FBI Corruption Treason Conspiracy , someone better be going to prison

[Team Sergeant]

It's about time for a 4 Star General to step in and take control of the extremely corrupt FBI. Why a 4 Star, the military is usually much less corruptible. :munchin

This is almost enough to take up arms over and start killing corrupt people.







Evidence suggests a massive scandal is brewing at the FBI
By Michael Goodwin
January 23, 2018 | 9:37pm

During the financial crisis, the federal government bailed out banks it declared “too big to fail.” Fearing their bankruptcy might trigger economic Armageddon, the feds propped them up with taxpayer cash.
Something similar is happening now at the FBI, with the Washington wagons circling the agency to protect it from charges of corruption. This time, the appropriate tag line is “too big to believe.”
Yet each day brings credible reports suggesting there is a massive scandal involving the top ranks of America’s premier law enforcement agency. The reports, which feature talk among agents of a “secret society” and suddenly missing text messages, point to the existence both of a cabal dedicated to defeating Donald Trump in 2016 and of a plan to let Hillary Clinton skate free in the classified email probe.
If either one is true — and I believe both probably are — it would mean FBI leaders betrayed the nation by abusing their powers in a bid to pick the president.


corruption cont:

https://nypost.com/2018/01/23/evidence-suggests-a-massive-scandal-is-brewing-at-the-fbi/

[Box]

Is the article suggesting we might have corrupt law enforcement agents in bed with gangsters and politicians?


That's the craziest by-god accusation since Mark McCluskey ate dinner with Virgil Sollozzo...




Secret Police have been employed by national leaders for thousands of years - and the best way to keep it secret is to hide it right out in the open

[Team Sergeant]

FBI Corruption Treason Conspiracy is just getting worse..........

"FBI cellphones affected by glitch"

BULLSHIT

They must think every American believes in Unicorns.

Time to dust off the guns, mags and ammo, just in case there's another "FBI glitch"...........:munchin











Thousands of FBI cellphones affected by glitch that lost Strzok-Page texts, officials say
By Jake Gibson | Fox News

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of FBI cellphones were affected by the technical glitch that the DOJ says prevented five months’ worth of text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page from being stored or uploaded into the bureau’s archive system, federal law enforcement officials tell Fox News.
The missing messages have been at the center of a storm of controversy on Capitol Hill, after the DOJ notified congressional committees that there is a gap in records between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017. Strzok and Page are under scrutiny after it was revealed that the former members of Robert Mueller's team exchanged a series of anti-Trump texts during the presidential campaign.
The gap in records covered a crucial period, raising suspicion among GOP lawmakers about how those messages disappeared.

But Fox News is told that the glitch affected the phones of “nearly” 10 percent of the FBI’s 35,000 employees.
Senior Department of Justice officials told Fox News they are "taking steps" to possibly recover the texts from the appropriate cellphone carriers. The same officials told Fox News they are also making every effort to track down the physical cellphones in question so they could be subject to a forensic review.




FBI Corruption Treason Conspiracy cont:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/24/thousands-fbi-cellphones-affected-by-glitch-that-lost-strzok-page-texts-officials-say.html

[bblhead672]

Quote I read somewhere this week about the FBI:
"The FBI may now be accurately described as a "few good apples" instead of a "few bad apples."

Trump needs to flush the Department of Just-us until all the bad apples have run for countries with non-extradition agreements with the U.S.

Other than Washington elites and most of the media, who respects the Famous But Incompetent anymore?

[Joker]

Fire them all. Shut it down.

[lindy]

Unless the FBI is running their own telecom company, ALL of those messages are somewhere.

I’m sure some senior DOJ officials have encrypted phones but if Hillary couldn’t get one as SECSTATE, there’s no way a CI guy and a DOJ lawyer would.

This glitch story/lost texts is like NBCs broadcast from that ski resort in North Korea: total garbage.

[tonyz]

The FBI has had real issues over the years.
There is even more to dirty former FBI agent John Connolly than is in this article.

FBI agent serving time for Miami murder gets a new release date
BY DAVID OVALLE
Updated July 26, 2017 09:56 AM

John Connolly, the notorious former Boston FBI agent convicted of helping gangsters engineer the killing of a gambling executive in Miami, has a new possible parole date: early 2039.

He would be 98 years old.

Florida’s parole commission made the ruling during a brief hearing on Wednesday in Tallahassee. Connolly was not present for the hearing, although his younger brother, James Connolly, attended the hearing.

Connolly was a star FBI agent in the 1970s, and one of his informants was James “Whitey” Bulger, the leader of a violent group known as the Winter Hill gang.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article163683153.html

[ddoering]

Unless the FBI is running their own telecom company, ALL of those messages are somewhere.

I’m sure some senior DOJ officials have encrypted phones but if Hillary couldn’t get one as SECSTATE, there’s no way a CI guy and a DOJ lawyer would.

This glitch story/lost texts is like NBCs broadcast from that ski resort in North Korea: total garbage.

Maybe they had the same IT guy as Hillary.

[Joker]

Unless the FBI is running their own telecom company, ALL of those messages are somewhere.

I’m sure some senior DOJ officials have encrypted phones but if Hillary couldn’t get one as SECSTATE, there’s no way a CI guy and a DOJ lawyer would.

This glitch story/lost texts is like NBCs broadcast from that ski resort in North Korea: total garbage.

Bullshit. I've turn them down several times. If they needed one, they could have got one,

[EricV]

I took an oath to uphold the Constitution against enemies both foreign and DOMESTIC.


Fox guest floats possibility of FBI assassination plot against Trump
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 12/19/17 02:16 PM EST


A guest co-host on Fox News Channel's "Outnumbered" program on Tuesday appeared to suggest that FBI agents might have planned to assassinate President Trump.

In a clip from Tuesday's episode first reported by Media Matters, guest co-host Kevin Jackson floated the possibility that FBI agents revealed to have sent anti-Trump text messages may have planned to kill Trump after the president defeated Hillary Clinton last November.

"Well, I think they're going to say, what was his intent, right?" Jackson asked, referring to a quote from FBI agent Peter Strzok, which referred to an "insurance policy" against Trump getting elected.

"Because that's exactly what FBI Director — former FBI Director [James] Comey said when he was letting Hillary Clinton off the hook. And his intent, regardless of whether it was an assassination attempt or whatever, it was definitely something," Jackson added, to the other hosts' surprise.

"Whoa, whoa," co-host Harris Faulkner could be heard saying.

Jackson, who authored the book "Race-pimping" and hosts a syndicated radio show, added that the FBI's "fingerprints" were all over the 2016 presidential election.

"Well, I'm just saying, we don't know what it was," Jackson continued.

"When you say, 'we've got to make sure that this guy doesn't get in at all cost,' what does that mean?" he asks. "So I'm saying there's a spectrum of what does it mean, but one thing that we know for sure is that he was plotting in an election against a candidate, and there's FBI fingerprints all over this."

Faulkner and her other co-hosts continued to push back on Jackson's assertions.

"Because I know how things get clipped on social media, I just want to press in on the fact that no one has floated any sort of an idea that it was —" Faulkner said, before Jackson cut her off.

"Oh, it's been floated. When I talk about this, I'm talking about social media stuff and, you know, that's out there, I'm not talking about media sources," he said.

"Nothing credible," one of the other hosts said.

"Well, I mean, yeah," Jackson responded.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that individuals close to Strzok, who was removed from Robert Mueller's special counsel probe after the texts were discovered, say the "insurance policy" referred to the Russia investigation into the Trump campaign.

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office—that there’s no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40," the agent's message from last August reads.

- This story was updated at 2:43 P.M. EST.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/365639-fox-news-guest-floats-fbi-assassination-plot-against-trump

[Penn]

Ok, a different question. What happens when concerned citizens march on an elected government?

Today, if we were to organize into a force that challenged contitustional law, what would the commander of the Old Guard be required to do, if that force marshaled on DC?

[Penn]

Further, if that forced declared in advance it's intention to protect and defend the constitutional order, by first, establishing control of government, and once order was restored, returning control to elected officials, what is the military response initially?

[Golf1echo]

Ok, a different question. What happens when concerned citizens march on an elected government?

Today, if we were to organize into a force that challenged contitustional law, what would the commander of the Old Guard be required to do, if that force marshaled on DC?

MOO I believe the left is involved in an insurgency...at least against the protections within our Constitution they find inconvenient, it appears this is happening elsewhere too. Perhaps why so many rallied around the klintons as they have had a long history of working their agenda clandestinely. What they didn't count on was the spirit many of us believe in and values we were raised with that came from the framework of the Constitution. They assumed we were more like Europeans at this point after years of degrading core values and education. They don't refer to them as Elitists without cause. We the People are alive and well much to their chagrin...thankfully!
Edit: Insight into their mindset is seen in their previous illegal operation "Acorn" with the intention it would become an oak tree , I doubt they thought of it as the tree of liberty, on the contrary, far from it.

[Old Dog New Trick]

Ok, a different question. What happens when concerned citizens march on an elected government?

Today, if we were to organize into a force that challenged contitustional law, what would the commander of the Old Guard be required to do, if that force marshaled on DC?

If they are without weapons...nothing happens other than watchful eyes.

If someone shows up armed they will be arrested for violating Washington DC laws against carrying weapons.

Further, if that forced declared in advance it's intention to protect and defend the constitutional order, by first, establishing control of government, and once order was restored, returning control to elected officials, what is the military response initially?

There won’t be a military response. Washington DC has many police forces and federal LE that will control or disperse the gathering as ordered. With force if necessary - which will pit good guys against good guys in a media frenzy.

If the military did show up think of the Blue’s Brothers in Chicago - hut hut hut... they will be ordered to protect national treasures.

JMO

[Old Dog New Trick]

I would rather hope that those going to prison are only temporary guests awaiting either a firing squad or hung by the neck ‘till dead.

The Left has declared war on the Constitution and the level of sedition and outright treason by people within high places is and should be prosecuted with capital offenses that TTBOMK includes death as a sentence.

[JimP]

Don't forget the "Bonus Marchers" who were put to route after WWI by "Dug-Out Doug." (WWI vets who marched on Washington for their pay they were promised)

What we are seeing is the exposure of a very-possible coup attempt by the left via the FBI and other government "agencies" against an elected President.

If so, it maybe getting time to "feed the hogs."

[Badger52]

If so, it maybe getting time to "feed the hogs."Coyotes gotta make a livin' too.

[lindy]

What we are seeing is the exposure of a very-possible coup attempt by the left via the FBI and other government "agencies" against an elected President.

Marshall at American Thinker agrees:

...once that effort to derail that candidacy failed and that candidate, Donald Trump, was elected, those same individuals used the same manufactured evidence as the basis to launch an investigation, employing the vast authority and technical resources of the United States government, whose ultimate goal, I believe, is to impeach and remove that duly elected president.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a coup d'état.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/the_sinking_of_the_fbi.html

[Box]

I'm not sure why so many people seem to forget that Comey formally admitted under oath and in front of cameras that he intentionally leaked information that he knew was "shifty" because he knew that releasing the information would generate an investigation.
...but hey, "Russia"


I used to try hard not to paint with a broad brush when referring to those on the left but I've decided that using a brush just isn't fair anymore. A roller or spray gun with an equally wide nozzle is just as efficient.
The left of a political spectrum is treasonous by its very nature.

Extremists to the far far right of a political spectrum may in fact teeter on fascism, but the left only needs to go one or two small notches left of center before I begin to classify them as treasonous.
...libertarians that steer too far left are treasonous as far as I am concerned.

Broad strokes for sure, but only because there is a lot that needs painting.

[Trapper John]

Marshall at American Thinker agrees:



http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/the_sinking_of_the_fbi.html

Yeppers, attempted coup d'état and I think that point was first raised here in another forum. Since then I have heard that view expressed at least half a dozen times in media outlets. Interesting. ;)

[bblhead672]

The swamp needs to understand that another "Bonus March" type suppression of patriotic Americans will not go unanswered this time.

[bblhead672]

FBI Agents shoot kidnapping victim in Houston

Kidnapping victim shot in FBI 'operation' in Trinity Gardens area (https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/FBI-reportedly-involved-in-shooting-in-northeast-12524172.php)

The FBI burst into the home where there were multiple women and children and, at some point, sources said, the bound victim was shot.

[PSM]

On his radio show, Mark Levin for years said that we were in the midst of a soft-coup during Obama's reign. Looks like it was "harder" than he imagined.

[WarriorDiplomat]

Sodom and Gomorrah...the swamp is deep and incapable of being cleaned...effectively Trump needs to continue to draw the worst out in politicians and minions to showcase their corruption and inadequacy so the public can clean house.....the tea party idea is important the executive branch has influence and some power but if we want to fix a representative government we must at the grass roots level change our representative the true seats of power in America.

Every American should be afraid when the DOJ top law enforcement officials are this deeply partisan and not enforcers of law but action arms to corrupt government......James Comey should be imprisoned for not resigning under Obama and continuing with enabling the corruption through his action......what I really hate is the weak excuses we get from military commanders in which GO's like to plead that they simply were stuck with a system they can't change and it was their efforts by making the hard decisions that reduced the damage from what it could have been....I refuse the accept this from an officer and will not accept excuses from the DOJ they have none....yes J Edgar Hoover kept files that could ruin high positioned people like the POTUS but the question I would have is like the dick pic six debacle why in the hell would someone allow themselves to be compromised by their actions if they knew Hoover would blackmail them? from everything I have read historically it seems it was fairly common knowledge in political circles.....the same goes for Comey in this situation he was already compromised ethically so Trump dx'd his ass so Comey could not damage his presidency as well....in a country that is ruled by law when the enforcers of that law is corrupted and lawmakers are corrupted as well as the courts then it is doomed in this country without the rule of law we are doomed.

[WarriorDiplomat]

The "Tree of Liberty" letter
From Thomas Jefferson to William Smith




Paris, November 13, 1787

DEAR SIR, -- I am now to acknoledge the receipt of your favors of October the 4th, 8th, & 26th. In the last you apologise for your letters of introduction to Americans coming here. It is so far from needing apology on your part, that it calls for thanks on mine. I endeavor to show civilities to all the Americans who come here, & will give me opportunities of doing it: and it is a matter of comfort to know from a good quarter what they are, & how far I may go in my attentions to them. Can you send me Woodmason's bills for the two copying presses for the M. de la Fayette, & the M. de Chastellux? The latter makes one article in a considerable account, of old standing, and which I cannot present for want of this article. -- I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: & very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: & what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent & persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order. I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted. -- You ask me if any thing transpires here on the subject of S. America? Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only. But this country probably will join the extinguishers. -- The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform.

Anyone see any similarities to today??

[Trapper John]

^^^ Finest Kind WD! I had not read that before. Thanks for the post.

Conterintellegence means and methods have become more sophisticated, but purpose remains the same. Don't think Jefferson would be surprised at all.

[Streck-Fu]

FBI Agents shoot kidnapping victim in Houston

Kidnapping victim shot in FBI 'operation' in Trinity Gardens area (https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/FBI-reportedly-involved-in-shooting-in-northeast-12524172.php)

Seriously? This is regarded as a 'good' job'?

We've got the bad guys," said Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon. "Even though it's good work on behalf of Conroe Police Department, it's still a tragedy."

[lindy]

I don’t understand why Director Wray (or the AG for that matter since this is really a DOJ issue) doesn’t inform the workforce of standards, measures taken to ensure those standards are achieved, and punishment for violators in order regain public trust.

Aren’t Stzrok, Page, and even Ohr all still USG employees? :confused:

WD, I wonder if we’ll see more Gadsden flags after the FISA memo is released? Well, that is if we are smart enough to understand it (as Rep Schiff said).

[tonyz]

The DOJ and FBI folks in question may have been Klinton acolytes but they were also Obama folks at the time of the investigation into Klinton emails. An interesting article over at National Review posted below.

New FBI texts highlight a motive to conceal the president’s involvement.
by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY January 23, 2018 4:25 PM
National Review

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455696/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-emails-key-decision-not-indict-hillary

[bblhead672]

As walls close in on FBI, the bureau lashes out at its antagonists (http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/370717-as-walls-close-in-on-fbi-the-bureau-lashes-out-at-its-antagonists)

This week, the FBI said it was unfair for the House Intelligence Committee not to provide its memo outlining alleged FBI abuses. The committee wrote the summary memo after reviewing classified government documents in the Trump-Russia probe.


We need more journalists like Sharyl Attkisson who aren't too spineless to stand up and speak the truth.
As for me? I don’t care what political stripes the alleged offenders wear or whose side they’re on. If their sources and methods are inappropriate, they should be fully exposed and stopped.

[Streck-Fu]

We need more journalists like Sharyl Attkisson who aren't too spineless to stand up and speak the truth.

She left CBS after her reports on Fast and Furious because of CBS' resistance to criticizing the Obama admin.

They went so far as to hack her computer.

[rsdengler]

Hacking computers to get incriminating crap, sounds just like my husband who hacked into my email account & cell phone for information, that's just wrong.....LOL I did not know he worked for the FBI......:D

[Trapper John]

Hacking computers to get incriminating crap, sounds just like my husband who hacked into my email account & cell phone for information, that's just wrong.....LOL I did not know he worked for the FBI......:D

Hope you left him some traps to find that would set his hair on fire! :D

[rsdengler]

Hope you left him some traps to find that would set his hair on fire! :D

LOL.....:lifter

[Badger52]

And at the 11th hour of the House Intel Cmte voting to release "the memo" (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/29/house-intel-votes-to-release-controversial-surveillance-memo-to-public.html) , FBI Dep Dir McCabe begins his "terminal leave" (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/29/fbi-deputy-director-andrew-mccabe-is-stepping-down-from-bureau-fox-news-has-learned.html) enroute to retirement.
Top FBI official Andrew McCabe has been "removed" from his post as deputy director, Fox News is told, leaving the bureau after months of conflict-of-interest complaints from Republicans including President Trump.

A source confirmed to Fox News that McCabe is taking “terminal leave” – effectively taking vacation until he reaches his planned retirement in a matter of weeks. As such, he will not be reporting to work at the FBI anymore.

I don't care how many of these playing cards run; it ain't done till there's a big black 'x' across the mugshot, in general population or otherwise. There's a law somewhere about active participation in a coup or something...
:munchin

[JimP]

Yup, what are witnessing is the unmasking of a full-on coup attempt, make no bones about it. The more that screeching harridan Pelosi and That criminal deviant 'Schemer' rage and point fingers, the closer we get to flushing the toilet.

The FBI, DOJ, BLM, IRS, EPA and other federal agencies were all weaponized under Obama. I expect this to be very big news. I'd love to see that jug-eared indictment of affirmative action barry Soetero get frog-walked to the hoosegow.

You know what, the hell with it. Let's juts roll out the guillotine for these treasonous scum.

[JJ_BPK]

You know what, the hell with it. Let's just roll out the guillotine for these treasonous scum.

I approve of this message. :lifter

[Badger52]

You know what, the hell with it. Let's juts roll out the guillotine for these treasonous scum.
:cool:

[rsdengler]

You know what, the hell with it. Let's juts roll out the guillotine for these treasonous scum.


HEE...HEE......My next business adventure....Rita's "Heads Will Roll" Guillotines...Order for your next party....LOL:D

[bblhead672]

I agree with JimP - either clean up the corruption or face the consequences by a fed up citizenry.

[Box]

"frog-walked to the hoosegow"



Best line of the day

[Trapper John]

^^^ Beat me to it!
I'd love to see that jug-eared indictment of affirmative action barry Soetero get frog-walked to the hoosegow.

:D:D:D

[tonyz]

These may indeed be those times revisited...did one side of the system of professional political elites use, corrupt, twist and pervert...some at the highest levels of law-enforcement and national security...in an illegal attempt to destroy political enemy DJT?

Would we have even known about this had HRC been elected instead of Trump?

How deep does the cancer run?

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

-- Thomas Paine (The Crisis, December 1776)

[Badger52]

These may indeed be those times revisited...did one side of the system of professional political elites use, corrupt, twist and pervert...some at the highest levels of law-enforcement and national security...in an illegal attempt to destroy political enemy DJT?

Every agency weaponized against political opponents, check.

Would we have even known about this had HRC been elected instead of Trump?

YGBSM :D

How deep does the cancer run?

Fire; it's the only way.


People should understand that they understand who's really got a shitload of guns & ammo, and they're not disposed to play that game. They want to win the messaging game. Create your own; slap 'em up around town or in really sweetly devious locations, your imagination can have a field day. Drive them (even further) batshit crazy.

[tonyz]

People should understand that they understand who's really got a shitload of guns & ammo, and they're not disposed to play that game. They want to win the messaging game. Create your own; slap 'em up around town or in really sweetly devious locations, your imagination can have a field day. Drive them (even further) batshit crazy.

As one former US attorney Joe DiGenova frames the issue: “there was a brazen plot within the FBI to exonerate Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing and to frame Trump of a falsely constructed crime if she lost the presidential election.”

The plot was uncovered.

There should be epic house-cleaning...perp walks and indictments.

[Golf1echo]

"frog-walked to the hoosegow"

And the most poignant image of our 242 year Republic!

I hope we get the pallets of cash back aswell :lifter

[Pete]

As Jack would say "The memo? You can't handle the memo!"

[Old Dog New Trick]

We know that Barry didn’t have to ask Lynch, Napolitano or Chertoff but, what did the “loyalty pledge” from Comey and McCabe, Clapper and Brennan and Lerner (*) look like?

Was there groveling involved or just the popping sound of the cork on the Champagne bottle?

(*) the list of Cabinet level appointments are too long to list.

[bblhead672]

A simple citizenship test for the powers that be.

[tonyz]

Context by VDH.

He’s never brief but he is comprehensive.

Hillary’s ‘Sure’ Victory Explains Most Everything
National Review
by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON January 30, 2018 4:00 AM

Stretching or breaking the law on her behalf would have been rewarded by a President Clinton.

What exactly were top officials in the FBI and DOJ doing during the election of 2016? The Page-Strzok text exchanges might offer a few answers. Or, as Lisa Page warned her paramour as early as February 2016, at the beginning of the campaign and well before the respective party nominees were even selected:

“One more thing: she [Hillary Clinton] might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear. You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more DOJ than FBI?”

The traditional way of looking at the developing scandals at the FBI and among holdover Obama appointees in the DOJ is that the bizarre atmospherics from candidate and President Trump have simply polarized everyone in Washington, and no one quite knows what is going on. Another, more helpful, exegesis, however, is to understand that if we’d seen a Hillary Clinton victory in November 2016, which was supposed to be a sure thing, there would now be no scandals at all.

That is, the current players probably broke laws and committed ethical violations not just because they were assured there would be no consequences but also because they thought they’d be rewarded for their laxity.

On the eve of the election, the New York Times tracked various pollsters’ models that had assured readers that Trump’s odds of winning were respectively 15 percent, 8 percent, 2 percent, and less than 1 percent. Liberals howled heresy at fellow progressive poll guru Nate Silver shortly before the vote for daring to suggest that Trump had a 29 percent chance of winning the Electoral College.

Hillary Clinton herself was not worried about even the appearance of scandal caused by transmitting classified documents over a private home-brewed server, or enabling her husband to shake down foreign donations to their shared foundation, or destroying some 30,000 emails. Evidently, she instead reasoned that she was within months of becoming President Hillary Clinton and therefore, in her Clintonesque view of the presidency, exempt from all further criminal exposure.

Would a President Clinton have allowed the FBI to reopen their strangely aborted Uranium One investigation; would the FBI have asked her whether she communicated over an unsecure server with the former president of the United States? Former attorney general Loretta Lynch, in unethical fashion, met on an out-of-the-way Phoenix tarmac with Bill Clinton, in a likely effort to find the most efficacious ways to communicate that the ongoing email scandal and investigation would not harm Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

When caught, thanks to local-news reporters who happened to be at the airport, Lynch sort of, kind of recused herself. But, in fact, at some point she had ordered James Comey not to use the word “investigation” in his periodic press announcements about the FBI investigation. How could Lynch in the middle of an election have been so silly as to allow even the appearance of impropriety? Answer: There would have been no impropriety had Hillary won — an assumption reflected in the Page-Strzok text trove when Page texted, about Lynch, “She knows no charges will be brought.”

In fact, after a Clinton victory, Lynch’s obsequiousness in devising such a clandestine meeting with Bill Clinton may well have been rewarded: Clinton allies leaked to the New York Times that Clinton was considering keeping Lynch on as the attorney general. How could former deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe assume an oversight role in the FBI probe of the Clinton email scandal when just months earlier his spouse had run for state office in Virginia and had received a huge $450,000 cash donation from Common Good VA, the political-action committee of long-time Clinton-intimate Terry McAuliffe?

Again, the answer was clear. McCabe assumed that Clinton would easily win the election. Far from being a scandal, McCabe’s not “loaded for bear” oversight of the investigation, in the world of beltway maneuvering, would have been a good argument for a promotion in the new Clinton administration. Most elite bureaucrats understood the Clinton way of doing business, in which loyalty, not legality, is what earned career advancement.

[tonyz]

VDH part 2

Some have wondered why the recently demoted deputy DOJ official Bruce Ohr (who met ewith the architects of the Fusion GPS file after the election) would have been so stupid as to allow his spouse to work for Fusion — a de facto Clinton-funded purveyor of what turned out to be Russian fantasies, fibs, and obscenities?

Again, those are absolutely the wrong questions. Rather, why wouldn’t a successful member of the Obama administrative aparat make the necessary ethical adjustments to further his career in another two-term progressive regnum? In other words, Ohr rightly assumed that empowering the Clinton-funded dossier would pay career dividends for such a power couple once Hillary was elected.

Or, in desperation, the dossier would at least derail Trump after her defeat. Like other members of his byzantine caste, Ohr did everything right except that he bet on the wrong horse.

What about the recently reassigned FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI top investigator Peter Strzok? Their reported 50,000-plus text messages (do the math per hour at work, and it is hard to believe that either had to time to do much of anything else) are providing a Procopian court history of the entire Fusion-Mueller investigation miasma.

So why did Strzok and Page believe that they could conduct without disclosure a romantic affair on FBI-government-owned cellphones? Why would they have been emboldened enough to cite a meeting with Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, in which they apparently discussed the dire consequences of an improbable Trump victory?

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s [probably Andrew McCabe, then deputy director of the FBI] office that there’s no way Trump gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

And why would the two believe that they could so candidly express their contempt for a presidential candidate supposedly then under a secret FBI investigation?

Once more, those are the wrong interrogatories. If we consider the mentality of government elite careerists, we see that the election-cycle machinations and later indiscretions of Strzok and Page were not liabilities at all. They were good investments.
They signaled their loyalty to the incoming administration and that they were worthy of commendation and reward.

Hillary Clinton’s sure victory certainly also explains the likely warping of the FISA courts by FBI careerists seeking to use a suspect dossier to surveille Trump associates — and the apparent requests by Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and others to read surveilled transcripts of Trump associates, unmask names, and leak them to pet reporters. Again, all these insiders were playing the careerist odds.

What we view as reprehensible behavior, they at the time considered wise investments that would earn rewards with an ascendant President Hillary Clinton. Did Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, or Debbie Wasserman Shultz worry about their fabrications, unethical behavior, and various conspiratorial efforts to ensure that Hillary Clinton would be exempt from criminal liability in her email shenanigans, and that she would win the Democratic nomination and general election? Not when their equally unethical and conspiratorial boss would appreciate her subordinate soul mates.

For a deep-state careerist without ethical bearings, one of the advantages of a Clinton sure-thing presidency would be that the Clintons are known to reward loyalty more highly than morality.

Then we arrive at the tragic farce of former FBI director James Comey. It is now easy to deplore Comey’s unethical and unprofessional behavior: In all likelihood, he wrote an exoneration of Hillary Clinton before he even interviewed her and her top aides; then he lied about just that sequence while he was under oath and virtue-signaling before Congress; he feigned concern about Clinton’s felonious behavior but used linguistic gymnastics in his report to ensure his condemnation would be merely rhetorical and without legal consequences.

Had Hillary won, as she was supposed to, Comey would probably have been mildly chastised for his herky-jerky press conferences, but ultimately praised for making sure the email scandal didn’t derail her. Comey’s later implosion, recall, occurred only after the improbable election of Donald Trump, as he desperately reversed course a fourth time and tried to ingratiate himself with Trump while hedging his bets by winking and nodding at the ongoing, unraveling fantasy of the Steele dossier.

And Barack Obama? We now know that he himself used an alias to communicate at least 20 times with Hillary on her private, non-secure gmail account. But Obama lied on national TV, saying he learned of Hillary’s illegal server only when the rest of the nation did, by reading the news. Would he have dared to lie so publicly if he’d assumed that Trump’s presidency was imminent? Would he ever have allowed his subordinates to use the dossier to obtain FISA warrants and pass around and unmask the resulting surveillance transcripts if he’d seen Trump as the likely winner and a potentially angered president with powers to reinvestigate all these illegal acts?

We sometimes forget that Barack Obama, not candidate Hillary Clinton, was president when the FBI conducted the lax investigation of the email scandal, when Loretta Lynch outsourced her prosecutorial prerogatives to James Comey, when the FBI trafficked with the Clinton-funded Fusion GPS dossier, when various DOJ and FBI lawyers requested FISA-approved surveillance largely on the basis of a fraudulent document, and when administration officials unmasked and leaked the names of American citizens.

Had Hillary Clinton polled ten points behind Donald Trump in early 2016, we’d have none of these scandals — not because those involved were moral actors (none were), but because Hillary would have been considered yesterday’s damaged goods and not worth any extra-legal exposure taken on her behalf.

Similarly, if the clear front-runner Hillary Clinton had won the election, we’d now have no scandals. Again, the reason is not that she and her careerist enablers did not engage in scandalous behavior, but that such foul play would have been recalibrated as rewardable fealty and absorbed into the folds of the progressive deep state. The only mystery in these sordid scandals is how a president Hillary Clinton would have rewarded her various appendages.

In short, how would a President Clinton have calibrated the many rewards for any-means-necessary help? Would Lynch’s tarmac idea have trumped Comey’s phony investigation? Would Glen Simpson now be White House press secretary, James Comey Clinton’s CIA director; would Andrew McCabe be Comey’s replacement at the FBI?

In reductionist terms, every single scandal that has so far surfaced at the FBI and DOJ share a common catalyst. What now appears clearly unethical and probably illegal would have passed as normal in a likely 16-year Obama-Clinton progressive continuum. A final paradox: Why did so many federal officials and officeholders act so unethically and likely illegally when they were convinced of a Clinton landslide? Why the overkill?

The answer to that paradox lies in human nature and can be explored through the hubris and nemesis of Greek tragedy — or the 1972 petty burgling of a Watergate complex apartment when Richard Nixon really was on his way to a landslide victory.

Needlessly weaponizing the Obama FBI and the DOJ was akin to Hillary Clinton’s insanely campaigning in the last days of the 2016 campaign in red-state Arizona, the supposed “cherry atop a pleasing electoral map.”

In short, such hubris was not just what Peter Strzok in August 2016 termed an “insurance policy” against an unlikely Trump victory. Instead, the Clinton and Obama officials believed that it was within the administrative state’s grasp and their perceived political interest not just to beat but to destroy and humiliate Donald Trump — and by extension all the distasteful deplorables and irredeemables he supposedly had galvanized.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455885/expected-clinton-victory-explains-federal-employee-wrongdoing

[Badger52]

Good stuff.

This morning's CNN hangover (RE "the memo") has them leading their 'contributor' to the posited good/bad of releasing that it's a "sad thing" if the memo is released "Because it means that there is a real reason for Americans to have less faith that the components of their government are functioning in the American people's best interests. [correct] The committee vote that already took place last night was a major crack in the credibility of an important American institution: HPSCI." This last needs fixing:

The committee vote that already took place last night was a major crack in the credibility of US agencies weaponized against American citizens.


Errata: Yes, one has to go some dark places occasionally like CNN but important to reaffirm that irrational people cannot be moved by rational arguments.

[Streck-Fu]

Here is the thing the NG does NOT fall under the posse Comitatus act like the federal active and reserve does.

They do if performing a federal mission. But your example stands as NG units patrolled after Katrina.

[ddoering]

As one former US attorney Joe DiGenova frames the issue: “there was a brazen plot within the FBI to exonerate Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing and to frame Trump of a falsely constructed crime if she lost the presidential election.”

The plot was uncovered.

There should be epic house-cleaning...perp walks and indictments.

It has to go alot higher than that. The FBI may have been the tool, but some one had to order it.

[tonyz]

It has to go alot higher than that. The FBI may have been the tool, but some one had to order it.

Agreed. Although the cut outs most likely insulate Barry.

However, why were Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and others unmasking US citizens during the latter stages of the Obama administration? What information did they base their unmasking requests on and for what purpose?

You know they have a spin already prepared but let’s see if it passes the smell test given what we now know.

There are a lot of dirty players that need to fry.

[TOMAHAWK9521]

They use them for other things on a regular basis like counter drug operations on a regular basis. They can also use them for other LE operations. I am not talking when they are federalized. Think ultra liberal state use.

I don't know about other states, but I distinctly recall during the height of the militia movements in the Klintons' regime, we in C/5/19 were ordered to surrender all our bolts from our long guns and barrels from our M9s to be stored off site at the sheriff's office for a period of time. True, the Klintons didn't like the military but it would seem that they really didn't trust the NG SF units. Then again, "The Resister" was in circulation and Colorado was still a red state back in those days.

[cbtengr]

Nothing short of a thorough purge from the top down is in order, anyone whose obvious loyalties lay with Obama and the Clinton's have to go. I would start with the ones who are busiest crying foul.

[Old Dog New Trick]

I don't know about other states, but I distinctly recall during the height of the militia movements in the Klintons' regime, we in C/5/19 were ordered to surrender all our bolts from our long guns and barrels from our M9s to be stored off site at the sheriff's office for a period of time. True, the Klintons didn't like the military but it would seem that they really didn't trust the NG SF units. Then again, "The Resister" was in circulation and Colorado was still a red state back in those days.

That’s a familiar tune. When WJC visited Haiti during our ‘94 mission (Restore Hopelessness) the USSS wanted us to do over-watch and counter-sniper for there movements but then asked for the bolts. MAJ C., told them to pound sand and we had nothing to do with his visit. He came he left he didn’t visit us or the troops other than some disarmed 10th Mtn folks. I would be certain MG Meade had no qualms surrendering his soldiers weapons systems.

[Box]

Everyone keeps clamoring on and on about a "purge"
...for goodness sake, have some patience. It is underway but the Democrats can only work so fast.

[Old Dog New Trick]

What needs to be found is the preliminary dossier on Cruz, J Bush, Rubio, Carson, or Kasich.

Find a shred of evidence on that and you have a bona fide Democratic conspiracy to defraud the the electoral process of democracy in the United States of America.

Probably in a few of those 30,000 emails destroyed by HRC and the FBI.

I’d bet at the NSA (under Clapper or Hayden) there are more than 18-minutes of missing tape.

[RichL025]

This is nothing new. Way back during slick willies term he took all combat units out of Reserve and made all combat into NG units. Big deal you say. Here is the thing the NG does NOT fall under the posse Comitatus act like the federal active and reserve does.

It DOES if it is activated under federal authority (Title 10 I think it's referred to...). It is free of the PC constraints only if it is activated & remains under control of State authorities.

Put the tinfoil away please.

[lindy]

Probably in a few of those 30,000 emails destroyed by HRC and the FBI.

I bet those are in the Obama library are were never deleted.

Anyone else find it odd that “the memo” hasn’t been leaked? It must really cast Democrats in a really bad light.

[Badger52]

Anyone else find it odd that “the memo” hasn’t been leaked? It must really cast Democrats in a really bad light.Bet: Tomorrow; so the news cycle can go collectively batshit crazy. If you think it casts Dems in general in a bad light, do an objective examination of their enablers in the DoJ/FBI, who really don't want it released even though Trump's new FBI Director said he didn't see anything in it actually related to "national security" - national security, you know, that be-all/end-all of excuses why a regime doesn't tell the peasants about something.

Maybe it'll be released tonight, but my bet is Friday.

[lindy]

A read of the redacted 2016 FISA cert memo on the DNI page is a good warmup.

BLUF: DOJ called out FBI in spring 2016 for allowing contractors access to raw FISA data beyond their NTK. FBI was ordered to disclose any further instances by contractors by Summer 2017. The name of the contractor is redacted.

A review of a least one company contracted with the FBI in the summer 2016 and its BOD is concerning, given all the companies connected to the entire “Trump stole my throne” story.

I have no idea which company was redacted and am purely speculating.

[sfshooter]

Bet: Tomorrow; so the news cycle can go collectively batshit crazy. If you think it casts Dems in general in a bad light, do an objective examination of their enablers in the DoJ/FBI, who really don't want it released even though Trump's new FBI Director said he didn't see anything in it actually related to "national security" - national security, you know, that be-all/end-all of excuses why a regime doesn't tell the peasants about something.

Maybe it'll be released tonight, but my bet is Friday.

I'm going to go with Monday. The super bowl (lower case on purpose) will be used to override it in the so called news streams, especially if it shows the left in a bad light. It will be tuned down and all you will hear is the clamor of the super bowl.
Now Monday, after the super bowl is history it will stay active longer.....just my $.02

[Badger52]

I'm going to go with Monday. The super bowl (lower case on purpose) will be used to override it in the so called news streams, especially if it shows the left in a bad light. It will be tuned down and all you will hear is the clamor of the super bowl.
Now Monday, after the super bowl is history it will stay active longer.....just my $.02Not a bad perspective there. Then again, it's wonderful watching talking heads over-torqued, twisted in different directions like a cartoon to the point that they explode.

One thing I'd also bet though; the left's moles in those agencies are already in receipt of the Dems response memo Schiff mentioned in the transcript of the HPSCI committee hearing. Whoever tries to steer talking points must out themselves.

[PSM]

I'm going to go with Monday. The super bowl (lower case on purpose) will be used to override it in the so called news streams, especially if it shows the left in a bad light. It will be tuned down and all you will hear is the clamor of the super bowl.
Now Monday, after the super bowl is history it will stay active longer.....just my $.02

I agree. I might even wait until Tuesday or Wednesday since there will probably be some Super Bowl controversy anyway. Keep them off balance.

Pat

[Badger52]

The perjury indictments, as hors d'oeuvres, would be wonderful and my idea of a super bowl. Comey testimony, the DoJ attorney sworn filings that said POTUS' tweets about bugging were baloney. C'mon everyone & play: "Let's Make a Deal!"

[lindy]

Ben Shapiro writes “‘Twas the Night Before the Memo” poem

https://www.dailywire.com/news/26669/ben-shapiro-rewrites-night-christmas-poem-memo-ryan-saavedra

[sfshooter]

I'm going to go with Monday. The super bowl (lower case on purpose) will be used to override it in the so called news streams, especially if it shows the left in a bad light. It will be tuned down and all you will hear is the clamor of the super bowl.
Now Monday, after the super bowl is history it will stay active longer.....just my $.02



I stand corrected. Just read the memo and there is really nothing there that hasn't already been reported by Mark Levin or Rush Limbaugh; but lets not forget they are supposedly extreme right wing conspiracy guys!
The picture and evidence is there. The top actors in the FBI and DOJ were a bunch of scum who swindled a FISA court into permission to spy on an opposition candidate and then President.
I think public hangings are in order.

[Box]

Let me lay this out for everyone...

We have all heard the audio soundbyte of the POTUS saying that he grabs women by the kitty-kat...
...this memo is therefore invalid.

This memo had format, grammar, and spelling errors and therefor it is MORE invalid. The FBI has already released a semi-formal "nuh-uh" regarding the content.


It has been taken out of context and has a very real chance of ruining peoples mood this close to the super ball...



Lets just be adults and take this to Twitter



"weasels and liars never hold the field" - James Comey
"I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter, I didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel." - James Comey

[Ret10Echo]

Shocked, shocked I say... to find out politics drove the actions of a federal agency under the previous administration

I'm sticking with the Onion's reporting.

FBI Warns Republican Memo Could Undermine Faith In Massive, Unaccountable Government Secret Agencies

Here (https://politics.theonion.com/fbi-warns-republican-memo-could-undermine-faith-in-mass-1822639681)

[bblhead672]

PDF of memo (https://graphics.axios.com/2018-02-02-memo/HMTG-115-IG00-20180129-SD001.pdf)

[Badger52]

Concur w/sfshooter. The memo was over-classified. All that contained therein is, somewhere, in open-source sworn testimony, Glenn Simpson (Fusion) depositions, etc. But the HPSCI (Nunes side) did a fine job of laying out the timelines & resulting discrepancies in sworn statements & testimony by the anti-Trump offenders. Some folks who don't follow this closely should appreciate that. There are, at minimum, serious perjury & obstruction charges that should be filed.

Well done, though, for no redactions.

Have a fun Superfluous Bowl kiddies.
I'm gonna put my new lower together & do some dry-fire.
:munchin

[Paslode]

I am not all surprised by the allegations within the memo. Hell, it was only a month ago the Bundy case was dismissed because the FBI withheld evidence. The one person in all this that kills me is Rosenstein, he has been smug and in our faces for over a year and conducting operations the entire time.


The Convention of States is looking more appealing by the minute.

[Box]

If someone was to make a movie about a fictional banana republic country where one politicians goons used illicit manipulation of the legal system to try and undermine a political opponent, it would have to have some old school rock and roll in the sound track, and an ending that included dirty bureaucrats hanging themselves in their prison cells.

I'd pay for some popcorn and a couple tickets to a movie like that.

[ddoering]

I hope they hold a lottery for shooters in the firing squad. The Washington Monument will make a nice backstop.

[Team Sergeant]

The individuals that ordered the dossier on Trump need to go to prison, period.

Along with the GPS Fusion people that filled the report with lies and fed it to the MSM. And a couple of FBI “special” agents and the female bitch that worked for Fusion, prison time.

If this doesn't end in prison time for some I'll be extremely pissed. lois learner should already be in prison for this type of activity.

Where's the Lone Wolves when you need them.

[Ret10Echo]

Sorry TS.. My bet is that this ends up in retirements, reassignments and MAYBE a firing (the job-loss type).

The MSM and shrills will follow the standard practice of making the issue all about process by which the Memo was revealed with nothing on the content or those involved.


Nothing to see here....until the book and the movie come out.

[Badger52]

Nothing to see here....until the book and the movie come out.Wallet stays closed if anyone remotely connected with the current show-biz industry writes the screenplay. Billy would be ok; remarkably eloquent at times, with prose or 2x4.

Am betting there will be a memo to refute the memo (Dem's version of the facts) refuting the memo. Facts are pesky things with names named attached to sworn statements. Whadda we got, 6 days till the next shutdown?
:D

[Paslode]

Sorry TS.. My bet is that this ends up in retirements, reassignments and MAYBE a firing (the job-loss type).

The MSM and shrills will follow the standard practice of making the issue all about process by which the Memo was revealed with nothing on the content or those involved.


Nothing to see here....until the book and the movie come out.


Any chance that the IG Horowitz upcoming review on the DOJ could change ramifications that are dealt out?

[bblhead672]

If someone was to make a movie about a fictional banana republic country where one politicians goons used illicit manipulation of the legal system to try and undermine a political opponent, it would have to have some old school rock and roll in the sound track, and an ending that included dirty bureaucrats hanging themselves in their prison cells.

I'd pay for some popcorn and a couple tickets to a movie like that.

Sounds good, as long as the director doesn't use SEAL's as advisors! :D

[bblhead672]

The individuals that ordered the dossier on Trump need to go to prison, period.

Along with the GPS Fusion people that filled the report with lies and fed it to the MSM. And a couple of FBI “special” agents and the female bitch that worked for Fusion, prison time.

If this doesn't end in prison time for some I'll be extremely pissed. lois learner should already be in prison for this type of activity.

Where's the Lone Wolves when you need them.

I'm confident that you, me and just about everyone else on here knows that no one will go to jail. I'm not even sure anymore that's much of a deterrent for these cretins. Perhaps if the disappearance like that of Jimmy Hoffa were to be a daily reality they would understand the people ain't happy with the tyranny and lawlessness.

[Box]

A few NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem on sunday followed by someone wearing the American flag as a poncho, or giving the camera the middle finger, or maybe Beyoncé shows up in a blank panther outfit, or 'left-shark' dances oout of sync with the music....
...hell, as big as this memo is, maybe Justin Timberlake will pull a dancers shirt up so we get to see another titty !!!

Some selective outrage event will be manufactured because of the super bowl and by this time next week we will be wondering who leaked the democrats rebuttal to this memo.

There's not enough decent politicians left in DC to make this anything more than the typical friday afternoon politically motivated news release

[lindy]

Sorry TS.. My bet is that this ends up in retirements, reassignments and MAYBE a firing (the job-loss type).

The MSM and shrills will follow the standard practice of making the issue all about process by which the Memo was revealed with nothing on the content or those involved.


Nothing to see here....until the book and the movie come out.

I can’t wait for the OIG report. Think it’s due this Spring?

[tonyz]

The Dems clearly bought and paid for political dirty tricks (dossier).

The Russians - well they did what they do and gladly participated with varying degrees of disinformation (the Russkies most likely tried to play both sides).

That smelly combination of dirty tricks and Russians fueled some exceptionally biased senior management at the FBI and DOJ to present facially suspect (fraudulent) and incomplete information to the FISA court - repeatedly. Let that sink in.

Based on what we know for now it sure looks like Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, Strzok, Page, Ohr, Yates, Boente, etc., had their thumb on the scale (to varying degrees) of the most recent presidential election. No matter your political leanings that should be considered by all US citizens to be a BIG problem.

[Ret10Echo]

I can’t wait for the OIG report. Think it’s due this Spring?

My thought is that if there were discovery of criminal activity the OIG would have handed it over and there would be some other things happening now that the proverbial "cat is out of the bag". If the report comes out somewhere else down the line then it will focus on process, procedures and a need for increased oversight and more OIG involvement....

TBD. :munchin

[Surf n Turf]

"There is a key distinction being overlooked, perhaps conflated, by many who are reviewing the recently released HPSCI memo as it relates to the outlined targeting of U.S. individual Carter Page.

In the HPSCI outline it specifically notes the targeting of U.S. individual Carter Page was NOT a FISA Title VII search request. Title VII is FISA(702), the incidental collection of U.S. person information as it relates to National Security or Counterintelligence operations targeting foreign individuals.

The FISA ‘warrant’ request, against Carter Page, was made October 21st, 2016, under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Meaning the surveillance application was specifically stating, to the court, the U.S. individual was likely an actual agent of a foreign government, ie. “a spy.”

The DOJ (National Security Division) and the FBI (Counterintelligence Division) were not asking to review ancillary data collected on U.S. Person Carter Page as an outcome of surveillance on a foreign person, or foreign agent; that would be Title 7 (FISA-702).

In action outlined within the HPSCI memo, the DOJ and FBI were specifically telling the FISA court they had evidence that U.S. Person Carter Page was working as an agent of a foreign government. He was their target, and therefore requesting direct FISA Title 1 surveillance of that target on October 21st, 2016.

The FBI were not targeting Page incidentally as an outcome of foreign intelligence collection; the FBI was targeting Carter Page directly. AND as such they carried full surveillance authority upon all of this activities, interactions, communications and contacts therein.

Because of this direct approach, any group, organization or entity who came in contact with U.S. Person Carter Page was then open for ancillary review and FBI investigation. Those who engaged in contact with Carter Page became subject to surveillance and searches in the same manner as if Page was an actual foreign agent."
From Conservative Tree House...link below

SnT

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/02/inside-the-hpsci-memo-a-key-distinction-being-conflated-title-i-vs-title-vii/

"This post highlights a very important distinction, UNDERLINED (for good reason, but not explained) in the Nunes memo, NOT title 7.17 ‘about’ inquiries concerning incidental US citizen contacts with foreign citizens surveilled (the separate unmasking scandal). Title 1 allows not only surveillance of US citizen Carter Page (accused of being a foreign agent by the Clinton financed Steele Trump hating dossier), but also follow up surveillance of any of his direct contacts—the entire Trump team, irrespective of when Page stopped being a campaign advisor. Logic of FISA title one is simple—catch the entire spy network. Result is horrific. Any Page call or email to the Trump team exposed the entire Trump team to surveillance under title 1 of FISA. Really dirty. Trump’s wiretap tweet was correct. Admiral Rodgers only knew the lesser part of it."

[The Reaper]

The only way anyone is going to receive their just punishment for this is if they are a Republican.

TR

[Box]

I've said it a few times today - the super-bowl and sunday morning talk shows will kill this off just in time for excerpts of a democratic rebuttal to be leaked early next week.

All it takes is a few football players taking a knee or a pop-music celebrity making a political statement during the halftime show to refocus everyone's attention.
..."left shark" from Super Bowl XLIX got better mainstream media coverage than this memo is going to get.

The left is treasonous and the right is morally corrupt - so "who ya gonna call?"
There arent enough decent politicians to put a stop to this bullshit and clearly the department of Just.Us cant be trusted.
Go suck an egg America - if you think this is going to fix anything just ask yourself, why did the same Republicans wailing that the Department of JustUs has too much power just vote to continue letting the government run their shady surveillance programs? Its impossible to drain a swamp that is teeming with snakes and crocodiles.

Smoke and mirror sleight of hand that would make Penn and Teller jealous.

[sfshooter]

I've said it a few times today - the super-bowl and sunday morning talk shows will kill this off just in time for excerpts of a democratic rebuttal to be leaked early next week.

All it takes is a few football players taking a knee or a pop-music celebrity making a political statement during the halftime show to refocus everyone's attention.
..."left shark" from Super Bowl XLIX got better mainstream media coverage than this memo is going to get.

The left is treasonous and the right is morally corrupt - so "who ya gonna call?"
There arent enough decent politicians to put a stop to this bullshit and clearly the department of Just.Us cant be trusted.
Go suck an egg America - if you think this is going to fix anything just ask yourself, why did the same Republicans wailing that the Department of JustUs has too much power just vote to continue letting the government run their shady surveillance programs? Its impossible to drain a swamp that is teeming with snakes and crocodiles.

Smoke and mirror sleight of hand that would make Penn and Teller jealous.

Why I thought the Trump team wouldn't declassify until Monday. The Pravda of America will drown this out with super bowl drama. We, and I mean all of those of us who, have let these lefty, communist, socialist, anti-American scum inundate our society and destroy parts of and attempt to destroy the rest of our way of life will pay the price for this corruption. The career politicos don't really give a damn on either side; other than a few on the right, and they are too out numbered to make a difference.
The civil war looms and it is going to come down to which side the military is on. For years now there have been no real convictions of those higher up political mofos, recent example being the bob menedez trial.........he is scott free now. So is Hitlary and her staff with all their violations of federal law.
This is probably a first for a First World country to be so corrupt and all the upper echelons of its society not subject to the basic laws of the nation. If our country's GDP was lower then we would fit in with a lot of other countries in this world.
I sat in a saloon the other night with a rancher/farmer friend who keeps up with where the Nation is at politically. I looked down at a couple of other farmer/ranchers a few seats away. I told him they don't pay attention to anything that is going on in this country unless it affects them immediately. He said "you are right". Most of America doesn't even think much about any of this because it is not an effect on their daily lives.
Unless things change the America we know will be gone (yea I know a lot of it is already) and we will be the next soviet union (not capitalized on purpose) from the 50's to 80's.

[Old Dog New Trick]

I told him they don't pay attention to anything that is going on in this country unless it affects them immediately. He said "you are right". Most of America doesn't even think much about any of this because it is not an effect on their daily lives.

Next time tell them October 29, 1929, (Black Tuesday) didn’t affect Main Street Americans that didn’t invest or play the stock market either. Or at least it didn’t affect them until 1932 when everyone lost everything they had.

You know what else came along during that time (1924 and subsequently 1935?)

John Edgar Hoover!

And we all know the Andy Rooney version of history (the rest of the story) that followed. You could say the FBI has been an illegal, corrupt, murderous, conspiracy ridden agency since its inception...and you’d be right. Comey was only following in the footsteps of his predecessors.

Think about it...since the inception of the FBI, how much good has come from all the bad? They are on par with the USSS for failing more often than getting it right.

[lindy]

whole post

I read the CTH article but didn't understand the point. The author clearly doesn't understand FISA and the various sections.

702 isn't used against USPs and an application isn't submitted for info already in databases (e.g. incidental collection). Read page 8 here:

https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/FISA%20Amendments%20Act%20QA%20for%20Publication.p df

If the FBI has reasonable suspicion that an American is conducting espionage, they go through the regular Federal courts to obtain warrants and not FISC because evidence obtained via regular warrants isn't classified whereas FISA info is and therefore not subject to release.

Evidence submitted in major espionage cases like Ames, Hanson, etc appear to rely on typical criminal surveillance.

In my opinion, all Americans should be very concerned about (courtesy of National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/456084/nunes-memo-fbi-doj-corruption-ticking-memo)):

...An incumbent administration can freely use the FBI and the DOJ to favor one side in a presidential election, by buying its opposition research against the other candidate, using its own prestige to authenticate such a third-party oppositional dossier, and then using it to obtain court-ordered wiretaps on American citizens employed by a candidate’s campaign — and do so by deliberately misleading the court about the origins and authors of the dossier that was used to obtain the warrants.

I think Congress needs to hold a bi-partisan commission like the Church and Pike committees (https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2017-06-02/white-house-cia-pike-committee-1975) did back in the 70's.

[Paslode]

Why I thought the Trump team wouldn't declassify until Monday. The Pravda of America will drown this out with super bowl drama. We, and I mean all of those of us who, have let these lefty, communist, socialist, anti-American scum inundate our society and destroy parts of and attempt to destroy the rest of our way of life will pay the price for this corruption. The career politicos don't really give a damn on either side; other than a few on the right, and they are too out numbered to make a difference.
The civil war looms and it is going to come down to which side the military is on. For years now there have been no real convictions of those higher up political mofos, recent example being the bob menedez trial.........he is scott free now. So is Hitlary and her staff with all their violations of federal law.
This is probably a first for a First World country to be so corrupt and all the upper echelons of its society not subject to the basic laws of the nation. If our country's GDP was lower then we would fit in with a lot of other countries in this world.
I sat in a saloon the other night with a rancher/farmer friend who keeps up with where the Nation is at politically. I looked down at a couple of other farmer/ranchers a few seats away. I told him they don't pay attention to anything that is going on in this country unless it affects them immediately. He said "you are right". Most of America doesn't even think much about any of this because it is not an effect on their daily lives.
Unless things change the America we know will be gone (yea I know a lot of it is already) and we will be the next soviet union (not capitalized on purpose) from the 50's to 80's.

Fridays release may have been a much better decision than a release next week, for the exact reason you stated. The reason I say that is the memo was far from a Home Run.

The memo has some very interesting allegations, allegations which could be prosecuted, but there really isn't any earth shattering news that leads to an immediate perp walk for anyone involved. You can visit any online political forum to see that few on the conservative side are surprised by the news, and most on the Anti-Trump/DNC/Liberal Lunatic side believe this memo was a big 'nothing burger' by Nunes. And both sides are pointing fingers and using words like Treason and Sedition.

The memo has cracked open Pandora's Box, now we have people like Rep. Paul Gosar using the word treason and urging the DoJ to prosecute. Prosecution is serious problem when you consider recent forays such as the Benghazi and Clinton Email investigations which were nothing short of Kabuki theatre staring people like Darrel Issa and Trey Gowdy. Then we have a DoJ that is not only involved in these allegations, it has been incapable of prosecuting Bob Menendez and the Bundy's. To have a fair trial, a trial that could lead to actual prosecutions, you cannot have leaks......and that ain't likely to happen.


America is a shadow of its former self, and one election away from complete destruction. Based on the SOTU you can see the power brokers are already picking sides for the day it all comes crashing down.

[ddoering]

"There is a key distinction being overlooked, perhaps conflated, by many who are reviewing the recently released HPSCI memo as it relates to the outlined targeting of U.S. individual Carter Page.

In the HPSCI outline it specifically notes the targeting of U.S. individual Carter Page was NOT a FISA Title VII search request. Title VII is FISA(702), the incidental collection of U.S. person information as it relates to National Security or Counterintelligence operations targeting foreign individuals.

The FISA ‘warrant’ request, against Carter Page, was made October 21st, 2016, under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Meaning the surveillance application was specifically stating, to the court, the U.S. individual was likely an actual agent of a foreign government, ie. “a spy.”

The DOJ (National Security Division) and the FBI (Counterintelligence Division) were not asking to review ancillary data collected on U.S. Person Carter Page as an outcome of surveillance on a foreign person, or foreign agent; that would be Title 7 (FISA-702).

In action outlined within the HPSCI memo, the DOJ and FBI were specifically telling the FISA court they had evidence that U.S. Person Carter Page was working as an agent of a foreign government. He was their target, and therefore requesting direct FISA Title 1 surveillance of that target on October 21st, 2016.

The FBI were not targeting Page incidentally as an outcome of foreign intelligence collection; the FBI was targeting Carter Page directly. AND as such they carried full surveillance authority upon all of this activities, interactions, communications and contacts therein.

Because of this direct approach, any group, organization or entity who came in contact with U.S. Person Carter Page was then open for ancillary review and FBI investigation. Those who engaged in contact with Carter Page became subject to surveillance and searches in the same manner as if Page was an actual foreign agent."
From Conservative Tree House...link below

SnT

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/02/inside-the-hpsci-memo-a-key-distinction-being-conflated-title-i-vs-title-vii/

Combine with with the unmasking requests made in the last months of the Obama administration and it appears that the insurance plan was in effect.

[Ret10Echo]

Any chance that the IG Horowitz upcoming review on the DOJ could change ramifications that are dealt out?

I don't believe so. As I noted previously, if there were criminal findings there would be escalation already, not a wait for a report release.

Time will tell

R10

[lindy]

I don't believe so. As I noted previously, if there were criminal findings there would be escalation already, not a wait for a report release.

Time will tell

R10

Fully agree and expect OIG report to focus on policy violations which aren’t criminal but result in admin actions. There may be something Grassley’s criminal referral of Steele’s lying to the FBI but I see that as more of a forcing function for Steele or Fusion to spill the beans.

I think the only criminal charges (if any) could result from unauthorized disclosure of intel reports of unmasked Americans to the press. I read that DOJ is looking at this.

I hope Page retains a hot shot lawyer and files a civil suit against Mcabe for violating his 4th Amendment civil rights and asks for $600k (or whatever the Dem machine gave his wife for that local election) in damages. If it turns out that Manafort and Popodoplus were targeted as a result of info from Page’s surveillance, they should enjoin in a class action, where the burden of proof is ridiculously low.

Dems seem to enjoy lawsuits.

[Badger52]

I think the only criminal charges (if any) could result from unauthorized disclosure of intel reports of unmasked Americans to the press. I read that DOJ is looking at this.
There should be obstruction & perjury charges, minimum, and one could make a case for Title 18 Sec. 242 acts (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242). (IANAL but let's make the charge sheet a robust one, then call Monty Hall in to see what's behind the cookie jar, or would you like to take what's behind Door #3?)

[Badger52]

Lets cut through the BS and call it what it is

Treason
Bribery
Tampering with an election

Treason used to carry the death penalty.Oh hell yeah, I'm up for that but it's a pretty narrow set of circumstances to go there on #1. (Some would recommend Blackstone's description of Ye Olde "very solemn and terrible" methods of punishment & I would not object.) Your 3rd would certainly go along with my deprivation of rights under color of authority.

[lindy]

NYT suggesting Page, Manafort, and Stone all targeted (Jan 2017):

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html?_r=0

Levin outlines timeline for FISA starting in Summer 2016 but only approved in Fall:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/03/mark-levin-obama-used-police-state-tactics-undermine-trump/

Sure looks like this is in fact much bigger than just targeting Page. I’m seriously shocked.

[Badger52]

Sure looks like this is in fact much bigger than just targeting Page. I’m seriously shocked.There are going to be follow-ups; "the memo" was just the foreword to the book.

[Badger52]

Lets cut through the BS and call it what it is

Treason
Bribery
Tampering with an election

Treason used to carry the death penalty.You may get your wish; gauntlet indicating a congressional criminal referral to the AG (https://twitter.com/RepGosar/status/959508977095602176/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Finsider.foxnews.com%2F2018%2F 02%2F03%2Fpaul-gosar-calling-criminal-prosecution-top-fbi-doj-officials-named-memo) has been thrown down by Rep. Gosar.

More please.

[Paslode]

NYT suggesting Page, Manafort, and Stone all targeted (Jan 2017):

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html?_r=0

Levin outlines timeline for FISA starting in Summer 2016 but only approved in Fall:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/03/mark-levin-obama-used-police-state-tactics-undermine-trump/

Sure looks like this is in fact much bigger than just targeting Page. I’m seriously shocked.


Would it be correct to surmise that it would have been possible for the Intel Agencies to have a Page, Manfort and Stone set up for every Republican candidate?

[lindy]

Would it be correct to surmise that it would have been possible for the Intel Agencies to have a Page, Manfort and Stone set up for every Republican candidate?

Given the complete disregard for the rule of law by the Obama administration, it would not surprise me if the DNC has dossiers on all the front runners as insurance policies.

I think the DOJ was manipulated by political appointees and circular reporting that sourced the dossier to validate it. I’m confident that there was some one/people who had ethical concerns but obviously they feared serious repocussions...then again, maybe someone filed an IG complaint?

Congress and Executive Branch need to emplacement reforms so this never happens again. Heck, that would be a great campaign topic for Republicans: restored confidence in electoral process that Democrats nearly subverted.

[Badger52]

Given the complete disregard for the rule of law by the Obama administration, it would not surprise me if the DNC has dossiers on all the front runners as insurance policies.Glenn Simpson's (FusionGPS) testimony indicated that initially when they got into developing opposition research - not their normal gig, that being financial stuff - they had also been commissioned by the conservative side (think GOP establishment/anti-Trump National Review) to get stuff on Cruz, for one. My thought is that, to either side, anyone considered "renegade" was a threat. That came before the law firm/DNC/Klinton link effort. So there is more than one rip-tide underneath this shoreline; you can probably extrapolate why "OMG in the name of national security :eek: patriots" like Graham & McStain might not want the DoJ/FBI rabbit hole ventured into any deeper.

[lindy]

Glenn Simpson's (FusionGPS) testimony indicated that initially when they got into developing opposition research - not their normal gig, that being financial stuff - they had also been commissioned by the conservative side (think GOP establishment/anti-Trump National Review) to get stuff on Cruz, for one. My thought is that, to either side, anyone considered "renegade" was a threat. That came before the law firm/DNC/Klinton link effort. So there is more than one rip-tide underneath this shoreline; you can probably extrapolate why "OMG in the name of national security :eek: patriots" like Graham & McStain might not want the DoJ/FBI rabbit hole ventured into any deeper.

I believe that is correct and really don’t have problems with that (oppo research) but I doubt the initial research included anything from Russian sources. Makes sense that Fusion would look at candidates finances. I think the DOJ and IC crossed the line when they used the golden shower crap as a basis for telling a court that at least one American should lose their 4th Amendment protection and then proliferate it throughout the USG as if it were “intel”.

I’m sure the dossier was intentionally written like a HUMINT report in order to give it the appearance of credibility as if it were a leaked/stolen document.

[Joker]

I believe that is correct and really don’t have problems with that (oppo research) but I doubt the initial research included anything from Russian sources. Makes sense that Fusion would look at candidates finances. I think the DOJ and IC crossed the line when they used the golden shower crap as a basis for telling a court that at least one American should lose their 4th Amendment protection and then proliferate it throughout the USG as if it were “intel”.

I’m sure the dossier was intentionally written like a HUMINT report in order to give it the appearance of credibility as if it were a leaked/stolen document.

Oh really? So when does "oppo research" turn into spying on American citizens by Americans for you? Thin slippery line there.

I have great issues with it.

[Box]

meh

no one is going to prison
at least not a democrat that works for the gubmint

we'll go to jail for gambling on the super bowl before ANY of these hacks see bars closed on them
...and if the hammer SHOULD fall, it will fall on an aide that has been given the honor to serve


prison is for the poor

[Surf n Turf]

I read the CTH article but didn't understand the point. The author clearly doesn't understand FISA and the various sections.

702 isn't used against USPs and an application isn't submitted for info already in databases (e.g. incidental collection). Read page 8 here:

If the FBI has reasonable suspicion that an American is conducting espionage, they go through the regular Federal courts to obtain warrants and not FISC because evidence obtained via regular warrants isn't classified whereas FISA info is and therefore not subject to release.

Evidence submitted in major espionage cases like Ames, Hanson, etc appear to rely on typical criminal surveillance.

I believe that is correct and really don’t have problems with that (oppo research) but I doubt the initial research included anything from Russian sources. Makes sense that Fusion would look at candidates finances. I think the DOJ and IC crossed the line when they used the golden shower crap as a basis for telling a court that at least one American should lose their 4th Amendment protection and then proliferate it throughout the USG as if it were “intel”.

I’m sure the dossier was intentionally written like a HUMINT report in order to give it the appearance of credibility as if it were a leaked/stolen document.

Lindy,

You cannot conduct "typical criminal surveillance" on a Presidential candidate / President-elect / President.

I think that you are making the point that the CTH was trying to make.......if you have a case of "reasonable suspicion" of an American conducting espionage you go the federal courts.... but if your purpose is more nefarious (say surveillance of an opposition candidate and / or operation) then the use of a Title I (FISA)warrant has extraordinary appeal (assuming you can get it signed off by a FISC Judge): It is has a very small audience. If Hillary had been elected it would never have seen the light of day......

The downside now is obvious..... You don't want to make a fool of a Federal Judge, who has FISC responsibilities..... He could bury you under the jailhouse..... I don't think these eastern elites are yet prepared for the hammer of hell that will rain down on them.

I also have a problem when oppo research is conducted under the guise of a National Security Investigation, complete with cast of characters, including Special Counsel.

SnT

[Paslode]

Oh really? So when does "oppo research" turn into spying on American citizens by Americans for you? Thin slippery line there.

I have great issues with it.

Essentially, we had a rogue agency using unverified, possibly bogus intel to get approval for a drone strike on a group of people...and they got the green light.

[Box]

Essentially, we had a rogue agency using unverified, possibly bogus intel to get approval for a drone strike on a group of people...and they got the green light.




The US has been exploding people based on "possibly bogus intel" for as long as we have had the capability to explode people.
...besides, exploding people can be a lot of fun.

[JimP]

No matter how you slice it - it was a flat-out Coup attempt.

Heads need to roll but Box is right.....ain't nothing going to happen. We're too far gone.

[abc_123]

Hillary Clinton was not elected. Obama is not president and won't be again, unless the rules get changed.

What difference, at this point, does it make?

I think we all need to go shopping.

[bblhead672]

I think we all need to go shopping.

I agree. I need to replenish 9mm after training class on Saturday expended 600 rounds. Can always use another can or two of 5.56!

[lindy]

Oh really? So when does "oppo research" turn into spying on American citizens by Americans for you? Thin slippery line there.

I have great issues with it.

I understand opposition research to be information within the public domain and the focus of people who use investigative techniques like Woodward and Bernstein or even Schweizer's "Clinton Cash".

Intelligence collection should be conducted in secret and using covert and/or clandestine tradecraft which should never see the light of day.

Oppo research and intelligence are (ok, should be) exclusive of each other and I cannot think of a reason why they would be commingled. Sure intel uses OSINT to get FACTS whereas the dossier is complete and utter crap, devoid of any facts...save for the part where Page traveled to Moscow (I've read that is the only thing the USG was able to verify)...and was really hearsay because the sources were not even Steele's sources but 2nd, 3rd, etc.

SnT, I too agree with you that no matter how this is sliced, there absolutely cannot be an above board legitimate reason to conduct a criminal investigation of a political candidate without evidence of a crime (mishandling classified info is a crime whereas "collusion", whatever that means, is not) and, in the United States there CANNOT ever be a reason to conduct intelligence collection on a political candidate.

My point is about the CTH article is that FISA is not used for criminal proceedings and is used for intel collection.