Trump steps up fight over Russia probe, backs release of secret memo

[Srikcir]

26 minutes ago, billd766 said:

so why would they need another?

Just to speculate.

If Mueller can't be easily fired, maybe his investigation can be suspended while the new special counsel investigates the FBI's handling of FISA applications. Then the new special counsel conducts essentially a McCarthy-type investigation taking many months if not a year.

Further, perhaps faced with a long delay and himself a potential witness for the new special counsel, Mueller might consider resigning..

[riclag]

32 minutes ago, billd766 said:

 

US Presidents are not always honest either. Think about Nixon, the two Bushes, Clinton and now Trump.

 

However there is already a special investigator working on Trump so why would they need another?

Because Law enforcement isn't always honest.Now your gonna say PTrump isn't honest,than I'm gonna say lets have one for the DOJ,FBI and Politicians.

[boomerangutang]

21 minutes ago, riclag said:

Because Law enforcement isn't always honest.Now your gonna say PTrump isn't honest,than I'm gonna say lets have one for the DOJ,FBI and Politicians.

                         It sounds like you're gulping down the Fox News garbage smoothie.  Trump, Fox, and all right wingers are frantically trying to derail the investigation - to the extent of trying to tarnish US law enforcement institutions.   There is no ugly tactic that Trump and his cabal won't try.  It's testing the strengths of America's institutions.   Will they hold?  I think so, but they're getting a battering by those wanting law-breakers to run free.

[Jingthing]

                         It sounds like you're gulping down the Fox News garbage smoothie.  Trump, Fox, and all right wingers are frantically trying to derail the investigation - to the extent of trying to tarnish US law enforcement institutions.   There is no ugly tactic that Trump and his cabal won't try.  It's testing the strengths of America's institutions.   Will they hold?  I think so, but they're getting a battering by those wanting law-breakers to run free.

You're more optimistic than I am.

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[boomerangutang]

         Here's another reason why Trump shielders are running full speed and unabashedly against America's institutions.   In Trumpworld, everything is subjective.  It's all about him.  Every person inside the Beltway either praises him or detests him, in his warped view. 

 

            If Trump and his brown shirts continue to attack law-enforcement, then, when Mueller and his team publish their findings (which will incriminate Trump and many of his hangers on), .....Trump and Fox and all other right wingers can say, "See! They're attacking me because they hate me!  They're attacking me because they're angry that Hillary didn't win!"
 

You see the picture?  Trump wants to play the victim, and convince all Americans that it's a personal crusade against him.  Trump need not worry about convincing his fan base.  They're so gullible and dumb, that they'll believe every bit of BS Trump shovels their way.

[Khun Han]

3 hours ago, Jingthing said:

This is all a big farce. It's not about transparency. It's all about trump's effort to throw doo doo on the Mueller investigation and try to save his presidency. Yes his minority base and most of the republican party has his back on this no matter what. What's in the memo isn't the point in this high stakes game. It may work or maybe it will probably work. But for now the story ain't over.


Sent from my [device_name] using http://Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

 

It's not a farce at all. The FBI, DoJ and Dems wouldn't have lied about the memo's contents in arguing that it shouldn't be released, it there was nothing in this.

[ilostmypassword]

3 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

It's not a farce at all. The FBI, DoJ and Dems wouldn't have lied about the memo's contents in arguing that it shouldn't be released, it there was nothing in this.

You mean like when they claimed that the report was full of misrepresentations,  omission of inconvenient information, and distortions. And if the case for the report was so strong, why did the Republicans suppress the Democrat counter-report? Because the Republican support was so truthful that there was no need to challenge its assertions and conclusions?

[Jingthing]

4 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

It's not a farce at all. The FBI, DoJ and Dems wouldn't have lied about the memo's contents in arguing that it shouldn't be released, it there was nothing in this.

So dude, if the "trump supporters" are in this for transparency, why are they aggressively suppressing the democratic memo? Hmm? Nobody with any common sense including the people doing this thing think is about anything other than trying to give trump deflection cover and try to make the Mueller investigation so muddy that it doesn't matter any more (or stop it completely). I don't actually believe you don't realize that either. 

[Khun Han]

Just now, ilostmypassword said:

You mean like when they claimed that the report was full of misrepresentations,  omission of inconvenient information, and distortions. And if the case for the report was so strong, why did the Republicans suppress the Democrat counter-report? Because the Republican support was so truthful that there was no need to challenge its assertions and conclusions?

 

No, I'm referring to their claims that information in the memo would compromise national security if released.

[Khun Han]

1 minute ago, Jingthing said:

So dude, if the "trump supporters" are in this for transparency, why are they aggressively suppressing the democratic memo? Hmm? Nobody with any common sense including the people doing this thing think is about anything other than trying to give trump deflection cover and try to make the Mueller investigation so muddy that it doesn't matter any more (or stop it completely). I don't actually believe you don't realize that either. 

 

My view, as an outsider, is that there is much substance to Trump's claims, and that the Establishment swamp does indeed need clearing. Is Trump the right person to do it? Well, he's an unsavoury, unscrupulous character, no question. But it was always going to need someone as nasty and ruthless as Trump to undertake this task. Whether he can be put out to pasture, and somebody more user-friendly brought in in three years time, should Trump clear the swamp, remains to be seen.

[Jingthing]

3 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

My view, as an outsider, is that there is much substance to Trump's claims, and that the Establishment swamp does indeed need clearing. Is Trump the right person to do it? Well, he's an unsavoury, unscrupulous character, no question. But it was always going to need someone as nasty and ruthless as Trump to undertake this task. Whether he can be put out to pasture, and somebody more user-friendly brought in in three years time, should Trump clear the swamp, remains to be seen.

Drain the swamp is just trump propaganda rhetoric. He's a much worse swamp. He's an existential threat to American institutions and democracy.  The press is the enemy of the people, he says. What famous fascists in history have we heard that from before? He's leading a totally un-American neo-fascist movement. Not only doesn't trump care about the constitution, he probably hasn't even read it. 

[Khun Han]

14 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Drain the swamp is just trump propaganda rhetoric. He's a much worse swamp. He's an existential threat to American institutions and democracy.  The press is the enemy of the people, he says. What famous fascists in history have we heard that from before? He's leading a totally un-American neo-fascist movement. Not only doesn't trump care about the constitution, he probably hasn't even read it. 

 

Trump and his cronies belong in the swamp, but they are only a very small part of it. Like I said, clearing/draining it was never a job for an idealist.

[Jingthing]

50 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

Trump and his cronies belong in the swamp, but they are only a very small part of it. Like I said, clearing/draining it was never a job for an idealist.

Your interpretation of trump's objectives has no relation to any kind of reality. He's a total CON MAN, only in it for his bizarre ego and his own family's business empire. He's not fit to be president of a condo board. Also, he didn't even want to win! He figured he would win by losing, which he would have. But he did win and now look at the damage he is doing. 

[Khun Han]

31 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Your interpretation of trump's objectives has no relation to any kind of reality. He's a total CON MAN, only in it for his bizarre ego and his own family's business empire. He's not fit to be president of a condo board. Also, he didn't even want to win! He figured he would win by losing, which he would have. But he did win and now look at the damage he is doing. 

 

All in your opinion.

[ilostmypassword]

8 hours ago, Khun Han said:

 

No, I'm referring to their claims that information in the memo would compromise national security if released.

It's funny. On the one hand supporters of the memo say it has exposed corruption in the justice department. On the other hand, they say it hasn't revealed any secrets. In fact, all the information in the memo was already in the public domain. And has been repeatedly pointed out, it actually further confirms  that the investigation did not rely on the Steele memo, that the investigation of Carter Page began years before Trump even began to run for office...etc.

[billd766]

16 hours ago, riclag said:

Because Law enforcement isn't always honest.Now your gonna say PTrump isn't honest,than I'm gonna say lets have one for the DOJ,FBI and Politicians.

 

Having read the posts following yours and I agree with Boomerangutang, Khun Han, Jingthing and my other posts.

 

I have read many of your posts and IMHO you are a Trump supporter, right or wrong, truth or fake.

 

You will not change and neither will I, nor sadly will Donald Trump.

 

If, as he said way back why didn't he go to Mueller and say that he wanted to answer ANY question honestly and under oath and that he had nothing to hide.

 

IMHO Trump is the worst president that the USA has had in the last 50 years and again, IMHO, he is doing tremendous damage to the USA.

[Danthefarang]

 
This is an awesome thread. Seth does a very in depth analysis of the memo.He sorts out the truth, half-truths and lies. 
 
In short, the memo shows no wrong-doings or misdeeds but only serves to attempt to undermine the Mueller investigation.
 
Seth mentions the following article which is also worth reading.
 
The Dubious Legal Claim Behind #ReleaseTheMemo
https://www.lawfareblog.com/dubious-legal-claim-behind-releasethememo
 

Twitter.....a perfect way to gather information on a complicated subject.....if you've the attention span of a knat.......I don't suppose reading the actual memo yourself and coming to your own conclusions occured to you.......no wonder the governments of the west are an embarrassment .......you get the government you deserve.

[billd766]

3 minutes ago, Danthefarang said:

Twitter.....a perfect way to gather information on a complicated subject.....if you've the attention span of a knat.......I don't suppose reading the actual memo yourself and coming to your own conclusions occured to you.......no wonder the governments of the west are an embarrassment .......you get the government you deserve.

 

Doesn't Donald Trump use Twitter on a daily basis?

 

What does that say about POTUS and the people who read his Twitters?

[attrayant]

1 hour ago, Danthefarang said:

Twitter.....a perfect way to gather information on a complicated subject.....if you've the attention span of a knat.......I don't suppose reading the actual memo yourself and coming to your own conclusions occured to you.......no wonder the governments of the west are an embarrassment .......you get the government you deserve.

 

Do you also criticize the mailman when he brings you the electric bill?  I mean, what does a mailman know about electricity!  How could HE possibly know how much you're supposed to pay?  The nerve of him, thinking he's qualified to give us information about on a complicated subject such as electricity usage.

[Khun Han]

8 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

It's funny. On the one hand supporters of the memo say it has exposed corruption in the justice department. On the other hand, they say it hasn't revealed any secrets. In fact, all the information in the memo was already in the public domain. And has been repeatedly pointed out, it actually further confirms  that the investigation did not rely on the Steele memo, that the investigation of Carter Page began years before Trump even began to run for office...etc.

 

The assertion that the FISA court was not given full disclosure on the nature of the Steele report is the important thing that comes from tbe memo. This aspect did not impact national security.

 

The Republicans claim to have a recording of the deputy AG stating that the FISA application in question would not have been presented without the Steele dossier.

 

Carter Page was initially put on watch when he 'shopped' himself to the FBI, claiming to have been approached by Russian intelligence operatives.

[ilostmypassword]

28 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

The assertion that the FISA court was not given full disclosure on the nature of the Steele report is the important thing that comes from tbe memo. This aspect did not impact national security.

 

The Republicans claim to have a recording of the deputy AG stating that the FISA application in question would not have been presented without the Steele dossier.

 

Carter Page was initially put on watch when he 'shopped' himself to the FBI, claiming to have been approached by Russian intelligence operatives.

And the Democrats have a report which challenges that assertion. For some odd reason, the Rebublicans don't want that report to be made public. Hmmm...

[Slip]

I hope this is not considered off-topic.  A fascinating read for those not au-fait with the propaganda machine at play in modern U.S. politics an how complicit the republicans are in protecting and nurturing it.

 

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/04/trump-twitter-russians-release-the-memo-216935

[ilostmypassword]

On 2/5/2018 at 5:33 PM, Khun Han said:

 

The assertion that the FISA court was not given full disclosure on the nature of the Steele report is the important thing that comes from tbe memo. This aspect did not impact national security.

 

The Republicans claim to have a recording of the deputy AG stating that the FISA application in question would not have been presented without the Steele dossier.

 

Carter Page was initially put on watch when he 'shopped' himself to the FBI, claiming to have been approached by Russian intelligence operatives.

Read it and weep:

Republicans concede key FBI 'footnote' in Carter Page warrant

Republican leaders are acknowledging that the FBI disclosed the political origins of a private dossier the bureau cited in an application to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, undermining a controversial GOP memo released Friday and fueling Democratic demands to declassify more information about the bureau’s actions.

At issue is whether the federal probe into the Trump campaign's Russia ties is infected with political bias, as Republicans say — or whether the GOP is using deceitful tactics to quash the probe, as Democrats insist.

Democrats pounced on public comments over the past day by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and intelligence committee member Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), arguing that the GOP memo's failure to mention a key footnote in the FBI application shows how the party has cherry-picked classified facts to protect President Donald Trump.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/05/fbi-footnote-carter-page-warrant-390795

[Khun Han]

3 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

On 05/02/2018 at 10:33 AM, Khun Han said:

 

The assertion that the FISA court was not given full disclosure on the nature of the Steele report is the important thing that comes from tbe memo. This aspect did not impact national security.

 

The Republicans claim to have a recording of the deputy AG stating that the FISA application in question would not have been presented without the Steele dossier.

 

Carter Page was initially put on watch when he 'shopped' himself to the FBI, claiming to have been approached by Russian intelligence operatives.

Read it and weep:

Republicans concede key FBI 'footnote' in Carter Page warrant

Republican leaders are acknowledging that the FBI disclosed the political origins of a private dossier the bureau cited in an application to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, undermining a controversial GOP memo released Friday and fueling Democratic demands to declassify more information about the bureau’s actions.

At issue is whether the federal probe into the Trump campaign's Russia ties is infected with political bias, as Republicans say — or whether the GOP is using deceitful tactics to quash the probe, as Democrats insist.

Democrats pounced on public comments over the past day by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and intelligence committee member Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), arguing that the GOP memo's failure to mention a key footnote in the FBI application shows how the party has cherry-picked classified facts to protect President Donald Trump.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/05/fbi-footnote-carter-page-warrant-390795

 

From the report:

 

"I read the footnote. I know exactly what the footnote says," Gowdy said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "It took longer to explain it the way they did, than if they just come right out and said, 'Hillary Clinton for America and DNC paid for it.' But they didn't do that."

 

So we still don't know what the FBI actually did say.

 

And, according to the link, there's more to come on Dem collusion with the FBI from Senator Chuck Grassley.

[ilostmypassword]

8 hours ago, Khun Han said:

 

From the report:

 

"I read the footnote. I know exactly what the footnote says," Gowdy said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "It took longer to explain it the way they did, than if they just come right out and said, 'Hillary Clinton for America and DNC paid for it.' But they didn't do that."

 

So we still don't know what the FBI actually did say.

 

And, according to the link, there's more to come on Dem collusion with the FBI from Senator Chuck Grassley.

But we do know that Nunes was deliberately misleading about the FBI FISA requests, don't we?

And even if the FBI hadn't put in that footnote, there was plenty of other evidence to justify their request. Even Nunes report conceded that.

[lannarebirth]

On 2/5/2018 at 3:04 AM, ilostmypassword said:

And the Democrats have a report which challenges that assertion. For some odd reason, the Rebublicans don't want that report to be made public. Hmmm...

 

There are 13 Republicans and 9 Democrats on the House Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee voted unanimously to release the Democrat memo.

[Khun Han]

4 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

But we do know that Nunes was deliberately misleading about the FBI FISA requests, don't we?

And even if the FBI hadn't put in that footnote, there was plenty of other evidence to justify their request. Even Nunes report conceded that.

 

No, we don't. We can only work out why it was left out if/when we find out it's contents.

[Srikcir]

4 hours ago, lannarebirth said:

 

There are 13 Republicans and 9 Democrats on the House Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee voted unanimously to release the Democrat memo.

But it is the President that decides what if any of the Democrat memo will be released to the public.

Chances are he (aka his senior advisors and attorney) will redact so much of it to render it illegible.

[ilostmypassword]

18 minutes ago, Khun Han said:

 

No, we don't. We can only work out why it was left out if/when we find out it's contents.

Nunes has said the footnote shows that the Steele Dossier was paid for by a political organization. You think that the judge is too stupid to know that this means it could be biased?

Or as someone put it:

"Notice how “The FBI LIED about the Steele dossier” has been scaled back to, “The FBI did not highlight the truth about the Steele Dossier in the part of the application we bothered to read.” So now the main attack on the FBI is about font size."

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/nunes-fine-the-fbi-didnt-lie-but-its-font-was-too-small.html

[Jingthing]

But it is the President that decides what if any of the Democrat memo will be released to the public.
Chances are he (aka his senior advisors and attorney) will redact so much of it to render it illegible.

I think the house can overrule a "trump" block by vote.

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