http://www.washingtonexaminer....hing/article/2644225

This report is similar to what Rep King (R) said to Fox about McCabe's nonpublic testimony

Clift notes version:

McCabe couldn't identify any substantive allegations in the dossier that has been verified.

But, McCabe was asked if he stood by its veracity. McCabe said he did.

these congressional sessions need to be public

In a seven-hour interview with the House Intelligence Committee Wednesday, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe repeatedly declined to answer whether the bureau has been able to verify the substantive allegations in the dossier, or even to identify a substantive allegation that has been corroborated, according to sources familiar with the questioning.

The dossier portion of the interview began with McCabe being asked if he thought the dossier met the standard of credibility the FBI required to open an investigation. McCabe said he believed it did.

McCabe was asked to point to anything in the dossier that he knew to be true. McCabe noted that the dossier said, accurately, that the unpaid, low-level Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page visited Moscow in July 2016.

Page's Moscow trip was reported in the press at the time it happened; the simple fact that he was in Russia was not a revelation. Lawmakers reminded McCabe that Page's presence in Moscow was long established and then asked again: Was there anything more in the dossier that McCabe now knows to be true? McCabe, according to sources, said he did not know how to answer the question.

On a number of occasions, when asked about what in the dossier had been corroborated by the FBI, McCabe gave answers such as — these are not precise quotes — I can't answer that, or I don't know how to answer that.

At one point, McCabe was reminded that another top FBI official had months ago told the House that the bureau had not been able to corroborate the dossier. McCabe's response was noncommittal.

After the questioning established that McCabe would not verify any substantive allegation in the dossier, he was asked if he stood by its veracity. McCabe said he did.

this is getting beyond ridiculous. The Russian Kremlin "sources" of the dossier have not been identified. I am beginning to wonder if the dossier was fabricated by Fusion GPS, Strzok and Bruce Ohr w Christopher Steele as a shill

Every FBI agent is an enemy of this country. They openly piss on the flag and wipe their ass with the constitution. If I came across a shootout between MS13 and the FBI I'd have a hard time deciding on who to root for.

Trump needs to start firing people who do not cooperate in this investigation. The FBI may think they are above the law, but they are not. They are all traitors.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
http://www.washingtonexaminer....hing/article/2644225

This report is similar to what Rep King (R) said to Fox about McCabe's nonpublic testimony

Clift notes version:

McCabe couldn't identify any substantive allegations in the dossier that has been verified.

But, McCabe was asked if he stood by its veracity. McCabe said he did.

these congressional sessions need to be public

In a seven-hour interview with the House Intelligence Committee Wednesday, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe repeatedly declined to answer whether the bureau has been able to verify the substantive allegations in the dossier, or even to identify a substantive allegation that has been corroborated, according to sources familiar with the questioning.

The dossier portion of the interview began with McCabe being asked if he thought the dossier met the standard of credibility the FBI required to open an investigation. McCabe said he believed it did.

McCabe was asked to point to anything in the dossier that he knew to be true. McCabe noted that the dossier said, accurately, that the unpaid, low-level Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page visited Moscow in July 2016.

Page's Moscow trip was reported in the press at the time it happened; the simple fact that he was in Russia was not a revelation. Lawmakers reminded McCabe that Page's presence in Moscow was long established and then asked again: Was there anything more in the dossier that McCabe now knows to be true? McCabe, according to sources, said he did not know how to answer the question.

On a number of occasions, when asked about what in the dossier had been corroborated by the FBI, McCabe gave answers such as — these are not precise quotes — I can't answer that, or I don't know how to answer that.

At one point, McCabe was reminded that another top FBI official had months ago told the House that the bureau had not been able to corroborate the dossier. McCabe's response was noncommittal.

After the questioning established that McCabe would not verify any substantive allegation in the dossier, he was asked if he stood by its veracity. McCabe said he did.

this is getting beyond ridiculous. The Russian Kremlin "sources" of the dossier have not been identified. I am beginning to wonder if the dossier was fabricated by Fusion GPS, Strzok and Bruce Ohr w Christopher Steele as a shill

The justifications given for non public sessions are that some of the details are classified, and separately, to preclude later witnesses from knowing what current and past witnesses have said, to match their stories, “improve their lie,” so to speak.

It is dangerous to ask questions in public you don’t know the answers to.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
Every FBI agent is an enemy of this country. They openly piss on the flag and wipe their ass with the constitution. If I came across a shootout between MS13 and the FBI I'd have a hard time deciding on who to root for.

Trump needs to start firing people who do not cooperate in this investigation. The FBI may think they are above the law, but they are not. They are all traitors.

Painting with a pretty wide brush there mbinky. I share your frustration but I'm sure there are a lot of good guys out in the field doing the grunt work. It's the top layer that's a dung heap and Trump is starting to restore my faith that some top people are going to pay the price.

I'm never going to believe Hillary, Comey, Obama et al are going to get the justice that's due until they pass from this earth.
That will be a justice that cannot be meted out on this earthly world.

quote:

Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
I share your frustration but I'm sure there are a lot of good guys out in the field doing the grunt work.

+1 “a fish rots from the head down”

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
If I came across a shootout between MS13 and the FBI I'd have a hard time deciding on who to root for.

That's just silly. You don't mean that and you know it.

Making sensitive information public is always a trade off. What is in the best interest of the country ?

The "classified" argument is way over used as a smoke screen. (e.g. Clapper, Brennan, Comey)

As far as witnesses matching stories, Strzok, McCabe, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, Glenn Simpson have communicated quite a bit.

Does anyone who might be involved not know what Dep FBI Dir McCabe testified to ? Sounds like he didn't say much at all.

IMHO, this is the number one issue in America today. Did some of the upper levels of the DoJ and FBI conspire w the Clinton campaign to defeat Donald Trump both before and after the election?

We aren't getting answers.

There certainly are a lot of things that point to such a far out possibility. ("Far out" only because we don't want to believe that these primary justice organizations would do such a betrayal of trust to the country)

Is it in the best interest of the country to sit in front of the TV day after day watching these characters being grilled answer that they cannot discuss these things in public session?

You must keep in mind that these characters are not typical dumb criminals and that they are represented by some of the very best lawyers looking to take advantage of any informality, any loophole, to get their clients off any hooks there may be, maximise the opportunity for immunity deals which they might otherwise be able to claim, and that the events being dissected may have embarrassing details for friends and supporters of both parties which it is hoped will not be made public.

Congress is not the place for these events to be tried anyway. If laws were broken, those must be evaluated for prosecution, and taken to a grand jury. These hearings serve the purpose of building a record of sworn statements, and getting face time for the Congresscritters participating, as well as giving the scribbling class fodder for endless essays upholding or eviscerating events and conclusions, as well as filling air time on cable for said commentators and pundits.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...nized-trump-dossier/

Did the Obama administration launch an investigation into the Trump campaign based solely off of unverified political opposition research? And was that “research” dressed up and given more credibility than it should have? It appears that way based on an investigation of open-source information by Tablet.

The outlet’s investigation begins with a June 24, 2017, Facebook post by Mary Jacoby, the wife of Glenn Simpson, the former Wall Street Journal reporter who started Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier.

Jacoby, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who once shared bylines with Simpson, bragged how her husband was not getting the credit he deserved for the dossier.

“It’s come to my attention that some people still don’t realize what Glenn’s role was in exposing Putin’s control of Donald Trump,” she wrote on Facebook. “Let’s be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn.

Steele’s background has been used by collusion-believers to argue that the document is credible. But Jacoby’s post suggests that Steele might not have played as big of a role in the dossier as he is given credit.

Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr — the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr — also shows that Steele’s role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier.

The dossier, however, only has Steele’s name on it — helping to credential the research as an “intelligence product.”

Tablet also took a look at Simpson and Jacoby’s work for the WSJ. In April 2007 — in the lead-up to the 2008 election — they co-wrote a story about Republican links to Russians.

In that story, titled “How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington,” they detail how prominent Republicans helped open doors for “Kremlin-affiliated oligarchs and other friends of Vladimir Putin.”

They reported on Viktor Yanukovich, who had paid political fixer Paul Manafort to introduce Yanukovich to powerful Washington, DC, figures. They later reported on May 14, 2008, that Manafort’s lobbying firm was escorting Yanukovich around Washington. Yanukovich would later become president of Ukraine in 2010.

Manafort’s role now allowed Simpson to highlight corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting

Steele — it notes — had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name “at a minimum” would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could “spill secrets” to journalists.

Ohr — Simpson’s next hire — also hadn’t lived in Russia for decades and was “not a spy, or even a journalist.” “In this world, she was definitely an amateur,” Tablet writes.

“Presumably, as a result of all the above, much of the reporting in the dossier is recognizably the kind of patter that locals in closed or semi-closed societies engage in to impress expats—the kind of thing you hear in a bar, or on the cab ride from the airport to the hotel,” it says.

Tablet then goes into the bad shape of U.S. intelligence on Russia — likely making officials less skeptical of the dossier even though, to date, they have not been able to confirm any of its allegations on collusion.

quote:

Jacoby, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who once shared bylines with Simpson, bragged how her husband was not getting the credit he deserved for the dossier.

“It’s come to my attention that some people still don’t realize what Glenn’s role was in exposing Putin’s control of Donald Trump,” she wrote on Facebook. “Let’s be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn.

Oh, so both Simpson and Jacoby can be supoena'ed as witnesses. Cool.

Andy McCarthy is a former prosecutor who writes for National Review. I pay special attention to what he writes about this issue as he is very serious, and neither a Trump partisan nor a Trump opponent. What he has written (at great length) in his most recent article on this issue is quite frightening in laying out the FBI and DOJ's institutional one-sidedness to the point of letting Hillary skate to clear crimes and using questionable intelligence to justify investigating Trump's team.

Andy McCarthy: Was the Steele Dossier the FBI's 'Insurance Policy'?

quote:

In conclusion, while there is a dearth of evidence to date that the Trump campaign colluded in Russia’s cyberespionage attack on the 2016 election, there is abundant evidence that the Obama administration colluded with the Clinton campaign to use the Steele dossier as a vehicle for court-authorized monitoring of the Trump campaign — and to fuel a pre-election media narrative that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Trump was scheming with Russia to lift sanctions if he were elected president. Congress should continue pressing for answers, and President Trump should order the Justice Department and FBI to cooperate rather than — what’s the word? — resist.

Whoever demoted Strzok and didn't fire him and bring him up on charges needed to be fired by Trump personally.

Yesterday.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
If I came across a shootout between MS13 and the FBI I'd have a hard time deciding on who to root for.

That's just silly. You don't mean that and you know it.

Now if you had said between MS13 and the FBI brass, that might have been different...

Edited to fix typo: s/no/now/

Cut it out, please.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Cut it out, please.

Yessir. Sorry for the digression.

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
Edited to fix typo: s/no/now/

Cool, an ex/vi man. Do you awk and sed, too?

We have multiple threads where this might go

http://www.breitbart.com/video...oing-get-hq-special/

Friday on FNC’s “America’s Newsroom,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said a congressional committee had evidence FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe indicated Hillary Clinton was going to get an “HQ special” regarding the investigation of her unauthorized email server and ties to the Clinton Foundation during her tenure as secretary of state.

“[O]ur view is we need to find out if whether or not the procedures were departed from,” he added. “And we have email evidence from Andrew McCabe indicating that Hillary Clinton was going to get an ‘HQ Special,’ a headquarters special. That meant that the normal processes of the Washington field office weren’t followed and he had a special. And he had a very small group of people that had a pro-Hillary Clinton bias who had a direct role in changing that investigation from one that likely should have been criminal to one where she was able to walk. And so I think that we’ve gotta ensure that that never happens again, that the same processes that would apply to any American would also apply to people who were running for president of the United States.”

If there is one thing every federal employee fears it is the IG. Contrary to popular belief, the IG has autonomous law enforcement authority and DOJ IG Special Agents can bring criminal cases to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution. Of course the Attorney General's Office and U.S. Attorney must be willing and able to prosecute the case. I am amused by the squirming I am seeing at the top levels of the FBI and DOJ. 2018 will be interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
If there is one thing every federal employee fears it is the IG. Contrary to popular belief, the IG has autonomous law enforcement authority and DOJ IG Special Agents can bring criminal cases to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution. Of course the Attorney General's Office and U.S. Attorney must be willing and able to prosecute the case. I am amused by the squirming I am seeing at the top levels of the FBI and DOJ. 2018 will be interesting.

FBI's enthusiasm for keeping its dirty laundry in house (working those "purely administrative" employee misconduct cases via their own Office of Professional Responsibility) rather than having DOJ-OIG nose around is legendary within the IG community. If OIG actually gets involved in an FBI internal, it qualifies as a "big deal" an is a pretty good sign that somebody is truly and wholly screwed.

This is one of the times I wish Trump would push... back... from... Twitter. Let the process work, rather than give McCabe's attorneys a thousand different ways to claim that the agency, administrative law judge, and MSPB panel had "marching orders" from POTUS when he ultimately gets the axe.

quote:

Originally posted by DrDan:

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
Edited to fix typo: s/no/now/

Cool, an ex/vi man. Do you awk and sed, too?

nah, emacs all the way then, and still today. Only used vi (as little as possible) until I could get emacs going.