The only problem is that the sources of the dossier were NOT presented to the FISA court. The court was NOT told that it was provided by Steele who was secretly paid by the Clinton campaign.

More likely, Mr. Super Spy James Bond was just what James Comey -- in his testimony to the Senate -- basically characterized him as: 'a very reliable fellow who wouldn't lie to us.' Except he did lie to them. Or he lied to a British court about his role in all this. It's one or the other. But for sure he's a liar. He lied to the FBI, it looks like, about his contacts with the media regarding his dossier, and the Bureau canned him for it, for one.

Also, he seems more like the Front Man who was fed all this stuff that ended up in his dossier. By Felonia's disreputable-to-the-point-of-absurdity "researchers" Sid Blumenthal and Cody Shearer -- who also served as her private intelligence gathering agency, apparently.

Probably, Blumenthal and Shearer were the ghostwriters of that dossier and Steele was a cleanskin who agreed -- for a lot of money that was funneled to him by cutouts (Fusion GPS or Perkins Coie, or both) -- to let the Dynamic Opposition Research Duo of Blumenthal/Shearer slap his name on the document to lend it the credibility with the FBI and DOJ counterintelligence arms that "Blumenthal/Shearer" simply could not.

Steele's not some sort of Super Patriot Who Loves The USA And Just Wanted To Protect Us From Our Worst Trumpian Impulses. He's just a guy who wanted to see Felonia in office because it would make him more money than if Donny Two Scoops were elected.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

He got paid secretly.

He leaked.

He lied.


Better?

Do you have anything better? Other than, this guy met some Russians, this other guy met some Russians, some other guy met some Russians and didn't report it, some guy met some Russians who offered him a opposition research dossier on Clinton... etc.

The only actual proof of Russian meddling is the Steele dossier that you are so enamored with.

You say some stupid stuff, but this must rank up there in your top 5.

Did I miss the part of you post where you mention other actual proof of Russian meddling?

I already posted the Intelligence Community Assessment. The CIA stands by their assertion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. If you want to argue, you'll have to take it up with Mike Pompeo. I won't keep arguing with a troll.

Did I miss the part of you post where you mention other actual proof of Russian meddling?

You don't really believe that, right?

l think you’re just trolling now. Your posts read just like his. JUST LIKE HIS. When you read his posts and roll your eyes, that’s how other people feel when they read yours.

You are convinced this isn’t true and will find anything you can to support that preconceived notion.

Me, I’m gonna let it play out. But there’s a lot of smoke out there suggesting people were so unhappy about Trump that they wanted to take him down. As much as you probably don’t like him, I’m surprised you find that hard to believe.

...only we're not going to see the other side. Trump has blocked the Dem written memo.

Has been sent back for redactions but I'm not convinced Trump will ever let it be released.

So much for wanting transparency. Republicans on the Hill could override Trump but chances of that are zero.

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Well that kind of depends on who is doing the redactions, and why.

How would anyone in WH know whether redactions needed....they are too busy hiding woman abusers.

So easy.

Why didn't the WH want the FBI to review the Nunes memo, but they want the FBI to review the Democrat memo? That's a double standard, and on top of that the FBI had the bigger problem with the Nunes memo, saying it had material ommisions of fact.

Again, so much for transparency...

The sadest part of all this is the Nunes memo has destroyed all notion of this committee doing the bipartisan work it is supposed to be doing, which will have negative repercussions for future oversight committees.

Trump making Nixon look good.

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Apparently dems sent their memo to be checked by FBI/DOJ before it was voted out of the committee, and because it was already on Trumps desk, those agencies sent their gripes to him.
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Schiff said Committee Democrats had submitted the memo to the DOJ and FBI for vetting before the panel voted to release the document, and that minority members of the committee would review redactions recommended by the agencies.
"We will be reviewing the recommended redactions from DOJ and FBI, which these agencies shared with the White House, and look forward to conferring with the agencies to determine how we can properly inform the American people about the misleading attack on law enforcement by the GOP and address any concerns over sources and methods," he said in a statement.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/house/373234-schiff-dems-will-to-review-recommended-memo-redactions-from-doj-fbi

Recall Trump said he would release the Nunez memo (when caught on a hot mic after the SOTU) before he had even read it. That said, Nunez refused to answer the question of whether the White House had any input into his memo, so Trump had probably helped write it!

Yes, which is the treatment the Nunes memo should have undergone.

Meanwhile the Committee is incapable of doing its job as an oversight function.

What? We know there was still a counter intelligence into the Trump campaign when FBI agents leaked to the NYT was told there was no investigation, shouldn't we not trust those FBI agents? Don't you agree those agents that lied to the NYT were untrustworthy?

Wow, an opinion piece in a Murdock owned newspaper defending Trump? I am shocked, shocked! First, the article says that he has been out of the official spy rings for 7 years. Yes that is true, but he had been being paid by companies to provide intelligence on Russia, so he had been in constant contact with those sources for 7 years (including working the freaking FBI in that time, which obviously was good information if they trusted him so much. Second, even he will admit he did not unravel a conspiracy, he collected a ton of raw intelligence. There is a difference there. Third, nice that they put reliable in qoutes, yea no agenda here, especially when we have every reason to trust the previous information he gave to the FBI, since they continued to trust him. Why would they trust him if he had lied to the before? Fourth, Steele did not refuse to answer questions from congressional investigators, he offered to speak with the Senate Intelligence Committee, he just did not speak with the staff from Nunes that was sent with no warning. That was the staff that turned up with no warning and was done without the knowledge of the HISC, when Nunes said he was going to step away from the investigation. Combine that with Nunes actions and words, why would you talk with him?

Lastly, is the authors idea that Clinton's brilliant idea was to create these lies to smear Trump and then NOT release this information during the campaign? Why hire Steele if you are just making stuff up? Is it because he is a trusted source on Russia, so would add credence to it?

You're trying too hard. Admitting "meddling" doesn't imply collusion, conceding any sort of defeat to "the mainstream media" or libtards, or undermining any tenet of conservative ideology.

If you take a clear-eyed look at the available evidence I'd think it's really hard to arrive at any other conclusion than that Russia tried really hard to fuck with our election, got a little success. If you're not seeing past "the dossier" then you're just going through herculean efforts to hide yourself from reality and valuing party tribalism over national interest.

I don’t know what’s in the memo and neither do you (a recurring theme). It’s possible the Dem memo has more sensitive info in it that theDOJ and FBI needs/wants to redact. Like l said, if l were a politically motivated Dem I’d have written a memo he couldn’t release to make Trump look bad, just like this. It’s not a double standard because the memos aren’t the same. The Dem memo will be redacted and eventually released.

The FBI objected to the Nunes memo, but they released it anyway. The Dem memo is now being given to the FBI for alterations. How is that not a double standard? If Nunes et al cared what the FBI thought was appropriate to be included in both memos, they would have given their memo the same scrutiny, but they didn't.

Of course the whole episode is just a minor distraction from the bigger picture and simply an effort to discredit the FBI. The lengths they're going to to do this makes me more suspect that Mueller has something substantive on Trump.

Meanwhile the WH continues to be a complete shitshow. Rachel Brand resigning after 9 months as number 3 in the DOJ. Unheard of. Why did she leave? Of yeah, because she had a lucrative private sector job offer. Riiiiight.

They will redact references to a source and some communication stuff and release the memo.

Discredit the FBI? That’s the same FBI that you yourself said let Hillary off too easy on the email deal. They’ve discredited themselves.

Some people in the FBI wanted Hillary to be president and don’t want Trump to be and they used their position to try to make sure that happened. I’m not stating it as fact, only a hypothetical. But one could make a heck of an argument that that’s exactly what’s going on here. You cop to the first part of it. Be more objective and consider the possibility of the second part too.

The more you try to defend yourself the more guilty you probably are. No uncorrupted man may fear this court, Mr Hale. None!

The Dem memo only made it to Trump b/c the committee unanimously voted to send it to him. Why would the republicans send Trump a Democratic memo which they knew he would look bad rejecting?