Re: The fake news about Charlottesville answered again
marc9000 writes:
But for business owners in the North, decades after the war to refuse service to any black person, doesn't show me any less racism than anything Lee ever promoted, yet there is no call to get even with them or their descendants. Why target Lee, why now?
To my mind, and I hope to many others, Lee was one of the great military men of America who had the misfortune to fight for slavery, and who likely committed what today would be considered atrocities against the black race. Like most of us, he was a man of his time and place.
I'm conflicted about the statues erected to Lee in the early 20th century, which is most of them. Lee deserves the statues, but they were erected as a symbol of oppression of the black race. Which gets the higher priority, "Lee was a great general" or "These statues are racist symbols"? I have no simple answer.
The Carter Page FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrant has been the subject of much recent attention now that US Attorney General William Barr has initiated further investigations into the origins of the Mueller investigation and called it "spying." The FBI stands accused of overstating the reliability of information about the Trump campaign provided by Daniel Steele in their FISA warrant requesting surveillance of Carter Page, who was then a recent resignee from the Trump Campaign.
This FISA warrant document contains (I think) all four FISA warrants (the original and the three renewals). It doesn't lend itself to easy reading because the divisions between the warrants is not marked, it is heavily redacted, the PDF version is not searchable, and the text version is divided into 412 separate pages, each of which can be searched, but only one page at a time. For example, to search for all occurrences of the word "dossier" you would have to conduct 412 separate searches, one for each of the 412 pages.
Fortunately most of those 412 pages are boilerplate, such as listing the involved parties and recording their signatures, or are exact duplicates of earlier pages (from earlier warrants), with few exceptions. The later warrants do have additional information that the earlier warrants do not have. I've collected the first 67 text pages (what I believe is the original FISA warrant) into a single document and uploaded it to the website: Searchable Carter Page FISA Warrant. This text version is an OCR of the PDF and is pretty poor (many mistakes and short omissions), plus the redacted portions appear as random characters.
Three facts must be noted about the original FISA warrant.
First, two dossiers are mentioned. One, the only one referred to as a dossier, was of dirt on Hillary Clinton for the Trump campaign obtained by Carter Page from a Russian source. The other was research by Daniel Steele on Donald Trump's ties to Russia for the Clinton campaign, often referred to as the Steele dossier.
Second, the fact that there were two dossiers mentioned in the FISA warrant has led critics to become confused. They misread the FISA warrant as saying that both dossiers came from Steele.
Third, no information from either dossier is present in the warrant. No claims of accuracy are made for the contents of either dossier.
The FISA warrant uses code to refer to people. Steele is "Source #1", Donald Trump is "Candidate #1", and Hillary Clinton is "Candidate #2". Here are complete excerpts of everywhere Steele (Source #1) is mentioned. I've cleaned up or corrected the text as necessary and indicated the redactions:
quote:First, according to information provided by an FBI confidential human source (Source #1) [redacted] reported that Page had a [redacted] and has been an FBI source since [redacted]. Source #1's reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings and the FBI assesses Source #1 to be reliable. Source #1 has been compensated by the FBI and the FBI is unaware of any derogatory information pertaining to Source #1.
Source #1, who now owns a foreign business/financial intelligence firm, was approached by an identified US. person, who indicated to Source #1 that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified US. person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1's ties to Russia (the identified U.S. person and Source #1 have a long-standing business relationship). The identified US. person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified US. person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified US. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign.
Source #1 tasked his sub-source(s) to collect the requisite information. After Source #1 received information from the sub-source(s) described herein, Source #1 provided the information to the identified US. person who had hired Source #1 and to the FBI. [redacted]
Notwithstanding Source #1's reason for conducting the research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia, based on Source #1's previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby Source #1 provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes Source #1's reporting herein to be credible. [redacted]
[redacted]
...
...according to Source #1 [redacted] Divyekin [who is assessed to be Igor Nikolayevich Divyekin] [redacted] had met secretly with Page and that their agenda for the meeting included Divyekin raising a dossier or "kompromat"12 that the Kremlin possessed on Candidate #2 and the possibility of it being released to Candidate #1's campaign. [redacted]
[redacted]
12Kompromat is a Russian term for compromising material about a politician or political figure, which' is typically used to create negative publicity or blackmail.
It is important to break in here to make precisely clear what the FISA warrant is stating. This is the only appearance of the word "dossier" in the entire FISA warrant (excepting its possible appearance in redacted portions), and it describes Steele reporting that Page had met with the Russian Divyekin to obtain a dossier on Hillary Clinton (Candidate #2) for possible use by Donald Trump (Candidate #1). This is the section of the FISA warrant that those accusing the FBI of misrepresenting the FISA evidence cite, but they've misinterpreted it badly. It isn't about Steele obtaining a dossier on Trump, but of Page obtaining a dossier on Clinton.
Now we move on to the part describing Steele's collecting dirt on Trump:
quote:[sections unrelated to Steele (Source #1) skipped]
16As discussed above, Source #1 was hired by a business associate to conduct research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia. Source #1 provided the results of his research to the business associate, and the FBI assesses that the business associate likely provided this information to the law firm that hired the business associate in the first place. Source #1 told the FBI that he/she only provided this information to the business associate and the FBI. [redacted] The FBI does not believe that Source #1 directly provided this information to the press.
This is the only reference in the FISA warrant about Steele conducting research on Trump. None of that research is described in the FISA warrant, and so it couldn't be part of the justification for the request for surveillance of Carter Page.
The characterization of this FISA warrant as misrepresenting information from Daniel Steele about Trump is plainly false as no information from Steele about Trump is described. The only information in the warrant that is provided by Steele is that Carger Page obtained a dossier on Clinton from a Russian.
It shouldn't be difficult for any careful reading of the FISA warrants to reach correct conclusions. Nothing should come of the investigations, not that by the DOJ's Inspector General, nor those initiated by Attorney General William Barr.
It is especially disturbing that Barr refers to the FBI's activities in surveilling Page and having an agent meet with Papadopoulos as spying. He's just promoting Trump talking points as if his responsibility were to Trump instead of the American people.
quote:The dossier, packed with salacious and unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia, was written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and formed a key part of the FBI's FISA applications used to justify surveillance warrants against Page.
But this is untrue. There is no information from the Steele dossier in the Carter Page FISA warrant. It doesn't even call it a dossier. This is all the initial FISA warrant (there were three renewals) has to say about it (Searchable Carter Page FISA Warrant). It says just about the same thing in two different places:
quote:Source #1, who now owns a foreign business/financial intelligence firm, was approached by an identified US. person, who indicated to Source #1 that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified US. person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1's ties to Russia (the identified U.S. person and Source #1 have a long-standing business relationship). The identified US. person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified US. person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified US. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign.
Source #1 tasked his sub-source(s) to collect the requisite information. After Source #1 received information from the sub-source(s) described herein, Source #1 provided the information to the identified US. person who had hired Source #1 and to the FBI. [redacted]
Notwithstanding Source #1's reason for conducting the research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia, based on Source #1's previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby Source #1 provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes Source #1's reporting herein to be credible. [redacted] ... 16As discussed above, Source #1 was hired by a business associate to conduct research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia. Source #1 provided the results of his research to the business associate, and the FBI assesses that the business associate likely provided this information to the law firm that hired the business associate in the first place. Source #1 told the FBI that he/she only provided this information to the business associate and the FBI. [redacted] The FBI does not believe that Source #1 directly provided this information to the press.
That's it. That's all it says. It does not describe, as claimed by the Washington Examiner, any information gathered by Steele. It only says that Steele received information from his sub-sources. Nowhere does the FISA warrant say what that information was.
Any claim made here (or anywhere) that the Carter Page FISA warrant justified surveillance using information from the Steele dossier is just plain wrong. Anyone who thinks otherwise should go to the searchable link to the FISA warrant that appears above, or to the link to all four FISA warrants (the original and the three renewals): Carter Page FISA Warrant
In a related matter, it is possible that there were three other FISA warrants in addition to the one on Carter Page. The Washington Examiner article quotes Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) saying, "One thing that all of these persons had in common was that each was the subject of a FISA Court investigation,..." The persons she's referring to are George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn.
It is possible that Representative Lee's information is incorrect. These persons may only have been the subject of FBI investigations rather than of FISA warrants. Lee was questioning Loretta Lynch, who was the Attorney General under the Obama administration in 2016 when these investigations were conducted.
Constructive questioning stopped at this point as Lynch's lawyer stepped in to advise that the names of subjects of FISA warrants are confidential and possibly classified in this case. The exchange took place back on December 19th but only recently came to light when the transcript was released yesterday.
quote:The FISA application relied heavily on unverified research in British ex-spy Christopher Steele's dossier on President Trump's ties to Russia, which was compiled through his employment with opposition research firm Fusion GPS with funding from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm.
I don't know what the Examiner is hoping to accomplish. Any person investigating the truth of their statement will very quickly discover that there is nothing from the Steele dossier in the original warrant. The warrant says nothing more than that Steele gathered information from sub-sources, and it never says what that information was. This is readily apparent from a reading of this Searchable Carter Page FISA Warrant.
Here are excerpts from the warrant that the FISA judge likely found sufficiently compelling to approve the warrant:
quote:In or about March 2016, George Papadopoulos2 and Carter Page (the target of this application) were publicly identi?ed by Candidate #1 as part of his/her foreign policy team. [redacted] the FBI believes that the Russian Government's efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with Candidate #1's campaign [redacted]
As discussed below, Page has established relationships with Russian Government officials, including Russian intelligence officers, [redacted]
[redacted] from approximately 2004 2007, Page lived in Russia [redacted] During this time, Page began business dealings with Gazprom [redacted]
According to open source information, in July 2016, Page traveled to Russia and delivered the commencement address at the New Economic School?7 In addition to giving this address, the FBI has learned that Page met with at least two Russian offcials during this trip. First, according to information provided by an FBI confidential human source (Source #1) [redacted] reported that Page had a secret meeting with Igor Sechin, who is the President of Rosneft [a Russian energy company] and a close associate to Russian President Putin. [redacted] reported that, during the meeting, Page and Sechin discussed future bilateral energy cooperation and the prospects for an associated move to lift Ukraine-related Western actions against Russia. [redacted] ... ...according to Source #1 [redacted] Divyekin [who is assessed to be Igor Nikolayevich Divyekin] [redacted] had met secretly with Page and that their agenda for the meeting included Divyekin raising a dossier or "kompromat"12 that the Kremlin possessed on Candidate #2 and the possibility of it being released to Candidate #1's campaign. [redacted]
[redacted]
12Kompromat is a Russian term for compromising material about a politician or political figure, which' is typically used to create negative publicity or blackmail. ... On or about September 23, 2016, an identified news organization published an article (September 23rd News Article), which was Written by the news organization's Chief Investigative Correspondent, alleging that US. intelligence officials are investigating Page with respect to suspected efforts by the Russian Government to in?uence the US. Presidential election. According to the September 23rd News Article, US. officials received intelligence reports that when Page was in Moscow in July 2016 to deliver the above-noted commencement address at the New Economic School, he met with two senior Russian officials. The September 23rd News Article stated that a "well-placed Western intelligence source" told the news organization that Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft. At their alleged meeting, Sechin raised the issue of the lifting of sanctions with Page. According to the September 23rd News Article, the Western intelligence source also reported that U.S. intelligence agencies received reports that Page met with another top Putin aide - Igor Divyekiri, a former Russian security official who now serves as deputy chief for internal policy and is believed by US. officials to have responsibility for intelligence collected by Russian agencies about the US. election.18
According to the September 23rd News Article, certain members of Congress were "taken aback" after being briefed on the alleged meetings and viewed the meetings as a possible back channel to the Russians that could undercut foreign policy. The September 23rd News Article also stated that, following the briefing, the Senate Minority Leader wrote to the FBI Director, and citing the reports of meetings between an advisor to Candidate #1 [the advisor was unnamed in the letter, but the article indicated that the advisor is Page] and "high ranking sanctioned individuals" [in context, likely a reference to Sechin] in Moscow over the summer as evidence of "significant and disturbing ties" between Candidate #1's campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the FBI.
Based on statements in the September 23rd News Article, as well as in other recent articles published by identified news organizations, Candidate #l's campaign repeatedly has made public statements in an attempt to create the appearance of distance between Page and Candidate #1's campaign. For example, the September 23rd News Article noted that Page's precise role in Candidate #1's campaign is unclear. According to the article, a spokesperson for Candidate #l's campaign called Page an "informal foreign adviser" who "does not speak for [Candidate #1] or the-campaign." In addition, another spokesperson for Candidate #1?s campaign said that Page "has no role" and added are not aware of any of his activities, past or present. However, the article stated that the campaign spokesperson did not respond when asked why Candidate #1 had previously described Page as an advisor. In addition, on or about September 25, 2016, an identified news organization published an article that was based primarily on an interview with Candidate #1's current campaign manager (the September 25th News Article). During the interview, the campaign manager stated, "[Page is] not part of the campaign I'm running." The campaign manager added that Page is not part of Candidate #1's national security or foreign policy briefings since he/ she became campaign manager. In response to a question from the interviewer regarding reports that Page has been meeting with Russian officials to essentially attempt to conduct diplomatic negotiations with the Russian Government, the campaign manager responded, "If [Page is] doing that, he's certainly not doing it with the permission or knowledge of the campaign. . . ."
On or about September 25, 2016, Page sent a letter to the FBI Director. In this letter, Page made reference to the accusations in the September 23rd News Article and denied them. Page stated that the source of the accusations is nothing more than completely false media reports and that he did not meet this year with any sanctioned official in Russia. Page also stated that he would be willing to discuss any "final" questions the FBI may have.19
Additionally, on or about September 26,. 2016, an identified news organization published an article that was based on an interview with Page (September 26th News Article). In the September 26th News Article, Page stated that all of the accusations are complete "garbage" and that he did not meet with Sechin or Divyekin. Page also stated that he would be taking a leave of absence from his work with Candidate #1's campaign because the accusations are a "distraction." [redaction]
[5 pages of redactions]
Conclusion.
As discussed above, the FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian Government, [redacted]. Based on the foregoing facts and circumstances, the FBI Submits that there is probable cause to believe that Page [redacted] knowingly engage in clandestine intelligence activities (other than intelligence gathering activities) for or on behalf of such foreign power, or knowingly conspires with other persons to engage in such activities and, therefore, is an agent of a foreign power as defined by 50 U.S.C. 1801(b)(2)(E).
[redacted] the FBI submits that there is probable cause to believe that such activities involve or are about to involve violations of the criminal statutes of the United States, [redacted]
There is almost no information from Steele, and none from the Steele dossier. Look at the allegations from the Steele dossier. None of those allegations appear in the FISA warrant. There is nothing in the warrant about Manafort, Cohen or Obama, nothing about Trump bribes, nothing about kickbacks, nothing about sex parties or pee tapes, just nothing at all from the Steele dossier. The Examiner is lying again.
There *are* large redacted portions whose content cannot be known at this time.
As an aside I watched the news conference where Pelosi appeared later. Does Nancy have a medical problem I'm not aware of? She seemed to be very drunk.
Don't see it myself - is there some particular part of her comments you're thinking of? I did see mention in a news report that she was up until 3 AM:
No, it's Congress and the **** who have forgotten that the Presidency is an equal and separate power under the Constitution.
Congress was given the power to oversee the Executive branch in the US Constitution.
Poking about on the Internet, congressional oversight of the Executive Branch is one of Congress's implied powers deriving directly from its enumerated powers. In political philosophy it is considered an inherent power of any legislative authority, necessary to constraining an executive (or a king if you go back further in time) to operating within the law and preventing them from exercising dictatorial powers. The Supreme Court has upheld congressional oversight repeatedly, most recently in 1927. Congress's earliest exercise of its oversight powers was in 1792 when it investigated western military failures.
I don't envy Trump's lawyers. They have no choice but to carry out his orders but assuming they're competent they must know they're on a fool's errand trying to avoid congressional oversight. Trump's blanket refusal to ignore all congressional oversight should be considered one of his bigger blunders.
quote:Remember the last time Trump walked out of a meeting with these same people? The government shut down, small businesses were hurt, and 800,000 federal workers went without pay for more than a month.
Also hurt are businesses that have government contracts considered non-essential. The government ceases payouts on those contracts, and so those businesses have some difficult decisions to make concerning retention of personnel and maintaining facilities. Salaries and rent/mortgages and upkeep and so forth must still be paid. There can be a cascade of effects as the business cancels or places on hold any related purchases and contracts with other companies.
True story: Someone I know was working on one of these non-essential government projects. The project went dormant, and the company, which is large, dealt with the cessation of funding by temporarily transferring people to active projects. But enough people became dissatisfied and left (either transferring permanently to another project or leaving the company) that the project, even though funding has resumed, is now in serious jeopardy. The project already had other problems, but now it has a personnel problem, too. I won't give anything away about the project other than to say that non-completion places lives and property at risk. Nothing spectacular, but still. --Percy
As an aside I watched the news conference where Pelosi appeared later. Does Nancy have a medical problem I'm not aware of? She seemed to be very drunk.
I just found the same information Minnemooseus found. Was this the video you saw? It's not on YouTube anymore, they've removed it for violating their rules, so I can only provide this FakeBook link (evidently the rules are more lax there):
I'm surprised. Bret Baier is usually more clear than this:
quote:"This statement is going to be digested and looked over, analyzed word for word up on Capitol Hill. It was not anywhere as clear-cut as Attorney General Bill Barr said. It was almost exactly the opposite. Not clear-cut."
Mueller was pretty clear, both in his report and in his comments today. He said they knew up-front that they couldn't charge a sitting president, but that they could investigate and report on possible obstruction, and that there was another process available for addressing presidential wrongdoing, i.e., impeachment.
What Baier should have said was that Mueller made clear the degree to which Barr misrepresented the Mueller report on obstruction. This is what anyone would conclude, and what many have concluded, after checking Barr's comments and conclusions against the actual report.
Re: Mueller lied either in that statement or to Barr
PaulK writes:
quote:
The problem with this is that Mueller is on record in discussions with Barr saying that in no way did the policy against indicting a sitting President enter into the judgments in the report.
If you are going to accuse Mueller of lying some evidence would be good. Please support this assertion.
The assertion can't be supported because it never happened. Mueller has only spoken publicly and on the record on two occasions as special counsel, once when he accepted the appointment, and again a couple days ago. The claim that Mueller said something different in private discussions at the DOJ comes from Barr, who had no qualms about misrepresenting Mueller's words in the report, and apparently not in those discussions, either.
Re: Mueller lyed either in that statement or to Barr
AZPaul3 writes:
The Democrats are out to get him.
I guess I'd want to add some reasons. I think those unhappy with Trump would say they're concerned about the threats he poses to the country, its Democratic institutions, the rule of law, our standing in the world, morality, fairness, mom and apple pie.
If he loses?
Then the rest of the legal system gets to rip him apart. He is about to lose his fortune, his properties, his now tarnished name, all of it. By the time his enemies (in business and in law) get through with him . they may never be through with him.
Your boy is toast as soon as he loses his presidential shield. That’s how much he’s made people hate him.
Yeah, that seems likely. When all that was known about him was that he was a flamboyant real estate developer and TV personality then he was safe, but his actions in office have brought so much scrutiny and so much is known now that he'll likely spend the rest of his life in court. Civil suits will take his fortune (the small fortune that exists in reality, not the billions he brags about), and even prison seems possible.
Re: Mueller lyed either in that statement or to Barr
Tanypteryx writes:
Faith writes:
Actions in office? They were threatening to impeach him BEFORE he was in office.
I don't know which "they" you are talking about, since both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans his first 2 years.
About the timing of the first calls for impeachment, there may be some misremembering involved since they came so soon after Trump took office. From the Wikipedia entry on Maxine Waters:
quote:Waters began to call for the impeachment of Trump shortly after he took office. In February 2017, Waters said that Trump was "leading himself" to possible impeachment because of his conflicts of interests and that he was creating "chaos and division".[74] In September 2017, while giving a eulogy at Dick Gregory's funeral, she said that she was "cleaning out the White House" and that "when I get through with Donald Trump, he's going to wish he had been impeached."[75] In October 2017, she said the U.S. Congress had enough evidence against Trump to 'be moving on impeachment', in reference to Russian collusion allegations during the 2016 Presidential election, and that Trump "has openly obstructed justice in front of our face."[76]
The source of the misinformation might also be conservative opinion programs. Fox News gets most things right, while their opinion programs like Hannity and Carlson and so forth are full of misinformation.
That Trump is inching closer to impeachment (it's his own actions that are driving it) is no surprise. Most who had the measure of the man couldn't imagine him making it through four years without committing a number of impeachable offenses.
The Inspector General's Report on the Origins of the Russia Investigation
The Washington Examiner is reporting that Attorney General William Barr May Already Have the Inspector General's report on the origins of the Russia investigation. The source of the information is Sean Hannity, who reportedly said that the investigation is "done and it's devastating," and that, ""Sources are telling me it may now have already been handed to the attorney general."
But does it really matter what the Inspector General says in his report? We've already witnessed how Barr can misrepresent the "context, nature, and substance" (quoting from Mueller's letter to Barr) of a report.
The FBI investigation of Russian campaign interference and possible Trump campaign involvement seems necessary given what we already know, but if the facts on the ground change then minds should change. And whether the investigation was justified or not, if any wrongdoing was committed in initiating or conducting the investigation then those responsible should be held accountable. But the Inspector General's report and the evidence it contains should be our guide, not Barr's interpretation.
Though Trump had no evidence of misconduct at the time, he fired or had fired those he held responsible for the investigation into his campaign, then he finally found an Attorney General willing to bend the truth to make it say whatever Trump wants it to say. It isn't new news to note that Barr is busily tearing down the reputation he built up over 40 years in government service and is possibly the most political Attorney General in our country's history. Whatever doubts of this some might have harbored were removed once Barr started pretending that spying is not a pejorative term. As normally used, spying is what enemies do to each other, and Barr evidently views the DOJ before he headed it as the enemy.
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