Why is this "referral" relevant at all? The relevant info here is the FISA warrant application. Which, as I think we will see, was above board.

The completely separate and partisan attempt to smear Steele will be judged on its own merits. But we know this: 1. the Steele dossier was never the only source for the initial FISA warrant and there's every reason to believe the parts of it that were relevant were corroborated independently. 2. The Steele dossier could not have been the basis for the 3 FISA renewals because the law demands ongoing, new, evidence of probable cause. So the sad attempts to draw Rosenstein into this are just that.... sad!

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I think that's a pretty silly question. The "referral" pertains to one (or two) of the most discussed and politically relevant investigations of all time. Your post shows that you really don't want new information on the topic and have already reached your conclusion. As does your usage of:

"as I think we will see" (aka I emotionally want to believe)
"there's every reason" (politician speak for I have no evidence)
"the law demands" (lol...cause the feds never break their own laws)

Please, let the adults discuss new information when it comes to light. If you simply want affirmation news, as indicated by your post, please tune your television sets to CNN.

I find it interesting because it shows just how dirty the dossier was...and how heavily the Russians seem to have touched our campaigns (seems stronger on the Dem side as more evidence comes out).

Looking forward to more facts.

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My training

Couple of things. The FISA warrant may not have been above board, the avowals here to the contrary. This article lays out a pretty damning bill of particulars as relates to the entire sordid mess undertaken to create the investigation in the first place. That the government would go this far to tip the scales in favor of one candidate should worry all of you. But it apparently doesn't, for some reason. I guess holding government accountable for its actions is out of fashion these days. More's the pity.

"There can be no question, at this point, that certain higher ups in the FBI and the DOJ did not want Hillary to be indicted and did not want Donald Trump to become President. Those efforts were not entirely independent of each other."

Also, I've been a law-and-order guy most of my adult life (my misspent youth was another matter entirely ;-). I have close relatives (uncles and now several cousins) in the Detroit and other city police departments. I will defend a cop's right to enforce the law in almost all circumstances and I've given them the benefit of the doubt over the years and decades. BUT... after the memo and this tidbit of news why should we automatically, or even necessarily, trust the FBI/DOJ about anything right now?

FBI instructed local police to ignore procedures.

"The government response also reveals that Oregon State Police SWAT troopers at the scene, ordinarily required to wear body cameras, didn't that day at the request of the FBI. The FBI did obtain video from FBI surveillance planes flying above the scene.


State police detectives also normally record interviews of officers who might be involved in a shooting, but they didn't that night when questioning the FBI Hostage Rescue Team members, again at the FBI's request. A follow-up interview with the hostage team members also came with unusual conditions, prosecutors note."


At this point, I think it should be the default position with our government that anything it says -- and that includes the current guy in the White House as well as the FBI/DOJ and DoD (for what it's worth, I'm a retired military officer, but that doesn't mean I take everything it says at face value) -- should be double and triple-checked and then held up to the light of public examination.

The fish always rots from the head, and this fish began rotting seriously in early-to-mid-2016, as people in government began to worry that the guy currently in the White House might actually have a shot at the Republican nomination and then the White House. So they began to take steps to make sure that didn't happen. Now, I didn't vote for either Donny Two Scoops or Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit (Johnson/Weld) and I wouldn't vote for either of them today, if we had a do-over.

But what the government did in this case was wrong, and it started at the very top, with a sitting president who knowingly violated the law by communicating with his then-Secretary of State via non-government email accounts, using a fake name. Several members of that president's inner council, including his then-Attorney General, also did so. That violates every tenet of open government and transparency that's both formally as well as ethically required. Given these folks were so cavalier with that simple transparency and records-keeping requirement, what makes us think they didn't go farther? The answer, based on available evidence, is that they did. And that needs to be investigated.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Sigh...

The FISA application on Page was a month before the election, AFTER he had left the Trump campaign, and kept secret until well AFTER the election. To try to spin this into affecting the elections is crazy. Especially when you factor in the very public re-opening of the Clinton investigation by "deep state" Republicans like Comey and Szork.... the claim is just nutso.

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Steve my language for the first two is because so far Nunes and Trump have prevented the full info from coming out. Let's come back to this when the Democratic memo is released.

And no, I've not yet seen evidence of the FISC granting a warrant on specious grounds, especially the absolutely insane notion that Republicans in the DOJ and FBI abused the system to elect a Democrat. The Democrat they screwed over by publicly re-opening an investigation on with 10 days to the election.

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Agreed.

Although I caution you against dismissing "insane notions" relating to our politicians or gubmint employees. As both Drumpf and HRC have proven.....nothing is beyond the realm of imagination when it comes to feddies and politicians doing stupid/illegal shit.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out the FBI was actively working against Trump (or still is). I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't/aren't. Water is pretty murky right now, hopefully we get some new info in the demmy memo.

Again it probably won't matter for 90% of folks. Libbies think Putin controls Trump and Pubbies think HRC should be in jail. Probably some truth in both.

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My training

I disagree. Nunes was purposefully being misleading. The FISA application lacked specificity, unless that specificity was important in judging the content of the FISA application, there is no reason to care that it was not included. Is the bias really any different if the Cruze campaign paid for it or if the Clinton campaign paid for it? Why would that affect the judge's ruling? That precision was not required to give the judge all the information they needed to evaluated possible biases. Steele had been a source for the FBI previously, do you expect them to state in the application the exact number of times he had provided true information or would something like "many" or "multiple" sufficed?

Also, maybe not singling out Clinton/DNC was closer to the truth. While Steele only came on while Fusion GPS was being funded by Clinton/DNC, they did do research on Trump's Russian connection that was funded by republicans. So did Steele also provide information from Fusion GPS that was funded by republicans? Did he use that information to start his own investigation and considers it a part of his own search? It may not be true to just say Clinton/DNC.

So, no there is a huge difference between what the FISA application may have said and what Nunes did. The FBI provided the information the judge needed, Nunes purposefully misled.

You don't know what information the judge needed. Neither Nunes in his memo, nor the FBI in their petition to the court, fully disclosed everything that they knew. It's clear to me that Nunes did it out of partisan politics. I don't know why the FBI did it (and neither do you), but IF (and this is the operative question in this whole thing) they did it in a partisan fashion it's a HUGE FRICKING DEAL. I expect a Congressman to be a slimy political POS. I need to be able to trust that the FBI isn't going to come after me because they don't like my politics. It's bad enough that the IRS did that and nobody gave a damn. I'm certain you're not ok with the FBI being political and even weaponized. Let's be sure they weren't.

I am fine with the IG investigating the FBI, that is there job and adds to my trust of the FBI. I am very concerned if they were acting for political reasons. I am very honest, that would be very dangerous. But Nunes politicizing the intelligence oversight role of his committee is equally dangerous. Following the Church Committee the US implemented a pretty unprecedented oversight system of a countrie's intelligence agencies, seriously the UK and other countries think it is crazy to give politicians that level of oversight, since they were bound to leak it and use it for political purposes. For the next three decades that system has worked pretty well, at least better than any other oversight system. It is heavily based on the intelligence agencies trusting congress to act honestly in the oversight responsibility, and really the intelligence committees have been the most bi partisan and least political committees for the past decades. Now Nunes is breaking that trust, not by going after possible abuse, but by using it as a political weapon. The committee in the past has gone after abuse in the intelligence agencies and it great that they have. You are concerned about the FBI being weaponized, it is equally concerning that Nunes is weaponizing his oversight role. I

If the FBI did do something wrong, Nunes would not have to been purposefully misleading in the memo. He would have stated what they did wrong. He would have stated what was in the memo and why it was not sufficient. He could state why the judge needed that information, but he did not. He did none of those things, he only misled. Why would he need to mislead if he had an actual argument?


Fine, let us ignore all of Nunes previous actions, statements, and known bias. We can imagine that Nunes thinks there is actual wrong doing. What should he do? He should recommend an investigation by the IG of the DOJ, which this is all based on a report by them anyway. Ok, let us say he does not trust them to investigate their own, he could have the IG from somewhere like DNI investigate. If he thinks no other inspector generals can be trusted, the committee itself could investigate. They have a staff, they can issue subpoenas and call witnesses. They could do this in secret to not tip people off. Or they could do the normal joint memo with the minority party, if they can't agree they could release a majority and minority opinion, which is common practice. Since he did none of these, it is obvious he does not care about actually investigating this and wants to score political points. So either there was abuse and he thinks it is more important to score points or there was not abuse and he is just trying to score points.

To sum it up, Nunes is doing this because of political reasons:
1: If there was actual wrong doing, the memo would not need to mislead. It could clearly state why this was abuse.
2: If there is actual wrong doing, releasing a memo is not the way to address wrong doing.

If you want to address those two points, go right ahead.

Fact checking is also nonexistent these days.

I know that in the age of Trump it's easy to make general statements about the media and simply reply that it's all fake but the idea that fact checking is non-existent is absolutely not true.

Don't mix what Trump says with the media. It's a false equivalence that Trump is trying to sell but like almost everything he says, is not true.

The house committee repeatedly requested information from the FBI to the point that they issued a couple of subpoenas. They were stonewalled. Here's a synopsis up to the point that the FBI finally at least said they'd comply:

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/10/27/fbi-complies-house-committee-subpoena/

I'm not defending Nunes, haven't and won't. I hope you see that. I'm just not ready to give the FBI a pass on this yet, although you make some good arguments in their favor. I think we need to see the transcripts from the FISA hearings. If there's something to this it should be clear from those. If Nunes made this whole thing up then I would favor his expulsion from Congress.

To sum it up, Nunes is doing this because of political reasons:

Enough said, that is exactly what he is doing.

Ohh so this was while Nunes had recussed himself from investigations involving Russia and Trump? He did that because he had already weaponized secret information. Yet, while he was "recused" he requested this information. Should the FBI give him that information while he has recused himself? The FBI did comply. Do you think Nunes actions made it more or less likely that the FBI would fight the request? They did fulfill their legal obligations in the end. Also remember that scanal ended up being nothing but lies by Nunes? Do some people have the memory of a gold fish?

So now Nunes is only making the situation worse. Do you think his actions are making it more likely or less likely the FBI will be forthcoming?

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We've got an entire "dossier" that was created for political reasons, and most of look at it and say, "well, how much is true; does it matter; actionable?". My first impulse is to look at the Nunes memo in the same way, then I remember that the FBI is not going to declassify anything so that we can even know; this whole exercise is a waste of time, and certainly will not change anyone's view of their side.

The Dems are fighting awful hard to keep this stuff quiet. I can think of only 2 reasons they would do that:

1) everything the Repubs are saying are blatant lies
2) there's something in all of this that they want to keep hidden

Really, would either surprise you?

I see a lot of DNC talking points in the huffing and puffing that the memo is a now a "nothingburger" (when, just last week it would have meant the death of the Republic if it was released). ;-)

Anyway, here are the bottom lines:

-- In the FISA application, a footnote vaguely stated that the Steele smear document (because that's what it was) was commissioned by a "political source." That's not the same as coming out and stating that "Donny Two Scoops' opponent in the 2016 election commissioned this soupcon of unverified rumors and smears, and now his opponent seeks to initiate a criminal process against him to even out the email investigation against her." Is that hyperbolic on my part? Doesn't seem that way to me, because as far as I can tell, that's exactly what took place.

-- We also KNOW that Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit paid for an intelligence operation that was mainly concerned with taking down any opponents that might have stood in her way in her march to the White House (this operation was headed by Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer) and it was abetted by Fusion GPS and the Clinton/DNC-aligned law firm, Perkins-Coie, who paid former MI6 spy guy Christopher Steele -- who in his own words was "desperate to ensure Two Scoops not win the presidency."

Madam Pantsuit then got her buds in the FBI to open a counterintelligence investigation against the Two Scoops campaign at almost the same day that the Pantsuit email investigation threatened to destroy her. She desperately needed something, anything, to pin on the Manhattan real estate developer and reality TV star in order to distract from her own criminal wrongdoing. This much is clear.

Everything that ensued was because of that second bottom line.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Quote:

-- In the FISA application, a footnote vaguely stated that the Steele smear document (because that's what it was) was commissioned by a "political source." That's not the same as coming out and stating that "Donny Two Scoops' opponent in the 2016 election commissioned this soupcon of unverified rumors and smears, and now his opponent seeks to initiate a criminal process against him to even out the email investigation against her." Is that hyperbolic on my part? Doesn't seem that way to me, because as far as I can tell, that's exactly what took place.

Yeah, but I have a hard time believing a judge couldn't put 2 and 2 and 2 together. Donald Trump? Is that the guy running for President?

Still, it is weird that a Donald Trump dossier is important to spy on someone who isn't Donald Trump. I remember a lot of investigation leaks throwing the Trump team off balance at the beginning of Trump's term. Where those leaks assoicated with this Carter Page/Trump dossier FISA warrant?

Just looks like either side is trying to get a political win for the day, but it's a big deal if we find either narrative (or both) true. DOJ politicized/weaponized or Collusion on the Trump side. An obstruction charge against Trump would not be any more of a surprise to me than the next lie he utters, though dems will have a big haha and win, I don't know how anyone could be shocked. I am heartened to read quotes from stories like the one linked below, that add some confidence in the character and work of the IG.
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He is really one of the smartest and fairest people I have ever had the pleasure to work with,” said Bill Hamel, who served as assistant inspector general for investigations at the Department of Education. “He’s a straight shooter and a fair guy. He’s an honest broker.”
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Horowitz’s work has earned him respect among his peers. He has been twice elected to lead the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the independent panel of inspectors general across the federal government.
“He is a man of the utmost integrity who is willing to call the shots as he sees them,” said Stanley Twardy, a Stamford, Conn.-based lawyer who has known Horowitz professionally since his days as a U.S. attorney.
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http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/372457-ig-poised-to-reignite-war-over-fbis-clinton-case

It's clear in your writing style how partisan you are and how your mind is very made up.

I would suggest you read the analysis of the Steele dossier I posted for efernand. It was raw intelligence gathered from various sources, some trusted, some less so. Even intelligence from trusted sources can be flase or misleading, even sometimes when the source believes the information is correct themselves. That's the nature of clandestine intelligence gathering. It is up to analysts to analyze and decipher the information to see what is usable.

But beyond that, much of the Steele dossier HAS now been corroborated (again, read the link I posted), while some has been found not accurate.

And given what Steele believed to be true in the dossier, it was not surprising that, for the sake of western allies, he was desperate for Trump not to become president. That needn't be a political bias. It's why he gave the information to the FBI.

But the IG had already investigated the FISA applications, that is the report that this whole memo thing is based on (although he did not even read it, his staff member did). If the DOJ IG said that nothing was wrong, why are you believe Nunes? This was looked into.

This is the second time that he has claimed secret information was damning and it turned out to be nothing! Was the first time not enough for him to be expelled from Congress? Should we at least ignore him when he does it now?

Pot meet Kettle.

Gawd, no kidding.

X3

I guess I'm confused then....
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...page/article/2648102