Mueller's Russian Investigation

SpaceNut · 2018-12-30 20:34:48

July 2016, the FBI warned him that foreign adversaries, including Russia, would attempt to spy on and infiltrate his campaign. FBI didn't tell him that the bureau had opened counterintelligence investigations into four Trump advisers suspected of improper interactions with Russians — a fact, then-secret, that emerged much later in Congressional testimony. What did FBI officials know in the summer of 2016 that dissuaded them from telling Trump they were investigating his top aides?

Two of the four, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, were top Trump aides with Russian baggage. A third, George Papadopoulos, had been offered Hillary Clinton emails by a Russian agent. The fourth, Carter Page, had traveled to Russia while advising the Trump campaign. "The president is all but an unindicted co-conspirator in election law crimes and Russia seems to crop up in every aspect of the case, from internet troll farms to GRU hacking to Manafort's business dealings. And all the false statements by Papadopoulos, Cohen, Flynn — all those cases concern Russia,".

I am sure that Mueller team almost certainly obtained many years of Trump's tax returns and business records, and is poring over past transactions, particularly his foreign ones.

The Trump inner circle lies are starting to catch up to them all as Roger Stone turns on Jerome Corsi: He worked with Mueller to 'sandbag me' claimed that he did not know anything about the Podesta brothers lucrative business in Russia....in which Jerome Corsi acted as a liaison between Stone — an ally of President Trump — and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

GW Johnson · 2019-01-07 10:11:31

I told you in post 114 above what my estimate of the Mueller investigation status likely is. Some public figures recently have said similar things. It's down to dotting the i's and crossing the t's. He waited until the House changed hands, so that it could not be buried. He's counting on leaks from the House to inform the public (it goes to DOJ first, and from there to Congress).

He's found enough stuff to put several Trump underlings behind bars already, and you can bet there's more to come.

His charter was to investigate what and how the Russians did to interfere in our elections, and who (if anybody) on our side helped them. Any other wrongdoing uncovered along the way was to be turned over to the FBI or other DOJ functions. Mueller has done exactly that. And he's hit pretty close, or Trump would not have been catterwauling "witch hunt" and "no collusion" so loudly for 2 solid years, and Putin wouldn't be holding that American for spying, apparently to trade for the Russian-operative gal we have in jail already.

With Trump's demonstrated near-100% egregious-lie rate, why would any sane person believe his "no collusion" claim?

Once this Mueller report result becomes public, there will be a huge public outcry. It likely will be loud enough that the non-far-right-wing GOP Senators (about a third of them) cannot ignore it. If about half of them go with the Democrats, that's enough to convict in a Senate impeachment trial. And that is the trigger for the impeachment proceeding to begin in the House.

There's plenty of grounds: all this Russian-connection election-interference stuff, being vulnerable to Russian control because his income and his bankers are Russian (you can bet Mueller has his tax returns), violation of the emoluments restrictions, and as John Brennan noted in public at the cost of his security clearance, treason or near-treason of the "aid and comfort" type, by damaging our relations with our allies. And just how is damaging the US economy by starting useless trade wars competent governance? The list goes on and on.

This will be an interesting year, I think.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-01-07 10:18:34)

SpaceNut · 2019-01-12 12:59:18

Words you say as a President matter as its not all free speech or opinion that can or should be said in public.

Hence all the investigations and now a total of 17 lawyers you are surrounded by.

The Lies matter...half truths matter...

SpaceNut · 2019-01-17 17:56:04

Manaford gave polling data to the russian group GRC and now cohen got polling data fixed to show when it did not Trump numbers winning and it was all paid for from Trump via a bag of cash...with the mouth piece for the president in gulliani claiming that the campiagn was in the collusion with Russians....with the leader now president.

Bribery of polling to fix numbers, handing over of data is all to benefit Trump in the act of colluding.....

kbd512 · 2019-01-17 21:58:12

Democrats would do well to remember that they're subjected to the new surveillance state, too. On May 19, 2017, when Lisa Page texted Peter Strzok to ask if he would join Mueller's investigation, he told Lisa Page that he'd rather not because "there's no big there there".

It was definitely the Russians. It had to be. The alternative explanation is that Democrats at the FBI and Justice Department committed more felonies than Hillary Clinton, her campaign staff, and the DNC campaign staff combined in a vain attempt to conflate their own involvement with foreign nationals during the last Presidential election cycle with something that President Trump never did.

I think President Trump lives rent-free in the heads of the Democrat Party faithful.

GW Johnson · 2019-01-18 14:08:29

There's plenty of malfeasance and bad actors in both parties. Plenty to go around. But I am getting tired of tea-party-dominated GOP types protecting Trump at all costs, no matter how badly the country is damaged.

As I have previously pointed out, the Mueller (and other) investigations are coming to a head. The latest ploy to keep those findings from the American people is classification by DOJ, preventing public release. When it reaches the House, much of it will leak anyway, so the findings becoming public is a foregone conclusion, the only remaining issue is how fast and how traceable.

Once that stuff is out, I predict most of Trump's campaign underlings will go to jail. Mueller probably has evidence for multiple impeachable offenses for Trump himself, the least of which are incompetence and chronic lying, neither tolerable in a sitting President.

You can bet there is obstruction of justice, as well as felony-level campaign violations. I would not be surprised to see offenses skirting into treason, based on the damage Trump has done to our alliances.

There are enough Democrats in the House to vote articles of impeachment right now. Once the facts are out, the non-tea-party GOP types may join them in that vote.

Once the facts are out, there will be enough public outcry to convince the non-tea-party Republicans in the Senate to vote with the Democrats to convict, regardless of what Mitch McConnell tells them.

And THAT will finally put an end to this chaos we have been living under. Pence may be dumb as a fence post, but he does know a little bit about how to govern, having served as a governor. Trump demonstrably does not. Never did.

As I said above, this will be an interesting year.

Old Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times". So we have been.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-01-18 14:10:29)

kbd512 · 2019-01-19 07:26:03

GW,

President Trump may have paid off a few hookers before he was President, but you must know by now that this Russian collusion nonsense has no connection to reality. It was entirely made up. Hillary Clinton is famous for making up total nonsense. The Fusion GPS Steele Dossier is the source of the latest fraud and the FBI knew before they started that the Steele Dossier was made up for political purposes. This is hardly the first time that it's happened, either.

Q: Do you remember when Hillary Clinton landed in Bosnia under sniper fire?

A: Me neither, because it never happened. Who in their right mind would slow walk their only child across an airport tarmac, while a sniper is shooting at you, for a photo op in front of a few television cameras? That seems facially absurd or suicidal in nature. Either way, that's not the behavior of a rational parent with the best interests of their child in mind.

Q: Do you remember when Hillary Clinton told the families of the men who died fighting for their lives in Benghazi that their sons died because of an internet video?

A: Nobody had ever seen or heard of the video before the attack happened. To this day, nobody knows why our own military assets in the area were ordered to not try to rescue our own diplomatic personnel from enemy mortar and machine gun teams. It's completely unexplainable. When I was in the military, it was open season on anyone who took a shot at you. If we ever saw someone fire at one of our civilians or officers, killing the person or people who did that instantly became Priority #1.

Q: How about the whopper Hillary Clinton told Congress about not having classified information on her home E-mail server that she failed to destroy?

A: I think the FBI disproved that beyond any shadow of a doubt. Somehow, the same crime that anyone else would already be sitting in jail for committing couldn't be prosecuted. Everyone who handles classified information receives specific and detailed instructions / training regarding to handle it, what's permissible and what's not, and is told in no uncertain terms that they'll be imprisoned for mishandling classified information, no matter what their reason is for mishandling that information.

If the truth doesn't support the Democrat's political ideology, then they aren't the slightest bit interested in it. That is the one and only constant in their politics. At some point, the Republicans grow a conscience and decide that some behavior is unacceptable. Unfortunately, the Democrats never do. They can do any deed and tell any lie in support of their ideology and all will be forgiven by the party.

Please tell me what the Democrats are selling that you're buying into. For the life of me, I can't figure it out. Are you prepared to wake up in a brave new world where someone can simply accuse you of doing something, without evidence of any kind or fabricated evidence with no bearing on anything you actually did, due process of law unimportant, wherein that becomes the accepted "truth" of the matter?

You've talked a lot about fascism and insinuated that President Trump is a fascist. It makes me wonder about whether or not you were awake for any portion of your history classes. I seem to recall a lot of fabricated evidence was used by a certain political party in Germany as validation for their attacks on people who had political disagreements with them.

President Trump's greatest crime was leaving the Democrat Party. President Trump recognized that the political party he previously supported were criminally incompetent and capricious beyond all belief, so he walked away.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-19 20:05:29

Buzzfeed seems to have spoken out of turn with stating facts about collusion before it was time it seems.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/robert-mueller

Mueller did say that the information was not 100% correct but did not say it was wrong to question as to if there is truth to it.

GW Johnson · 2019-01-20 12:24:45

Re post 132:

“but you must know by now that this Russian collusion nonsense has no connection to reality. It was entirely made up.”

Actually, there is something to it, if you listen to other-than-Fox-“News” (which they are not, meaning a real news organization, explicitly per founder Rupert Murdoch). The data will eventually come out from the investigations. Until then, one has to rely on the old saw “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. Sure is an awful lot of smoke.

“FBI knew before they started that the Steele Dossier was made up for political purposes.”

Depending upon who you listen to, it would appear that some-to-much of what is claimed to be in the Steele dossier has proven to be true. Again, we don’t yet know, but this stuff will all come out when the investigations are done.

One thing to consider: almost to a source, those sources claiming the Steele dossier is a fake or a lie also conveniently “forget” to tell you it was originally funded by some of Trump’s GOP opponents during the GOP primary. He clinched the nomination before the dossier was done. The Dems learned of it, and funded its completion, but didn’t really use it during the 2016 general election.

That selectivity-of-memory about the origins of that document sets a pattern you should be aware of, when deciding who and what to believe.

“whopper Hillary Clinton told Congress” – etc, multiple paragraphs

As for Hillary Clinton, I didn’t like her either, precisely because she is the lying, power-hungry cheat and unindicted-criminal that you claim. You need not try to convince me of that, I already know. I have known that for a long time now.

Her having the Dem nomination in 2016 is proof positive the Dem primary was rigged by those with big money (which includes the Clinton Foundation). (I think the GOP primary was rigged, too, which is why we got an ignorant, lying, incompetent idiot like Trump from the GOP, but that’s another topic.)

“Everyone who handles classified information receives specific and detailed instructions / training regarding to handle it, what's permissible and what's not, and is told in no uncertain terms that they'll be imprisoned for mishandling classified information, no matter what their reason is for mishandling that information.”

Yes we did, didn’t we? And everybody who handles classified gets held to that standard, right?

Should be true, but demonstrably is not!

Sadly, there has been a double standard on who gets prosecuted for mishandling classified info, since during WW2. Big-monied individuals holding powerful positions inside the DC Beltway often mishandle or leak classified info, usually for political gain, and NEVER get prosecuted, much less jailed, for it. The most frequent offenders are senators and representatives, a statement I think you’d be hard-put to argue with.

“At some point, the Republicans grow a conscience and decide that some behavior is unacceptable. Unfortunately, the Democrats never do. They can do any deed and tell any lie in support of their ideology and all will be forgiven by the party.”

This is where I disagree with you. I see the same evil behavior FROM BOTH PARTIES that you claim comes only from Democrats, mostly at state and national levels, not so much locally. My guess is that you get too many of your beliefs about Dems vs GOP from right-wing echo chambers, but that is just a guess.

“You've talked a lot about fascism and insinuated that President Trump is a fascist. “

True, I have. No argument there.

I see it in his often-illegal policies toward asylum seekers at the southern border, I see it in the flood of propaganda lies he and his staff tell so loudly about so many things (on the Nazi theory that “if heard often enough, it must be true”), and I see it in the crawling-out-of-the-woodwork of far-right extremists, actual Nazi party members, and the KKK/white-supremacists. He encourages them, they serve as his street mob to beat up opposition at rallies; so did the fascists in Germany (same basic playbook).

You should NOT be surprised that an opposition street mob also developed in response: the masked Antifas hooligans. But I will say this: I saw in the photos of the Charlottesville thing more people carrying or wearing Nazi regalia than I did any masked Antifas types. No right-wingers died, only a opposition type, who was NOT an Antifas hooligan. Them’s the facts, inconvenient as they might be to you.

Re post 133:

It is not surprising that the media cannot contain themselves, and go to press with a story not fully confirmed. So what else is new about that? Based on the old saying “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”, you know the Buzzfeed story is partly true and partly false. Many such are.

As I have said before, when the investigations (plural) are done, the truth will eventually come out. It would appear the new AG nominee will be confirmed, and that he will see that Mueller gets his job done. The roadblock to public knowledge will be the potential classification of Mueller’s info by DOJ/the new AG. And, on the AG’s decision about whether and how much to release to Congress.

That which goes to the House will get leaked for sure. We’ve seen such leakage of classified info from representatives (and senators) before. (None will be prosecuted for it, either.) But the public will raise a huge outcry if Mueller’s results are suppressed, because of the long and loud public controversy over it. That outcry will take time to have effect, but eventually we will find out what Mueller reported.

GW

SpaceNut · 2019-01-20 15:36:23

It appears that trump coached Cohen for the House investigation qurestioning which is one way of say if the responses are the Trump oriated then he did tell Cohen to lie as that is all he does is give alternative facts...

GW Johnson · 2019-01-20 16:50:19

Hi Spacenut:

As I have said before, we'll all see, probably sometime this year, what the truth is. Timing is merely a function of how many obstacles get thrown up to protect Trump. By his rabid supporters, or for other political advantage.

As for what Trump claims, consider the history of fact-checking his claims. Nearly 100% of what he claims, proves to be not true. Sometimes egregiously not true, but virtually 100% not true in some way.

That being what it is, why would anyone believe any of Trump's claims? Such as "no collusion". Or "immigrants are dangerous". Or anything else. Just how is this country supposed to operate if its President is a near-100% liar about everything he claims?

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-01-20 16:54:11)

kbd512 · 2019-01-20 17:50:40

GW,

The GOP didn't represent the Steele Dossier to a FISA court as verified evidence to obtain a warrant for a wire tap. I could care less if any party manufactures something about their political adversaries. All political parties make claims and use deception and lies to impugn the character of their political opponents. That's as old as politics itself. It's up to the voter to decide what is made up and what has substance. However, passing off political libel as evidence for a legitimate counter-intelligence investigation of a candidate for President is new to America. If President Trump did the same thing to his political opponents, then you and the rest of the Democrats would be screaming bloody murder.

Both political parties have tried to prevent President Trump from holding office, which is by far the best evidence that he threatens the good ole boy network and power structure in DC. That's what I was aiming to disrupt. I believe those of us who voted for President Trump succeeded. The good ole boys are terrified of having their corruption and uselessness exposed. I think that's great. I get my jollies watching the puritanical heads on both sides of the aisle explode over having been told to "F-off!", in the form of President Trump's election, after all the idiocy they subjected our great country to.

You keep talking about Fox News, as if CNN / CBS / Fox / MSNBC or other infotainment organizations, which I consider to be centers for political theater for the theatrically-minded, had any influence in who I voted for. There's nothing useful that any such infotainment organization has told me in the past decade or so. That's why I stopped watching years ago. All of them say "hooray for our side" and none of them would ever print anything that might threaten their political slant. The media can provide their ignorance-based / arrogance-based opinions into perpetuity for people who are dumb enough to actually watch them. I can't justify the waste of time, even if you can.

After Hillary Clinton's commentary and past behavior, I decided long before the elections started that I wasn't voting for her. The mere fact that you have such a problem with one single media organization with a conservative "slant", versus the slew of organizations with a liberal "slant", to their reporting is proof positive of your political bias. Fox said this, Fox said that. Great. Let me know what they said since I'm not watching any of it.

You think the primary elections were rigged, but presented no evidence, so you make the exact same claims President Trump made and have the same amount of evidence supporting your claims, which is to say nothing at all. It was all lies when President Trump said it, but correct when you said the same thing? Sure, I'll buy that... Not! If Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump were elected by both political parties, then those are the candidates the electorate wanted to run for office. If one side or the other or both did screw with the process and that produced less than desirable candidates, that's on them. I didn't vote for President Trump in the primary, but I voted for him in what I thought was a vain hope that Hillary Clinton wouldn't be the next President. Somehow, it actually worked! We FINALLY have a President who does what he says he'll do. It's almost as if there was a point to all of the nonsense.

Your guesses about what I believe about Democrats are based upon your own beliefs. My beliefs are based upon interactions with Democrat voters and observing the manifest results of Democratic leadership, i.e. the policies that actually come out of DC and local government or lack thereof. Every policy the Democrats have come up with in the past two decades has been an economic disaster. I listened to both Bush and Obama for about five minutes before realizing that they were utterly clueless about basic economics, which is why I never voted for either of them. Bush's only business experience was running businesses into the ground (every time, which is pretty remarkable) and Obama had never run a lemonade stand.

I don't care about President Trump's business failures, either. What I care about was that he never stopped trying and eventually succeeded in spectacular fashion where so many others failed. Any successful businessman will have failures along the way. Humans make mistakes and there's a learning process involved in any non-trivial endeavor. I've never seen any exceptions. Elon Musk had to borrow money for rent at one point. He could still lose his shirt, but I've no doubt he'd make it all back with what he knows how to do. You'll contend that any and every success President Trump ever had was nothing but lies or thievery or whatnot, but again, you'll present no evidence because you have none. Your personal beliefs about people you despise aren't evidence of anything, they never were, and they never will be.

As far as the street mobs are concerned, my solution would be to have the Police clear the streets of everyone involved, by whatever means are required. I don't care for street mobs, whatever their political beliefs. There are more Antifa in California or Washington than white supremacists in the entire country, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary. I've never seen or met a white supremacist and I live in Texas just like you do. We're about as Deep South as it gets. Maybe you have kkk rallies every day in your neck of the woods, but there clearly aren't too many of them here in Houston. Trying to find rare exceptions and pretend that they represent the majority is wrong. There weren't any full blown riots in every major city in the country after former President Obama took office and the Republicans lost. That was clearly not the case after President Trump took office. You interpret that however you wish.

Speaking of trying to use repetition as a replacement for the truth of the matter, you keep insinuating or claiming fascism / nazism / racism where there is none. Securing America's Southern Border has nothing to do with racism. If building walls is racist, then building walls was also racist when the Democrats talked about doing the same thing. I have CSPAN videos of them talking about doing that, so spare me the incessant racism nonsense. It's rather childish and tiresome.

Speaking of false claims, President Trump has repeatedly said that "illegal immigration" and "illegal immigrants" are dangerous. You and the rest of our media have shortened that to "immigrants" for political purposes. I think all the dead Americans would be enough proof, but apparently not. Their lives don't matter. Your personal beliefs about President Trump, a man you despise for your own personal reasons, matter more than all those dead Americans. Go tell the parents of all those dead children that they're merely hallucinating that their children were murdered at the hands of illegal immigrants. I'd love to see how that goes over.

louis · 2019-01-20 18:10:34

I think you put it very well kbd...

"However, passing off political libel as evidence for a legitimate counter-intelligence investigation of a candidate for President is new to America. "

As a UK citizen I can add that the story about Christopher Steele's involvement in this whole sorry saga has been completely suppressed in the UK media while the Democrat allegations against Trump are given maximum publicity.

So, this is really a much bigger story, about how a partisan push against Trump then drew in the USA's state organs (FBI, CIA, DoJ) and then the whole "Five Eyes" apparatus into the Presidential election process.

kbd512 wrote:

GW,
The GOP didn't represent the Steele Dossier to a FISA court as verified evidence to obtain a warrant for a wire tap. I could care less if any party manufactures something about their political adversaries. All political parties make claims and use deception and lies to impugn the character of their political opponents. That's as old as politics itself. It's up to the voter to decide what is made up and what has substance. However, passing off political libel as evidence for a legitimate counter-intelligence investigation of a candidate for President is new to America. If President Trump did the same thing to his political opponents, then you and the rest of the Democrats would be screaming bloody murder.
Both political parties have tried to prevent President Trump from holding office, which is by far the best evidence that he threatens the good ole boy network and power structure in DC. That's what I was aiming to disrupt. I believe those of us who voted for President Trump succeeded. The good ole boys are terrified of having their corruption and uselessness exposed. I think that's great. I get my jollies watching the puritanical heads on both sides of the aisle explode over having been told to "F-off!", in the form of President Trump's election, after all the idiocy they subjected our great country to.
You keep talking about Fox News, as if CNN / CBS / Fox / MSNBC or other infotainment organizations, which I consider to be centers for political theater for the theatrically-minded, had any influence in who I voted for. There's nothing useful that any such infotainment organization has told me in the past decade or so. That's why I stopped watching years ago. All of them say "hooray for our side" and none of them would ever print anything that might threaten their political slant. The media can provide their ignorance-based / arrogance-based opinions into perpetuity for people who are dumb enough to actually watch them. I can't justify the waste of time, even if you can.
After Hillary Clinton's commentary and past behavior, I decided long before the elections started that I wasn't voting for her. The mere fact that you have such a problem with one single media organization with a conservative "slant", versus the slew of organizations with a liberal "slant", to their reporting is proof positive of your political bias. Fox said this, Fox said that. Great. Let me know what they said since I'm not watching any of it.
You think the primary elections were rigged, but presented no evidence, so you make the exact same claims President Trump made and have the same amount of evidence supporting your claims, which is to say nothing at all. It was all lies when President Trump said it, but correct when you said the same thing? Sure, I'll buy that... Not! If Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump were elected by both political parties, then those are the candidates the electorate wanted to run for office. If one side or the other or both did screw with the process and that produced less than desirable candidates, that's on them. I didn't vote for President Trump in the primary, but I voted for him in what I thought was a vain hope that Hillary Clinton wouldn't be the next President. Somehow, it actually worked! We FINALLY have a President who does what he says he'll do. It's almost as if there was a point to all of the nonsense.
Your guesses about what I believe about Democrats are based upon your own beliefs. My beliefs are based upon interactions with Democrat voters and observing the manifest results of Democratic leadership, i.e. the policies that actually come out of DC and local government or lack thereof. Every policy the Democrats have come up with in the past two decades has been an economic disaster. I listened to both Bush and Obama for about five minutes before realizing that they were utterly clueless about basic economics, which is why I never voted for either of them. Bush's only business experience was running businesses into the ground (every time, which is pretty remarkable) and Obama had never run a lemonade stand.
I don't care about President Trump's business failures, either. What I care about was that he never stopped trying and eventually succeeded in spectacular fashion where so many others failed. Any successful businessman will have failures along the way. Humans make mistakes and there's a learning process involved in any non-trivial endeavor. I've never seen any exceptions. Elon Musk had to borrow money for rent at one point. He could still lose his shirt, but I've no doubt he'd make it all back with what he knows how to do. You'll contend that any and every success President Trump ever had was nothing but lies or thievery or whatnot, but again, you'll present no evidence because you have none. Your personal beliefs about people you despise aren't evidence of anything, they never were, and they never will be.
As far as the street mobs are concerned, my solution would be to have the Police clear the streets of everyone involved, by whatever means are required. I don't care for street mobs, whatever their political beliefs. There are more Antifa in California or Washington than white supremacists in the entire country, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary. I've never seen or met a white supremacist and I live in Texas just like you do. We're about as Deep South as it gets. Maybe you have kkk rallies every day in your neck of the woods, but there clearly aren't too many of them here in Houston. Trying to find rare exceptions and pretend that they represent the majority is wrong. There weren't any full blown riots in every major city in the country after former President Obama took office and the Republicans lost. That was clearly not the case after President Trump took office. You interpret that however you wish.
Speaking of trying to use repetition as a replacement for the truth of the matter, you keep insinuating or claiming fascism / nazism / racism where there is none. Securing America's Southern Border has nothing to do with racism. If building walls is racist, then building walls was also racist when the Democrats talked about doing the same thing. I have CSPAN videos of them talking about doing that, so spare me the incessant racism nonsense. It's rather childish and tiresome.
Speaking of false claims, President Trump has repeatedly said that "illegal immigration" and "illegal immigrants" are dangerous. You and the rest of our media have shortened that to "immigrants" for political purposes. I think all the dead Americans would be enough proof, but apparently not. Their lives don't matter. Your personal beliefs about President Trump, a man you despise for your own personal reasons, matter more than all those dead Americans. Go tell the parents of all those dead children that they're merely hallucinating that their children were murdered at the hands of illegal immigrants. I'd love to see how that goes over.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-20 18:39:54

The Fisa warrant at the time had not investigated the claims in the dossier but after it was confirmed to be factual its still would have happened. Court Approved Wiretap on Trump Campaign Aide Over Russia Ties. The F.B.I. believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government. http://time.com/5132126/carter-page-russia-2013-letter/

The mueller investigation was not started by the FISA but by something else...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-cour … nt-n893666

The heavily redacted House investigation under Nunes, documents released Saturday comprise an application to, and subsequent renewals by, judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing the FBI to investigate Page, a foreign policy aide to the Trump campaign. But it's already been established by the House Intelligence Committee that the Russia investigation began after the FBI learned that another campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, had been approached by a Russian agent. The agent told Papadopoulos the Russians had incriminating information about Hillary Clinton, including emails, according to court documents.. Papadopoulos then mentioned to an Australian diplomat that the Russians had "dirt" on Clinton, the Australians contacted the U.S. government, and the FBI began to take a look.

louis · 2019-01-20 18:47:23

Why aren't liberal Americans up in arms about the interference of Saudi Arabia in the American Presidential elections of 2016? Hillary Clinton's senior aide Huma Abedin was from a Saudi family that propagandised in the USA for Sharia Law (ie law directly opposed to the US Constitution). Huma worked for her family and never disavowed their Sharia beliefs. That's just the beginning - haven't mentioned the Clinton Foundation connections.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-20 19:11:59

Campaign aid Huma Abedin, women of Indian-origin https://ballotpedia.org/Huma_Abedin email scandal 7 days before elections revisited...

louis · 2019-01-20 19:23:46

Her ethnicity is of absolutely no relevance. Her belief system is. She worked for her family's pro-Sharia magazine. She has never disavowed it. It is fair to ask why she has not disavowed her work for a pro-Sharia organisation given that Sharia completely contradicts the US Constitution.

Likewise you can ask a lot of questions about Brennan. Voted Communist (by his own admission) and is said to have converted to Islam (by accusation of his colleague -rather reinforced by his swearing on the Constitution rather than the Bible).

All these things could be turned into really big stories but the massively liberal MSM choose not to.

SpaceNut wrote:

Campaign aid Huma Abedin, women of Indian-origin https://ballotpedia.org/Huma_Abedin email scandal 7 days before elections revisited...

SpaceNut · 2019-01-20 19:32:24

1996 internship beliefs that have changed since she married and had a child...

kbd512 · 2019-01-20 19:51:07

Louis,

If I'm wrong about President Trump, then I'll eat my heaping serving of crow pie. I'll even apologize to GW and SpaceNut for not believing that there was substance to the Russian collusion allegations. If all Mueller has is paying off a couple of porn stars / hookers, then I couldn't care less. I already know that the Democrats and their supporters will never apologize for their outrageous behavior. If Mueller's report doesn't say exactly what they want it to say, they'll never accept the results of the investigation. To them, this is about their ideology. Much like border security, this isn't about ideology to me. A nation has borders or it isn't a nation. That's not ideological, unless part of the dictionary definition of a nation-state recently became ideological in nature. I think Democrats make anything they possibly can into an ideological issue if it supports their agenda, whatever that happens to be.

My personal take on this, based upon official statements and sworn testimony from government sources from within former President Obama's administration, is that this was a fraud orchestrated for the express purpose of attacking a political opponent. There was already precedent for that within former President Obama's administration regarding that specific federal crime. Lois Lerner's IRS fiasco is the proof for that. The IRS used FBI investigations / harassment of political activism organizations opposed to President Obama. It was just another un-prosecuted federal crime, much like allowing ATF to sell firearms to drug cartel members. AG Holder was censured by Congress for the gun walking fiasco.

From all outward appearances, the Obama Administration used federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to go after the Republican candidate for President. That is a gross abuse of power, violation of multiple federal laws, and a clear sign of systemic corruption within federal law enforcement, the intelligence apparatus, and previous Presidential administration. I believe this investigation is just an ill-advised attempt to provide the outward appearance of legitimacy for the criminal activities of people with personal interests in political power in what they thought would be another Clinton presidency.

I sincerely doubt that Peter Strzok was lying when he said "there's no there there". He knew any further investigation was a fraud before it started. He may despise President Trump enough to remain silent on the matter, but his statement is very telling. Not one single American has been charged or prosecuted for espionage because there's zero evidence and the FBI knew that from the word "go". They couldn't find anything because there wasn't anything to find.

That's why Mueller's team spent two years looking at everyone else but the obvious target of the investigation, which is President Trump. If someone told Mueller or the FBI that they met with someone from Russia on a Monday, but they actually met on a Tuesday, then they just lied to the FBI and that can be prosecuted as lying to federal law enforcement. That's the weakest sauce imaginable, but that's the kind of nonsense that President Trump's people have been prosecuted for thus far.

GW opined that where there's smoke there's fire. Generally true. However, starting a fire and then yelling and pointing at someone standing next to the fire doesn't make that person guilty of starting the fire. To anyone else who didn't witness what just happened, it looks like we found our arsonist. To anyone familiar with the behavior of the person doing the yelling and finger pointing, the noise being generated by the noise maker doesn't confer credibility.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-20 20:20:41

The president claims to not have any dealing in Russia but the facts are Donald Trump’s connection to Russia and Russian interests dates back more than 35 years.

Former GOP Congressman Slams Trump for 'Feeding' Russian Collusion 'Narrative'

The president’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is also known to have shared confidential polling data with an associate linked to Russian intelligence, according to court filings reported last week.

?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F97%2Fc2%2Fa118761a4093b49a4e5dde72f9a9%2Frussiachart-weblede.jpg

https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/07/24/ … collusion/

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 … tence.html

kbd512 · 2019-01-20 22:11:25

Louis,

Leftists spare no attempt to dismiss the blatant criminality of the people they vote for as some form of bigotry.

Hillary Clinton "My Friend and Mentor Robert C. Byrd" ( KKK Member)

That YouTube video was an excerpt from Hillary Clinton's eulogy for her "friend and mentor, Robert C. Byrd" and is direct refutation of their claims of bigotry. I don't expect people from the UK to be familiar with American politics, but Robert Carlyle Byrd (Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr) was a member of the kkk. He convinced 150 of his friends to do the same and was voted an "exalted cyclops" in the kkk at one point by his kkk fan club, whatever the hell that is. I don't feel like wasting any brain cells reading enough about the kkk to find out.

In 2005, 5 years before the old Democrat wind bag finally croaked, he had this to say "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."

As late as 2001 he was mixing his racial slurs to characterize white people he didn't like with slurs he previously used to impugn black people. I'll not post some of the more revolting things that Robert Byrd / Cornelius Sale Jr has said about black people because they're so disgusting. The man who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act changed his stripes a few years before he died and now all is forgiven simply because he's a Democrat. He sure as hell didn't "switch sides" to join the Republicans. That's part of the Democrat narrative / pack of lies / "big lie" that the Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln, suddenly became racists when the Democrats supposedly stopped being racists. He was the only Senator to vote against confirmation of both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. He also criticized Martin Luther King's "Poor People's March" in a rather tasteless way.

Hillary Clinton was either lying her worthless rear end off, which is what she normally does, or she truly was mentored by a person who is likely every bit as much of a liar and a racist as she most probably is. I could never tell which it is because I don't waste my time figuring out when she's not lying. I'm not even sure that she knows.

If you're the product of the people you talk to or hang out with, which is what SpaceNut attempted to insinuate with his President Trump / Russia fantasy, then our last Democrat candidate for President was one of the most racist liars in American politics. They keep talking about racism because it's what they believe in.

Democrats just pretend to hate different types of people today for different reasons, to gain political influence with the new demographic that they think of as their slaves. Even after black people were finally free in America, the Democrats simply refused to allow them to prosper. I firmly believe that our welfare system was created to continue the plantation system that was so oppressive against black people after the Civil War ended. That's what it encouraged, so that's what I concluded. To this day, they openly use racial slurs against any black person who publicly denounces the welfare system, or Democrats, and they just call white people who denounce it "racist", as if that was some form of argument.

Whichever way the wind is blowing is the direction that today's Democrat Party is headed in. That's what happens when the most prominent political party, by membership numbers, has no values except for "control" over other peoples' lives. There's no lie they won't tell, no deed they won't do, and no end to their appetite for the destruction of the American people and American values. There were just barely enough of us to tell the Democrats where to shove their nonsense during the last Presidential election cycle.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-21 21:13:47

President Donald Trump's legal team reached out to special counsel Robert Mueller's office Friday morning after BuzzFeed published an explosive report suggesting the president told his former attorney to lie to Congress. Giuliani said the Trump legal team is focused on encouraging Mueller to end his investigation into whether the president’s campaign colluded with Russian intervention efforts in the 2016 election.

Russia proceedings Facebook Twitter over data. Russia’s communication watchdog said on Monday it was opening administrative proceedings against Twitter and Facebook for failing to explain how they plan to comply with local data laws, the Interfax news agency reported. The agency's head was quoted as saying that the companies have a month to explain how they plan to comply with local data laws, or else they face action.

Russia's communication watchdog opened administrative proceedings against Facebook and Twitter for failing to comply with local data laws. Roskomnadzor, the regulator, said on Monday that the two social networks did not explain how and when they would comply with legislation requiring them to store Russian users' personal data on servers in Russia.

SpaceNut · 2019-01-25 20:19:26

7 indictments handed down to Roger Stone....

elderflower · 2019-01-26 05:11:12

An indictment is not a guilty verdict. The United States should let their justice system proceed in its prescribed way. It is one of the world's better ones. We can review verdicts and evidence once it is all made public, at the conclusion of the proceedings.

GW Johnson · 2019-01-26 09:54:23

Elderflower is quite right to say "let the process play out". That is what I, too, advocate. Our opinions as to the worth of doing this differ (such as me vs Kbd512), but that is irrelevant.

However, it would be quite wrong to derail any of the investigations, including Mueller's. THAT would be obstruction of justice, a very serious crime indeed. We will see what the outcomes are, soon enough.

The indictments against Roger Stone are serious indeed, since Stone is a longtime Trump friend, long-time and well-known political dirty trickster, and it was he who essentially engineered Trump's candidacy. That's an exceedingly close connection between the two. We'll eventually see what those indictments actually lead to (have patience). Looks of smoke there, and maybe some fire, too.

The appearance is that Mueller is closing in on Trump himself. No one can deny that. Whether the appearance is reality, well, we'll see, eventually. What I take from this is the same as I opined before: Mueller is just about done, and is down to dotting i's and crossing t's. I think he is timing the submission of his report such that a friend is the new AG, so as to maximize what will eventually come out in public. Which is just what he should do. The public has a need, and a right, to know.

Mueller will not leak this thing. Note that his team has had zero leaks all along, quite unlike most every other entity one could name, operating within or even near the DC Beltway. That's a testament to the integrity and public service of Mueller and his team. He submits to DOJ, and the AG decides what to give Congress. What goes to the House is almost guaranteed to leak immediately to the public, even if the AG classifies it.

My guess is that the "fireworks" begin this year.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2019-01-26 09:58:00)

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