Cont: All things Trump + Russia Part 2

[phiwum]

What was my claim?

Your claim was that this information might have been fabricated since it was eventually paid for by Clinton et al.

But this is nonsense. The only use for making up all of this is to influence the election, and the relationship between the DNC and Fusion began prior to the election. Waiting until after the election to release fabrications produces no benefit to the loser.

All of this is even neglecting the fact that the original research was not done on the behalf of democrats.

Note that I'm not saying that the document is accurate. I wouldn't know. But if it was fabricated, then it wasn't likely fabricated by the DNC or Clinton.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Why do you think uninformed "curiosity" does anything but wasting everybody's time? Is this some kind of l'art pour l'art exercise?

It isn't a waste of everyone's time. If you answer, then I am more informed.

 

[Childlike Empress]

It isn't a waste of everyone's time. If you answer, then I am more informed.

Well, but you hang around uninformed so the only reason why I would take the time to inform you, so you can learn something, doesn't seem to be a realistic goal.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Well, but you hang around uninformed so the only reason why I would take the time to inform you, so you can learn something, doesn't seem to be a realistic goal.

Hang around uninformed? What does that mean?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The WAPo explains it all, boy the Trumpers are desperate to make the dossier look tainted.

2) Yes, the dossier was funded by Democrats

1) Clinton supporters — though not the campaign itself — were previously reported to fund the dossier

The fact Democrats were behind the funding for the dossier is not totally new. When CNN first reported on the dossier's existence back in January, it said the research effort was originally funded by President Trump's GOP opponents and then, when he won the nomination, by those supporting Clinton.

CNN reported back then that their sources "said that once Mr. Trump became the nominee, further investigation was funded by groups and donors supporting Hillary Clinton."

Until now, though, the dossier had not been tied specifically to the Clinton campaign or the DNC.

BFD!

OMG there's a more direct connection than the previous direct connection.

This is not some new scandal even though Fox and I'm sure the rest of the alt-right sources are going to be playing this up as some big deal deceit.

Fox this morning had a whole piece on what liars the Clintons are, trying hard to make an equivalence to Trump's lies and asking why no liberals complain about the Clintons lying like they do about Trump's lies. Riiight, like no one ever made an issue of Bill's infamous "I did not have sex with that woman."

This is bull ****, clearly intended to distract from what is coming out about Trump/Putin collusion.

 

[Childlike Empress]

... clearly intended to distract from what is coming out about Trump/Putin collusion.

 

[quadraginta]

What I find interesting is that it is apparently unimportant that the research was originally contracted for by Republican opponents of Trump, but when Democrats were willing to continue to fund it it somehow became reprehensible.

Well, the shillaries are wanting us to be outraged by some brief meeting of Don Jr in Trump Tower with a random Russian that promised him dirt on Killary, so there's that.

And do you understand that this is not the end of that story? From my link in #2290:

[...] Here is the key takeaway. After the Clinton Campaign and the DNC ended their relationship with Fusion GPS, why did John McCain and his staffer enter the picture and start receiving derogatory information about Donald Trump? Was there any communication or coordination between John McCain and Hillary Clinton's people regarding the findings of Fusion GPS? Or was this a unilateral move by McCain?

The Washington Post reporters claim that, "After the election, the FBI agreed to pay Steele to continue gathering intelligence, but the bureau pulled out of the arrangement after Steele was publicly identified." Who told the FBI about the Fusion GPS effort and the Steele reports? Was it McCain? Was it the Clinton campaign? Was it someone connected with the CIA or the NSA? There are some significant unanswered questions. [...]

From the article I just linked to;

By July, the counter-intelligence contractor had collected a significant amount of material based on Russian sources who he had grown to trust over the years – not just in Moscow, but also among oligarchs living in the west. He delivered his reports, but the gravity of their contents weighed on him. If the allegations were real, their implications were overwhelming.
He delivered a set to former colleagues in the FBI, whose counter-intelligence division would be the appropriate body to investigate. It is believed he also passed a copy to his own country’s intelligence service, but it felt constrained in what action it could take and left it up to the Americans to do their own investigation and draw their own conclusions.

Then that guy decides to share the story with the press.

The former intelligence official grew concerned that there was a cover-up in progress. On a trip to New York in October, he was persuaded to tell his story to David Corn, the Washington editor of Mother Jones, who first reported the existence of the material on 31 October.

Then McCain gets involved.

Senator John McCain, a hawkish Republican, was there and was introduced to a former senior western diplomat who had seen the documents, knew their source and thought him highly reliable. McCain decided the implications were sufficiently alarming to dispatch a trusted emissary, a former US official, to meet the source and find out more.
The emissary hastily arranged a transatlantic flight and met the source at the airport as arranged.


The emissary flew back within 24 hours and showed McCain the documents, saying it was hard to impossible to verify them without a proper investigation. McCain said he was reluctant to get involved, lest it be perceived as payback for insulting remarks Trump had made about him during his rambunctious campaign.
However, on 9 December, McCain arranged a one-on-one meeting with Comey, with no aides present, and handed them over.

​

Not seeing much sign of the Clinton campaign or the DNC there.

Just about everyone else, though.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Wikipedia has a criticism section on this firm.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Cambridge+Analytica

Those are no more "controversial" than any other psychographic based data mining for any other purpose. I don't see anything that is actually controversial about them... aside from the shallow dive of "they helped Trump!11111!1"

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm confused. Why is it new news that the DNC and the Clinton camp paid for the dossier? I thought that was known from the beginning? First the DNC commissioned the investigation then withdrew or something and the Clinton camp picked up the ball.

How is it new news who paid for the investigation?

Okay, bit of a question here - if the DNC and Clinton camp solicited the help of a foreign entity to get hold of stuff that paints their opponent in a negative light... how is that materially different from Trump Jr. meeting with Russians with the expectation to receive stuff that painted their opponent in a negative light? Is there a distinction I'm missing here?

 

[NoahFence]

Because whoever paid for it, owned it. And whoever owned it controlled its distribution. And given that it was the Clinton campaign who owned it, by proxy at a minimum, then it raises the possibility that the entire Russian blackmail/Russian interference/Russian collusion narrative was completely fabricated and promoted by Clinton and her posse, including Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and various and sundry other deep staters who were horrified by the idea of handing over the reins of government to a bloviating rube.

You really think someone needs to invent **** about trump?

 

[sunmaster14]

Your claim was that this information might have been fabricated since it was eventually paid for by Clinton et al.

Not the information. The narrative about Russia either blackmailing Trump or colluding with him or both. The dossier was the means by which the narrative was constructed and disseminated.

But this is nonsense. The only use for making up all of this is to influence the election, and the relationship between the DNC and Fusion began prior to the election. Waiting until after the election to release fabrications produces no benefit to the loser.

Why would the Clintonites release a dodgy dossier before an election she expected to win? It could have easily backfired. No, it was clearly in reserve for a hail mary play of some sort. After the election, the hail mary play was to try to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's win, as well as to hamstring his administration as much as possible before he got going on his plan to make America great again (obviously, that's the last thing the Democrats want).

All of this is even neglecting the fact that the original research was not done on the behalf of democrats.

Actually, we don't know that. We know that the research was begun with funding from other sources, but there hasn't been any information released about who those sources are. Also, it's not at all clear when certain items in the dossier were uncovered. Hillary's campaign and the DNC funded the research from April 2017 through October 2017. That's a long time to be digging up dirt when a lot of it is being fed by Russians about the frontrunner in the Republican primary and the eventual Republican nominee.

Note that I'm not saying that the document is accurate. I wouldn't know. But if it was fabricated, then it wasn't likely fabricated by the DNC or Clinton.

I don't know either, but the golden shower story strikes me as extremely unlikely. It makes no sense, does not fit with Trump's personality, and seems like something he would know was ill-advised when he's in a country like Russia which has a vast domestic surveillance apparatus.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Okay, bit of a question here - if the DNC and Clinton camp solicited the help of a foreign entity to get hold of stuff that paints their opponent in a negative light... how is that materially different from Trump Jr. meeting with Russians with the expectation to receive stuff that painted their opponent in a negative light? Is there a distinction I'm missing here?

Few reasons. One is that the first group is a company and the second group is accused of being the Russian government itself second is the the first involves paying for services and the second would entail some unstated quid pro quo. Third is that the former used legal means and the latter would have involved illegal hacking to some extent or another.

Tons of presumption, of course. But those are the arguments.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The only use for making up all of this is to influence the election, and the relationship between the DNC and Fusion began prior to the election. Waiting until after the election to release fabrications produces no benefit to the loser.

If it serves to weaken the winner's position, and to gum up the wheels of justice, and to spend untold amounts of time involved in investigations that could feasibly result in the removal of the elected president... are you certain there are no benefits to the loser?

 

[Childlike Empress]

Not seeing much sign of the Clinton campaign or the DNC there.

Just about everyone else, though.

Well, so we have in chronological order an unknown GOP client, DNC, Clinton campaign, FBI financing this nonsense and then they continued producing reports McCain received? That's about it?

 

[quadraginta]

Well, so we have in chronological order an unknown GOP client, DNC, Clinton campaign, FBI financing this nonsense and then they continued producing reports McCain received? That's about it?

I'm not sure where you get the "continued producing reports" part from.

All I have seen discussed is one report, which was apparently completed at
some time before the guy turned a copy over to the FBI in July.

All the rest appears to be the same report, handled by multiple parties.

It looks like it was passed around by nearly everyone except the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

I haven't even seen a clear admission that they ever got a copy, only that they continued to pay money to the firm who contracted the guy in the first place.

 

[Childlike Empress]

I'm not sure where you get the "continued producing reports" part from.

All I have seen discussed is one report, which was apparently completed at
some time before the guy turned a copy over to the FBI in July.

All the rest appears to be the same report, handled by multiple parties.

It looks like it was passed around by nearly everyone except the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

I haven't even seen a clear admission that they ever got a copy, only that they continued to pay money to the firm who contracted the guy in the first place.

From the information in the article I've linked in #2290, about the court filing of Christopher Steele in the UK. Unfortunately the author didn't include a link to the mentioned copy posted by Rowan Scarborough, but I found it quickly here. From skimming it seems to say what the summary claims it says, especially that:

3. Senator John McCain, accompanied by David Kramer (a Senior Director at Senator McCain's Institute for International Leadership), met in London with an Associate of Orbis, former British Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, to arrange a subsequent meeting with Christopher Steele in order to read the now infamous Steele Dossier.

4. David Kramer and Christopher Steele met in Surrey on 28 November 2016, where Kramer was briefed on the contents of the memos.

5. Once Senator McCain and David Kramer returned to the United States, arrangements were made for Fusion GPS to provide Senator McCain hard copies of the memoranda.

6. After Donald Trump was elected, Christopher Steele prepared an additional memorandum (dated 13 December 2016) that made the following claims:

*Michael Cohen held a secret meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia in August 2016 with Kremlin operatives.
*Cohen, allegedly accompanied by 3 colleagues (Not Further Identified), met with Oleg SOLODUKHIM to discuss on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign and various contingencies for covering up these operations and Moscow's secret liaison with the Trump team more generally.
*In Prague, Cohen agreed (sic) contingency plans for various scenarios to protect the operation, but in particular what was to be done in the event that Hillary Clinton won the Presidency.
*Sergei Ivanov's associate claimed that payments to hackers had been made by both Trump's team and the Kremlin.
[Note--Michael Cohen denies he was ever in Prague.]

7. Christopher Steele passed a copy of the December memo to a senior UK Government national security official and to Fusion GPS (via encrypted email) with the instruction to give a hard copy to Senator McCain via David Kramer.

 

[Childlike Empress]

btw, this Rowan Scarborough character writing at the Washington Times seems to be a source to follow for the nitty-gritty of this. From Friday:

The company behind the anti-Trump intelligence dossier that rocked last year’s U.S. election is mounting a legal challenge to block lawmakers from getting access to its banking records.

Fusion GPS filed a complaint Friday in federal court to prevent its bank from turning over records subpoenaed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

The committee subpoenaed Fusion’s banking records on Oct. 4 in an effort to determine who financed former British spy Christopher Steele’s work to write the dossier during the summer and fall of 2016, a source with knowledge of the situation told The Washington Times.

The subpoena, a copy of which is included among the documents filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requests documents dating back to August 2015 from the company’s bank — including records of current account balances and past transaction activity.

Fusion, headed by former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, has resisted numerous efforts this week by congressional investigators to obtain more information about the dossier as they probe Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any possible coordination with members of the Trump campaign. [...]

 

[logger]

The WAPo explains it all, boy the Trumpers are desperate to make the dossier look tainted.

2) Yes, the dossier was funded by DemocratsBFD!

OMG there's a more direct connection than the previous direct connection.

This is not some new scandal even though Fox and I'm sure the rest of the alt-right sources are going to be playing this up as some big deal deceit.

Fox this morning had a whole piece on what liars the Clintons are, trying hard to make an equivalence to Trump's lies and asking why no liberals complain about the Clintons lying like they do about Trump's lies. Riiight, like no one ever made an issue of Bill's infamous "I did not have sex with that woman."

This is bull ****, clearly intended to distract from what is coming out about Trump/Putin collusion.

It is hilarious you’re still on this Russian/Trump collusion. I’ve said before, when the left accuses, they’ve usually already done what they accuse others of.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/25/fec-complaint-accuses-clinton-dnc-violations/

 

[dudalb]

The Moonie News. There is a reliable source for you.

 

[logger]

The Moonie News. There is a reliable source for you.

Lol
You obviously don’t realize reporting that a complaint was filed doesn’t really require great sourcing. Even though you also probably didn’t realize the WT is a very respected paper.