The defensive Democratic Memo written by Adam Schiff to counter the conspiracy theory generated by Devin Nunes has been official released and Trump is complaining that it’s a “Nothing”, while Nunes himself complains that it supports the idea that a “partisan document” could be used to do surveillance against at U.S. target.
Three weeks ago Rep. Matt Geatz claimed that the original Nunes memo proved bias and abuse by the FBI and DOJ in seeking a FISA warrant against Cater Page.
Rep. Matt Gaetz claims to Jake Tapper that since the DNC paid law firm Perkins Coie, who paid Fusion GPS, who paid Christopher Steele $163,000 it’s a “partisan” document and those shouldn’t be used in this way, then he denies that the Nunes memo which was written entirely but Republicans isn’t a “partisan document”because — well, reasons — he also claims that Steele was ‘terminated” by the FBI for his communications with the press, but that through his links with Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, whose wife also works with Fusion GPS, he was still able to funnel information to the FBI in later weeks.
He claims that the Steele Dossier was only confirmed by a news report by Michael Isakoff on Yahoo News which Steele himself had contributed to and that McCabe said that the Page’s FISA warrant wouldn’t have been authorized without it.
Tapper pushes back that the investigation had already began months previously after reports that George Papadopoulos had received information that the Russians had “Thousands of Hillary’s Emails”, where Gaetz essentially ignores this fact and claims essentially that the FISA warrants “found nothing” and that it all would have petered out long ago if not for the “partisan” Steele dossier.
The Schiff memo essentially proves that none of that is true.
Trump himself has claimed that Schiff is a “Leaker” and a “Bad Guy” to Janine Pirro.
Donald Trump called into Jeanine Pirro’s Fox News Channel show on Saturday night to offer a discursive rant about Adam Schiff’s just-released memo and the Russian investigation.
Trump opened with a broadside of Schiff, who he accused of being “a leaker” who engaged in behavior that was “probably illegal.”
“He’s a bad guy,” Trump said.
Trump seemed buoyant about the memo Schiff wrote to debunk the Devin Nunes memo.
“The memo was a nothing,” Trump said. “That’s a very bad document for their side.”
Meanwhile Nunes had also tried to blow it off claiming that it’s just a matter of Democrats trying to “coverup” for the FBI and for Russia.
“I was asked to serve on the transition team. It was at that point I began getting accused by all sorts of media and some platforms that I was some sort of secret Russian agent,” he remarked. “If anybody was going to be accused of being a Russian agent, I would have been down towards the bottom of the list, after you listed all the Democrats in Congress.”
But none of that is the case. The headline Talking points for Dems are as follows:
- The FISA Court was indeed told that Political Funds were used to Fund the Steele Memo in accordance with masking requirements for U.S. citizens.
- Republicans (via the Washington Free Beacon) also funded Fusion GPS and Steele’s research before they were funded by the DNC.
- Carter Page had been targeted for potential recruitment by Russian Intelligence more than once, which alone provided probable cause surveil him.
- The FISA Warrant was not a partisan plot cooked up by Steele, Bruce Ohs, Sally Yates and Rob Rosenstein.
- Christopher Steele had worked with the FBI on several previous cases and he was repeatedly proven credible.
- Steele could not have influenced ADAG Bruce Ohr to improperly request a FISA Warrant because he didn’t have that authority.
- FBI Agent Peter Strzok and Lisa Page didn’t send any texts to each other which had anything to do with the Carter Page FISA Warrant. [Also Strzok wrote the first draft of the memo that reopened the investigation into Clinton and effectively killed her campaign.]
- The investigation of the Trump campaign began with George Papadopoulos seven weeks before Chris Steele contacted the FBI.
- Steele’s information corroborated other reports that the FBI had already received from other sources.
- Michael Isakoff’s article didn’t corroborate Christopher Steele, it confirmed the fact the Page was lying about his contacts with Russia which is why he should have been surveilled.
- There are multiple classified reports which corroborate claims made by Christopher Steele.
- Steele was not directed by Hillary Clinton, the DNC or Fusion GPS to go the FBI with his information. [Hillary and Steele actually weren't even aware of each others involvement]
- Carter Page failed to report crimes by the Russians to the FBI and may have accepted a bribe from Rosneft.
- Valuable classified Intelligence was discovered through the surveillance of Carter Page which justified the renewal of the warrant.
- Several other persons in the Trump campaign besides Papadopoulos and Page were also under investigation by the FBI.
In point of fact the Schiff memo which has been said to be 3 times longer the Nunes memo at 10 pages, is actually only 7 pages long as the last three pages are simply a list of citations and references. Nunes and Trump are essentially depending on TL:DR to protect anyone from really doing the “hard work” of reading 4 more pages than Nunes generated. Frankly, this post is probably longer than the Schiff memo.
1. The FISA Court was indeed told that Political Funds were used to Fund the Steele Memo in accordance with masking requirements for U.S. citizens.
The Nunes Memo Complains that :
a) Neither the initial application in October 2016. or the subsequent renewals. disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of Steele’s dossier were known to senior FBI and DOJ Officials.
That is a lie.
Just like the points brought up by Geatz the DOJ did in fact inform the FISC that political funds were used to fund part of Steele’s research and that the intention of the research was to target a specific campaign, however the exact names of the persons involved, Christopher Steele, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS and the Donald Trump campaign were all masked, as is consistent with FBI/DOJ policy when dealing with U.S. persons.
What the DOJ told the FISA Court about Christopher Steele
There’s considerable irony in Nunes basically complaining here that the FBI was improper not to specifically name the DNC and Clinton campaign in the FISA warrant when not that long ago he was the one jumping in and out of various cars to run to the White House to have one of his own former staffers give him documents that claimed that Susan Rice and the Obama White house had “improperly unmasked” members of the Trump campaign — including Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner when they secretly met with the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emerites during the transition — and now they claim that using masking is a bad thing.
So which is it? Is masking U.S. persons who aren’t targets of an investigation bad, or is it good?
Nunes’ Memo complains about this too claiming:
b) The application goes on the mention that Steele was working for a named U.S. person, but does not name Fusion GPS, or principle Glenn Simpson. who was paid by (U.S. Law firm) Perkins Coie representing the DNC, (even though it was known to DOJ that political actors were involved with the Steele dossier). The application does not mention the Steele was ultimately working on behalf of — and paid by — the DNC and Clinton campaign. or that the FBI ultimately authorized payment for the same information.
The application clearly does mention that Steele (Source #1) was paid by one political actor to impact the campaign of another, even though the specifics are masked, which they should be due to standard DOJ/FBI policy.
2. Republicans also funded Fusion GPS and Steele’s research before they were funded by the DNC.
There’s also the fact that not only was Fusion GPS paid for a period of time by the law firm Perkins Coie, they had also been paid by GOP news outlet the Washington Free Beacon. This change from being funded by Republicans to Democrats had no impact on Steele’s research because he didn’t even know who was actually paying Fusion GPS at any particular point in time, and it wasn’t his or the DNC’s idea. Glenn Simpson was handling that had made the pitch to Perkins Coie on his own after the termination of the Free Beacon contract. Who was paying was irrelevant to Steele, that’s why he and Simpson were open to being paid directly by the FBI, even though that offer ultimately fell through.
The fact that the Free Beacon was the initial client for Fusion GPS was also confirmed by Glenn Simpson under questioning by Tree Gowdy, the one republican who actually did read the underlying documentation. So how exactly did Gowdy magically forget this when he helped craft the Nunes memo?
MR. GOWDY: Were you hired by a person or entity in either 2015 or 2016to do research into then-candidate Donald Trump?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes, we were. We were hired around October,September-October of 2015.
MR. GOWDY: By whom?
MR. SIMPSON: The Free Beacon has been publicly stated as the client or identified to the committee as the client, and I can confirm that._
MR. GOWDY: All right. I'm going to be asking you questions even thoughthere's been public reporting. I don't want anybody in the media to take any offense, but sometimes they're right, sometimes they're not right. So --
MR. SIMPSON: I can agree with that.
MR. GOWDY: So in this instance, we can all celebrate the fact that they were correct. You were hired by the Washington Free Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: That was the client, yes.
3. Carter Page had been targeted for potential recruitment by Russian Intelligence more than once, which alone provided probable cause surveil him.
The FBI had plenty of reason to surveil Page as he had more than once been targeted for recruitment by Russian Intelligence and had a history of many contacts and communications with Russians which was completely separate from anything revealed or asserted by Steele.
Page’s Russian Connections
4. The FISA Warrant was not a partisan plot cooked up by Steele, Bruce Ohs, Sally Yates and Rob Rosenstein.
Nunes’ Memo claims that there was some type of “cabal” with the DOJ including Steele, Bruce Ohr, Sally Yates and Rob Rosenstein as a pretext to get Rosenstein fired.
Before and after Steele was terminated as a source, he maintained contact with the DOJ through then Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official who worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein. Shortly after the election, the FBI began interviewing Ohr documenting his communications with Steele. For example in September 2016, Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then candidate Trump when Steele said he was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president, he was passionate about him not being president” This is clear evident of Steele’s bias was recorded by Ohr at the time was subsequently in FBI files — but not reflected in any of the Page FISA applications.
The fact that Steele opposed Trump’s campaign is not news, but this was clearly explained again by Glenn Simpson in his own House Intel testimony where he explained that Steele was concerned his research indicated that Trump was an asset and agent for Russia. It’s not “bias” but a legitimate concern by a well trained and credible operative. FBI had good reason to listen to Steele, regardless of who was paying Fusion GPS.
Sally Yates didn’t authorize the first warrant, that was done by Loretta Lynch in October of 2016 who had left by the time of it’s first renewal in January. Similarly Rod Rosenstein wasn’t in place for the first renewal in January, so this warrant was found valid long before their involvement — while at the same time Christopher Steele and his information was only unique on the original warrant since he was no longer an FBI source after October.
5. Christopher Steele had worked with the FBI on several previous cases and he was repeatedly proven credible.
Schiff’s memo points out that Nunes claims about Steele are false.
DOJ had good reason to consider Steele credible
The New Yorker Profile on Steele provides more specific details on his work with the FBI.
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Christopher Steele had noticed corruption involving Trump and Russia back in 2011 when he found that the Kremlin had bribed FIFA Officials to have the world cup held in Russia. One of those officials Chuck Blazer rented a $1,800 per month suite at Trump Tower.
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Steele came across Trump Tower again in 2013 when the FBI hired him to investigate an international money laundering and gambling ring led by Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who also rented property in the Tower. That year over a dozen of Tokhtakhounov’s associates were arrested and prosecuted by Preet Bharara, Tokhtakhounov was out of the country at the time, and later that year was seen on the red carpet as Trump’s Moscow Miss Universe Pageant.
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Steele had investigated the murder of former FSB Officer Alexander Litvenyenko who was poisoned using Polonium after defecting to England, and had indentified the FSB, and thereby Putin, as being responsible.
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Steele had never been informed by Fusion GPS that the DNC and Clinton campaign had been their clients, and the Clinton campaign was never informed that Steele had gone to the FBI with what he’d found.
6. Steele could not have influenced ADAG Bruce Ohr to improperly request a FISA Warrant because he didn’t have that authority.
As Steele had previously been a credible source for the FBI on cases such as the FIFA corruption scandal on which he had worked with Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr — while Ohr’s wife also works for Fusion GPS — and that claims that Ohr had somehow manufactured a FISC warrant against Page is ridiculous since he worked with drugs and organized crime cases rather than counter-intelligence and wouldn't have any influence or access to the FISA court.
Bruce Ohr was not involved in the FISC process
7. FBI Agent Peter Strzok and Lisa Page didn’t send any texts to each other which had anything to do with the Carter Page FISA Warrant.
Nunes’ memo also makes some claims that FBI Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ lawyer Lisa Page acted improperly somehow to boost the investigation into Trump and Russia.
Nunes attacks Strzok and Page
However Schiff points out that neither of them or any of their text messages had anything to do with Steele, his dossier, leaks to the media [leaks which other parts of the Nunes’ memo actually came from Steele not either of them] or the Page FISA applications and also points out that they also criticized several Democrats including Chelsea Clinton, Bernie Sander and Martin O’Malley, and that they weren’t just critical Trump or terribly enthused about idea Clinton as president. The text messages reveal that Strzok actually supported Ohio Governor John Kasich for president and that he also prepared the first draft of the FBI memo re-opening the investigation of Clinton which is probably why she lost the election, so how exactly was he biased FOR her?
Strzok and Page were not involved in the Page FISA applications
8. The investigation of the Trump campaign began with George Papadopoulos seven weeks before Chris Steele contacted the FBI.
The next element of note is the fact that the timing of the investigation and the warrants. Schiff points out that the investigation into the Trump campaign began in late July as a result of revelations about Russian communications by George Papadopoulos, which was after the FBI had already interviewed Page about his Russian contacts in March. Steele’s first memo wasn’t written until June 20th and the FBI didn’t become aware of them until mid-September, seven weeks after their investigation had began, and which was just before the first FISA application on October 21st. By late October Steele had grown frustrated and had begun communicating with the Press after the FBI and Comey’s public pronouncements about the Clinton investigation, and revealing that a new investigation had begun centering on Huma Abedin’s emails, while the fact that the Trump campaign was being also investigated remained a secret. This when Steele was terminated as a source by the FBI and their own offers of payment to Steele were cancelled.
DOJ Never paid Steele
This means that Steele was only a source for the FBI for a few weeks just prior to the first FISA application and that he had not provided them anything new when they sought the 3 subsequent warrant extensions in January 2017, April and late June. They had other sources for that, in fact some of these contacts the FBI was already aware of as was again noted by Glenn Simpson, for example Steele didn't know anything about Papadopoulos until the FBI told him.
9. Steele’s information corroborated other reports that the FBI had already received from other sources.
Steele’s report was actually the corroboration for other reports the FBI already had on hand, not the other way around.
Once the information Mr. Papadopoulos had disclosed to the Australian diplomat reached the F.B.I., the bureau opened an investigation that became one of its most closely guarded secrets. Senior agents did not discuss it at the daily morning briefing, a classified setting where officials normally speak freely about highly sensitive operations.
Besides the information from the Australians, the investigation was also propelled by intelligence from other friendly governments, including the British and Dutch. A trip to Moscow by another adviser, Carter Page, also raised concerns at the F.B.I.
…
Others believed that the possibility of a compromised presidential campaign was so serious that it warranted the most thorough, aggressive tactics. Even if the odds against a Trump presidency were long, these agents argued, it was prudent to take every precaution.
That included questioning Christopher Steele, the former British spy who was compiling the dossier alleging a far-ranging Russian conspiracy to elect Mr. Trump. A team of F.B.I. agents traveled to Europe to interview Mr. Steele in early October 2016. Mr. Steele had shown some of his findings to an F.B.I. agent in Rome three months earlier, but that information was not part of the justification to start an counterintelligence inquiry, American officials said.
10. Michael Isakoff’s article didn’t corroborate Christopher Steele, it confirmed the fact the Page was lying about his contacts with Russia which is why he should have been surveilled.
Nunes memo claims that the only corroboration offered for Steele was a Yahoo News report by Michael isakoff.
The Carter Page application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isakoff which focuses on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This article does not coorberate the Steele memo because it is derived from information Steele himself leaked to Yahoo News.
Instead of admitting the truth Page repeatedly denied his various contacts with Russians, which was the reason that the Michael Isakoff report in Yahoo News was referenced in the application, as was another press report concerning Page’s actions in Russia, was to point out that Page was Lying — not to be the “sole corroboration” for Steele’s reports.
DOJ reference Isakoff to inform the Court that Page was lying
11. There are multiple classified reports which corroborate claims made by Christopher Steele.
Nunes’ memo claims that Steele was largely not cooberated.
According to the head of the FBI counter-intelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Preistab, cooperation of the Steele dossier was still in it’s “infancy” at the time of the initial FISA application. After Steele was terminated, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within the FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally cooberated.
In fact, there were several other independent sources which confirmed Pages contact with Russians as reported by Steele in subsequent FISA renewals although that portion of the memo was very highly redacted indicating that the FBI/DOJ wished to keep the sources of this conformational information confidential.
Page contacts with Russians are confirmed
12. Steele was not directed by Hillary Clinton, the DNC or Fusion GPS to go the FBI with his information.
Nunes’ Memo claims:
The Page FISA application assesses that Steele did not provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British Court filings that he met with Yahoo News — and several other outlets — in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS.
This is wrong. Glenn Simpson himself testified to the House Intel committee that he didn't direct Steele to go the media, Chris instead had made that determination on his own after growing frusrated with the FBI. Simpson simply concurred.
MR. SIMPSON: Come the end of October, some extraordinary things started happening. The Russians -- WikiLeaks releases John Podesta's emails, and then, you know, most extraordinary of all, James Corney sends a letter to Congress saying he is reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation. And that was, I believe, around the 25th. And, you know, if you are me, you know, and you have been in politics and campaigns and investigations, and this is your whole world, and you have been doing it basically since you got out of college, you know, one of the things that you -- that is really ingrained in you is the rules of Washington -- and when I say rules, I mean like regulations of the Justice Department about interfering with an election. It is not something that you are just aware of as a technical requirement, it is something the people embrace, which is that law enforcement shouldn't interfere in elections by announcing investigation sof people at the last minute.
And so we were shocked, and I felt - I mean, I guess I was angry. But in any case, you know, the result of that was predictable, which is that, you know, it began to influence the election. And, so, we tried to decide how to respond to that. And when I say "we," I mean like me and my little, you know, company, and Chris and, you know -- I didn't have any dealings with Mrs. Clinton or any of these other people. They were dealing with -- that was their thing. But I was sitting on this piece of knowledge, which was that, in fact, the FBI was investigating the Trump organization for possibly having illegal dealings with the Government of Russia. And you can imagine if you are me or Chris Steele and we have been sitting here working — and they seemed to be very seriously running a counterintelligence/espionage investigation of the Donald Trump organization, and all of a sudden they announce that they are reopening Hillary case, you know, you're kind of, what's going on here?
So at that point, I, of course, was really confused, and I would say Chris was a little scared, because he didn't -- he thought that - he didn't really understand what was going on with the FBI. In any event, at that point I felt like the rules had just been thrown·out and that Comey had violated the sort of one of the more sacrosanct policies, which is not announcing law enforcement activity inthe closing days of an election.
And so, we began talking to the press·again about -- we decided that if James Corney wasn't going to tell people about this investigation that, you know, he had violated the rules, and we would only be fair if the world knew that both candidates were under FBI investigation.
So yes, they did go to the media and no they didn’t immediately tell the FBI, because they no longer trusted the FBI, and yes, Steele was then terminated as a source once they figured that out with the Mother Jones report — but then how exactly does that make the FBI part of a “plot” to hurt the Trump campaign when they’ve just terminated one of their primary sources because they wouldn’t publicly disclose this investigation in the same way they’d disclosed the investigation of Clinton?
13. Carter Page failed to report crimes by the Russians to the FBI and may have accepted a bribe.
There are other interesting revelations from the Schiff memo, one is that the allegation that not only did Carter Page meet with Russia Deputy Prime Minister Dvorkavik and high ranking executives from sanctioned Russia government oil firm Rosneft where he was according to Steele offered brokerage fees on the sale of 19% of Rosneft stock in exchange for the Trump campaign dropping sanctions against Russia [which by the way is exactly “collusion”] but also that Page was informed by Kremlin Official Igor Divyekin that “Russian had compromising materials on Hillary Clinton.”
Page’s communications with Russians
This is identical to what George Papadopoulos was told by Russians, and what Don Jr. was told by Rob Goldstein, after which they all failed to share with the FBI, which now makes both Papadopoulos, Junior and Page all potentially subject to prosecution for Misprision of Felony.
Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
14. Valuable Classified Intelligence was discovered through the Surveillance of Carter Page which alone justified the renewal of the warrant.
Lastly, the most fascinating element of the Schiff memo to me is that surveillance of Page did reveal valuable intelligence.
Surveillance of Page provided valuable intelligence, and others were also targeted
15. Several other persons in the Trump campaign besides Papadopoulos and Page were also under investigation by the FBI.
And that several other persons besides Page and Papadopoulos are stated as being targeted by the Russia investigation. My first expectation would be that these persons include Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates however all three of these persons are openly named in another portion of the memo but the persons mention in this section are all redacted indicating that the investigation of them remains active and ongoing.
Other persons besides Papadopoulos and Page are being investigated in connection to Russia
My best estimation is that these persons could be Don Trump Jr, and/or Jared Kushner who still doesn’t have his permanent security clearance at least partially because of the Mueller investigation.
Washington (CNN) Jared Kushner has been unable to obtain a full security clearance in part because of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, is unlikely to obtain the full clearance as long as the special counsel's probe is ongoing, one of the sources said.
Michael Cohen and Felix Satet also remain potential targets for their efforts to build Trump Tower Moscow during the campaign using a sanction Russian bank.
So despite the claims of Trump, Nunes and Gaetz that the surveillance of Trump’s campaign via Page was improper — with Page making two trips to Russia in 2016 and the fact he had already left the Trump campaign by time of the first FISA warrant on October 21st — that it didn’t produce anything and wouldn’t have happened at all or been renewed without the “DNC generated” Steele Dossier, the actual facts show none of this to be the case. The Steele memo did help with the 1st warrant application along with other cooberating facts the FBI had already gathered on their own which was approved by Loretta Lynch in October, but it wasn’t a significant factor with the 3 subsequent renewals which were approved by Yates (January), then Rosenstein (April and June), more cooperating information was gathered and they did produce useful intel for the investigation which was fully warranted despite who paid Fusion GPS for what.
The FBI “Secret Society/Cabal” conspiracy theory — is just that, a lame opportunistic political conspiracy theory strung together with weak supposition, inuendo and inferences that constitute far less evidence behind them than what they claim was improperly used to justify the Page FISA warrants.
Schiff appeared this morning to explain his memo on State of the Union with Jake Tapper.
This post acts as incremental update #40 in my ongoing detailed Timeline of Trump Russia Corruption. Daily details are as follows;
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February 20th —
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February 21st —
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The Chronicle reports that Adam Schiff says that Democratic Memo on Carter Page’s FISA warrant will likely be released this week.
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Buzzfeed reports that FinCEn had enough information about potentially money laundering by Manafort to move on him as early as 2014.
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David Hogg shrugs off conspiracy theories that he’s a “crisis actor” — “It shows me that I’m doing the right thing.”
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CNN reports that WH staffers have said that Porter’s domestic abuse was ignored because his clearance problems would have looked bad for Kushner.
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Trump rage tweets about why Jeff Sessions isn’t investigating Obama over Russian meddling. [Uh, hm… yeah, that happened.]
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Don Jr. tells an Indiana newspaper that Trump being in the WH is costing his businesses “Millions of Dollars” [Good!]
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CPAC doesn’t include the NRA’s Wayne Lapierre on their published schedule to limit protests, but he’s speaking at the conference anyway.
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Trump says he will hold a “Listening Sessions” with Students and Teachers who survived Parkland, Columbine and Newtown.
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Russia’s Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov accused the US of trying to meddle in Russia’s internal affairs ahead of a presidential election next month after the indictments of 13 members of the St. Petersburg Troll Farm for meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections.
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Anderson Cooper suggests that crime scene photos from Parkland should be publicly released so that people fully understand what an AR-15 can do. Van Jones states “They have a thousand excuses. And, I have to say, whenever this thing happens, if it’s a Muslim, they want to politicize it within seconds. If it’s a Mexican — build the wall. If it’s a black person — more cops and prisons. If it’s a white person, it’s mental health.”
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Sarah Huckabee-Sanders gets slaughtered for her bogus claim that Trump has been “tougher on Russian than Obama” which fits they’re pathological need to constantly one-up the previous President in a ridiculous petty way.
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Van Jones shuts down Jack Kingston’s repeated attack on the Parkland Survivors as being “Tools of the Left.”
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Wapo reports that former Russian Troll farmer Marat Mindiyarov describes that those who worked on the American desk there “were people with excellent language skills, interpreters, university graduates,” he said, “It’s very hard to tell it’s a foreigner writing because they master the language wonderfully.”
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MSNBC’s Stephanie Rhule maps out how Manafort and Zwaan are linked to Yanakovych on behalf of various Russian Oligarchs with ties to Putin, and how Papadopoulos interacted with Prof. Mifsud who had contacts in the Russian Foreign Ministry & the Russian Ambassador to England, plus Flynn's various contacts with Kislyak. [She doesn't mention Kushner participation with Flynn’s Russian contacts, and Don Jr. Russian contacts, or that Flynn was trying to setup a Saudi deal to build Nuclear Power plants using sanctioned Russian contractors, and Trump’s attorney Michael Flynn with Felix Sater were trying to get Trump Tower Moscow built with Putin’s help.]
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February 21st —
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February 22nd —
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February 23rd —
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Rick Gates pleads guilty to conspiracy against the US and lying to federal investigators and agrees to cooperate with Mueller. He admits to lying about “not discussing Ukraine” during a 2013 meeting on Capitol Hill which included Putin’s favorite Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher and lobbyist Vin Weber.
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Philando Castille’s mother blasts Lapierre ‘If he cared about the good guys, he would’ve stood up for my son’. [Right, he didn’t!]
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Trump trashes gun free schools at CPAC — which is a place that people aren’t allowed to bring guns.
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CNN denies a story pushed by Tucker Carlson and Trump that a pro-Gun rights student from Stoneman Douglas wasn’t allowed to ask a question and instead was given a scripted answer. [And who might expect that a gun-nut might try to gain attention for his agenda?]
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Alyson Camerota blasts CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp over Lapierre’s divisive CPAC speech where he had attacked the Parkland survivors and said they “hate freedom.” She also goes after Dana Loesch for claiming the media “Loves Mass Shootings!” [By that rule, they must Love Donald Trump too, because they’ve given him wall-to-wall coverage for the last 2 years]
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Mueller unseals a third indictment against Paul Manafort immediately after his last set and Gates guilty plea which include charges that hey hid tens of $Millions that they received from lobbying for Ukraine, and that he had conspired in 2012 with law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom which included attorney Alex van Der Zwaan who has also plead guilty to lying about his contacts with Gates as part of secret plan to lobby for Yanakovych’s pro-Russian party in Ukraine and support the prosecution of one of his political rivals without officially registering as Foreign agents.
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Amnesty International Officially declares Trump a Human Rights violator. "The spectres of hatred and fear now loom large in world affairs, and we have few governments standing up for human rights in these disturbing times," said Salil Shetty, head of Amnesty. "Instead, leaders such as al-Sisi, Duterte, Maduro, Putin, Trump and Xi are callously undermining the rights of millions," referring to the leaders of Egypt, the Philippines, Venezuela, Russia, the US and China.
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Trump during a press event with the Prime Minister of Australia again repeats his nutty “arm the teachers” plan and insults the SRO who didn’t enter the school at Parkland even through three other Broward deputies didn’t either. He then says that teachers love their students but armed security and police don’t, which is just fucked up. He says he’s going to let John Kelly decide if Kushner gets to keep his clearance or not, then he goes on and on about how much he needs Kushner “for world peace.”
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CNN reports that Rosenstein informed McGahn two weeks ago that the status of Kushner's clearance is pending and will remain so until the completion of the Mueller probe.
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February 24th —
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‘Blue Lives Matter’ and Trump fans are behind #FireSheriffIsrael because he shouted at NRA spokeshill Dana Loesch.
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Former RNC chairman Michael Steele says he GOP is ‘clearly’ more racist: ‘How quickly they revert to race as a weapon’
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Former US Attorney Barbara McQuade explains how a conspiracy case can be formed against Trump. “If they are soliciting things from a foreign government, receiving things of value from a foreign national, that would disrupt the fair administrations of our elections and could be conspiracy to defraud the United States,” she continued. “I think the indictment that was handed down last week, naming the 13 Russians, provides that foundation on which Robert Mueller can build if he finds the evidence linking Americans to be co-conspirators with the Russians.” �[Yeah, he’s already found that with Papadopoulos, Page and Don Jr. — he’s just not ready to indict over it, yet.]
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Mediaite publishes the original email from CNN that shows that CNN had simply asked Haab to limit himself to just one question he himself had submitted for their Town Hall because of time contraints, Fox had instead promoted a doctored version of the email to support the false claim that “CNN scripted” the questions.
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Susan Rice’s attorneys send a letter to Grassley and Graham which debunks their conspiracy theory that she had discussed the Steele Dossier with outgoing President Obama during the transition, because she didn’t.
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The 10 Page counter-Nunes memo from Adam Schiff is released with numerous redactions. [3 of those pages are actually Citations and References, so it’s really only 7 pages of core information]
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The FBI counter-intelligence investigation began in July 2016 due to reports of Russian contacts by George Papadopoulos and the FBI didn’t receive any information from Christopher Steele until Mid-September, seven weeks later.
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Page was no longer a member of the Trump campaign when FISA surveillance began in October 2016 meaning that “the campaign” wasn’t spied on by these warrants, but he had a long history of contacts with Russian intelligence officials some of whom had been prosecuted in 2013, while the FBI had interviewed him about his Russian contacts in March 2016, and he travelled to Russia twice in 2016 in July and December where he admitted meeting the Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Communications Director for Rosneft.
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DOJ did rely on Steele’s reporting for their initial FISA application, as he had been found to be a credible source by FBI several times before and had been previously paid, but they didn’t pay him this time.
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Steele was no longer a source for the FBI by January before the time of the 1st renewal of the FISA warrant because he had gone to the media in late October after becoming frustrated with Comey’s public announcements and renewal of the Clinton email investigation without also disclosing the investigation into Trump, so they didn’t really rely on Steele’s information for the final three renewal applications.
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The memo mentions that not only were Page and Papadopoulos being investigated for their contacts with Russians several other members of the Trump campaign were also being investigated — and we could expect that that would include Flynn, Manafort and Gates — however all the names of these persons are redacted meaning that the FBI/DOj may have pending investigations indictments of completely new people coming down the pike. In fact the indictments and guilty pleas by Flynn, Manafort and Gates are mentioned later in the memo — so why the redactions unless these are different people like Don Jr. and Kushner?
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Steele’s sources had alleged that he had met Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin and discussed a financial exchange involving brokerage fees on the sale of Rosneft stock in exchange for the reduction of Russian sanctions — which by the way is Quid Pro Quo collusion — and that Page was informed by Kremlin Official Igor Divyekin — just as Papadoplous was informed by Prof. Mifsud, and Don Jr. had been told by Rod Golstein — that the Russians had compromising material against Clinton which they would release in support of Trump. Other Independent sources confirmed Steele's reporting Page's contacts in Moscow, but the details about these contacts were redacted.
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The FISC was informed about Steele’s history as a previous credible sources for the FBI, and they were also informed that his employer Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS had been hired by a law firm with “political connections”, the specific names and details were redacted and masked but the obvious potential for political bias was made clear to the court.
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Four different FISC judges had approved the warrants individually, 3 of them had been appointed by George W. Bush, one had been appointed by George H.W. Bush. [This last bit was actually a hand-written correction in the margins of the memo.]
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The surveillance of Page did yield worthwhile intelligence which is largely why the warrant was renewed 3 times but details on results of that surveillance has been redacted.
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Both Page and Papadopoulos had been in contact with multiple Russians during the campaign and had been informed of their desire to meddle in the election in favor of Trump with negative material about Clinton, a specific conspiracy directly between the two of them wasn't required for the DOJ to want to keep a close eye on them both, however Manafort and Gates were aware of Papadopoulos contacts with the Russians and Lewandowski specifically authorized Page’s trip to Moscow on the same day that Papadopoulos Ministry of Foreign Affairs contact agreed that someone “low level” besides Trump should come meet the Russians.
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DOJ had included the reference to Isakoff’s Yahoo News article in September not to corroborate Steele, but instead used it along with another article to point out Page’s false public denials about his contacts with members of the Russian government.
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Nunes’ inference that DOJ Deputy Assistant AG Bruce Ohr who acted as a go-between for Steele was somehow part of a secret cabal including Sally Yates and Rob Rosenstein is hampered by the fact Ohr worked on drug and organized crime cases and wouldn’t have any direct influence on counter-terrorism cases.
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Nunes’ additional claim that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page somehow orchestrated the Page FISA warrant is hampered by the fact that they had disparaging text messages about several persons in the campaign including Democrats such as Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, McCabe had testified the had “no idea” what their “insurance policy” texts were really about, and that Strzok had personally written the first draft of the memo which announced the re-opening of the Clinton email investigation.
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Trump does a phone interview with Fox’s Judge Janine to rant about Adam Schiff being a “leaker” and a “bad guy”. He scoffs at his counter memo claiming that “after 18 months they have nothing to connect to Russia.” — which is just damn lie since Page and Papadopoulos alone talked to plenty of Russians, were informed about the DNC/Clinton hack and didn’t report it to the FBI — which is Misprision of Felony and aiding and abetting after the fact.
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At CPAC Nunes also blows off the Schiff memo as being part of a “coverup” with the FBI and DOJ then turns around and blames Obama for the Russians meddling in our election, although he did respond to it at the time while Trump and Republicans have done less than nothing about it.
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Ana Navarro blasts Nunes CPAC appearance “I think it tells you what the Trump base has become. They’re going to believe anything that Donald Trump or Devin Nunes says,” she said. “The folks who want to believe Nunes do. the folks who want to believe the Democrats do. I feel this investigation is just so politicized. So irresponsible, so off the rails. It’s like the American people are being asked to be mediators in the midst of a divorce.” [War of the Roses, redux!]
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February 25th —
