Mueller Investigation pt 7

[varwoche]

The Justice Dept is investigating the origins of the investigation into Trump. If this investigation fails to deliver, will you re-assess?

@tanabear Your continuing evasion of this question leaves me to assume that even if Barr fails to deliver proof of the things you claim, that won't deter you. By all means, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Belz...]

Wow! Just how many things are wong with this post.

This shouldn't surprise you by now. Every single one of his posts here is disinformation. I can only surmise that it's deliberate, but I don't know who the audience is supposed to be.

 

[acbytesla]

This shouldn't surprise you by now. Every single one of his posts here is disinformation. I can only surmise that it's deliberate, but I don't know who the audience is supposed to be.

Nothing since Trump became President surprises me any more. It has been one long parade of people parroting the lies that Trump and right wingers peddle.

 

[IsThisTheLife]

Of course you do. Do you know that famous Black Knight scene? That's what you and your fellow Russiagate CTers look like after all crippled legs of the moronic story you bothered the world with for years have come off. And here you are acting as if nobody noticed. Funny.

Well, ACbyT and most unabashed progressive/liberal/democrats are inclined to white knight quite a bit. There must be some irony in that somewhere.

 

[IsThisTheLife]

Now the Monty Python Black Knight skit is hilarious. I give you that. But there is nothing funny about Trump being Putin's bitch. I see that Dumb Donald is considering attending the May Day celebrations as his benefactor's guest. First Trump gets Russian hookers to pee on him. Now he wants all of the US to share his experience.

Out of curiosity Empress, how many rubles do you get for your posts? Or do they pay you in dollars?

Several posters are already on to me, which is to say, they know that I'm a shill for Russian intelligence, so I might as well come clean and admit that it's true. SMERSH actually, and I'm paid in the local currency, GBP.

 

[tanabear]

Wow! Just how many things are wong with this post. To start with. A law enforcement officer DOESN'T have to inform a suspect whether or not they are investigating him even if that suspect is the president?

This is correct. A law enforcement officer is not required to inform a suspect that he is under criminal investigation. The best course of action would be not to say anything. The point is that James Comey DID say to Trump that he was NOT under investigation. Once he makes a declarative statement on the matter it becomes relevant.

And it was well known that the FBI and the CIA had been investigating Russian involvement in our elections before the election. If the President did nothing wrong and the press was wrongly reporting he was being investigated, you would think he'd rather a full investigation and having the FBI announced that he had nothing to do with it.

Yes, Crossfire Hurricane started officially on July 31st, 2016. It was a counterintelligence investigation, not a criminal one. The media was reporting that the FBI was investigating Trump, while he received assurances from Comey that he was not under investigation. If there were leaks from the FBI to the press that were false then it would be the responsibility of the FBI director to clear that up, not the President. Why couldn't Comey just announce publicly that these media reports were false and the President is not under investigation? It was the Mueller investigation that corrected Buzzfeed's erroneous report indicating that Trump had instructed Michael Cohen to lie. If there were false reports indicating that Trump was under investigation, Comey should have corrected those. He didn't

ps. And the investigation did go forward. Mueller and his team spent almost two years investigating every part of Trump's campaign and came up with a big fat zero.

Also, Mueller did not find there was no collusion, only that he couldn't prove that there was. Huge difference. As for Page and Strozk, what makes you think a law enforcement officer can't dislike a suspect and still follow the evidence and the law?

You only need probable cause to indict. You need 'beyond a reasonable doubt' to convict. No one on Trump's team was even indicted for collusion.

Funny how you ignore this very, very important thing, which gets right to the heart of the issues at hand. Schiff made it perfectly clear that he fully intended to abide by the law and work with law enforcement to make sure everything done would abide by the law. Trump made it fully clear that he had no intention of abiding by the law or working with law enforcement and, in fact, didn't abide by it?

Let's get one thing out of the way up front. It is not illegal to get dirt from foreign sources on your political opponent. It is only illegal if you are involved in a criminal conspiracy of some kind.(i.e You assist in the hacking of information.) That is why this entire conversation is ridiculous. The Left wants to give the impression that getting dirt from foreign sources is criminal or an impeachable offensive, but only when Republicans do it. When Democrats do it, it is perfectly fine.

If Don Jr had received dirt on Hillary from Russian sources then decided to approach the FBI their response would have been, "Now we have proof you were colluding with the Russians. It is jail time for Don Jr!"

The FBI were co-conspirators in a plot to spy-on and then launch a coup to overthrow the Trump presidency. The FBI was not to be trusted.

LOL! Perhaps you don't realize how utterly stupid this attempt at an argument is? Even before we get to the obvious cherry-picking, you're trying to claim that the personal opinion of two individuals is proof of professional misconduct by an entire agency. Professional misconduct that's in the exact opposite direction as the misconduct by the FBI that actually happened in reality?

Page: God trump is a loathsome human.
Strzok: Omg an idiot
Page: He's awful
Strzok: God Hillary should win 100,000,000 - 0

Page: “He's not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”
Strzok: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”

Page: “There is no way he gets elected.”
Strzok: "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office that there's no way he gets elected — but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40…."

An insurance policy does not prevent a disaster from occurring. It is a hedge in case a disaster does happen. The disaster, of course, to Strzok and Page was Trump being elected President. Then on election day the paramours went completely off the rails.

Strzok: Omg this is ******ng terrifying
Page: Figure I need to brush up on Watergate.

Why does Lisa Page need to brush up on Watergate unless she is looking for a way to impeach a duly elected President that she hates? They could call upon the "insurance policy" to hamstring the President or launch a coup to overthrow his Presidency. This is what happened.

p.s. The fact the FBI signed off on the FISA application for Carter Page is evidence of endemic corruption.

Ahh, the joys of Republican projection, where the weak on crime Democrats actually want a police state to attack their political enemies. Never mind that the Republicans are the ones that have been pushing police state policies and have been openly doing their best to use the judicial system to attack their enemies for brazenly political purposes.

See Anarcho-tyranny.

@tanabear Your continuing evasion of this question leaves me to assume that even if Barr fails to deliver proof of the things you claim, that won't deter you. By all means, correct me if I'm wrong.

What was the origin of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation? Was it the Steele dossier or George Papadopoulos's meeting with Joseph Mifsud? Currently, the latter story is the official one. So if they determine that Joseph Mifsud is really a Russian agent privy to the goings on of Russian intelligence, then yes, I will reevaluate. But I want answers on international man of mystery Mifsud.

 

[Aridas]

This shouldn't surprise you by now. Every single one of his posts here is disinformation. I can only surmise that it's deliberate, but I don't know who the audience is supposed to be.

There is propaganda value in making lies more well known, in and of itself. Propaganda is useless if not spread.

Nothing since Trump became President surprises me any more. It has been one long parade of people parroting the lies that Trump and right wingers peddle.

Only since Trump?

 

[acbytesla]

There is propaganda value in making lies more well known, in and of itself. Propaganda is useless if not spread.

Only since Trump?

Let's just say, Trump's unabashed dishonesty takes it to a whole other level.

 

[quadraginta]

Let's just say, Trump's unabashed dishonesty takes it to a whole other level.

If it were only Trump I might feel a tiny bit better about it, but the near unanimity with which the GOP leaders as well as theirrank and file, Trump supporters in general, and the media outlets hitched to his wagon repeat, expand upon, and fabricate even wilder lies on his behalf is something which might transcend traditional pols lying to the public.

 

[acbytesla]

If it were only Trump I might feel a tiny bit better about it, but the near unanimity with which the GOP leaders as well as theirrank and file, Trump supporters in general, and the media outlets hitched to his wagon repeat, expand upon, and fabricate even wilder lies on his behalf is something which might transcend traditional pols lying to the public.

You see, that's not exactly true. There have been lots of GOP leaders say almost nothing and have quit the party as well as basically just quit. Trump has a core of supporters that are probably never going to abandon him. But I am convinced he's lost more than enough support to make what for other politicians would be an easy reelection into a GOP wipeout.

 

[smartcooky]

The ability of Trump's Little helpers to repeatedly gish-gallop screeds of total bollocks they have gleaned from their right wing echo chambers, is truly astounding.

 

[Aridas]

Let's get one thing out of the way up front. It is not illegal to get dirt from foreign sources on your political opponent. It is only illegal if you are involved in a criminal conspiracy of some kind.(i.e You assist in the hacking of information.) That is why this entire conversation is ridiculous.

Perhaps think back to the actual points made about what what actually wrong? For example, Trump repeatedly tried to obtain illegally obtained materials from the Russian government and outright asked the Russians to commit crimes to aid him on national television (and made it perfectly clear that he wasn't joking about that when interviewed right after). Crimes that they immediately started trying to do. The main ridiculous thing about this conversation is the caricature of the problems identified that the GOP has been pushing as their propagandists have gone all in with a strategy of lying about, distorting, and distracting from the actual things of importance.

The Left wants to give the impression that getting dirt from foreign sources is criminal or an impeachable offensive, but only when Republicans do it. When Democrats do it, it is perfectly fine.

That is a right-wing caricature of the truth. I touched on that a little above, but I'm going to be very clear here. These false equivalences and aspersions preached by the GOP propagandists are BS.

If Don Jr had received dirt on Hillary from Russian sources then decided to approach the FBI their response would have been, "Now we have proof you were colluding with the Russians. It is jail time for Don Jr!"

That depends on what, exactly, Jr had done with it by then. Still, it's far, far more likely that the FBI would have given him the chance to mitigate/nullify the crime and exonerate himself, given the situation that they'd be facing there, even if they didn't just let him off the hook entirely and work with him to figure out what he was legally allowed to do. That is, of course, assuming that this was after his “If it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer.” The actually appropriate course of action would be to contact the FBI about the offer in the first place and discuss the matter with them. To be quite clear, somewhat similar situations have happened in the past. Gore's campaign, for example, immediately took similar materials to the FBI. In a similar vein, in Georgia 2018, multiple outside parties contacted the campaign of Democrats about serious vulnerabilities in the election infrastructure. Instead of exploiting such to cheat, the Democrats took it to the FBI - and were nonsensically sued by the Georgia Republicans for doing the right thing.

The FBI were co-conspirators in a plot to spy-on and then launch a coup to overthrow the Trump presidency. The FBI was not to be trusted.

This doesn't pass even basic scrutiny, especially when it comes to basic questions like whether Jr (and Trump and every other one of those involved in the Trump Tower meeting and all the rest of the many connections with the Russians that the Trump campaign lied about repeatedly) would have had any reason to believe that the FBI wasn't to be trusted.

Page: God trump is a loathsome human.
Strzok: Omg an idiot
Page: He's awful
Strzok: God Hillary should win 100,000,000 - 0

Page: “He's not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”
Strzok: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”

Page: “There is no way he gets elected.”
Strzok: "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office that there's no way he gets elected — but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40…."

An insurance policy does not prevent a disaster from occurring. It is a hedge in case a disaster does happen. The disaster, of course, to Strzok and Page was Trump being elected President. Then on election day the paramours went completely off the rails.

Again, you're not addressing the points actually made. You're just adding more cherry-picked material that you think supports your narrative.

Strzok: Omg this is ******ng terrifying
Page: Figure I need to brush up on Watergate.

Why does Lisa Page need to brush up on Watergate unless she is looking for a way to impeach a duly elected President that she hates? They could call upon the "insurance policy" to hamstring the President or launch a coup to overthrow his Presidency. This is what happened.

Alternately, one could take a peek at Trump's long list of times when he has been documented to have broken the law, was continuing to break the law, his relationships with organized crime, and his demonstrated personality (I could go on, but any single one of those would be serious cause for concern, let alone all of them at once) and figure out the obvious truth that it was virtually certain that he would be committing crimes, some of which would be quite serious, while in office. Which, indeed, he has been, to virtually no one's surprise.

p.s. The fact the FBI signed off on the FISA application for Carter Page is evidence of endemic corruption.

No. It's really not, regardless of how much the GOP propagandists try to distort the picture and use it as a distraction. There are legitimate concerns to be raised when it comes to FISA in general, perhaps, but that the FBI signed off on the application for Carter Page is not one of them.

See Anarcho-tyranny.

Do you actually believe that Democrats support anarcho-tyranny?

What was the origin of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation? Was it the Steele dossier or George Papadopoulos's meeting with Joseph Mifsud? Currently, the latter story is the official one. So if they determine that Joseph Mifsud is really a Russian agent privy to the goings on of Russian intelligence, then yes, I will reevaluate. But I want answers on international man of mystery Mifsud.

I'm generally a bit wary of citing the Daily Beast, but... here's a rather well-sourced article on Mifsud and his relations to Russia that you may find to be of some limited interest.

Still, it's likely worth pointing out, yet again, that for the purposes here, whether Mifsud is or is not actually a Russian agent is a red herring. Rather, the question is whether the FBI had legitimate cause to investigate at all, given that they're not omniscient. With that said, signs point very, very firmly to them having legitimate cause.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

What Republicans don't seem to get is that the risk to US democracy brought on by solicited interference by foreign actors is less about the wrong side being elected and more about having a government beholden to foreign interests.
Because Trump won in 2016 with help from Russia, he is constrained to act in the US national interest when it comes to Putin.
The Trump Campaign should just have paid the Internet Research Agency for its work.

 

[Aridas]

What Republicans don't seem to get is that the risk to US democracy brought on by solicited interference by foreign actors is less about the wrong side being elected and more about having a government beholden to foreign interests.
Because Trump won in 2016 with help from Russia, he is constrained to act in the US national interest when it comes to Putin.
The Trump Campaign should just have paid the Internet Research Agency for its work.

Going by the evidence, he is not constrained to do so. That's merely an expectation about how a President should act, one that Trump's repeatedly betrayed.

 

[varwoche]

This doesn't pass even basic scrutiny...

Well, when someone stakes out a fact-free claim such as...

Yes, the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory was entirely a western media and western intelligence generated PYSOPS campaign against the American people; not a single bit of it was ever true.

• As if the Trump Tower meeting didn't take place.
• As if Trump didn't lie about said meeting.
• As if Trump's team didn't lie about their extensive Russian contacts.
• As if magic fairies engineered the pro Russia change to the GOP plank.
• As if Trump's campaign manager wasn't in jail for his corrupt actions linked to Russian interests.
• As if Trump's intermediary to wikileaks, the illustrious Roger Stone, wasn't convicted last week for lying to cover up for Trump.
• As if Trump didn't publicly encourage Russia, and as if Russia didn't hop on it right away
• As if Trump didn't metaphorically teabag Putin in public
• As if Trump doesn't support Russian interests over US/NATO interests at every opportunity

i could go on at great length. But alas "not a single bit was ever true".

I have no choice but to sigh and move on when I encounter this impressive degree of fact-freedom. It's not as if a better presentation will make a whit of difference.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Not to mention...

 

[quadraginta]

If it were only Trump I might feel a tiny bit better about it, but the near unanimity with which the GOP leaders as well as theirrank and file, Trump supporters in general, and the media outlets hitched to his wagon repeat, expand upon, and fabricate even wilder lies on his behalf is something which might transcend traditional pols lying to the public.

You see, that's not exactly true. There have been lots of GOP leaders say almost nothing and have quit the party as well as basically just quit.

<snip>

Express this as a percentage of GOP leaders, and then relate it to the highlighted word in my post.

Sure, there are some GOP leaders who have recognized that they will probably get primaried as a penalty for a less-than-fulsome support of Trump, and even a few who are just too tired of the farce to continue to perpetuate it. Perhaps a vanishingly small number (by comparison to the total) who are sincerely disgusted with their party.

But all of those combined still do not make a significant impact on the near unanimity I mentioned.

 

[Belz...]

Why does Lisa Page need to brush up on Watergate unless she is looking for a way to impeach a duly elected President that she hates?

Because all Presidents are duly elected, and hated, and if you're going to impeach one, you might learn a lesson or two from Watergate.

What a stupid question.

 

[acbytesla]

Express this as a percentage of GOP leaders, and then relate it to the highlighted word in my post.

Sure, there are some GOP leaders who have recognized that they will probably get primaried as a penalty for a less-than-fulsome support of Trump, and even a few who are just too tired of the farce to continue to perpetuate it. Perhaps a vanishingly small number (by comparison to the total) who are sincerely disgusted with their party.

But all of those combined still do not make a significant impact on the near unanimity I mentioned.

Of course it does. This is one of those half truths or is really a big lie. Trump has unanimity.

Of those left.

 

[Segnosaur]

Not sure if this should go here or under the 'impeachment inquiry' thread, since it may become part of the articles of impeachment...

From: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/18/politics/house-investigating-trump-lying-to-mueller/index.html
The House of Representatives is now investigating whether President Donald Trump lied to special counsel Robert Mueller in written answers...Rick Gates testified that Trump and Stone talked about information that was coming that could help the campaign in mid-2016...Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort also apparently told the Mueller grand jury what Trump's approach to WikiLeaks had been in 2016, according to the Mueller report. But Trump told Mueller in his written statements he didn't recall discussing WikiLeaks with Stone.

Now, its not that surprising that Trump would be accused of lying over the issue. (Even Mueller himself suggested Trump was "imprecise".. It is new for the house to actually engage in any sort of investigation.