We are making some headway. Numerous people recognize the NYT article for what it is

http://www.powerlineblog.com/a...s-origin-story-2.php

The New York Times has now published a new version of the Trump-Russia counterintelligence investigation origin story by Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, and Nicholas Fandos

This is the new authorized version floated by the friends of the Times at the FBI. The new authorized version reflects the work of many hands at the Times

We must decode it much like citizens of the old Soviet Union decoded Pravda’s stories on internal political struggles among the leadership. Between the lines we see the outlines of the what is coming into view as the greatest political scandal in American history.

Mollie Hemingway: deep in the Times story: “A year and a half later, no public evidence has surfaced connecting Mr. Trump’s advisers to the hacking or linking Mr. Trump himself to the Russian government’s disruptive efforts.”

Sean Davis: If you're wondering what spawned today's hilarious NYT attempt to paper over widespread FBI/DOJ abuses, wonder no more. People implicated in the IG report just got a preview of it, and they know their ox is about to get gored. Spin spin spin.

Lee Smith: Why is the press working in tandem with law enforcement officials and intelligence assets to obscure abuses and crimes?

Andrew McCarthy
National Review

Spinning a Crossfire Hurricane: The Times on the FBI’s Trump Investigation

If you’re a fading Baby Boomer, you’re faintly amused that the FBI code-named its Trump-Russia investigation “Crossfire Hurricane.” It’s an homage to the Rolling Stones golden oldie “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” — which, come to think of it, might just be a perfect handle for John Brennan, the former Obama CIA director whose specter hovers over each critical juncture of the case.

The young’uns may not believe it, but back before it was known as “classic rock,” you couldn’t just play your crossfire hurricane on Spotify. You had to spin it. Fittingly, that is exactly what the New York Times has done in Wednesday’s blockbuster report on the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

The quick take on the 4,100-word opus is that the Gray Lady “buried the lede.” Fair enough: You have to dig pretty deep to find that the FBI ran “at least one government informant” against the Trump campaign — and to note that the Times learned this because “current and former officials” leaked to reporters the same classified information about which, just days ago, the Justice Department shrieked “Extortion!” when Congress asked about it.

But that’s not even the most important of the buried ledes. What the Times story makes explicit, with studious understatement, is that the Obama administration used its counterintelligence powers to investigate the opposition party’s presidential campaign.

That is, there was no criminal predicate to justify an investigation of any Trump-campaign official. So, the FBI did not open a criminal investigation. Instead, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation and hoped that evidence of crimes committed by Trump officials would emerge. But it is an abuse of power to use counterintelligence powers, including spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct what is actually a criminal investigation.

The Times barely mentions the word counterintelligence in its saga. That’s not an accident. The paper is crafting the media-Democrat narrative. Here is how things are to be spun: The FBI was very public about the Clinton-emails investigation, even making disclosures about it on the eve of the election. Yet it kept the Trump-Russia investigation tightly under wraps, despite intelligence showing that the Kremlin was sabotaging the election for Trump’s benefit. This effectively destroyed Clinton’s candidacy and handed the presidency to Trump.

It’s a gas, gas, gas!

It’s also bunk. Just because the two FBI cases are both referred to as “investigations” does not make them the same kind of thing.

The Clinton case was a criminal investigation that was predicated on a mountain of incriminating evidence. Mrs. Clinton does have one legitimate beef against the FBI: Then-director James Comey went public with some (but by no means all) of the proof against her. In is not proper for law-enforcement officials to publicize evidence from a criminal investigation unless formal charges are brought.

In the scheme of things, though, this was a minor infraction. The scandal here is that Mrs. Clinton was not charged. She likes to blame Comey for her defeat; but she had a chance to win only because the Obama Justice Department and the FBI tanked the case against her — in exactly the manner President Obama encouraged them to do in public commentary.

By contast, the Trump case is a counterintelligence investigation. Unlike criminal cases, counterintelligence matters are classified. If agents had made public disclosures about them, they would have been committing crimes and violating solemn agreements with foreign intelligence services — agreements without which those services would not share information that U.S. national-security officials need in order to protect our country.

In the scheme of things, though, the problem is not that the FBI honored its confidentiality obligations in the Trump case while violating them in the Clinton case. The scandal is that the FBI, lacking the incriminating evidence needed to justify opening a criminal investigation of the Trump campaign, decided to open a counterintelligence investigation. With the blessing of the Obama White House, they took the powers that enable our government to spy on foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans — Americans who just happened to be their political adversaries.

The Times averts its eyes from this point — although if a Republican administration tried this sort of thing on a Democratic candidate, it would be the only point.

Like the Justice Department and the FBI, the paper is banking on Russia to muddy the waters. Obviously, Russia was trying to meddle in the election, mainly through cyber-espionage — hacking. There would, then, have been nothing inappropriate about the FBI’s opening up a counterintelligence investigation against Russia. Indeed, it would have been irresponsible not to do so. That’s what counterintelligence powers are for.

But opening up a counterintelligence investigation against Russia is not the same thing as opening up a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign.

The media-Democrat complex has tried from the start to conflate these two things. That explains the desperation to convince the public that Putin wanted Trump to win. It explains the stress on contacts, no matter how slight, between Trump campaign figures and Russians. They are trying to fill a gaping void they hope you don’t notice: Even if Putin did want Trump to win, and even if Trump-campaign advisers did have contacts with Kremlin-tied figures, there is no evidence of participation by the Trump campaign in Russia’s espionage.

That is the proof that would have been needed to justify investigating Americans. Under federal law, to establish that an American is acting as an agent of a foreign power, the government must show that the American is purposefully engaging in clandestine activities on behalf of a foreign power, and that it is probable that these activities violate federal criminal law. (See FISA, Title 50, U.S. Code, Section 1801(b)(2), further explained in the last six paragraphs of my Dec. 17 column.)

But of course, if the FBI had had that kind of evidence, they would not have had to open a counterintelligence investigation. They would not have had to use the Clinton campaign’s opposition research — the Steele dossier — to get FISA-court warrants. They would instead have opened a criminal investigation, just as they did on Clinton when there was evidence that she committed felonies.

To the contrary, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation in the absence of any (a) incriminating evidence, or (b) evidence implicating the Trump campaign in Russian espionage. At the height of the 2016 presidential race, the FBI collaborated with the CIA to probe an American political campaign. They used foreign-intelligence surveillance and informants.

That’s your crossfire hurricane.

Link

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
the FBI did not open a criminal investigation. Instead, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation and hoped that evidence of crimes committed by Trump officials would emerge. But it is an abuse of power to use counterintelligence powers, including spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct what is actually a criminal investigation.

I'm sure it will look 'political' when only Democrats are pillioried for this.

Someone could put up a 'gofundme' for tar and feathers, and make a killing.

Trump lashed out at undocumented immigrants during a White House meeting, calling those trying to breach the country’s borders “animals” (link: https://nyti.ms/2rJgCjs) nyti.ms/2rJgCjs

********

Peruse Twitter or Facebook right now, and you’ll see this line everywhere — and not solely in the feeds of left-leaning journalists or from admitted critics of the president. Collectively, this is the line that the “down-the-middle” press has elected to sell. In the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson complains that, “calling immigrants ‘animals,’ Trump evokes an ugly history of dehumanization.” USA Today reports that “Trump ramps up rhetoric on undocumented immigrants: ‘These aren’t people. These are animals.'” The Huffington Post gripes that “Trump Refers To Immigrants As ‘Animals.’ Again.”

This isn’t true. Trump didn’t “lash out at undocumented immigrants,” or “refer to immigrants as ‘animals.'” Rather, he referred to members of the murderous gang, MS-13, as “animals” after a questioner brought the outfit up by name. That he was responding to the question, not riffing on illegal immigrants in general, is extremely obvious to anyone who has watched the full footage of the exchange, which, presumably, is why every single news story that suggests otherwise features a truncated clip or transcript that edits the questioner out. Here, from CSPAN, is a good example of the trick.

What these outlets are doing here is lying. There is no more accurate way of putting it. One can forgive the thousands of people who see this false information and reflexively believe it to be true — unless they look into the matter, they will know no better. But one cannot forgive those who are deliberately spreading falsehoods. Trump himself is a habitual liar — to the point at which he lies about things about which there is no obvious incentive to lie. If the press thinks they can change that by spreading lies themselves, it’s going to be sorely disappointed.

Link

https://www.reuters.com/articl...filing-idUSKCN1II2EN

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office notified a federal court in Virginia on Thursday it had filed under seal an unredacted memorandum that is expected to shed light on the scope of his wide-ranging probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.


The filing, made as part of Mueller’s criminal case against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was requested by the judge, who told prosecutors earlier this month he wanted to see an unredacted copy of an August 2017 memo written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein which fleshed out Mueller’s investigative mandate.

In a court hearing two weeks ago in the Eastern District of Virginia, Judge T.S. Ellis told Mueller’s office to turn over a copy of the memo under seal to him by this Friday so he could review it before deciding whether or not to dismiss the charges against Manafort.

Manafort is facing two indictments by Mueller in Virginia and Washington that charge him with an array of crimes, from conspiring to launder money and failing to register as a foreign agent, to bank and tax fraud.

He has sought to have both cases dismissed on the grounds that Mueller has exceeded his authority, and that Rosenstein granted the special counsel too much power when he was appointed exactly one year ago on Thursday.

Paul Sperry again. Sounds like he has a source leaking to him

Paul Sperry tweet:

IG Horowitz has found "reasonable grounds" for believing there has been a violation of federal criminal law in the FBI/DOJ's handling of the Clinton investigation/s and has referred his findings of potential criminal misconduct to Huber for possible criminal prosecution

http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...clinton-email-probe/

Paul Sperry is an American conservative author and political commentator.

He writes pieces for NY Post.

Gina Haspel was confirmed Thursday as CIA director, becoming the first woman to lead the agency and overcoming initial Democratic opposition regarding her role in post-9/11 interrogation and detention practices.

The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm President Trump's nominee, with six Democrats supporting and two Republicans defecting. Haspel, whose nomination was endorsed by the Senate Intelligence Committee a day earlier, previously was deputy director and has spent her career with the agency.

Haspel earned emphatic support from GOP lawmakers as well as intelligence community members from both Democratic and Republican administrations.

"The safety and security of the American people depend on capable intelligence leadership. Gina Haspel is the right woman at the right time," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said.

But her history as base chief at a black-site prison in Thailand in 2002, where techniques such as waterboarding were used on terror suspects, came under scrutiny during the confirmation process. Republican supporters accused Democrats of politicizing her nomination and initially trying to derail an otherwise highly qualified nominee.

At her confirmation hearing last week, Democrats grilled her on her views on what they deemed torture, as well as objecting to what they saw as the CIA’s selective declassification about information on her. She was also questioned at length about the 2005 destruction of more than 92 interrogation tapes -- a move she said she supported to ensure the safety of CIA agents.

Haspel refused to criticize her colleagues and superiors for their conduct during what she called a “tumultuous time,” but said the CIA under her watch would not resume such techniques. She also defended her own conduct.

“After 9/11 … I stepped up. I was not on the sidelines, I was on the frontlines in the Cold War and I was on the frontlines in the fight against Al Qaeda,” she said in response to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Haspel’s confirmation had been in question after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., later joined by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he would not vote for her.

“While I thank Ms. Haspel for her long and dedicated service to the CIA, as a country we need to turn the page on the unfortunate chapter in the agency's history having to do with torture,” Flake said in a statement Wednesday.

Along with the absence of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., it meant that Haspel needed Democratic votes to assure her confirmation.

But in the days leading up to Thursday's vote, she picked up Democratic support, particularly from those in tough midterm re-election fights. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., came out to back her last week, and others followed.

A key factor may have been a letter she wrote to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the intelligence committee, on Tuesday, saying: “With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken."

Warner subsequently said in a statement that he believes she “is someone who can and will stand up to the president if ordered to do something illegal or immoral -- like a return to torture.”

Haspel will replace now-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.


http://www.foxnews.com/politic...-to-lead-agency.html

Regarding the left’s defense of Hamas one day and MS-13 the next so as to attack Trump:

Trump just donated his first quarter salary to the VA.

Libs are still trying to find a way to hate him for it including saying that it doesn't count since it is our tax dollars anyway. Of course no mention of the fact that Obama took those same tax dollars and pocketed them for 8 years.

OK, I've read through this article several times and I still do not understand what is being said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...-on-trump-probe.html

Anyone?

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
OK, I've read through this article several times and I still do not understand what is being said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...-on-trump-probe.html

Anyone?

It looks to me like it is confessing that its original report was, ahhh, understated, not reflective of actual seriousness of the situation. Not exactly “ we blew it” but in that direction. At least in Howie Kurtz’ estimation.

The NYT is a propaganda arm of the lib propg’s, the kind that when reporting election results in a two man race, won inexplicably by a conservative, reports, “Liberal finishes second, right wing nut finishes next to last.”

Kurtz should stick to talking into a camera, because he can't write for shit.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Kurtz should stick to talking into a camera, because he can't write for shit.

Well, he ain’t so hot on camera either. Maybe he should pump gas in Hoboken or something.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Trump lashed out at undocumented immigrants during a White House meeting, calling those trying to breach the country’s borders “animals” (link: https://nyti.ms/2rJgCjs) nyti.ms/2rJgCjs

********

Peruse Twitter or Facebook right now, and you’ll see this line everywhere — and not solely in the feeds of left-leaning journalists or from admitted critics of the president. Collectively, this is the line that the “down-the-middle” press has elected to sell. In the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson complains that, “calling immigrants ‘animals,’ Trump evokes an ugly history of dehumanization.” USA Today reports that “Trump ramps up rhetoric on undocumented immigrants: ‘These aren’t people. These are animals.'” The Huffington Post gripes that “Trump Refers To Immigrants As ‘Animals.’ Again.”

This isn’t true. Trump didn’t “lash out at undocumented immigrants,” or “refer to immigrants as ‘animals.'” Rather, he referred to members of the murderous gang, MS-13, as “animals” after a questioner brought the outfit up by name. That he was responding to the question, not riffing on illegal immigrants in general, is extremely obvious to anyone who has watched the full footage of the exchange, which, presumably, is why every single news story that suggests otherwise features a truncated clip or transcript that edits the questioner out. Here, from CSPAN, is a good example of the trick.

What these outlets are doing here is lying. There is no more accurate way of putting it. One can forgive the thousands of people who see this false information and reflexively believe it to be true — unless they look into the matter, they will know no better. But one cannot forgive those who are deliberately spreading falsehoods. Trump himself is a habitual liar — to the point at which he lies about things about which there is no obvious incentive to lie. If the press thinks they can change that by spreading lies themselves, it’s going to be sorely disappointed.

Link

Those commie-F's made the mistake of asking Sarah Sanders about that at yesterday's press briefing:

The Great Revolt

New book about the 2016 election. Focus on Blue Wall democrats that voted for Trump and why. How Trump appealed to these (varied) voters and what made them flee the democrats that they had voted for all their lives. In depth interviews makes the reader feel like he know these people and their lives. Book is easy to read, doesn't judge; just reports.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: cne32507,

Sara Sanders is the best press secretary I have ever seen.

Fast thinking, knowledgeable, and "pull no punches", all delivered in a calm professional direct manner.

Federalist
Mollie Hemingway

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have leaked extremely sensitive information about a top secret source three times in the last week while claiming that confidentially sharing information about the source with congressional investigators could greatly impact U.S. national security and potentially risk the source’s life.

The officials have leaked specific information that could directly identify the source on three separate occasions to reporters at the Washington Post and New York Times. This raises even more questions about whether current top intelligence and law enforcement officials can be trusted to obey the law and to adequately protect the nation’s intelligence secrets.

The latest leak came via a Washington Post article in which the very same officials blame Congress for the leaks solely because a U.S. congressional committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for information about irregularities with methods used in the unprecedented investigation targeting the campaign of Donald Trump for president.

Before the leaks occurred, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said, of the demand for information by Congress as part of its oversight duties, that the Justice Department would not be “extorted.” Then the leaks began spilling out.

Prior to the Washington Post‘s May 8 article “Secret intelligence source who aided Mueller probe is at center of latest clash between Nunes and Justice Dept,” it was unknown what the information sought by Congress dealt with. The story first put forth the narrative that responding to congressional oversight requests would “endanger a top-secret intelligence source” and “could risk lives by potentially exposing the source.”

The Justice Department has a pattern of claiming extreme danger if the American public or her representatives in Congress learn about what they are doing. For instance, as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence prepared to release information about abuse of the secret courts that permit the government to spy on American citizens, the Justice Department released a letter to the press saying the action was “extraordinarily reckless,”would be “damaging” to “national security,” and would risk “damage to our intelligence community or the important work it does in safeguarding the American people.”

Justice and the FBI also have a pattern of redacting huge swaths of reports and letters to and from Congress as part of their oversight investigation. When the redactions are lessened, they reveal not sensitive information that affects national security so much as embarrassing details about how Justice and FBI have conducted business. Examples here and here.

The May 8 article, the one that claimed Congress couldn’t be given any information related to its subpoena, published leaks from government officials that the U.S government had a secret source who had helped the special counsel’s Russia investigation. The article said the source was a U.S. citizen who had worked with the CIA and the FBI.

In a May 16 article in The New York Times, government officials leak more information about the use of informants to spy on the Trump campaign. These leakers said there was at least one informant who was spying on the Trump campaign. They revealed that the informant met with multiple Trump campaign affiliates, including Carter Page and George Papadopolous.

In the most recent article published last night, the Washington Post‘s sources reiterate their claim that talking about the source is extremely dangerous, saying “leaders warn that publicly identifying the confidential source would put lives in danger and imperil other operations. The stakes are so high that the FBI has been working over the past two weeks to mitigate the potential damage if the source’s identity is revealed, according to several people familiar with the matter.”

But then they leak yet more information about the source, saying the source has worked on multiple investigations, some of which are “live” and ongoing. They also say the informant provided information to the Russia investigation both before the special counsel’s appointment in May 2017 and afterward.

All public information about the source and his or her work on behalf of the government has come directly from leaks attributed to government law enforcement and intelligence officials. This means they have provided more information to reporters at New York Times and Washington Post than they have in response to a congressional subpoena.

Here’s how Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Carol D. Leonnig, and Josh Dawsey opened their latest Post story about people up to and including President Trump reading and responding to Washington Post and New York Times reports that a government source spied on the Trump campaign:

President Trump’s allies are waging an increasingly aggressive campaign to undercut the Russia investigation by exposing the role of a top-secret FBI source. The effort reached new heights Thursday as Trump alleged that an informant had improperly spied on his 2016 campaign and predicted that the ensuing scandal would be ‘bigger than Watergate!’
It’s not Trump who is alleging this! It’s the Washington Post! It’s The New York Times! It’s the government sources leaking about the use of wiretaps, national security letters, and at least one government informant against the Trump campaign. The editorialized addition of the word “improperly” is curious, as if the dispute is about whether the spying the FBI is now admitting it performed against the Trump campaign might have been “proper” if looked at from a just-so perspective.

The Washington Post had previously claimed that Trump backed Justice Department obstruction of the subpoena, which The Federalist showed was false here. The Post now reports, contra its own reporting last week, that Trump sides with Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in his oversight battles with the Department of Justice.

When the Post first broke the news that the FBI had a government source it had used in its investigation against Trump, this was treated by reporters Robert Costa, Carol D. Leonnig, Devlin Barrett, and Shane Harris as something only conservatives might cynically be interested in for bad reasons, as opposed to generally explosive information of interest to all Americans. This is not an exaggeration.

They wrote, “The role of the intelligence source in the Mueller investigation may now be seized upon by conservative Republicans who have publicly accused the Justice Department and intelligence agencies of overreach and misuse of their surveillance powers.” This formulation of “conservative pounce” is so cliched it has an entry in Urban Dictionary as an example of leftist media bias:

A headline in a newspaper or other article that describes Republicans (or other right-leaning individuals) attacking a Democrat (or other left-leaning individual) when that Democrat commits a misdeed. Always written by a reporter with left-wing political views, it will attempt to frame the Republicans as overzealous, and will either downplay, ignore, or excuse the Democrat’s misdeed. Commonly done by the New York Times or Washington Post, it is often viewed as a sign of the bias within the media.
The Washington Post‘s headline for the most recent article is unsupported by the facts. It says “Trump joins push by allies to expose role of an FBI source.” Except that the reporting in the piece in no way supports this claim on multiple levels. For one, Congress is not seeking to “expose” the source by performing oversight. The committee that is seeking the information routinely handles classified information and is authorized to do so.

For another, nowhere has Trump called for the FBI source to be exposed. He simply tweeted facts that are known from the Washington Post‘s own reporting. Here he specifically mentions what another reader of the news — former chief assistant U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy — has said about the public information reported in the Washington Post and New York Times:


The only exposure of the source at this point has happened due to leaks by government sources in the Washington Post and New York Times about the use of a government informant to spy on the Trump campaign.

It’s odd for the Post to spin the reading of their newspaper as nefarious or dangerous to national security, even if their leakers are telling them to use that angle about this latest extraordinary news — news that compliant reporters are covering up and downplaying more than covering rigorously, admittedly, but explosive news nonetheless.

Link

on the previous page, Cliff posted an audio of an interview w DiGenova.

Sen Grassley wrote a ltr asking for the FBI interview notes w Michael Flynn. In that letter, Grassley asked for an interview w the second FBI agent who was present in the Flynn interview. (Strzok was the other agent)

Grassley identifies that agent as Special agent Joe Pientka.

DiGenova says that Pientka was especially convinced that Flynn was not lying, and that Pientka went to the DoJ IG to complain about the behavior of Strzok and Andrew McCabe.

quote:

DiGenova says that Pientka was especially convinced that Flynn was not lying, and that Pientka went to the DoJ IG to complain about the behavior of Strzok and Andrew McCabe.

If true, wow. He did the right thing, and I believe the IG would have had to follow up.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Sara Sanders is the best press secretary I have ever seen.

Fast thinking, knowledgeable, and "pull no punches", all delivered in a calm professional direct manner.

I have to agree with this statement 100%!!