DOJ-NSD FISA spying on Trump campaign...VERY BIG DEAL

[Bubba]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/05/ ... eated.html

The Mueller probe is political warfare through legal means – not surprising when you consider that the Democrats are the party of lawyers, funded by lawyers.

When James Comey, in an extraordinarily partisan remark even for him, said this week that he thought Hillary Clinton believed in the rule of law, what he really meant was that she – like him – believes in the rule of lawyers. Like them.

They don’t care how their political counter-revolution gets President Trump out – whether it’s proving the original, fabricated claim about collusion; or by some legal process misstep by the president and his team; or by something to do with Stormy Daniels. As long as it gets President Trump out of the Oval Office before 2020, it’s fine with the counter-revolutionaries.

But this all-out effort by the establishment to remove a president who was legitimately elected according to the Constitution is doing terrible damage to the United States. Not just because it’s such a massive distraction from the bold policymaking that’s needed to help address the very real problems in our economy, in our society – inadequate skills and family breakdown to name just two. But because it undermines democracy and the rule of law.

How do you think people will feel if they vote for an outsider – and the insiders just turn around and say: “Sorry, you got it wrong. You can’t do that.”

In a nutshell, that’s what the Mueller investigation is all about.

hard for me to imagine a greater threat to our country than that....hard to imagine what would constitute too harsh a penalty for having committed those crimes...

Mueller is a Republican.

[deadheadskier]

Get a grip hatter. I don't hate you. I think joking or using hyperbole, whatever you want to call it, about executing non-violent crimes that haven't been proven shows a lack of class. That is all.

To answer your question. If what you believe might be true and such crimes were committed, I'd go with 30 years to life. I don't support executing non-violent criminals.

[madhatter]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/05/ ... eated.html

The Mueller probe is political warfare through legal means – not surprising when you consider that the Democrats are the party of lawyers, funded by lawyers.

When James Comey, in an extraordinarily partisan remark even for him, said this week that he thought Hillary Clinton believed in the rule of law, what he really meant was that she – like him – believes in the rule of lawyers. Like them.

They don’t care how their political counter-revolution gets President Trump out – whether it’s proving the original, fabricated claim about collusion; or by some legal process misstep by the president and his team; or by something to do with Stormy Daniels. As long as it gets President Trump out of the Oval Office before 2020, it’s fine with the counter-revolutionaries.

But this all-out effort by the establishment to remove a president who was legitimately elected according to the Constitution is doing terrible damage to the United States. Not just because it’s such a massive distraction from the bold policymaking that’s needed to help address the very real problems in our economy, in our society – inadequate skills and family breakdown to name just two. But because it undermines democracy and the rule of law.

How do you think people will feel if they vote for an outsider – and the insiders just turn around and say: “Sorry, you got it wrong. You can’t do that.”

In a nutshell, that’s what the Mueller investigation is all about.

hard for me to imagine a greater threat to our country than that....hard to imagine what would constitute too harsh a penalty for having committed those crimes...

Mueller is a Republican.

and yer the pope...

he may have once been a republican or some incarnation of one but he't certainly not a trump republican...

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/artic ... 36977.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As observers of all stripes assess potential outcomes for the president, Republican voters are cheering Trump on, signaling that the longer the investigation continues, the more they see themselves as fellow soldiers in his battle with an overreaching prosecutor.

"This is a battle between the forces of permanent Washington and the forces of voters outside of Washington," said Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the Republican Party of North Carolina. "Voters see themselves in this fight with the president. ... They do not like being told by the Democrats that they are gullible and stupid and manipulated by the Russians."

NPR/PBS/Marist survey in mid-April found 45 percent of voters believe the special counsel is conducting a fair investigation, down three points from March and eight from February. The poll also found unfavorable views of Mueller increasing from March to April among Republicans as well as independent voters, by 19 points and nine points, respectively. Only 16 percent of Republicans view Mueller favorably, as do 35 percent of independents.

"The American people have shown a lack of tolerance for ever-lasting, on-going investigations. And if the '90s are any guide, it bleeds past partisan lines," said Republican strategist Josh Holmes, referring to the independent counsel investigation into then-President Bill Clinton.

[madhatter]

Get a grip hatter. I don't hate you. I think joking or using hyperbole, whatever you want to call it, about executing non-violent crimes that haven't been proven shows a lack of class. That is all.

To answer your question. If what you believe might be true and such crimes were committed, I'd go with 30 years to life. I don't support executing non-violent criminals.

I'll settle for them having their day in court, whatever the sentence isn't really the point depsite hwat you imagine...

it;s that there s/b zero tolerance for this kind of thing not a deep seated cover up...that half the nation s cheers for...

[madhatter]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05- ... -out-court" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mueller Investigation In Jeopardy As "Witch Hunt" Accusations Play Out In Court

[madhatter]

HILLARYOUS

The courts were not kind last week to the Justice Department’s gamesmanship on the Russia probe, also known as the Mueller investigation, an investigation in which the cases prosecutors want to try are not about Russia, and the case about Russia prosecutors don’t want to try.


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Outrageous Redactions to the Russia Report

More articles
Previous articles
LAW & THE COURTS
Mueller’s Tough Week in Court
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
May 7, 2018 3:21 PM

Robert Mueller (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
Judges in Virginia and Washington have the special counsel reeling.
Well sure, we filed an indictment. And yeah, we took a victory lap in the big bells-n-whistles Main Justice press conference. But that doesn’t mean we, like, intended to have a trial . . .

That seems to be the Justice Department’s position on its mid-February publicity stunt, the indictment of 13 Russians and three Russian businesses for interfering in the 2016 election.

Let’s back up.

The courts were not kind last week to the Justice Department’s gamesmanship on the Russia probe, also known as the Mueller investigation, an investigation in which the cases prosecutors want to try are not about Russia, and the case about Russia prosecutors don’t want to try.

x
Judge Ellis and the Manafort Case in Virginia

First, in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Paul Manafort is facing one of the two indictments against him, Judge T. S. Ellis hammered Mueller’s prosecutors over the issues we have been hammering for a year:

(a) In appointing Mueller on May 17, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein failed to comply with federal regulations that control special-counsel investigations; and

(b) The secret August 2 memo, by which Rosenstein attempted to paper over this dereliction, is so facially uninformative and heavily redacted that the subjects of the investigation, the courts, and the public are still in the dark. The factual basis for a criminal investigation is still unknown, as are the boundaries of Mueller’s jurisdiction — with Mueller’s prosecutors paying lip service to the notion of limits, even as they argue that, essentially, there are none.

Judge Ellis was ornery with prosecutors at Friday’s hearing (Power Line’s Scott Johnson has posted the transcript here). He was particularly blunt about two other issues we’ve repeatedly highlighted:

(1) The two Manafort indictments (the one in Virginia and the other in Washington, D.C.) have nothing to do with the special counsel’s mandate to probe Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, so one can only conclude that Mueller is squeezing Manafort, the former campaign manager, to get him to cooperate against President Trump; and

(2) Mueller’s investigation is really about seeking a basis to impeach Trump.


Alas, figuring that he was playing with the house money, Mueller made a reckless bet: He charged not only Russian individuals but three Russian businesses. A business doesn’t have the same risks as a person. A business can’t be thrown in jail. And while members of Mueller’s prosecutorial stable have a history of putting real businesses out of business, a business that is run by a Putin crony and serves as a front for Kremlin operations is not too worried about that either.

So . . . guess what? One of those Russian businesses, Concord Management and Consulting, wants its day in court. It has retained the Washington law firm of Reed Smith, two of whose partners, Eric Dubelier and Katherine Seikaly, have told Mueller that Concord is ready to have its trial — and by the way, let’s see all the discovery the law requires you to disclose, including all the evidence you say supports the extravagant allegations in the indictment.

Needless to say, Mueller’s team is not happy about this development since this is not a case they figured on having to prosecute to anything more than a successful press conference. So, they have sought delay on the astonishing ground that the defendant has not been properly served — notwithstanding that the defendant has shown up in court and asked to be arraigned.

Understand, service of process is simply the means by which a party seeks what Mueller has already got: the opposing party’s appearance in the lawsuit. But Mueller’s argument is so priceless we can’t let it go unstated: In order to serve the defendants in a criminal case in which Mueller alleges that Russia is an adversary government that conducted espionage operations against the American election, the Justice Department sought the assistance of . . . yes . . . the government of Russia. I know you’ll be shocked to hear this, but DOJ says Russia never got back to them.

Something tells me that Concord’s appearance in court is Russia’s way of getting back to them.

The federal court in the District of Columbia has scheduled Concord’s arraignment for Wednesday, so Mueller filed his papers late last Friday to try to get the matter postponed. But, as Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports, on Saturday evening, Judge Dabney Friedrich curtly denied Mueller’s request. Mueller’s prosecutors had suggested that weeks of briefing were necessary to probe the question of whether Concord had been served properly. As Concord has voluntarily appeared, however, it is not apparent why that question needs examination — if he wants to stand on ceremony, Mueller could just hand the lawyers a copy of the indictment when they see each other in court this week.

In fact, though, Concord’s lawyers have been scrutinizing the indictment very carefully, and making demands for discovery that they say Mueller has ignored for weeks. To put it mildly, this is not a case the special counsel is anxious to try; he is even less thrilled at the prospect of disclosing his evidence and investigative files to a business controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Apart from being close to Putin, Prigozhin is personally charged as a defendant in the case — he controls not just Concord but all three businesses charged in the indictment.

COMMENTS
By indicting Russian businesses that belong to a Kremlin-connected defendant who cannot be forced to leave Russia, Mueller risked exactly what has happened: one of the businesses showing up to contest the case at no risk, in effect forcing Mueller to show this Kremlin-connected defendant what he’s got, even though he has no chance of getting the Kremlin-connected defendant convicted and sentenced to prison.

The surest way to put an end to this unwelcome turn of events would be to dismiss the indictment — or at least drop the charges against the three businesses so Prigozhin and the Kremlin can’t use them to force Mueller’s hand. Of course, that would be very embarrassing. But as all prosecutors are taught from their first day on the job: Never indict a case unless you are prepared to try the case.

[madhatter]

[madhatter]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/20 ... sia-docum/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

House Republicans, DOJ reach agreement on Russia documents

Mr. Nunes, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, this threatened to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt if the documents were not turned over. A deal is said to have been reached between the Justice and Nunes, according to CNN, which first reported the story. Mr. Nunes and Mr. Rosenstein reportedly discussed the matter over the phone Tuesday night, CNN said.

[madhatter]

well this sounds a little far fetched but who the fvck knows...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/about-that ... 1525992611" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

full article here

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05- ... p-campaign" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[XtremeJibber2001]

well this sounds a little far fetched but who the fvck knows...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/about-that ... 1525992611" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

full article here

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05- ... p-campaign" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I say Strassel could, at minimum, speculate who the mole might be ... it is an op-ed after all.

[Highway Star]

CIA in on it.....

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/20 ... ennans-ec/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FISHY AS HELL.

http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/25/georg ... on-emails/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Highway Star]

Seriously...???

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/ ... n-oligarch" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[madhatter]

Central to the controversy is a statement by recently retired National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, who stated in a classified letter to Congress that the anti-Trump memos which made up the dossier did factor in to the IC assessment - which was reinforced in a CNN interview by James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence who said that the assessment was based on "some of the substantive content of the dossier," and that the IC was "able to corroborate" certain dossier allegations.

In a March 5, 2018, letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Adm. Rogers informed the committee that a two-page summary of the dossier — described as “the Christopher Steele information” — was “added” as an “appendix to the ICA draft,” and that consideration of that appendix was “part of the overall ICA review/approval process.”

His skepticism of the dossier may explain why the NSA parted company with other intelligence agencies and cast doubt on one of its crucial conclusions: that Vladimir Putin personally ordered a cyberattack on Hillary Clinton’s campaign to help Donald Trump win the White House. -RealClear Investigations

What's more, Brennan was feeding some of the dossier material to President Obama and passing it off as credible, reports Sperry.

“Brennan put some of the dossier material into the PDB [presidential daily briefing] for Obama and described it as coming from a ‘credible source,’ which is how they viewed Steele,” said the source familiar with the House investigation. "But they never corroborated his sources.” -RCI

no no no he heard about it on the news like everyone else....

Rogers said during testimony that while he was convinced that Russia wanted to harm Clinton politically, he wasn't of the opinion that they wanted to help Trump, as his CIA and FBI counterparts claimed. The assessment "didn't have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources," Rogers said.

The dossier, which is made up of 16 opposition research-style memos on Trump underwritten by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s own campaign, is based mostly on uncorroborated third-hand sources. Still, the ICA has been viewed by much of the Washington establishment as the unimpeachable consensus of the U.S. intelligence community. Its conclusions that “Vladimir Putin ordered” the hacking and leaking of Clinton campaign emails “to help Trump’s chances of victory” have driven the “Russia collusion” narrative and subsequent investigations besieging the Trump presidency. -RCI

That said, the ICA did not in fact reflect the Intelligence Community's concensus.

Clapper broke with tradition and decided not to put the assessment out to all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies for review. Instead, he limited input to a couple dozen chosen analysts from just three agencies — the CIA, NSA and FBI. Agencies with relevant expertise on Russia, such as the Department of Homeland Security, Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department’s intelligence bureau, were excluded from the process. -RCI

the assessment of Russia's interference was shielded from government experts who might be able to poke holes in the (literal) conspiracy theory. The House Intelligence Committee found that the ICA did not appropriately describe the "quality and credibility of underlying sources," and that it was "not independent of political considerations."

Furthermore, the report is missing any dissenting views whatsoever, as would normally be included.

"Traditionally, controversial intelligence community assessments like this include dissenting views and the views of an outside review group,” said Fred Fleitz, who Real Clear Investigations reports worked as a CIA analyst for 19 years and helped draft national intelligence estimates at Langley. "It also should have been thoroughly vetted with all relevant IC agencies,” he added. "Why were DHS and DIA excluded?”

Fleitz suggests that the Obama administration limited the number of players involved in the analysis to skew the results. He believes the process was “manipulated” to reach a “predetermined political conclusion” that the incoming Republican president was compromised by the Russians.

“I’ve never viewed the ICA as credible,” the CIA veteran added.

A source close to the House investigation said Brennan himself selected the CIA and FBI analysts who worked on the ICA, and that they included former FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok.

“Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan and [former FBI Director James] Comey, and he was one of the authors of the ICA,” according to the source. -RCI

Strzok spearheaded the FBI's early investigation into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in 2016 - until former FBI Director James Comey was fired, and his infamous "memos" suggesting obstruction kicked off special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

Brennan swears the dossier was not used "in any way" as a basis for the ICA - explaining that he only "heard snippets" from the press in the summer of 2016.

“Brennan’s claims are impossible to believe,” Fleitz asserted.

"Brennan was pushing the Trump collusion line in mid-2016 and claimed to start the FBI collusion investigation in August 2016,” he said. “It's impossible to believe Brennan was pushing for this investigation without having read the dossier.”

[madhatter]

Congress Reviewing 2017 Fusion GPS Testimony After Reports Of Spy In Trump's Campaign

Congressional investigators are reviewing 2017 testimony by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who said that "a human source from inside the Trump organization" had "decided to pick up the phone and report something" to the FBI.

In light of last week's bombshell that the DOJ was forced to hand over intelligence to House Intel Committee Chair Devin Nunes which points to a mole within the Trump campaign, both House and Senate oversight panels are taking a fresh look at Simpson's testimony about that "human source."

In other words - did Steele tell Simpson about the FBI's alleged mole in the Trump campaign?

“Glenn Simpson said that in what was closed testimony. Then it became public. Now he’s confirmed that he was telling Congress the truth, which is probably a good idea,” California Rep. Devin Nunes said on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday. “We believe he was telling the truth. And what we’re trying to do is get the documents to figure out — did they actually have, what methods were used to open this counter intelligence investigation?”

“I think if the campaign was somehow set up, I think that would be a problem. Right? If they were somehow meetings that occurred and all of this was a setup,” Nunes said, adding. “Because we have yet to see any credible evidence or intelligence that led to the opening of this investigation.”

Last month Nunes revealed that after waiting eight months for the DOJ to turn over the "electronic communication" (EC) - the document which the FBI used to launch the original counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign, that no intelligence was shared with the U.S. from any of the members of the "Five Eyes" agreement - that being Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

This is relevant because the FBI says that the Trump investigation was kicked off after Australian diplomat Alexander Downer told the FBI that Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted in a London pub that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The New York Times reported last December that "Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role."

This was clearly not true according to the EC, which states that no intelligence passed through Five Eyes official channels.

To summarize: it appears that the counterintelligence investigation launched against Donald Trump and his team was not based on any type of official intelligence, as many have speculated over the past year, and that the FBI had a mole in the Trump campaign - which Christopher Steele knew about.

remember the rosenbergs?

[XtremeJibber2001]

Rogers said during testimony that while he was convinced that Russia wanted to harm Clinton politically, he wasn't of the opinion that they wanted to help Trump, as his CIA and FBI counterparts claimed. The assessment "didn't have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources," Rogers said.

Makes you wonder why the Ruskies would prefer Trump over Clinton. Did they fear Clinton?