Russia probes kick into high gear

[Merc14]

9 hours ago, Gromdor said:

Makes you wonder why they renewed it, if it is so bad.

They renewed it because it is the only way to listen in to enemies of the US.  It is only dangerous when it is abused as it surely has been here (allegedly).  We would cripple out intelligence gathering if we ended eavesdropping on our enemies.

[Space Commander Travis]

3 hours ago, Gingitsune said:

So basically, international observers see Russia and China asserting their regional power even more confidently than before. Putin's grab of Crimea, then openly backing of Bashar regime's crimes against his own population is only the tip.

I think we can see what angle you're coming from here,then; not very likely to look at it dispassionately, then. 

[Merc14]

2 hours ago, Tiggs said:

Word on the 'vine is that Nunes' personally wrote a four-page summary that misses key pieces of information and exaggerates its findings.
 

I have been talking about this for a year while you were silent and NOW you have a "vine" you are listening to and since that vine says this is all garbage you are in the know?  

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Can't imagine why Nunes -- a member of the Trump transition team -- might want to derail the ongoing investigation into the Trump transition team. Total mystery.

I think you are missing the point which is that it seems a US president weaponized our intelligence gathering agencies and our federal justice system to spy on a political opponent.   I understand you hate Trump passionately but this is about far more than Mueller's sham on an investigation, an investigation which, apparently, is based on a fraud dossier and made up story of collusion.

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It will be. It was purposefully designed to be released. Republicans have the majority on the House Intel Committee, so can vote to release whatever they want to the public, as long as the President is willing to declassify it.

Hopefully we are all made aware of how egregious this abuse of power was.
 

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The more interesting question is -- how much of it will survive public scrutiny?

Agreed.

[SHaYap]

Food for thought ...
 

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~

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https://www.themarysue.com/facebook-will-now-tell-you-if-the-government-is-spyin...

Oct 19, 2015 - Facebook has set up a notification system in case your account is compromised—even by the government.

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The Government is Spying On You Through Facebook Right...Now

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May 18, 2011 - Democratically elected governments spy on citizens01 Controlling information and spying on citizens were hallmarks of totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. Today, even moderate democracies are getting in on the action. In the last decade, as communication has shifted from traditional landlines, phone ...

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US Government Can Legally Access Your Facebook Data (And Now ...

https://www.zerohedge.com/.../us-government-can-legally-access-your-facebook-data...

Dec 27, 2016 - The end of the year is approaching, and data concerning government abuses of power has begun pouring in. According to Facebook's Global Government Requests Report, government's requests for Facebook account data rose 27 percent in the first half of 2016. Facebook's official announcement ...

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Could a government spy on your Facebook Messenger chats ...

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May 4, 2016 - You have to be very careful what you say on Facebook in Thailand, lest you write something the Thai government deems transgressive and end up serving a 60 year jail sentence. Even liking or sharing a post in Thailand can land you in jail for a very, very long time, and bad language, if it pertains to the ...

~

 

 

[Tiggs]

1 hour ago, preacherman76 said:

LOL yea cause politico has seen it right?

Fairly sure Adam Schiff has. Being the minority chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and all.

[Merc14]

1 hour ago, preacherman76 said:

LOL yea cause politico has seen it right? You know its real bad when they are spinning things that they have no idea what they are talking about lol. Or are they taking the word of people who did all they could so no one would ever see it?

We do have free press, yet CNN cant seem to find the time to report on it at all. At least as of early this morning. hmmm.

Personally I'm gonna reserve a full opinion till we actually see it. Though I do think there are some interesting points to observe. They fought long and hard to get all the details of what started the investigation to begin with, with the FBI kicking and screaming the whole way. And just days after they got all the information, that the FBI wanted to be forever unknown, this memo comes out. I'd say it was very possible anything you hear from the people who wanted all this concealed, for all this time, are now going into full damage control.

If half of what the republicans say about it is true, there will be no recovering from it.  

Over the last year I have been amazed to observe the MSM willfully ignoring this entire story!  I guess they were/are hoping it would just go away but it obviously won't and I expect that even some democrats will break ranks and call for the declassification of most if not all this evidence.  Powerful people have already been demoted, as I have noted in this thread, and those same people will soon be under indictment for their crimes and much more will follow.  Mueller's entire investigation appears to be based on a complete fiction and now I am wondering if Mueller himself won't be under investigation/indictment over he part in this scandal.  

[Merc14]

12 hours ago, Agent0range said:

They admitted to paying her.  Are you denying that?  Here you go again on your Hillary rant.  Again, Merc.  Check my post history.  Prior to the election, through the election, and after the election, I made it quite clear that I supported John Kasich, a republican candidate.  I thought you blocked me anyway?  Block me, please, and take your partisan BS elsewhere.  I am for country.  Not some "America First"  "MAGA" BS.  America has been great for 242 years.  I will always support the best person for the job.  So get the hell out of here with "your democrat president".  

I really couldn't care less if Trump had sex with a porn star a decade ago and haven't even read into it as it is irrelevant to the well being of the country you claim to be for.   Far bigger things are happening that are relevant to the well being of our country and our constitution so rant away and enjoy the latest scandal of the week the left has ginned up.

[.ZZ.]

24 minutes ago, Tiggs said:

Fairly sure Adam Schiff has. Being the minority chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and all.

It's going to come down to this:

You believe Schiff and we believe Nunes.

It will not matter one iota what is in this memo, you will circle the wagons and put a Liberal spin on it. I am looking forward to it with great anticipation.

[ian hacktorp]

2 hours ago, Tiggs said:

“[T]he Majority voted today on a party-line basis to grant House Members access to a profoundly misleading set of talking points drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI and its handling of the investigation,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. “Rife with factual inaccuracies and referencing highly classified materials that most of Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they had never read, this is meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI.”

You gotta love Adam Schiff.

Here's the film version of his remarks:

 

[Merc14]

25 minutes ago, .ZZ. said:

It's going to come down to this:

You believe Schiff and we believe Nunes.

It will not matter one iota what is in this memo, you will circle the wagons and put a Liberal spin on it. I am looking forward to it with great anticipation.

Even Schiff isn't denying this is bad, his argument is the republicans are exaggerating it and as long as Schiff and his party can keep the info classified he will get away with it but he will fail and we will all get to see much, if not all, of this stuff eventually.   It will be great fun watching the deniers try and explain this away and I am expecting the first line of defense will be "The republicans are just trying to derail the Russia investigation!!".   The problem with that defense, from what I have been hearing, is the entire Mueller investigation is based on a myth, created by the DoJ/FBI and DNC, designed to derail the Trump campaign and or administration and this evidence proves it!  

[Tiggs]

1 hour ago, Merc14 said:

I have been talking about this for a year while you were silent and NOW you have a "vine" you are listening to and since that vine says this is all garbage you are in the know?  

Given it was only written a few days ago, you haven't been talking about the Nunes document for a year.

You've been talking about the things you now believe his document may reveal, including a string of connections leading back to Clinton via the Steele dossier that directly contradicts all known sworn testimony.
 

1 hour ago, Merc14 said:

I think you are missing the point which is that it seems a US president weaponized our intelligence gathering agencies and our federal justice system to spy on a political opponent. 

If a presidential nominee is a suspected threat to national security, then the FBI has a duty of care to investigate that nominee.

I've yet to see any evidence of Obama's direct "weaponization" of the FBI's investigation for political spying purposes.
 

1 hour ago, Merc14 said:

I understand you hate Trump passionately but this is about far more than Mueller's sham on an investigation, an investigation which, apparently, is based on a fraud dossier and made up story of collusion.

In your opinion.

I don't believe that the dossier is fraudulent. Nor do I have any reason to believe that the allegations of collusion were "made up", for partisan gain.

I disagree with his politics, but I don't hate Trump. I do think he needs to be investigated.

[Gromdor]

This is turning into another "hard drive found in IT's garage" or "emails found on Wiener's laptop" moment.   Wouldn't it be better to wait to see what is on it before making all these wild predictions?  You know it will be "leaked" to the press even if it didn't get approval for public release.  I want to read it just to see if Trump was really spied on at all or if it was just the NSA listening in on the Russians in Trump Tower calling home.

[Merc14]

Just now, Tiggs said:

Given it was only written a few days ago, you haven't been talking about the Nunes document for a year.
 

Of course not!!  I thought that was understood but I guess not.   I have been talking about the entire scandal for well over a year.   

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You've been talking about the things you now believe his document may reveal, including a string of connections leading back to Clinton via the Steele dossier that directly contradicts all known sworn testimony.

Actually I have been talking about the entire FISA scandal, the Steele document is simply a product of that much bigger scandal, namely a massive abuse of power.

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If a presidential nominee is a suspected threat to national security, then the FBI has a duty of care to investigate that nominee.

If that nominee is a suspected threat based on a story made up by a conspiracy comprised of the DoJ, FBI and the DNC as well as other parties then you have a massive abuse of power.
 

Quote

I've yet to see any evidence of Obama's direct "weaponization" of the FBI's investigation for political spying purposes.

And as long as Schiff and the democrats keep the evidence classified you won't, but that committee memo just made that a lot harder to do.

Quote

 

In your opinion.

I don't believe that the dossier is fraudulent. Nor do I have any reason to believe that the allegations of collusion were "made up", for partisan gain.

 

I do believe it is fraudulent but that is all either of us can do, believe, until this evidence is made public or at least declassified.  

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I disagree with his politics, but I don't hate Trump. I do think he needs to be investigated.

 

Sorry,  I assumed you despised the man with a vengeance based on your pages and pages and pages of negative rants so I apologize.  

[Tiggs]

33 minutes ago, .ZZ. said:

It's going to come down to this:

You believe Schiff and we believe Nunes.

Only one of them is a potential target for the Mueller investigation.
 

33 minutes ago, .ZZ. said:

It will not matter one iota what is in this memo, you will circle the wagons and put a Liberal spin on it. I am looking forward to it with great anticipation.

I'm sure some of it will be factual. The general abuse of FISA lookups was widely reported, long before Trump became President, for example.

[Merc14]

Just now, Gromdor said:

This is turning into another "hard drive found in IT's garage" or "emails found on Wiener's laptop" moment.   Wouldn't it be better to wait to see what is on it before making all these wild predictions?  You know it will be "leaked" to the press even if it didn't get approval for public release.  I want to read it just to see if Trump was really spied on at all or if it was just the NSA listening in on the Russians in Trump Tower calling home.

I think we all need to see all of it.   No one in government should be allowed to get away with what is alleged to have happened here and allowing regular citizens to see all of this evidence is, IMHO, the only way to make sure it doesn't happen again..

[Gromdor]

1 minute ago, Merc14 said:

I think we all need to see all of it.   No one in government should be allowed to get away with what is alleged to have happened here and allowing regular citizens to see all of this evidence is, IMHO, the only way to make sure it doesn't happen again..

It will.  Trump is famous for using the letter of the law for personal benefit regardless of the ethics.  Why wouldn't the abuses continue?  The whole idea that if a politician talks to a KGB officer overseas that they won't be listened into is absurd.

[Merc14]

3 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

It will.  Trump is famous for using the letter of the law for personal benefit regardless of the ethics.  Why wouldn't the abuses continue?  The whole idea that if a politician talks to a KGB officer overseas that they won't be listened into is absurd.

Well I don't remember Trump talking to a KGB officer, especially since the KGB doesn't exist any longer, or any other Russian intelligence agent so I'll write this off as a rant.  BTW, this is far more serious than a conversation between a Russian and an American, which isn't illegal BTW.  

[Gromdor]

2 minutes ago, Merc14 said:

Well I don't remember Trump talking to a KGB officer, especially since the KGB doesn't exist any longer, or any other Russian intelligence agent so I'll write this off as a rant.  BTW, this is far more serious than a conversation between a Russian and an American, which isn't illegal BTW.  

I don't remember Trump having his personal conversation listened into with or without a FISA warrant at all.

You are right that a conversation between a Russian and an American isn't illegal.  My point is that it would be naive to think it will be private given that we have FISA.  

[+and-then]

If this memo is as damning as advertised, there should be another special investigator assigned to probe the facts to the bottom.  Hard, irrefutable evidence needs to be gathered and the people need to see it.  The swamp creatures have been loathe to attack each other in any meaningful way, lest an escalating tit for tat leads to serious consequences.  It seems to me that we may be at the start of a nuclear exchange between them.  This could really get ugly.  I don't care who the guilty are, HANG THEM!

[Tiggs]

39 minutes ago, Merc14 said:

If that nominee is a suspected threat based on a story made up by a conspiracy comprised of the DoJ, FBI and the DNC as well as other parties then you have a massive abuse of power.

Evidencing that conspiracy is pretty much the key.

Yet to see if the memo even attempts to do that.
 

39 minutes ago, Merc14 said:

And as long as Schiff and the democrats keep the evidence classified you won't, but that committee memo just made that a lot harder to do.

Declassification to the public is at the President's discretion.

There's absolutely nothing the minority party can do to stop the majority party from releasing any evidence they like to the rest of Congress.

[Merc14]

17 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

I don't remember Trump having his personal conversation listened into with or without a FISA warrant at all.

Given that the entire Trump Tower was was most likely being surveilled it wouldn't surprise me.  If you missed that hypothesis I'll be glad to repeat it.

Quote

You are right that a conversation between a Russian and an American isn't illegal.  My point is that it would be naive to think it will be private given that we have FISA.  

Let's be clear, everything is being recorded, especially overseas telephone calls.   Intelligence agencies can listen to any foreigner talk to anyone but if an American is on the other end of the connection then he or she must be masked and their identity protected.  If the analyst suspects that something illegal is going on they can request that the American be unmasked but the analyst MUST prove to the judge at the FISA court that the unmasking is necessary for American security.  What is alleged here is that the last administration was unmasking people at an unprecedented level, both before and after the election, without a legitimate reason to do so and worse than that they were leaking those names to the press.  Also, they were supplying raw FISA information to unauthorized contractors (presumably Fusion GPS, This is the activity the FISA judge sanctioned last fall).  I'm sure there is far more than this going on but we will have to wait and see that.

9 minutes ago, and then said:

If this memo is as damning as advertised, there should be another special investigator assigned to probe the facts to the bottom.  Hard, irrefutable evidence needs to be gathered and the people need to see it.  The swamp creatures have been loathe to attack each other in any meaningful way, lest an escalating tit for tat leads to serious consequences.  It seems to me that we may be at the start of a nuclear exchange between them.  This could really get ugly.  I don't care who the guilty are, HANG THEM!

The DoJ and FBI could/should investigate this but I agree that a Special Prosecutor would be a better choice given the players likely involved.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Merc14

[Gromdor]

1 minute ago, Merc14 said:

Given that the entire Trump Tower was was most likely being surveilled it wouldn't surprise me.  If you missed that hypothesis I'll be glad to repeat it.

My take on it was that the Russians that lived there were running a high-stakes gambling ring.  Trump just took the fact that they were under surveillance to claim that he was as well.  I haven't seen anything to see that his personal conversations were listened into.  Maybe this memo will clear this point up.

5 minutes ago, Merc14 said:

Let's be clear, everything is being recorded, especially overseas telephone calls.   Intelligence agencies can listen to any foreigner talk to anyone but if an American is on the other end of the connection then he or she must be masked and their identity protected.  If the analyst suspects that something illegal is going on they can request that the American be unmasked but the analyst MUST prove to the judge at the FISA court that the unmasking is necessary for American security.  What is alleged here is that the last administration was unmasking people at an unprecedented level, both before and after the election, without a legitimate reason to do so and worse than that they were leaking those names to the press.  Also, they were supplying raw FISA information to unauthorized contractors (presumably Fusion GPS, This is the activity the FISA judge sanctioned last fall).  I'm sure there is far more than this going on but we will have to wait and see that.

I agree with you on this part.  Now given Trump's history with leaks, do you think this unmasking and leaking will stop?  You just have to watch how our representatives in the investigative committees act to get the answer to that.  

[Gingitsune]

2 hours ago, Vlad the Mighty said:

I think we can see what angle you're coming from here,then; not very likely to look at it dispassionately, then. 

This is actually very dispassionate compare to what I read and hear from Canadians, Europeans and even Japanese. But I tried to convey the general impression without going down to too much insults.

[preacherman76]

2 hours ago, Tiggs said:

Fairly sure Adam Schiff has. Being the minority chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and all.

I'm positive Schiff is a never Trumper swamp creature that will do and say whatever he can to throw a turd in the punch bowl. Like I said, if this memo is half as relevant as the republicans would have us believe then its gonna hit the fan hard.

There is a reason the FBI did everything it could to deny giving the house this information. There is a reason the Dems wanted to hide this information from their republican colleges. And there is a reason Rosenstein tried to have Paul Ryan block the release of this information at the last minute. If it is like you and politico say, just a twisting of the information they were eventually forced to provide after several months of doing all they could to hide it, then why all the secrecy to begin with? If this investigation started out with integrity, and fairness, you'd think the FBI would be more then willing to show how all this got started. They should have been jumping at the chance to remove any doubt expressed by anyone right of Stalin.

I mean seriously, you don't think its at all suspicious that everyone on the left worked so hard to hide this information? Even from closed door sessions?

I think the republicans now see exactly why the FBI worked ever so hard to keep this, not only out of the view of the public, but out of the view of the people they are held responsible to. And judging by how hard they worked to keep this in the dark, I'm betting the republicans are probably telling the truth right now. You notice the republicans are not trying to draw conclusions for us, but are saying we need to see it. That we will have to decide what it all mean after we see it.

[Merc14]

18 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

My take on it was that the Russians that lived there were running a high-stakes gambling ring.  Trump just took the fact that they were under surveillance to claim that he was as well.  I haven't seen anything to see that his personal conversations were listened into.  Maybe this memo will clear this point up.

I hadn't read anything about Russian gamblers except for what you just posted so not sure where you got this from but what CNN is reporting was the wiretaps were in place to surveil Manafort with regard to his Ukraine activities in 2014.   What is hypothesized is ADM Mike Rogers, NSA director, waited until the Secret Service had installed the SCIF in Trump Tower to brief Trump in private.  It is alleged that during this briefing Rogers informed Trump that his building was being surveilled because of Manafort's alleged activities in 2014 and that wiretap was being abused to monitor Trump administration organizing activities.  The next day Trump moved his entire team to another Trump property and he tweeted the infamous wiretap stuff.

As I said, pure speculation at this point but the timeline fits.  We will have to see iof this is all spelled out in the recently released data from the IG.

18 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

I agree with you on this part.  Now given Trump's history with leaks, do you think this unmasking and leaking will stop?  You just have to watch how our representatives in the investigative committees act to get the answer to that.  

I don't understand what you are saying or asking here.