Inspector General Review of the Trump/Russia Investigation
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:
nohero said:
Example: as early as December 16, 2017:
paulsurovell said:
What seems to be emerging now is the strong possibility that the bogus dirty dossier was the actual trigger for the FBI's counterintelligence investigation which was taken over by Mueller
There was never any support for that "strong possibility", which explains the usual weasel words.
Well Horowitz tells us that the dossier was the trigger for the FBI FISA application and it was not unreasonable to speculate (which I was clearly doing) that given the timing of Steele's delivery of his first installment of the dossier to the FBI (early or mid July) and the launch of the FBI investigation (the last day of July) that there was a "strong possibility" that the installment was a trigger for the investigation.
No, Steele's work did not start the investigation that turned into Mueller's investigation of the Trump campaign. We keep having to revisit this. From this thread, three days ago, quoting from the IG report:
Looks like you're in "the Steele dossier didn't trigger the FISA application" cover-up mode, refusing to acknowledge what Horowitz said, and switching to Mueller, in true Facts-Don't-Matter style.
paulsurovell said:
The missing "Clinton emails" was a prominent story long before the Wikileaks publication of the DNC (not Clinton) emails. Your "sequence" is ahistorical.
Are you OK? Your response makes no sense in the context of what I wrote.
paulsurovell said:
ml1 said:
Maybe people are forgetting the timeline, and the suspicions that were raised by the sequence of events. Even if one doesn't believe that Russia was behind the release of the DNC emails, why would this sequenc of events NOT prompt an investigation?
During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.
Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, 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.Even if one wants to believe that someone set up Russia by framing them for the DNC email hack, there is no denying the emails were released to the public. Why would this not be investigated?
The missing "Clinton emails" was a prominent story long before the Wikileaks publication of the DNC (not Clinton) emails. Your "sequence" is ahistorical.
No, his sequence is not "ahistorical". Mr. Ml1's post isn't about Hillary Clinton's email server.
paulsurovell said:
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:
Well Horowitz tells us that the dossier was the trigger for the FBI FISA application and it was not unreasonable to speculate (which I was clearly doing) that given the timing of Steele's delivery of his first installment of the dossier to the FBI (early or mid July) and the launch of the FBI investigation (the last day of July) that there was a "strong possibility" that the installment was a trigger for the investigation.
No, Steele's work did not start the investigation that turned into Mueller's investigation of the Trump campaign. We keep having to revisit this. From this thread, three days ago, quoting from the IG report:
Looks like you're in "the Steele dossier didn't trigger the FISA application" cover-up mode, refusing to acknowledge what Horowitz said, and switching to Mueller, in true Facts-Don't-Matter style.
I didn't "switch to Mueller", Paul did. He wrote that he was speculating that Steele's work "was a trigger for the investigation". I gave a response to his comment about the start of the investigation that was turned over to Mueller.
Paul's use of evasion and insult only serves the purpose of driving people away from the discussion.
ml1 said:
paulsurovell said:
The missing "Clinton emails" was a prominent story long before the Wikileaks publication of the DNC (not Clinton) emails. Your "sequence" is ahistorical.
Are you OK? Your response makes no sense in the context of what I wrote.
It makes sense for the purpose of confusing things.
ml1 said:
paulsurovell said:
The missing "Clinton emails" was a prominent story long before the Wikileaks publication of the DNC (not Clinton) emails. Your "sequence" is ahistorical.
Are you OK? Your response makes no sense in the context of what I wrote.
See the bold section that you quoted below? That refers to the "missing Clinton emails" that were a prominent story long before Wikileaks published the DNC (not Clinton) emails. In other words, what you call a "sequenc(sic)" ignores this history and thus it's ahistorical.
It's this trivial, silly, ashistorical story that is supposed to justfiy the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign.
But yes, the story did meet FBI standards for launching an investigation because -- as this example demonstrates -- there is no real standard. It's -- investigate whenever you feel like it.
ml1 said:
Maybe people are forgetting the timeline, and the suspicions that were raised by the sequence of events. Even if one doesn't believe that Russia was behind the release of the DNC emails, why would this sequenc of events NOT prompt an investigation?
During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.
Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, 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.Even if one wants to believe that someone set up Russia by framing them for the DNC email hack, there is no denying the emails were released to the public. Why would this not be investigated?
nohero said:
ml1 said:
paulsurovell said:
The missing "Clinton emails" was a prominent story long before the Wikileaks publication of the DNC (not Clinton) emails. Your "sequence" is ahistorical.
Are you OK? Your response makes no sense in the context of what I wrote.
It makes sense for the purpose of confusing things.
Facts-Don't-Matter Guy doesn't want to admit the fact that there was a prominent missing Clinton emails story at the time of the alleged Papadopoulos-MIfsud conversation so it's nonsense to link this the Wikileaks publication two months later of DNC emails.
The alleged conversation was a pretext, not a real basis for investigation.
But FBI rules allow pretexts to be the basis for an investigation.
paulsurovell said:
ml1 said:
paulsurovell said:
The missing "Clinton emails" was a prominent story long before the Wikileaks publication of the DNC (not Clinton) emails. Your "sequence" is ahistorical.
Are you OK? Your response makes no sense in the context of what I wrote.
See the bold section that you quoted below? That refers to the "missing Clinton emails" that were a prominent story long before Wikileaks published the DNC (not Clinton) emails. In other words, what you call a "sequenc(sic)" ignores this history and thus it's ahistorical.
It's this trivial, silly, ashistorical story that is supposed to justfiy the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign.
But yes, the story did meet FBI standards for launching an investigation because -- as this example demonstrates -- there is no real standard. It's -- investigate whenever you feel like it.
How exactly does the bolded section refer to the original set of "missing Clinton emails"? It says nothing of the sort.
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:
Well Horowitz tells us that the dossier was the trigger for the FBI FISA application and it was not unreasonable to speculate (which I was clearly doing) that given the timing of Steele's delivery of his first installment of the dossier to the FBI (early or mid July) and the launch of the FBI investigation (the last day of July) that there was a "strong possibility" that the installment was a trigger for the investigation.
No, Steele's work did not start the investigation that turned into Mueller's investigation of the Trump campaign. We keep having to revisit this. From this thread, three days ago, quoting from the IG report:
Looks like you're in "the Steele dossier didn't trigger the FISA application" cover-up mode, refusing to acknowledge what Horowitz said, and switching to Mueller, in true Facts-Don't-Matter style.
I didn't "switch to Mueller", Paul did. He wrote that he was speculating that Steele's work "was a trigger for the investigation". I gave a response to his comment about the start of the investigation that was turned over to Mueller.
Paul's use of evasion and insult only serves the purpose of driving people away from the discussion.
I comment on the FISA application and you talk about the Mueller investigation.
So here you go trying to avoid admitting that Horowitz concluded that the Steele dossier triggered the FISA application (not "the investigation").
drummerboy said:
paulsurovell said:
ml1 said:
paulsurovell said:
The missing "Clinton emails" was a prominent story long before the Wikileaks publication of the DNC (not Clinton) emails. Your "sequence" is ahistorical.
Are you OK? Your response makes no sense in the context of what I wrote.
See the bold section that you quoted below? That refers to the "missing Clinton emails" that were a prominent story long before Wikileaks published the DNC (not Clinton) emails. In other words, what you call a "sequenc(sic)" ignores this history and thus it's ahistorical.
It's this trivial, silly, ashistorical story that is supposed to justfiy the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign.
But yes, the story did meet FBI standards for launching an investigation because -- as this example demonstrates -- there is no real standard. It's -- investigate whenever you feel like it.
How exactly does the bolded section refer to the original set of "missing Clinton emails"? It says nothing of the sort.
Because when Papadopoulos allegedly was told about "Clinton emails" it was already a big story and that story included speculation that the Russians had them. So unless you were looking for a silly pretext to start an investigation of the Trump campaign, you would see this alleged conversation in the context of the timeline that it existed when the conversation took place, as illustrated here:
What If Vladimir Putin Has Hillary Clinton's Emails?
Feb 12, 2016, 06:08pm
Paul Roderick Gregory
Despite a clear warning received almost three years ago, it has taken a heated presidential campaign and an FBI investigation to make us aware of the national security threat of Hillary Clinton’s unsecured state department e-mails. The Kremlin’s cyber warfare army has had ample opportunity to steal Clinton’s entire e-mail cache (including 31,830 “private” e-mails). Such hacking would likely have taken place before the Kremlin’s propaganda arm, RT (Russia Today), published Sidney Blumenthal’s e-mails to Clinton on March 20, 2013, presumably sending out alarms at that late date to Clinton to secure her private server.
The Clinton cache of e-mail correspondence in the hands of the Kremlin or other hostile intelligence agencies could represent one of America’s greatest intelligence disasters, giving Vladimir Putin the opportunity to determine the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election or, barring that, to cast a cloud over a Clinton presidency. The national security implications of Hillary Clinton’s cavalier approach to security far outweigh the legal consequences of her actions.
[ . . . ]
sorry - that makes no sense. You're simply projecting what you want it to be.
Since the only emails that were ever produced were the ones stolen from the DNC, it makes much more sense that this is what is being referred to, especially since it says "apparently stolen". That can only refer to the DNC emails.
The Forbes piece is just a bit of hysteria by people that thought Hillary's email server was actually a security issue. It was not. That you present it as proof of anything else is laughable.
drummerboy said:
sorry - that makes no sense. You're simply projecting what you want it to be.
Sorry, I'm talking about the contemporaneous facts at the time of the alleged conversation -- April 2016 -- you are ignoring them.
Since the only emails that were ever produced were the ones stolen from the DNC, it makes much more sense that this is what is being referred to, especially since it says "apparently stolen". That can only refer to the DNC emails.
On what basis do you say that the emails allegedly mentioned in April 2016 were the same as those produced in June 2016 rather than the emails that were widely discussed in April 2016?
The Forbes piece is just a bit of hysteria by people that thought Hillary's email server was actually a security issue. It was not. That you present it as proof of anything else is laughable
There is zero evidence connecting what Mifsud allegedly said in April 2016 to what Wikileaks did in June 2016. But there is lots of evidence of what was being said in the public discourse about "Clinton emails" when Mifsud made his alleged statement. The Forbes article is one piece of that evidence.
The only thing more laughable than Mifsud's alleged comment to Papadopoulos as the basis for an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign is your credulity in swallowing that canard, hook, line and sinker.
An outside intruder breached the DNC server on April 18, 2016
drummerboy said:
sorry - that makes no sense. You're simply projecting what you want it to be.
Since the only emails that were ever produced were the ones stolen from the DNC, it makes much more sense that this is what is being referred to, especially since it says "apparently stolen". That can only refer to the DNC emails.
The Forbes piece is just a bit of hysteria by people that thought Hillary's email server was actually a security issue. It was not. That you present it as proof of anything else is laughable.
I applaud Mr. Drummerboy for trying, but Paul isn't going to be diverted from deliberately confusing the facts in order to support the talking points he's pushing.
ml1 said:
An outside intruder breached the DNC server on April 18, 2016
I think I can guess the response to that one!
"The only thing more laughable than that alleged "breach" as the basis for an FBI investigation is your credulity in swallowing that canard, hook, line and sinker."
paulsurovell said:
I comment on the FISA application and you talk about the Mueller investigation.
So here you go trying to avoid admitting that Horowitz concluded that the Steele dossier triggered the FISA application (not "the investigation").
I "talk about the Mueller investigation" in those quotes (not going to reproduce all of them again, they're a few posts up) because the conversation was about the Mueller investigation before Paul tried to serpentine into a different topic:
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:
nohero said:
Example: as early as December 16, 2017:
paulsurovell said:
What seems to be emerging now is the strong possibility that the bogus dirty dossier was the actual trigger for the FBI's counterintelligence investigation which was taken over by Mueller
There was never any support for that "strong possibility", which explains the usual weasel words.
Well Horowitz tells us that the dossier was the trigger for the FBI FISA application and it was not unreasonable to speculate (which I was clearly doing) that given the timing of Steele's delivery of his first installment of the dossier to the FBI (early or mid July) and the launch of the FBI investigation (the last day of July) that there was a "strong possibility" that the installment was a trigger for the investigation.
No, Steele's work did not start the investigation that turned into Mueller's investigation of the Trump campaign.
"A federal judge on Monday rejected Michael Flynn’s attacks against the FBI and the Justice Department, setting a long-delayed sentencing for President Trump’s former national security adviser for Jan. 28.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Washington dismissed Flynn’s motion to find prosecutors in contempt. In a 92-page decision, Sullivan ruled there was no basis for Flynn’s allegations that federal law enforcement officials entrapped the retired three-star Army general into accepting a plea deal or that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s prosecutors had wrongfully held back 50 requests for evidence from Flynn’s attorneys.
Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador after the 2016 U.S. election, had been set to be sentenced this Wednesday. Sullivan this month delayed the sentencing pending a report by a Justice Department inspector general on how the FBI handled the Russia investigation, which reviewed topics related to Flynn’s allegations.
The report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, released last week, said that the FBI was justified in opening its 2016 probe of possible coordination between Russia and four members of the Trump campaign, including Flynn. But the report also found the FBI made significant errors or omissions in applying for intelligence surveillance warrants for one of them, former campaign adviser Carter Page.
Sullivan reviewed Flynn’s more detailed accusations that misconduct by the FBI, the Justice Department and Mueller’s office raised ethical concerns and cast doubt on his investigation, but he denied defense claims that they warranted tossing out his plea in favor of a trial or dismissal of his case. Similar to Horowitz’s findings, the court ruling undercut arguments that the FBI investigation or Justice Department prosecution of Flynn was unjustified or improperly handled."
This FISA stuff is a mess. They misled on the original warrant and then they repeated the same omission multiple times. I mean if they can do this to the connected and powerful, what do you think they can do to you.
This is a non-partisan issue. This stuff goes on with both parties in power. Obama was awful on this stuff. Trump will be no better even though his campaign was the victim. Scary.
terp said:
This FISA stuff is a mess. They misled on the original warrant and then they repeated the same omission multiple times. I mean if they can do this to the connected and powerful, what do you think they can do to you.
This is a non-partisan issue. This stuff goes on with both parties in power. Obama was awful on this stuff. Trump will be no better even though his campaign was the victim. Scary.
Wouldn't it be nice if this became an occasion to reform FISA. I wouldn't hold my breath, though.
PVW said:
terp said:
This FISA stuff is a mess. They misled on the original warrant and then they repeated the same omission multiple times. I mean if they can do this to the connected and powerful, what do you think they can do to you.
This is a non-partisan issue. This stuff goes on with both parties in power. Obama was awful on this stuff. Trump will be no better even though his campaign was the victim. Scary.
Wouldn't it be nice if this became an occasion to reform FISA. I wouldn't hold my breath, though.
Inspector General Horowitz is scheduled to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Weds. Dec.18. The hearing is entitled "DOJ OIG FISA Report: Methodology, Scope and Findings."
cramer said:
PVW said:
terp said:
This FISA stuff is a mess. They misled on the original warrant and then they repeated the same omission multiple times. I mean if they can do this to the connected and powerful, what do you think they can do to you.
This is a non-partisan issue. This stuff goes on with both parties in power. Obama was awful on this stuff. Trump will be no better even though his campaign was the victim. Scary.
Wouldn't it be nice if this became an occasion to reform FISA. I wouldn't hold my breath, though.
Inspector General Horowitz is scheduled to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Weds. Dec.18. The hearing is entitled "DOJ OIG FISA Report: Methodology, Scope and Findings."
My pessimism is based on the fact that, on the Republican side, instead of the clear danger of overzealous law enforcement the IG is laying out (it is precisely when law enforcement is so sure of their case -- sure enough, for instance, to open a full investigation into a domestic political campaign -- that safeguards against intrusive actions such as FISA warrants are most needed), they're focused on twisting it into a fantasy story of some politically-motivated deep state conspiracy. I have very little confidence that William Barr is interested in reforms to make it harder for an FBI cleared out and and replaced by Trump loyalists to spy on political opponents to help Trump's own election. Trump's conspiracy theories aren't just embarrassing or misguided, they're tools in his corruption of every lever of government he touches.
I suspect his complaint is not so much that he was spied on for political reasons (the IG report shows he was not), but that he himself wants to be the one doing the spying.
Great interview and discussion on the IG report and how the media reporting differs from what the actual report says.
drummerboy said:
there's that word again.
Now you want to erase the word. The hoax remains and clearly yours and Jamie's posts show reluctance to accept it.
Based on Trump's history and contacts - an investigation needed to be done. There was no hoax.
Even Steele wanted to refute what was in the IG report but couldn't. Did matt and glen talk about that?
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dossier-author-chris-steele-refutes-key-points-doj/story?id=67636399
Can someone let me know what page in the IG report shows Horowitz's discussion's with Steele's subsource? TIA
I hardly want to erase the word - but I would love to erase the cacophony of anti-anti-trumpers who obsess over it.
Trump is elated that those on the left are using his phrase. Fortunately those like Bernie haven't stooped so low to use that catch phrase and have embraced the findings from the Mueller Report. In fact - the Mueller report laid Bernie's foundation to start an inquiry. Did Glen and Matt delve into that as well - that Bernie has been duped?
nan said:
Great interview and discussion on the IG report and how the media reporting differs from what the actual report says.
I'm old-fashioned so I read Taibbi's article instead of watching the video.
He writes: "Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz’s conclusion that there was no evidence of “political bias or improper motivation” in the FBI’s probe of Donald Trump’s Russia contacts, an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had “authorized purpose” to conduct." Since that was the whole purpose of the report, it shouldn't be a surprise that genuine reporting provides that information to the public.
Taibbi decides to cherry-pick quotes in order to write an article about the IG report and the "Steele Dossier". What he's written isn't reporting, it's picking out of some partial-sentence quotes to support his thesis.
You need a new pair of glasses.