tonight on Hannity, Devin Nunes said the spying on the Trump campaign started late 2015 / early 2016.

reminder:

Peter Strzok text to Lisa Page on 28 Dec 2015:

"You get all our oconus lures approved ?"

and at the first release, FBI/DoJ had blacked out the word "lures"

Possibilities: Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer and others

https://www.wsj.com/articles/b...tability-11555022792

Barr Brings Accountability
Trump’s foes call it ‘stunning and scary.’ Here’s what they have to be scared about.

WSJ Kim Strassel

The most inadvertently honest reaction to Attorney General William Barr’s congressional testimony this week came from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Mr. Barr had bluntly called out the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “spying” on the Trump campaign in 2016. Mr. Clapper said that was both “ stunning and scary .” Indeed.

Mr. Barr told the Senate Wednesday that one question he wants answered is why nobody at the FBI briefed the Trump campaign about concerns that low-level aides might have had inappropriate contacts with Russians. That’s “normally” what happens

It wasn’t only the Trump campaign that the FBI kept in the dark. The bureau routinely briefs Congress on sensitive counterintelligence operations. Yet former Director James Comey admits he deliberately hid his work from both the House and the Senate

Why the secrecy? Mr. Comey testified that the Trump probe was simply too sensitive for members of congressional intelligence committees to know about

Here’s a more plausible explanation:

Mr. Comey and his crew have also testified that they were all convinced Mrs. Clinton would win the election . That would have meant that no politician other than the incoming Democratic president would have known the FBI had spied on the Trump team . Nor would the public. A Clinton presidency would have ensured no accountability.

Mr. Trump’s victory destroyed that scenario, and it became clear that the new Republican president would soon know that the former Democratic administration had surveilled his campaign on the basis of information from his rival. At that point two things happened.

First, Mr. Comey and other intelligence officials, including Mr. Clapper, engineered the public release of all the scandalous claims against Mr. Trump, to provide some cover. As liberal commentator Matt Taibbi notes in his new book, “Hate Inc.” Mr. Comey’s Jan. 6, 2017, briefing of the president-elect about the dossier was a classic Washington “trick.” It served as the “pretext” to get the details out, a “news hook” to allow the press to publish the dossier—with its salacious fictions about prostitutes and Moscow hotel rooms—and go wild.

Democrats used the furor in their successful push for a special counsel, which gave greater legitimacy to the FBI’s probe. The appointment of a special counsel also froze other oversight . Congress can’t have access to certain documents or ask witnesses certain questions, since that might interfere with the probe. The White House can’t demand answers, because that too would interfere. Mr. Trump’s adversaries got to hide behind Robert Mueller for nearly two years.

Second, Democrats mobilized against the other big threat, incoming Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had the authority to conduct an internal review.

consequences of the unnecessary Sessions recusal:

Namely, that no outsider would take a hard look at the FBI. The Russia question fell to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, an institutionalist who would go on to sign the final application for a surveillance warrant against Mr. Page. Again, no accountability. Meantime, wonder why Democrats tried so hard to mau-mau Mr. Barr into also recusing himself?

The goal all along has been to deep-six any discovery until a Democrat returns to the White House.

Mr. Barr didn’t merely refuse to recuse; he’s made clear he plans to plumb the FBI’s actions thoroughly. That makes him Threat No. 1 to everyone who participated in these abuses, and it’s why the liberal media establishment is now disparaging his integrity. They are stunned and scared—that accountability has returned to the Justice Department.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

side note: DoJ IG Horowitz can only investigate things within DoJ (that includes FBI).

Horowitz can't investigate the CIA. AG Barr can.

"stunning and scary" says Clapper

Barr brings into sharp contrast what an absolute waste Sessions was. In his own flaccid, clueless way, Mr. Magoo damaged our country as badly as the overt villains, Hillary and Obama, and their cohort of stooges and lackeys.

Traitors need to go to prison. Absent that, this sordid coup attempt will become the new norm, and much worse will happen. Sorry to be dramatic, but the life of our nation is at stake.

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:
Traitors need to go to prison. Absent that, this sordid coup attempt will become the new norm, and much worse will happen. Sorry to be dramatic, but the life of our nation is at stake.

Isn’t treason still a capital crime? It seems that bringing a capital case of treason and hanging the convicted by the neck until dead might be a more effective way of discouraging this sort of thing than sending them to prison. After all, Bradley Manning got 35 years but O’Blunder commuted his sentence before he served much of it. It is a little harder to commute the sentence of a traitor who is deceased. Just saying...

^^^ I'm good with hanging. No problem.

I think the "Coup" is Sedition:
18 U.S. Code § 2384. Seditious conspiracy
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384

18 U.S. Code § 2381. Treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381

James Comey is on a media tour saying he doesn't know what AG Barr is talking about re "spying" on the Trump campaign.

Andrew McCarthy wrote this article.

Remember Stefan Halper is the most likely FBI/CIA spy, but there were probably several others.

https://nypost.com/2019/04/15/...paign=site%20buttons

Behind the Obama administration’s shady plan to spy on the Trump campaign

Andrew McCarthy

In Senate testimony last week, Attorney General William Barr used the word “spying” to refer to the Obama administration, um, spying on the Trump campaign. Of course, fainting spells ensued, with the media-Democrat complex in meltdown. Former FBI Director Jim Comey tut-tutted that he was confused by Barr’s comments, since the FBI’s “surveillance” had been authorized by a court.

(Needless to say, the former director neglected to mention that the court was not informed that the bureau’s “evidence” for the warrants was unverified hearsay paid for by the Clinton campaign.)

The pearl-clutching was predictable. Less than a year ago, we learned the Obama administration had used a confidential informant — a spy — to approach at least three Trump campaign officials in the months leading up to the 2016 election, straining to find proof that the campaign was complicit in the Kremlin’s hacking of Democratic emails.

As night follows day, we were treated to the same Beltway hysteria we got this week: Silly semantic carping over the word “spying” — which, regardless of whether a judge authorizes it, is merely the covert gathering of intelligence about a suspected wrongdoer, organization or foreign power.

There is no doubt that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign. As Barr made clear, the real question is: What predicated the spying? Was there a valid reason for it, strong enough to overcome our norm against political spying? Or was it done rashly? Was a politically motivated decision made to use highly intrusive investigative tactics when a more measured response would have sufficed, such as a “defensive briefing” that would have warned the Trump campaign of possible Russian infiltration?

Last year, when the “spy” games got underway, James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, conceded that, yes, the FBI did run an informant — “spy” is such an icky word — at Trump campaign officials; but, we were told, this was merely to investigate Russia. Cross Clapper’s heart, it had nothing to do with the Trump campaign. No, no, no. Indeed, the Obama administration only used an informant because — bet you didn’t know this — doing so is the most benign, least intrusive mode of conducting an investigation.

The “spying” question arose last spring, when we learned that Stefan Halper, a longtime source for the CIA and British intelligence, had been tasked during the FBI’s Russia investigation to chat up three Trump campaign advisers: Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Sam Clovis. This was in addition to earlier revelations that the Obama Justice Department and FBI had obtained warrants to eavesdrop on Page’s communications, beginning about three weeks before the 2016 election.

The fact that spying had occurred was too clear for credible denial. The retort, then, was misdirection: There had been no spying on Donald Trump or his campaign; just on a few potential bad actors in the campaign’s orbit.

It was nonsense then, and it is nonsense now.

...

On Jan. 6, 2017, Comey, Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and National Security Agency chief Michael Rogers visited President-elect Trump in New York to brief him on the Russia investigation.

Just one day earlier, at the White House, Comey and then–Acting Attorney General Sally Yates had met with the political leadership of the Obama administration — President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and national security adviser Susan Rice — to discuss withholding information about the Russia investigation from the incoming Trump administration.

“President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia"

It is easy to understand why Obama officials needed to discuss withholding information from Trump. They knew that the Trump campaign — not just some individuals tangentially connected to the campaign — was the subject of an ongoing FBI counterintelligence probe

How to keep the investigation going when Trump took office? The plan called for Comey to put the new president at ease by telling him he was not a suspect. This would not have been a credible assurance if Comey had informed Trump that (a) his campaign had been under investigation for months, and (b) the FBI had told a federal court it suspected Trump campaign officials were complicit in Russia’s cyber-espionage operation.

So, consistent with President Obama’s instructions at the Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting, information about the investigation would be withheld from the president-elect. The next day, the intelligence chiefs would tell Trump only about Russia’s espionage, not about the Trump campaign’s suspected “coordination” with the Kremlin. Then, Comey would apprise Trump about only a sliver of the Steele dossier — just the lurid story about peeing prostitutes, not the dossier’s principal allegations of a traitorous Trump-Russia conspiracy.

Congressional investigations have established that the Obama Justice Department and the FBI used the Steele dossier to obtain FISA court warrants against Page.

If all the Obama administration had been trying to do was check out a few bad apples with suspicious Russia ties, the FBI could easily have alerted any of a number of Trump campaign officials with solid national-security credentials — Rudy Giuliani, Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie. The agents could have asked for the campaign’s help. Instead, Obama officials made the Trump campaign the subject of a counterintelligence investigation.

That only makes sense if the Obama administration’s premise was that Donald Trump himself was a Russian agent.

Relax guys, can we stop with the spying stuff, sounds way too nefarious.

Let's stick with the agencies simply used clandestine human intelligence assets to covertly collect information about/from multiple Trump associates. Also they used electronic means to listen to Trump associates phone calls without their knowledge.

See, that sounds way better than spying...

A number of people have been saying that new information is coming out over the next few months that will explain what really happened in the FBI counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump. Some of these people are Congressman Devin Nunes, Sean Hannity, John Solomon, and Sara Carter.

A big question that needs answering: When did the “investigation / conspiracy to frame Donald Trump” actually begin? Devin Nunes is saying things started in late 2015 to early 2016.

Reminder: from FBI released documents, we know Christopher Steele was an FBI confidential human source, with an FBI handler, starting Feb 2016 through Nov 2016.

If we are going to understand who did what, we will need to understand the truth about George Papadopoulos, Joseph Mifsud, and Alexander Downer. There is very little of all those interactions that makes any sense.

The FBI and the Mueller Report have proclaimed that what Alexander Downer (Australian diplomat) told the FBI was the trigger for the 31 July 2016 FBI counterintelligence investigation.

From the Mueller report (page 9):




The “foreign government” was Australia. The foreign representative was Alexander Downer.

The very first thing in this sequence was that a man named Joseph Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russian government had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of Hillary Clinton emails. That happened on 26 April 2016 in London.

Then on 10 May 2016, Papadopoulos met with Alexander Downer for a drink. This was in London also. Downer was the Australian High Commissioner to the UK.

Note: the Mueller report says the conversation took place on 6 May 2016. Mueller should be asked to explain why his report differs with Papadopoulos testimony to congress.

Fox news from 9 to 11 May 2016 was running a story that the Russians had 20,000 of Clinton emails. It was being widely discussed in the news and internet. This wasn’t earth shattering news.

Also note Mifsud was talking about “Clinton” emails. The missing Clinton emails were never released by anyone. The emails that were released through Guccifer 2 and Wikileaks were DNC and Podesta emails. The Mueller report tries to jump from Clinton emails to link it to DNC/Podesta emails.

The FBI waited till 27 January 2017 to interview Papadopoulos. He would later be charged with lying to the FBI. The FBI said Papadopoulos lied about the exact dates when he talked to Mifsud. Papadopoulos did volunteer in the interview that Mifsud had told him that Russia had Clinton emails.

The FBI interviewed Joseph Mifsud on 11 Feb 2017. John Solomon reported last summer that his sources said Mifsud denied talking about Clinton emails with Papadopoulos. Mifsud went into hiding for months. As far as I know, he is still hiding somewhere.

Note what the Mueller report said. Papadopoulos had received “indications from the Russian government”. Was Mifsud a Russian agent ? If the FBI really thought that, why didn’t they arrest Mifsud when they met with him in February 2017 ?

Alexander Downer has said that Papadopoulos didn’t say exactly what the Russians had on Clinton. Downer: “He didn’t say dirt, he said material that could be damaging to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn’t say what it was.’’

So we are to believe the FBI opened a full blown counterintelligence operation on the Trump campaign because:

Papadopoulos told him the Russians had damaging material on Hillary Clinton

That sounds even more absurd than the dossier

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gee...I wonder why CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, et. al. NEVER have the likes of Congressman Devin Nunes, Sean Hannity, John Solomon, and Sara Carter on their shows to perhaps pontificate a differing POV, he asked rhetorically.

And the Australian Report should of gone through 5-Eyes. We know it didn't from what Devin Nunes said.

The NYT. What spin doctors they have been against Donald Trump. They have bashed him w the dossier for over 2 years.

Now that the Mueller report gutted the dossier,

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...-mueller-report.html



He might have added his own interpretation to the reports



it might be the result of a "game of telephone" where rumors and hearsay passed over and over



wouldn't this be something ? The dossier used by the FBI might have been Russian misinformation

Now we know why the FBI has been backing away from the dossier for a number of months. They took it in the summer of 2016, ran w it, conducted the counterintel operation, got FISA warrants on it, and then discovered it not only was false, it might be Russian disinformation.

No wonder they keep saying the investigation started because of Papadopoulos.

And, they kept taking inputs from Steele all the way to Oct 2017 (thru Bruce Ohr)

slowly slogging thru the Mueller report. I only get a few minutes at a time to read it, and it is like walking thru knee deep mud.

This post is about pages 118 - 131. The topic is the " June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting"

Donald Trump Jr met w a Russian lawyer (Natalia Veselnitskaya) because a friend told him she had negative information on Hillary Clinton. Mueller spends 13 pages walking thru all the details of the meeting. The meeting lasted 20 minutes and ended when Trump Jr realized the lawyer didn't want to talk about information on Clinton.

No information was passed to Trump Jr. There were no follow up meetings.

end of story, right ?

Mueller's report is very detailed. But he didn't bother to observe these connections:

- the meeting was on 9 June 2016, with a promise of neg Clinton info

- Christopher Steele wrote his first report dated 20 June 2016. He gave that info to the FBI on 5 July 2016. In that first report, Steele said the Russians had a file of compromising material on Hillary Clinton.

- Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS worked for Natalia Veselnitskaya (she was his client).

- Glenn Simpson met with Veselnitskaya on 8, 9, and 10 June 2016.

Our world class investigators never mentioned the possibility that this was a set up. A set up coordinated with the dossier reports.

Glenn Simpson paid Steele to write the dossier about Russia / Trump interactions. Simpson gave Steele some "open source" information for the dossier. But, the Trump tower mtg never got in the dossier.

Why not ? Because it is so much more effective to have coordinated events appear to be "independent" when they are actually part of the conspiracy.

Mueller spends page after page about Jeff Sessions shaking the Russian ambassador's hand in a receiving line, but ignores the linkage between Glenn Simpson and Veselnitskaya.

DEM Jerry Nadler tries to make a big deal of the Trump Tower mtg

https://dailycaller.com/2019/0...e-claim-trump-tower/

New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, falsely claimed in an interview on Sunday that Donald Trump Jr. was offered stolen information in the infamous meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016.

“I do not understand why he didn’t charge Don Jr., and others in that famous meetings with criminal conspiracy,” Nadler said of special counsel Robert Mueller in the interview.

“They entered into a meeting of the minds to attend a meeting, to get stolen material on Hillary. They went to the meeting. That’s conspiracy, right there,” he added.

Trump Jr. accepted the meeting after a music publicist named Rob Goldstone emailed him on June 3, 2016 saying that a Russian attorney wanted to meet with the campaign to provide information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s possible ties to Russia.

Goldstone said that the lawyer “offered to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia.”

But nowhere did Goldstone claim that the information about Clinton was stolen.


It was later revealed that information contained in a memo that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, took into the meeting was compiled by Fusion GPS

Mueller’s team investigated the meeting, and interviewed most of the participants. But according to the report, prosecutors determined that nothing of value was exchanged in the meeting and that there was not evidence that the participants willfully broke any laws.

“Although damaging opposition research is surely valuable to a campaign, it appears that the information ultimately delivered in the meeting was not valuable,” the report says.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mueller ignores the dossier not only because it turned out to be false, but also because the Clinton Campaign, thru intermediaries, paid Russians for information on Trump. Then her lawyers lied to hide that she paid for it.

Wherever campaign information comes from, the primary consideration should be whether it is true or not.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
DEM Jerry Nadler tries to make a big deal of the Trump Tower mtg...

Nadler is such an awesome dude. I think he deserves a nickname. I think "Nads" Nadler has a nice ring to it.


.

I'm not sure what Holder is smoking.

Deroy Murdock: Obama crony Eric Holder should stop lecturing William Barr on legal ethics

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:
^^^ I'm good with hanging. No problem.

I vote firing squad... many would find the irony humorous.

Have now read thru the first 208 pages of the Mueller Report. This first section dealt w Russian / Trump administration coordination to influence the 2016 election. No charges came out of that regarding Russia/Trump administration coordination.


They even investigated Jeff Sessions.

Manafort was an out of control guy who tried many ways to line his pockets. He was out for himself. Too bad he ever got on the Trump campaign. After reading the report, I am much less sympathetic for Manafort than I was earlier. But his deals were all about him making money, and not about influencing the election.

After the election the Russians couldn't figure out who to talk to in the Trump administration to establish relations with the new group.

Russian ambassador Kislyak wanted Russian generals to brief the Transition Team about Syria. Michael Flynn explained there was no secure line in the Transition Team offices. Jared Kushner asked Kislyak if they could communicate using secure facilities at the Russian Embassy (a really dumb idea IMO). Kislyak rejected that idea.

Multiple Russians tried, and failed, to establish contact with the Trump Team. So the idea that Putin was "controlling" Donald Trump sounds ridiculous even in the Mueller Report.

The Michael Flynn discussions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak are incredibly in conflict with Flynn lying to the FBI. Flynn worked with the Transition Team and went step by step to get approval. He was tasked to see if Russia would not retaliate because of Obama sanctions laid on Russia. The Russians agreed to hold off. Flynn did this while he was on vacation.

Multiple people knew of his phone calls with the Russian ambassador. This was not a "cowboy" action by Flynn. Also seems totally appropriate. I don't know if we will ever know why Flynn confessed to lying. (Unless it is the wide spread theory that the rabid dog Mueller Team broke him financially and threatened to prosecute his son).

It certainly looks like Flynn was set up.

Lots in the report about Russian hacking and attempts at social media influence. Mueller didn't mention that Podesta got hacked because he got an email that asked for his password, and he gave it to them.

There is discussion that Mueller couldn't prosecute the sharing of the information that was hacked.

There is a short part that discusses the Carter Page FISA warrant. Mueller points out that for the warrant, the FBI only needs to show "probable cause". Not in the report, but other sources say that hearsay can supply probable cause if it is from a reliable source.

Lots of material in the report about the Trump Tower meeting. They considered charging Trump Campaign officials with "crimes" in connection w the 9 June 2016 mtg at Trump Tower.

One difficulty in charging was establishing the value of the offered information. (No information was really offered and there were no follow up meetings)

Federal election law bans contributions from foreign nationals. Mueller considered whether there was a conspiracy to violate the foreign contributions ban.

The report says if the information exceeds a value of $25,000, then it is a felony.

Mueller decided not to pursue criminal campaign-finance charges against Trump Jr and other campaign officials for the 9 June 2016 meeting.

I wonder why Mueller never worried about Christopher Steele providing the Clinton Campaign the dossier. That certainly sounds much more applicable to the restrictions on foreign national contributions than the Trump Tower mtg

Overall this first part of the report seems very weak to me, and what a waste to put us thru the last 2 years w all the false accusations from the media and DEMs.

quote:

I wonder why Mueller never worried about Christopher Steele providing the Clinton Campaign the dossier. That certainly sounds much more applicable to the restrictions on foreign national contributions than the Trump Tower mtg

Hopefully, that aspect will be investigated by AG Barr.

flashguy

sdy, I just want to say "Thank you!" for all the effort you've put into summarizing all this information for us over the last year. You've spent an incredible amount of your personal time doing this and I really appreciate it.