true.” the R response is built in: “Well, let’s release the evidence it’s base don. (That is, if the FBI hasn’t erased it in the meanwhile.)”
One aspect of secure information facilities — everything there, and that goes on in them is logged. “Disappearing” things that have been through or reviewed in a SCIF gets harder. Like, the “reviews” of this very eee-vill memo, full of slanders and lies. “Hey, none of you bothered to look at the thing, so what are you talking about when you trash it.” becomes more than a claim, it’s a claim backed up by access logs. Of course the whole press won’t report that. But some of the press will, that wouldn’t without the cover and support of the logs existing.
Somehow, lately, the R-party has been thinking 2-3 steps ahead, and dealing with the context they are in. Not that they’re good at it. But “at all” is way better than the hapless R’s have done such stuff forever.
I, for one, welcome the influence of out Alien Overlords if they’re gonna instigate stuff like this.
As bad as this is, it isn’t a knockout blow. Let’s see how our beloved stupid party handles the vicious counterpunches that are even now being thrown.
The GOP has never learned the first rule of street fights–when your opponent is down, kick him hard and keep kicking until they stop moving and/or are unconscious. Leftists, bless their vile hearts, have this tactic burnt into their DNA.
What time is it kiddies?
Jail time for the Ever-Rumpers!
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/958758020623761408
Snark Snark.
But seriously it’s time to shut out these power & money crazed people out of polite society!
Exactly, brilliant points all of them. I, too, wonder how The Stupid Party is suddenly 2-steps ahead of the Democrats.
I think back to a Trump-tweet a year ago, promising to teach the GOPe ‘how to win’.
That was meant as a response to Bierce’s post.
That’s 100% due to Trump’s “hostile” take-over of the GOP.
Isn’t this what Richard Nixon Tweeted before he resigned ?
That’s it? Dishonest and misleading WaPo wrecked the joint Watergate committee, destroyed trust with the American people, damaged relationship with E Howard Hunt’s crew, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation conducted by G Gordon Liddy. For what? POTUS must keep doing their jobs.
https://twitter.com/Comey/status/959498570532577285
Where in the memo are the National Security issues we were told were so grave that the memo shouldn’t be released?
VaGentleman asks: “Where in the memo are the National Security issues we were told were so grave that the memo shouldn’t be released?”
The vital National Security interest in not embarrassing the partisan cancer that’s infected so much of our national security infrastructure.
ace of spades caught a significant fact…
“CNN was almost immediately leaked the news of this “briefing.” It should be pointed out that one of the four reporters pushing this leak to the public was Evan Perez, who is a best friend of Fusion GPS’ Glenn Simpson.
RE: “When Comey “briefed” Trump about the memo, he also withheld from Trump the dossier’s partisan origins as well as the unreliablity (and firability) of its alleged author.
Note I always put “briefed” in quotes when I speak of this “briefing,” because this briefing was not for the President’s information, but for CNN’s: The plan was to make the dossier “reportable” by giving it a newsworthy angle (It’s so explosive the president was briefed on it!).
CNN was almost immediately leaked the news of this “briefing.” It should be pointed out that one of the four reporters pushing this leak to the public was Evan Perez, who is a best friend of Fusion GPS’ Glenn Simpson….
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=373674
The sources and methods are actually what the FBI and DOJ will lose because of this memo. After all. Who would want to work with these people?
Additionally, what has fallen through the counter-intelligence cracks while resources were tasked with anti-Trump investigations.
It sure is easy to win an argument when you muffle the other side. If you guys really had any guts and if you believed in democracy, you would demand the democratic memo. But you won’t.
YellowSnake, you are one sick puppy.
You do know that the Democrat^WSchiff memo is just a campaign ad against “Dennis” Nunes, right? Of course you do, facts are inconvenient though.
The dem memo is coming out, you clown. But Schiff started screaming for his memo to be released before he had even started writing it – seriously! There was NO dem memo until two days ago. And House Republicans did not vote to “block it”, they voted to release it provided it follows the same procedure as the Majority’s memo did – a period where the whole House can see it, then a 5 day submission period to the Executive, then, if if passes that, back to the House for release.
If Schiff would have thought ahead about actually doing his job, he wouldn’t have waited til the literal last minute before starting to write his book report.
Schiff is a bug-eyed clown who has proven incapable of telling the truth.
You do know, liar, that the Democrat memo is going through the IDENTICAL process to the Republican one. You should have arranged for Schiff to get his Ex-Lax quicker so he could produce it at the same time.
Process is everything. The majority memo was seen by the committee then all Congressmen were given a week to view the memo. Only after this was the Memo approved for release to President for vetting. Only then was it released to the public.
The minority would not let the whole committee see its report. Therefore, the one week review period allowed for all Congressmen to view the report has not started. Until this is done, the report cannot be sent to the President for vetting. Until the report is vetted, it cannot be released to the public.
So. Why don’t you get on the phone to that lazy Schiff on the intelligence committee and tell him to get off the TV and do his job.
In what fantasy do you inhabit that we don’t want to see the democratic memo? I assure you that no one, not one person here isn’t thinking, “bring it on”.
Last I heard there is no Democrat “Memo”. It hasn’t been written
I cannot imagine how insufferable it must be to wake up every morning and be you.
I have seen the Democrat memo. It is one page of notebook paper with the word RUSSIANS written in red crayon 25 times.
I’m curious about the classification. WHY, exactly, was this classified? TOP SECRET NOFORN? The _ONLY_ possible reason for this classification would be to avoid embarrassing the FBI, and “avoiding embarrassment” is _NEVER_ a valid reason to classify a document.
Certain categories of documents are classified at certain levels of classification due to their nature, regardless of their content. One might expect FISA applications and the facts surrounding them to be highly classified as a matter of routine. I am not defending the foot-dragging regarding this memo, just stating a simple fact that the FBI may have used to try to prevent the release of the memo. You’ll note the TS/NOFORN markings on the memo.
Obviously, the information in the memo was of no threat to the virtuous.
If your sources and methods are as shoddy for the rest of our intelligence work we ought to quit. Just flat quit intelligence gathering. Made up sources, flat lies to the oversight, shady unreliable operators, how do we know this fertilizer isn’t standard?
At this point it’s on the intelligence community to prove this isn’t how they do business. It would explain quite a bit.
Because the intelligence that the summary made reference to was TS/ NOFORN. They had to adopt the classification of the source material until declassified. While the memo is now unclas the reports and intelligence products it was created from are still TS
FYI
“Adam Schiff’s Versions Of Events Are Frequently False Or Missing Key Details
“Adam Schiff is portrayed by many in the media as a straight shooter. His record in reality is of fanning the flames of every single Trump-Russia collusion allegation out there.
By Mollie Hemingway
http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/30/adam-schiffs-versions-of-events-are-frequently-false-or-missing-key-details/
I think the memo is bogus.
The bottom of p.1 contains the phrase “Honorable Adam Schiff”.
lol! Keyboard alert.
In other words: If his lips are moving, he’s lying?
Point #3 on page 3 concerning Steele – he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.”
That statement is the only phrase that is in bold. There is one sentence in point #2 that is underlined that discusses that the citing of the Yahoo article was in the FISA application, but it is not corroboration since the information was leaked by Steele himself.
Since Steele is a British citizen and a former spy stationed in Russia and he was paid by the DNC and the Clinton Campaign, does this mean that there really was collusion with a foreigner to influence in the 2016 election???
Just asking for a friend….
I missed another word that was in bold – point #2a has “September” in bold. I need to do a timeline diagram to really connect the dots…..
Sounds more like an exspy launching his own covert ops to take down a foreign government.
Why isn’t anyone calling for his arrest?
Sessions: “No department is perfect”
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Fire this tone deaf enabler. Do it yesterday.
Yes, but did he express “serious concern” about the incident?
We need a fire-breathing dragon as head of the DoJ, someone ready to burn the house down.
Trey Gowdy announced he will not seek re-election. He’d make a fine fire breathing AJ.
Generally speaking, I am not a fan of the use of profanity.
But on this one I’m with you, 100%.
Re: Fen:
Did Sessions really say this?! Today, after the memo release??
Of course it’s a bombshell, politically because it verifies what was suspected by “the right”, that the entire investigation into trump was a political hit job. Make no mistake, the surveillance of Carter Page was to create a case to incriminate Trump and de ligitemize his election. I’m a little surprised that two legal insurrection writers have sorta panned the memo. Isn’t were not a bombshell, the the dems and Intel community wouldn’t have fought it’s release, which today, they are now trying to pan…
The senior FBI doj officials who reviewed the memo and found no material falsehoods effectively corroborated the memo and made it so much more than “alleged”.
The memo itself is pretty tame. It does not present any startling new information on the FISA warrant issue. It does clarify some of it, though. And, it does not directly accuse anyone of directly lying or misrepresenting the facts in the warrant affidavits. Basically, it says that the FBI and DOJ used a political opposition tool, the Steele Dossier to provide most of the evidence to support the extension of the FISA warrant then existing on Page. It also says that a Yahoo News story, the facts of which were supplied to Yahoo News by Steele, as independent corroboration of the dossier. The memo points out that all of this was, or should have been, known to the FBI and DOJ officials who submitted the FISA requests and that the court should have been made aware of these additional facts. It suggests that some of the persons involved, Steele for example, may have been motivated by a desire not to see Donald Trump be elected President.
But, this is a single memo concerning problems with a single operation, the surveillance of Page. It does not delve into the myriad other improper and illegal actions of the Obama Administration. It is simply another brick in the foundation of the case for illegalities performed by the Obama Administration.
It does do one other thing, though. It undermines the foundation for the appointment of a SC to investigate Russian Collusion with the Trump Campaign. Now we know that there was FISA surveillance of the Trump campaign during 2016. Yet, this surveillance produced NO EVIDENCE of any collusion between that campaign and the Russians. Nor has any other evidence been found which supports the theory that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. This memo is another step in the process of showing that the Mueller investigation is merely a political sham and increases the justification for shutting it down.
We still have the problems of leaking restricted material, both unmasked names and confidential information, some of it classified. There is also the actions of senior FBI and DOJ personnel in the Servergate Affair and the Clinton Foundation. This is only the beginning.
Re: Mac45
I completely disagree the memo is “pretty tame.”
It’s clear by its terms that the government agents tried for political reasons prevent Trump’s election and then to take down his administration.
This is horrendously bad. They basically wanted to install Clinton as president; that befouled, sickly, mediocre piece of human garbage.
How anyone can see this other than an attempted coup, I have no idea. I didn’t know people would feel blandly about attempted coups in the U.S.A.
It is still pretty tame. There was NO evidence cited in the memo, at all. It basically says that the House Committee can substantiate that the Steele dossier was a totally uncorroborated instrument which was generated at the behest of the DNC [which was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton campaign at that time] and that those in the FBI and DOJ knew that it was largely uncorroborated and that the “corroboration” [the Yahoo News story] gained its information directly from the author of the dossier, Steele. Therefor, its value was misrepresented, either knowingly or incompetently. It does not say that the purpose of the Page FISA warrant extension was expressly for the purpose of surveilling the Trump campaign.
It casts things in a way to support the idea that this FISA warrant was for the express purpose of initiating and continuing surveillance of the Trump campaign, but never specifically makes that charge. There was simply NO smoking gun in the memo. Again I stress, there was very little evidence presented in this memo.
“How anyone can see this other than an attempted coup, I have no idea. I didn’t know people would feel blandly about attempted coups in the U.S.A.”
Well, first of all we are talking about the memo and what it says about a specific FISA court warrant. How it is interpreted is another matter. And, if you actually believe that this is the first time that any group or organization has attempted to steal a Presidential election, I suggest that you read a little history on the subject. You can start with the modern era and take a look at JFK’s success in Chicago in 1960, the Watergate affair and the suppression of military votes in 2000. But, it goes back to the election of John Adams. So, this is hardly something new.
There was a lot of stuff going on during the Obama administrations which were improper and illegal. The various cases of the IRS improperly targeting Tea Party, Israel advocacy and other conservative groups, as well as individuals, including journalists, were uncovered long ago. The use of NSA surveillance against opposition groups and people, again including journalists, has been known since 2013. Then we have other instances of tampering with a potential Presidential election by the refusal fo the FBI to move on the Clinton Foundation investigation and Servergate to protect HRC. These are ll terribly disturbing things and must be addressed and people held accountable, in order to reestablish public trust in our government and institutions.
A to it being an attempted coup, it was not. In the first place, a coup has to have the support of a majority of the military, or will not work. There is little support for the removal of President trump among the military, including the leadership. So, no coup. While the Dems might like to remove Trump from office, this was not the most important aim of the leaks, the FBI actions and the Mueller investigation. These things are primarily to protect them members of the Obama Administration who could end up going to jail for their activities during those Administrations.
Remain calm. As this hole thing progresses we will end up seeing actual evidence of much more disturbing things.
You think the memo is pretty tame only because from reading the right side of the blogosphere you already suspected everything in it, and have now confirmed it’s true- further evidenced by the FBI stating there are no factual inaccuracies.
For those that don’t obsessively follow politics- or rely solely on the MSM for news- it’s a virtual hand grenade. Trouble is, if they do rely entirely on the MSM, they still won’t get it…
Look, all the information in the memo, with the exception of who in the FBI and DOJ signed off on the FISA requests and the alleged testimony by McCabe before the committee, has already been reported. There was nothing earthshaking or explosive in it at all. And, there was no direct supporting evidence provided. It was, as the Democrats said, a Republican opinion. It is probably accurate, but we shouldn’t believe what ANYONE says without verifiable supporting evidence.
However, for nearly two weeks we have heard the Republicans and conservatives touting this as being a nuclear bombshell. While the Democrats have been screaming that this is either chock full of information highly damaging to our security and intelligence gathering capability or is a total partisan lie. By listening to the two sides, you would expect this to be nuclear. However, when the smoke cleared and the drums fell silent and we actually got to read the memo, there was nothing but crickets. No smoking gun. No tapes or texts describing what was being done, its objectives, who was involved and what did each of them actually know.
So, the memo really does little except act as a teaser. Now the public will want to see the supporting evidence, which is mostly classified. And, the Republicans will try to produce it. That evidence will spark other questions from the public and it will want to know exactly what happened in Servergate, with the Clinton Foundation, with previous cases of DOJ spying, of weaponized government agencies such as the IRS and DHS. That is the value of the memo. It will stimulate demands from the public for these illicit activities to be exposed. THAT was the bombshell, as far as the Dems are concerned. Important Democrats could end up in jail for their activities during the 8 years of the Obama administration. On the Republican side, if the dossier was an unsubstantiated work of fiction and it is largely the basis for Trump/Russia collusion claims, this means that there is no justification for a SC to investigate a fairy tale. The Mueller investigation is sinking like a stone.
“…already been ‘reported'”…”
You mean, like obama is a traitor? That he’s a closet transvestite? A radical lslamist? Moooochelle is a man? Valerie Jarrett is a traitor? John Kerry is a traitor? McCain is likely one of the co-conspirators behind the dossier? That boehner was extorted? On and on and on…
Reported by what MSM outlet? By what Congressional Committee?
Mac45, this is big. It is the smoking gun.
Fake oath-takers like pelosi and her ilk wouldn’t be going crazy if it wasn’t.
On to the next step: fire mueller AND sessions.
Doing heavy recreational chemicals, are we?
I have no idea what memo you have been reading, but I saw nothing about the sartorial habits of Barack Obama. Nothing there about Michelle, or Jarrett, McCain, Boehner or Kerry. So, I’m at a loss as to what you are talking about.
As to why the Dems were so upset about this, that is easy. There are two reasons.
Once this memo was released, the Dems were forced to address specific accusations concerning the FISA deal. No longer could they obfuscate and say that all the media reports were strictly speculation and that there was no evidence to support these claims. Now, if they try to use those excuses, the Republicans will simply vote to release the supporting evidence. And, the supporting evidence will lead to expanded charges of impropriety within the Obama Administrations. And, it allows the Republicans to torpedo the theory which is the basis for the appointment of the SC. No foundation, no case, no need for the SC [goodbye and thanks for your service].
Second, this memo will sway public opinion toward the truth, as expressed by the President and the Republicans. It will have fence sitters leaning more heavily to accepting the information which conservative outlets have been providing. It makes it harder for the Dems to vilify Trump, and his supporters, as he can now be more readily seen to be a victim.
What it does not do is PROVE anything. And, with the exception of a few specific names, all of whom have already been associated with this and other scandals, and the unsubstantiated admission of McCabe that the dossier was used to justify the issuance and extension of the FISA
warrant, no new information was actually provided.
So, no smoking gun. No documented evidence.
FBI + Dossier = FBIased
Thee only reason the memo seems tame is because we have been reading and hearing of problems for a long time. I hope the first time reader is shocked at what is contained in the memo.
Now that I have had a chance to digest the memo, I would like to know more about the media that, in addition to Yahoo News, was briefed by Steele and generated #FakeNews to support the validity of the dossier.
I want names. I want to know if they were paid. And I want new news organizations to arise that will be true watchdogs on the powerful.
Now we see why Fusion GPS tried so hard to conceal the record of their payments to journalists. It exposes how what the public hears is false talking points, coordinated from one source.
It is preference falsification. The opposite of a preference cascade.
I’m at a loss to understand the use of Steele’s “dossier” in an Application and Affidavit for a Warrant. If I understand the content Steele produced, it was a collection of contributions from people Steele knew, often reporting things that others had told them. So it is second and third hand material. No matter how good a source Steele had been in the past, there is no way he could personally attest to the validity of the material in the dossier. When I was fooling with such things as filling out the Application and Affidavit, there was no way I would have ever included material which my source could not verify as his personal knowledge (obviously the other sources can be interviewed to obtain that degree of knowledge, but the Bureau didn’t send anyone to Russia). I would include NO second and third hand material at all. Yet that is what the Bureau included?
Maybe my standards were too high, but I was the one signing under oath as to the truth of the information on which probable cause was determined.
“I’m at a loss to understand the use of Steele’s “dossier” in an Application and Affidavit for a Warrant….”
Edward, it’s very simple:
Let’s say I (for whatever reason, I have a vendetta against you) want to ruin you. And I know some crooked cops I can pay to help me. I go to the crooked cops, and pay them to set you put for a search warrant at your home or business. I even provide crooked ‘informer’ to tell the cops you saw this or that going on in your home. (Wink, wink.) The crooked cops go to a judge and testify that they need a warrant to search your house, because their ‘reliable informant’ told them this or that is going on in the house. The judge, trusting the cops’ reliance on their ‘trusted ‘informant, issues the warrant. The subsequent search of your house discovers two Esctasy pills in your teenage child’s drawer. Ta-da!
In the situation above, substitute you for Donald Trump and his staff, the crooked cops for comey and his gang, the ‘informant’ for that british fraud who klinton paid to write the fake dossier (a report, actually). Hillary klinton and her gang were the ones with the vendetta who approached the crooked FBI people, and even provided the ‘informant’ for the judge to rely on to issue the search warrant.) Instead of ta-da!, they find NOTHING, but because of the fake ‘dossier,’ you STILL get corrupt special counsel mueller, on the theory that there must be SOMETHING out there Trump is guilty of – even if the informant’s report (the dossier) was a fraud.
Going back to your situation, imagine if the crooked cops searched your house and found nothing – but then they opened an investigation into you and referred it to the D.A. for prosecution – and the prosecutor is Angla Corey (the same corrupt hack who prosecuted George Zimmerman for killing his attackder: street thug trayvon martin. Or she’s Marilyn Mosby, the corrupt prosecutor in the freddie gray case.
THAT’s is your FBI and DOJ after 8 years of disgraced president and traitor barack obama.
“Bad Prosecutors / Bad Cops – What You Need To Know:”
http://insiderexclusive.com/bad-prosecutors-bad-cops-what-you-need-to-know/
Do you see it now?
Unfortunately, many warrants are based solely on an informant telling the police that another person committed a crime. Warrants only have to be based on probable cause. A simply explanation:
https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/arrests_and_searches/warrant-informant.htm
A more legally sophisticated explanation:
As the Supreme Court held, re informants (and the hack who wrote his ‘report/dossier’ for hillary klinton) being a valid basis for a search warrant:
“An informant’s reliability and his basis for knowledge as independent requirements. Instead, “a deficiency in one may be compensated for, in determining the overall reliability of a tip, by a strong showing as to the other, or by some other indicia of reliability.”130 In evaluating probable cause, “[t]he task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, commonsense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the ‘veracity’ and ‘basis of knowledge’ of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.”
https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-04/08-probable-cause.html
Better trust who you put in high office. If you don’t, you could be railroaded by the likes of obama toadies lois lerner (using the IRS), and as we sell, slimeballs like comey and mccabe – and even John McCain.
House Intel panel subpoenas McCain associate over Trump dossier:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/366614-house-intel-panel-subpoenas-mccain-associate-over-trump-dossier
Scariest of all is Sessions: in light of all that is coming out, he is STILL protecting hillary klinton, obama, and the most corrupt rats ever to hold office in the FBI, DOJ, IRS, etc.
What about the FISA judges who signed off on the FISA applications?
If the first application was on 10/21/2016, then renewal #1 was 1/21/2017 or 90 days. The Comey/Trump meeting was in early January 2017 and was leaked to the press which then published the Steele memo. Ok, the judge may not have connected the dots for the first renewal.
So, the second renewal would have been in April 2017 and the third in July 2017. Surely, in that time frame, anyone living in Washington would have heard something about the Steele memo and the possible connections to the DNC, the payments, etc.
Should we be concerned about the court? They sure seem to accept anything that is placed in front of them.
FBI leaked the Steele memo to Yahoo, then used the Yahoo article as the basis for a warrant. They’re basically manufacturing their own evidence and leaking it to get warrants.
Are application for FISA warrants supported by declarations sworn under penalty of perjury? If so, would Messrs. Comey, et al have committed perjury? If so, might they be disbarred for filing false declarations, as well as being prosecuted for the felony of perjury? (“Asking for a friend.”)
The memo isn’t quite a blast of lightning from Mt Olympus. A promising map of campaign, but not itself a coup de grâce.
What it does in grand style is put nutcrackers around some people’s testicles. Now, which of those nutcrackers are most worth squeezing? Which of these dominoes will cause the biggest disruption among the other dominoes when he topples?
As I read this, the most productive target would be Rosenstein. Pursuit of most of these other miscreants, while doubtless rewarding on its own merits, wouldn’t crack things open the way a successful prosecution of Rosenstein would.