Political Roundtable Part XVII

[stilldropin20]

Its funny you just posted this because its being discussed on the news as well speak.

"And Comey said it was salacious and unverified" (Comey was referring to the "Pee Pee" aspect, not the entire dossier. This was in his live testimony)

"And McCabe allegedly said that the warrant would have been obtained with out it." (That's comes from Devin Nunez. Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong.)

the mccabe quote has been reported as a direct quote from his testimony in front of senate judiciary committee.

recall that this memo is nothing more than a compilation of various investigations and testimony. This is NOT a result of Nunes' investigation. rather a summary of many investigations.

Keep in mind that Devin Nunes authored most/all of the current FISA law. Nunes also serves as oversight for FISA abuse. So this is a FISA abuse memo. Written by none of other than the chair of FISA oversight.


So Nunes wrote a lawful memo, on FISA abuse. Presented it to the entire house. then brought it to the president to declassify so that it could be made public. The author of the FISA law and current chairman of FISA abuse thinks this is important!!!

This is the same Devin Nunes that while investigating Russian election interference ran to the WH like a little **** to give them info and confer.

So yeah, not exactly on the up and up as far as I'm concerned.

yes that exact same guy who was chair of FISA oversight then just as he is now. He reported a FISA abuse to the president then. And he is reporting a more complete report of FISA abuse now. Yes, indeed, that very same chairman of FISA oversight.

[Pointgod]

Nunes just voted to expand FISA while simultaneously authoring this memo describing the vast and pervasive problem of FBI overreach with FISA. GMAFB

I posted a list of a couple of Republicans that crowed about the abuse of Fisa then reauthorized it. They have to be the stupidest hacks attempting to derail an investigation.

[Wizardspride]

I posted the tweet to this a few days ago but I'm going to post a few paragraphs to make sure its seen.

In light of today's events its relevant.

https://www.justsecurity.org/51630/five-questions-nunes-memo-answer/

1. When did the FBI open an investigation on Carter Page?

It’s important to understand that just because the FBI receives information (like the Steele Dossier), the Bureau cannot immediately run to a FISA court and obtain a warrant. A FISA warrant itself does not make a “case;” rather, it’s an investigative tool used in support of an existing national security case, one that normally would have been opened months, if not years, prior. In fact, FISA warrants can be approved only for what are called Full Investigations. These are the most serious class of investigations within the FBI and require an “articulable factual basis” to open: For counterintelligence cases on U.S. persons (USPERs), these cases involve facts demonstrating that the subject is in contact with and working on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. That means that, at some point prior to obtaining the FISA warrant, the FBI opened an investigation on Carter Page, obtained enough factual evidence to justify making it a Full Investigation, and would have done enough investigative activity to be able to put together a FISA application.

In fact, Page was already on the FBI’s radar as far back as 2013, when they obtained recordings of Russian foreign intelligence officials discussing targeting Page for recruitment. FBI officials at that time interviewed Page and warned him that he was being targeted – Page admitted that he had been in contact with these officers (not knowing they were Russian intelligence operatives) and has said that he shared “immaterial information and publicly available research documents” with the Russian spies. As former CIA officers and I have described, this would be consistent with the early stage of an intelligence recruitment process, and the FBI would have likely kept tabs on Russia’s efforts to see if they persisted and succeeded. There are even reports that Page was under FISA surveillance in 2014, which could have strengthened the basis for a new one in 2016 with renewed Russian interest in him. The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence obtained intercepts as early as spring 2015 of Russians discussing “meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers.” By the time Page joined the Trump campaign in 2016, the FBI would have had three years to monitor the recruitment process unfolding (Page continued his contacts with Russia through this time, and his unusual trip to Moscow in summer 2016 was no secret) – and this is the process the FBI would have outlined in its application to the FISA court in 2016 to demonstrate how and why Page was “engaging in clandestine intelligence activity on behalf of a foreign power” to obtain surveillance.

THE TAKEAWAY: If the Nunes Memo does not indicate when the investigation underlying the Page FISA application was opened or how many months/years of investigative activity preceding the dossier is detailed in the Page FISA application, it is not telling a sufficiently complete or accurate story.

2. Who in the DOJ conducted the Woods Procedures on the FISA application?

Here’s where the rubber meets the road in the FISA process. Even if the FBI were inclined to put together a slipshod FISA application, they can’t sneak it into court without going through a bunch of lawyers at DOJ. I’ve outlined the entire process previously, but it’s the careful vetting process conducted by the National Security Division known as Woods Procedures – named after the lawyer who developed this in-depth review, Michael Woods – where every fact contained in the application is verified. And by every fact, I mean every fact. To use a very straightforward example, say the FISA affidavit asserts that the target took a flight on a certain day. During the Woods Procedures, the agent would have to show the NSD lawyer the underlying case file, where the agent would have previously obtained, say, the passenger flight manifest for that flight from TSA and/or entry-exit information from USCIS to corroborate the assertion made in the affidavit (and a very good NSD lawyer would have the agent include that information in the affidavit itself). The same would have to be done with human source reporting, meaning that the FBI would use information gathered through different means to corroborate a source’s assertions. Can’t corroborate it? It doesn’t go in.

The hardcore tinfoil hat set will likely insist that the FBI would have just created a dummy case including fabricated evidence to prop up the FISA application and trick the DOJ. Good luck. The FBI has a case system in which every document that goes into a file is “serialized” based on the date it was added – in other words, you can’t backdate fake documents and insert them. The system is also digitized, and tamper proof, so you can’t go in and delete or fiddle with existing case documents. Finally, a single Full Investigation would be made up of a spiderweb of sub-case files – things like sources, travel, surveillances, or any other theme the case wants to track – all of which are interconnected to the main case and to other cases agents across the Bureau may be working on and might reference.

What if the FBI convinced the NSD to just skip the Woods Procedures? This would be a pretty huge risk for the NSD lawyers, since it is they, not they FBI, who have to present the FISA application to the FISA court. Without doing any kind of Woods Procedures, the NSD lawyers would be walking into a federal court without a solid basis to answer the questions a judge might ask about the underlying investigation or the target. Pro tip: This is not a good set up for getting a FISA order to be approved.

THE TAKEAWAY: If the Nunes Memo doesn’t address who conducted the Woods Procedures for the Page FISA application, any material deficiencies in those procedures, or address this part of the DOJ review process at all, it is skipping over a critical part of the vetting process.

3. Who was the federal judge who approved the FISA?

Here’s where the Nunes conspiracy theory gets really dicey: For it to be true, it necessarily involves members of the federal judiciary. This is because when all is said and done, the FISA judge – one of 11 district court judges who sit on the FISA court in rotation (and who were appointed by Republicans and Democrats) – makes the ultimate call. The current talking points from GOP House members who have seen them memo and buy its contents suggest that Nunes has attempted to get around directly implicating a federal judge in a conspiracy by suggesting that s/he got “tricked” by the wily FBI/DOJ. In other words, the FBI and DOJ just happened to be assigned a judge who skipped breakfast and was running on such low blood sugar that they just didn’t pay attention to the details of a FISA application asking to surveil a USPER who just happened to be a former national security adviser to a current U.S. presidential campaign. Right.

Let’s start with a quick fact: Judges aren’t dummies (recent judicial nominees notwithstanding). Anyone who has worked with or appeared in front of a federal judge knows this, and no lawyer that I know would count on being able to hoodwink one. But even one running on low blood sugar on the day the DOJ came in with the Page FISA application would have had reason to perk up for two reasons. First, the FISA statute expressly prohibits approving electronic surveillance for “solely First Amendment activity.” Legally speaking, political activity is afforded the highest protection under the First Amendment, and Carter’s former role in the political campaign would have triggered extra scrutiny and questioning by the court regarding the probable cause stated in the application. Second, any sane judge would recognize the potential volatility of this FISA application, and understand that given Congress’ oversight role with FISA, the application could (and likely would) come under close scrutiny at some point. No judge in his or her right mind would have signed their name to a FISA order of this level without carefully reviewing the underlying facts.

THE TAKEAWAY: Alleging a concerted conspiracy by the FBI/DOJ in obtaining the Page FISA necessarily implicates the judge who approved it, and suggests they are incompetent (at best) or corrupt (at worst). If Nunes is alleging serious crimes on the part of the FBI and DOJ, he must put his money where his mouth is and identify the judge who approved the FISA application. If he doesn’t, it’s likely because even he knows that this would be taking his accusations too far.

4. Was the FISA warrant ever extended?

This is a critical question, because even if the FBI managed to “dress up” the dossier without any other supporting evidence, bypassed the vetting procedure, and got past a federal judge, the most they would get for all of this work is three months of surveillance. This is because when a FISA order is obtained on an USPER, the FBI must go back to the FISA court (perhaps before a different judge than the first time) within 90 days and demonstrate that the surveillance has, in fact yielded foreign intelligence substantiating the original probable cause alleging that the target is engaging in clandestine intelligence activity on behalf of a foreign power. If the FBI cannot show this evidence, the surveillance is terminated.

According to news reports, at least one other FISA warrant – the first one on former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort – ceased. (Another one was subsequently obtained.) This shows that the FISA court takes this requirement seriously. More importantly, by the time Rod Rosenstein was appointed as Deputy Attorney General by President Trump, a FISA order on Carter Page, if it was still running, would have been in effect for close to six months. This means that the surveillance would have already been extended at least once by a FISA court based on new communications collected after the order, thereby validating the basis for the original order itself.

THE TAKEAWAY: Neither the FBI nor the DOJ has the power to extend a FISA surveillance order, they must request it. If a request to extend FISA surveillance that began in September 2016 was made by DAG Rosenstein in or around March 2017, the FBI had shown a federal judge that it had collected additional foreign intelligence information justifying the original order at least once already, around December 2016. The Nunes Memo should address the fact that additional information validating the original FISA order was obtained, and reviewed and approved by a (potentially additional) federal judge, in addition to new administration staff at the DOJ.

In sum, the Nunes Memo reportedly alleges that at least a dozen FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors fabricated evidence, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to commit perjury, lucked out on being randomly assigned Judge Low Blood Sugar who looked the other way, and – coincidentally – ended up obtaining evidence that justified extending the initial FISA surveillance. This conspiracy was presumably signed off on by former FBI Director James “I Cannot Tell a Lie” Comey – who, while conspiring to bring down Trump, actually shifted the election in his favor by informing Congress he had reopened the Hillary Clinton email investigation one month after the Page FISA warrant. The sham FISA was validated by one or more federal judges who either didn’t know better or were in on the whole secret and later accepted and used by Special Counsel Mueller who was not a part of the FBI during this time at all. And despite this widespread and outrageous conduct, the current Assistant Attorney General, a Trump appointee, wrote Nunes about the memo to say, “we are currently unaware of any wrongdoing relating to the FISA process.”

The answers to the questions above are necessary to substantiate allegations of misconduct in the FISA process. If Nunes has in fact singlehandedly uncovered this vast criminal enterprise, it’s hard to know what’s more astonishing: That a government bureaucracy managed to pull it off – or that Nunes has exposed it all in a scant four-page memo.

[verbal8]

calling it now.

attorney general

Read on Twitter

For president Pence?

[stilldropin20]

Strong wages and jobs report yesterday. Wages are increasing!! Thats a good thing. for main street.

Not wall street. Dow sinking today. down 2.5% 660 points!!!!

[Ruzious]

the mccabe quote has been reported as a direct quote from his testimony in front of senate judiciary committee.

recall that this memo is nothing more than a compilation of various investigations and testimony. This is NOT a result of Nunes' investigation. rather a summary of many investigations.

Keep in mind that Devin Nunes authored most/all of the current FISA law. Nunes also serves as oversight for FISA abuse. So this is a FISA abuse memo. Written by none of other than the chair of FISA oversight.


So Nunes wrote a lawful memo, on FISA abuse. Presented it to the entire house. then brought it to the president to declassify so that it could be made public. The author of the FISA law and current chairman of FISA abuse thinks this is important!!!

This is the same Devin Nunes that while investigating Russian election interference ran to the WH like a little **** to give them info and confer.

So yeah, not exactly on the up and up as far as I'm concerned.

yes that exact same guy who was chair of FISA oversight then just as he is now. He reported a FISA abuse to the president then. And he is reporting a more complete report of FISA abuse now. Yes, indeed, that very same chairman of FISA oversight.

Problem is he went into business for himself when he went to the president in that previous visit to the WH without conferring with the members of his committee or even discussing the evidence - doing everything the wrong way. That was treason. Everything he does is tainted by that, and when there's a question of credibility, he's got absolutely none - which is one reason why this memo thing is a complete joke. We can't have someone like that heading any Congressional intelligence committees.

[payitforward]

Researchers around the world have been attempting to determine whether there is a natural limit to BS. It seems that they were near to a positive conclusion, an algorithm for the self-eliminating end of crapola, when someone directed them to this thread, whereupon began a great gnashing of teeth & tearing of hair, deep sadness & tears, the raising of hands to the heavens to beseech the almighty:

"Why, G-d, oh why do you visit this upon us -- & especially, why do you visit it on your good servant & true, PIF?"

Apparently no answer was forthcoming. "We must be patient," the researchers counseled one another, "& return to our work, with an undimmed confidence that victory will be ours in the end."

[montestewart]

yo fellas, stop with the moron and clown comments!

agree, but im only going to take so much personal attacks before i go back at 'em. And I dont mind playing dirty if that's what they want. This place is suppose to be fun and we should be entertaining each other. So long as they're insults are funny its all good in that regard. But like i said, i will go back at them from time to time.

But really they just want to distract from the contents of the memo. We know this.

Political conversations can get hot and heavy (ask AFM). That's why we usually skip them at holiday gatherings. I try to keep the name calling to a minimum, and when I do, I'm not taking a side (I might other times), just trying to steer back onto the crazy road. Carry on, me droogs!

[stilldropin20]

SD20 and Nate. Now that you've seen the memo what do you want to happen? Don't just say something nebulous like heads need to roll. I want specific people and tell me what laws were broken and what they need to be charged with.

It's a difficult scenario.

There are clearly several people in the FBI and holdovers from Justice who have an animosity towards Trump. We already have evidence of intentional omissions of vital information in the FISA warrant, not to mention the horrible Strzok/Page texts which show clear bias and partisanship in the FBI. I think McCabe is compromised as well given all the money he has taken from the Clintons and his central role in this FISA fiasco.

Sessions needs to get these people out of here, but when he does, the media will cry foul and start saying this is all obstruction of justice.

For now, I'll be patient. There are other investigations going on, particularly the Inspector General investigation that will shed more light on the matter.

i agree with Nate. but i will take it a step further and call for full disclosure and transparency on this entire election cycle.

To inlcude:

1. Full investigation into all briefs and all communication to then president Obama regarding everything on this matter. the public deserves to know if this came from the very top of the opposition party. Same for Lynch, Yates, Comey

2. Once all the "evidence" is gathered, i want to see prosecution of any and all the FBI/DOJ indivduals that perverted the justice system.

3. If any "evidence" against President trump and his team was illegally obtained it must be removed from the record. Including any communications that may or may not have been picked up while illegally monitoring Carter Page.

4. I already understand that the top cops at FBI and attorneys at DOJ are all appointees and therefore nothing more than partisan hacks no matter how much they claim to be impartial purveyors of "justice." So I'm not shocked.

but we clearly have a serious issue with the transfer of power. Congress holds up political appointees while the "new guy" is getting acclimated to his new office. This forces the incoming admin guy to work with the outgoing admin. who again were appointees often of the outgoing administration. So there is too much opportunity to booby trap or rig the DOJ/FBI against the incoming administration.

and this is where political black mailing occurs. For example, lets say I'm the director of the FBI. and I'm a secret "trumpster" and Warren wins in 2020. I can surveil some of her staff, which allow me to surveil her. I can gather some comprosing info like photos, audio, and video of her and force her to appoint me to various positions as well as eve force her hand on larger political issues like immigration, tax reform etc. and if she doesn't play ball i can turn up the pressure.

And trump clearly has not played ball. and they have clearly turned up the pressure.

and its not suppose to be this way. it subvert democracy. It subverts the will of the people. This is how and why many politicians end up sitting on their hands and doing nothing. After 1-2 years of campaign pledges, they often end up doing nothing. and this is part of the reason why in some instances.

5. So what i want to see is much more efficient and significantly faster conformation hearings. basically the senate needs to be removed from the equation. and similar to the Vice Pres, candidates need to campaign with a group of potential cabinet candidates. And the public and the media can vet those cabinet members and politcal appointees along the campaign trail and the american public can vote on them just the same as they do with VP. because it should not take 12-18 months for a president to get his entire "team" in place.

6. and once an incoming admin has "their team" in place you will see less and less subversion like we have since Trump was elected.

7. And shame on trump. He should have known better. I knew how this stuff worked when i was 21 years old. First and foremest You need an AG (who absolutely has your back). Sessions was a terrible choice. He could have assigned promised sessions that job in year 2 or 3. But he needed Guiliani for year 1 or one of his personal attorneys that had the credentials. The he needed an FBI director (who brings his own 3-4 people in at the top of the FBI), and then you need to make promises to all the members of congress who have you back. So in a way. Its hard to have mercy. I found myself often asking why he didn't clean house. Was he keeping his enemies close?

[stilldropin20]

calling it now.

attorney general

Read on Twitter

For president Pence?

the absolute last thing any liberals should want is to see president Mike Pence. This man is a sociopath evangelical to the highest of degrees. I may come across as a conservative on here but I'm not. I am a lifelong democrat and a hardline social liberal. i believe in social programs THAT WORK. and I believe in pro choice. up unitl that baby can live and breath on its own. and I fully believe in all kinds of medical/scientific research. Everything. I am an extremely social liberal. And as much as i support Donald Trump, i would be scared for the future of our country if pence was elected.

For starters he would not get anything done. Not tax reform. Not entitlement reform. Not anything.

All Mike Pence would do is reverse all the ideological social reform work of the past 20-30 years. Him and Sessions could set us back 3-4 decades.

But Trump needed him to win. he needed the religious right. So long as trump is in charge the damage those 2 can do is minimal.

You libs need to fully understand that.

[cammac]

House Intelligence Committee Minority Response to Release of Chairman Nunes’ Misleading Memo
Washington, DC – Today, the Minority of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence responded to the release of HPSCI Chairman Nunes’ memo:

“Chairman Nunes’ decision, supported by House Speaker Ryan and Republican Members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to publicly release misleading allegations against the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation is a shameful effort to discredit these institutions, undermine the Special Counsel’s ongoing investigation, and undercut congressional probes. Furthermore, their refusal to allow release of a comprehensive response memorandum prepared by Committee Democrats is a transparent effort to suppress the full truth.

“As the DOJ emphasized to Chairman Nunes, the decision to employ an obscure and never before used House rule to release classified information without DOJ and FBI vetting was ‘extraordinarily reckless.’ The selective release and politicization of classified information sets a terrible precedent and will do long-term damage to the Intelligence Community and our law enforcement agencies. If potential intelligence sources know that their identities might be compromised when political winds arise, those sources of vital information will simply dry up, at great cost to our national security.

“The Republican document mischaracterizes highly sensitive classified information that few Members of Congress have seen, and which Chairman Nunes himself chose not to review. It fails to provide vital context and information contained in DOJ’s FISA application and renewals, and ignores why and how the FBI initiated, and the Special Counsel has continued, its counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s election interference and links to the Trump campaign. The sole purpose of the Republican document is to circle the wagons around the White House and insulate the President. Tellingly, when asked whether the Republican staff who wrote the memo had coordinated its drafting with the White House, the Chairman refused to answer.
“The premise of the Nunes memo is that the FBI and DOJ corruptly sought a FISA warrant on a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, and deliberately misled the court as part of a systematic abuse of the FISA process. As the Minority memo makes clear, none of this is true. The FBI had good reason to be concerned about Carter Page and would have been derelict in its responsibility to protect the country had it not sought a FISA warrant.

“In order to understand the context in which the FBI sought a FISA warrant for Carter Page, it is necessary to understand how the investigation began, what other information the FBI had about Russia’s efforts to interfere with our election, and what the FBI knew about Carter Page prior to making application to the court – including Carter Page’s previous interactions with Russian intelligence operatives. This is set out in the Democratic response which the GOP so far refuses to make public.

“The authors of the GOP memo would like the country to believe that the investigation began with Christopher Steele and the dossier, and if they can just discredit Mr. Steele, they can make the whole investigation go away regardless of the Russians’ interference in our election or the role of the Trump campaign in that interference. This ignores the inconvenient fact that the investigation did not begin with, or arise from Christopher Steele or the dossier, and that the investigation would persist on the basis of wholly independent evidence had Christopher Steele never entered the picture.

“The DOJ appropriately provided the court with a comprehensive explanation of Russia’s election interference, including evidence that Russian agents courted another Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos. As we know from Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, Russian agents disclosed to Papadopoulos their possession of stolen Clinton emails and interest in a relationship with the campaign. In claiming that there is ‘no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos,’ the Majority deliberately misstates the reason why DOJ specifically explained Russia’s role in courting Papadopoulos and the context in which to evaluate Russian approaches to Page.

“The Majority suggests that the FBI failed to alert the court as to Mr. Steele’s potential political motivations or the political motivations of those who hired him, but this is not accurate. The GOP memo also claims that a Yahoo News article was used to corroborate Steele, but this is not at all why the article was referenced. These are but a few of the serious mischaracterizations of the FISA application. There are many more set out in the Democratic response, which we will again be seeking a vote to release publicly on Monday, February 5th. Unlike Committee Republicans, however, we will ask the relevant agencies to propose any necessary redactions to protect any sources and methods not already disclosed by Chairman Nunes’ document.

“It is telling that Chairman Nunes put out this memo without bothering to read the underlying materials, and that he ordered changes to the document without informing his own committee members. It is a terrible lapse in leadership that Speaker Ryan failed to intervene and prevent the abuse of classified materials in this way. It is tragic, if all too predictable, that this President would allow the release of the memo despite FBI and DOJ’s expressions of ‘grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the [Republicans’] memo’s accuracy’. But most destructive of all may be the announcement by Chairman Nunes that he has placed the FBI and DOJ under investigation, impugning and impairing the work of the dedicated professionals trying to keep our country safe.”

[Zonkerbl]

Man am I sick of this. I'm ashamed of my country right now.

[TGW]

The Dow dropped 666 points today. Is that symbolic of trumps presidency?

Sorry guys I had to summon my inner stilladumbass.

[stilldropin20]

summing it up

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[stilldropin20]

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[stilldropin20]

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[stilldropin20]

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[verbal8]

summing it up
Tweet from other crazy guy

So the FISA pre-dates the dossier
4 judges approved the renewals
That didn't happen just on the dossier
If the dossier was a factor in renewals that means it was corroborated
I am keeping an open mind, but I am leaning towards Trump having a Russian per party as being accurate

[montestewart]

Continued here