Trump-Russia investigation

Except possibly in very unusual circumstances it is foolhardy to talk to the FBI. They are very experienced in entrapment----do it every day---and have been more and more every day exposed as being without ethics. So maybe the propaganda industry will criticize Trump if he refuses to be entrapped & fights back?? Duh....for what would the media not attack Trump. who gives a shit? (fewer & fewer non-koolaid-drinkers every day) I suspect Mueller is now very sorry he took the gig---unless there is something substantial he can get on Trump or someone really close to Trump, the lead for which is admissible in court, and if there was anything like that I think we would have heard about it after > a year of digging by many in the swamp---it is hard to see a course that would preserve his reputation (quite possible totally false creation of the swamp) other than admitting there is nothing there, apologizing for having hired politically corrupt lawyers, and shutting it all down.

Meantime it appears we are getting closer and closer to overwhelming, unquestionable, and public exposure of DOJ/FBI political corruption in the phony Russia, Russia, Russia propaganda campaign. Is anyone even trying to deny they used a known false document to get a FISA warrant? Pretty serious crime, to say nothing of the fact it makes any evidence Mueller might bring against anyone a ¨ fruit of the poisenous tree¨. Then ad in the potential exposure of Obama protection of MB/Hezbollah/Iranian terrorists (to say nothing of his gifting them with >$1B in US taxpayer $$) and I think we may be on the brink of writing the Obama ¨legacy¨ over the next couple months.

Has anyone seen/heard from the clintons recently? I am told IRS might be looking at how the ¨foundation¨ justified paying for Chelsea's wedding as part of its charity actions. nypost.com/2016/11/06/chelsea-clinton-used-foundation-to-help-pay-for-wedding-emails/


BTW I have met a few FBI agents but don't know any personally. I do suspect that many of them are honest people who believe in the Constitution, so by definition not Democrats, but that is clwearly not true of those in top level mngmnt positions under Obama. I also suspect that many of those honest on-the-ground LE people are ---now free from career reprisal from the corrupt dems---talking to the IG!!! Some justice soon to come to DOJ, I think. Watch for more demotions, retirements, resignations, and, I hope, a few prosecutions. How totally are Holder & Lynch , Comey & Mueller, insulated?

Mueller's making news again: "Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, was subpoenaed last week by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to testify before a grand jury as part of the investigation into possible links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.  The move marked the first time Mr. Mueller is known to have used a grand jury subpoena to seek information from a member of Mr. Trump’s inner circle."

Gosh, right after Bannon was quoted as confirming a Russia-Trump connection, and then cut loose by the WH, Breitbart, and the Mercers. He's a man with nothing left to lose, always a dangerous breed. And then there's this: “By forcing someone to testify through a subpoena, you are providing the witness with cover because they can say, ‘I had no choice — I had to go in and testify about everything I knew,’” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, a prosecutor for the independent counsel that investigated Bill Clinton when he was president. 

EDIT: There's more: "The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena Tuesday to former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon after he resisted answering a range of questions from investigators during a closed-door interview, frustrating members who are probing the Trump campaign’s alleged Russia ties, according to people familiar with the session.  After Bannon’s day-long appearance before the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the panel, indicated to reporters that he personally issued a subpoena seeking to compel the former Trump strategist to cooperate...

"Rep. Thomas J. Rooney of Florida, a leading Republican on the committee who was deputized to help run the panel’s Russia probe, said that questions about whether executive privilege applied were 'sort of dominating the day' as the panel tried to interview Bannon for details of what he knew of the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russian interests.  Rooney suggested that Bannon refused to answer questions about events that took place before Trump was sworn into office. He also indicated that the panel was not inclined to accept that Bannon’s interactions with Trump in that period fell under executive privilege."

Hmmm...If nothing happened, why the assertion of executive privilege? And how can Bannon assert it, since he's not the President? Oh, and when did executive privilege cover the period before the President is sworn in? Heck, even Nunes isn't that craven. Anyway, so now Darth Vader is under subpoena by both the Special Counsel and the House. That's a pretty rare distinction, lol.

McLatchy News has a potentially explosive account:

"The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said. It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections...

"...the NRA reported spending a record $55 million on the 2016 elections, including $30 million to support Trump – triple what the group devoted to backing Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. Most of that was money was spent by an arm of the NRA that is not required to disclose its donors.  Two people with close connections to the powerful gun lobby said its total election spending actually approached or exceeded $70 million. The reporting gap could be explained by the fact that independent groups are not required to reveal how much they spend on Internet ads or field operations, including get-out-the-vote efforts. ..

"Torshin, a leading figure in Putin’s party, has been implicated in money laundering by judicial authorities in Spain, as Bloomberg News first revealed in 2016. Spanish investigators alleged in an almost 500-page internal report that Torshin, who was then a senator, capitalized on his government role to assist mobsters laundering funds through Spanish properties and banks, Bloomberg reported

www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article195231139.html#storylink=cpy

Oh, a perfect Trifecta: Putin + Trump + NRA! All connected through the same money-laundering crook. Well, they're all crooks, so there's that. No wonder Trump's disparaging the FBI.

There's more to this story, gb:

"On Thursday afternoon, the House Intelligence Committee released the transcript of its interview with Glenn Simpson, one of the founders of the research firm Fusion GPS. (The transcript of Simpson’s interview with the Senate was released last week.) In it, Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, asks Simpson about Russia’s interest in the N.R.A. Simpson replied that it appeared that the Russians had “infiltrated” the N.R.A. He mentioned Torshin and a woman named Maria Butina, whom McClatchy describes as 'Torshin’s 'protégée.'... Torshin helped create a Russian gun-rights group called Right to Bear Arms, and Butina runs it. The purpose of the group is ambiguous. Gun laws in Russia are strict, and if people close to Putin actually wanted to change them, creating a group alluding to America’s Second Amendment seems like a weird way to do it...

"As McClatchy reported, Erickson — the author of the 'Kremlin Connection' email — and Butina set up a limited liability company together in 2016. Erickson told McClatchy that the company was founded to provide Butina with money for her graduate studies, should she need it. That, noted McClatchy, is 'an unusual way to use an L.L.C.”' Here’s another way L.L.C.s could be used: as an intermediary between foreign agents and tax-exempt organizations that are not required by law to disclose their donors, often called dark money groups...Of all the so-called dark money groups involved in the 2016 election, none spent more than the N.R.A."

Lots of dots, and lots of lines connecting them. Tick-tock.

The story thus far:

"If you block out much of the noise that has surrounded the Russia investigation and focus on certain public information, you can see the outline of a concerted effort to mislead federal officials." We now know, because he admitted it, that Flynn lied under oath when he denied meeting with the Russians to discuss the campaign. We also know from court documents and emails that Deputy National Security Advisor K. T. McFarland was lying when she told Congress she was unaware of those meetings, even though she had been coordinating about them with Flynn before and afterwards. And we know that Jeff Sessions and Trump Jr. were lying when they testified as to the substance of those meetings because they subsequently had completely different memories.

Why all the lying under oath, a federal crime? Here's one plausible explanation: "Once the Trump inner circle decided to keep telling the media there had been no campaign contacts with Russians whatsoever, that categorical denial may have been the easiest line to maintain. The effort to mislead the public would then be reinforced by an effort to mislead the federal investigators. That’s an easier step to imagine given Mr. Trump’s deep distrust of the intelligence community and his view of their willingness to leak to the press.

"How could campaign officials, or the president himself, expect to get away with any such scheme, especially when encouraging others to commit perjury is a serious federal offense [even if they don't actually commit perjury]? Maybe they didn’t anticipate a full investigation. The president admitted that he felt if Mr. Sessions had only held on, the attorney general would have shut down the Russia investigation: 'If Jeff Sessions didn’t recuse himself, we wouldn’t even be talking about this subject.' Well, surprise. We are talking about it. And so will witnesses brought in by Mr. Mueller, who has shown his willingness to prosecute four former campaign officials, in each case for making false statements to federal authorities.

"It will not take much for the special counsel to get to the bottom of how far the president and his associates went to cover up their Russian contacts. With Mr. Flynn, Mr. Papadopoulos and now Steve Bannon cooperating, if and when the time comes for Mr. Trump’s interview, Mr. Mueller’s team will be well prepared to ask the president about his own knowledge and involvement." Howard Baker's questions echo over the decades: What did the President know and when did he know it? Is Trump is prepared to commit perjury, or will he do what he usually does: throw all his underlings into the muck, while lifting his own skirts to keep them dry?

In what has to be the most dishonorable action undertaken by the House in years, the GOP voted today to release to the public a three-page memo they've written attacking the FBI. The FBI! This from the party of "law and order" and all that BS. And they did this despite pleas from Jeff Sessions's Department of Justice not to do so. Really, these guys simply do not understand democracy or good governance. They're just a win-at-any-cost cabal without a scintilla of interest in what's good for the country. All they're doing here is muddying the water on Trump's ties to Russia in hopes of preserving their majority for another two years. The damage they're doing is of no interest to them.

Thugs in action

Right-winger Bret Stephens imagines an alternative universe:

www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/opinion/clinton-trump-republicans-impeach.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Former Rep. Joe Walsh:

I served in Congress with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Based on my experience working with him, nothing about the way he’s behaving now as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — overseeing part of the so-called Russia-Trump investigation — is particularly shocking.  The Nunes I knew was a purely partisan animal. When it comes to exercising good judgment and discharging his duties in service of the Constitution, he’s just not up to the task...

The congressional intelligence committees traditionally function as some of the least partisan committees — as they should. Oversight for security threats to this country is too great a responsibility to let committee business devolve into finger-pointing and score-settling along party lines, but that’s exactly where the level of discourse has gone under Nunes’s “leadership.” He’s not searching for truth, he’s running interference for the White House, abdicating his role as a member of a coequal branch of government, dragging his fellow committee members down with him and exposing House leadership as ineffectual and foolish...

Some issues have to be partisan. But in this case, we’re not talking about lowering taxes, getting rid of the individual mandate or clamping down on immigration — all good things that Trump can be proud of. No, here, Nunes is at risk of turning what should be a nonpartisan issue — a foreign government trying to interfere in our election — into a game. The president, and the country, are being poorly served.  My Republican colleagues would be screaming bloody murder if Russia, or any foreign government, was suspected of helping Hillary Clinton become president. If Chairman Nunes can’t lead them out of this sad [sic] of hypocrisy, it means he’s putting party over country. I’ll be disappointed. But not surprised.

Quit denying you're a Trumpist. You left your Libertarian Membership Card at the door when you walked into his House of Lies. Just be honest and own up to it, already.

So, the truth comes out.
Obama and Holder weaponized the DOJ and FBI against Trump before the election and monitored his campaign with FISA warrants gotten with a paper commissioned by the CLInton campaign that had not a word of truth in it but they used it to illegally monitor Trump's campaign. This is ten times worse than ANYTHING that NIXON did in Watergate.
My god, these Leftists could care less about this country, their hatred of Western Civilization and the Caucasian race especially is beyond the pale.

So, have you actually read the memo yet, OB, or avoiding truth by taking CNN description?

You don't think it significant that Comey, Rosenstein, and McCabe (plus others) signed FISA warrant applications based on ¨evidence¨ they knew was both false and a partisan operation? IIRC defrauding the court is a felony. Then look at connections between Ohr, his wife, Fusion, and Steele.
By all means, bring on the Dem rebutal! I suspect it will be like a DACA deal---something they want to whine & shout about but will never actually allow to happen happen.
You are going to have to close your eyes & ears very very tight to avoid truth on this one. But you have a role model in Mueller he apparently has remained unaware of a mountain of evidence also.
The only people wanting to minimize attention are dems---both those running the media and those elected.
BTW I find it interesting that both Lynch and Brazille have been careful to isolate themselves form this. So far.

That liberal rag, The National Review states:

"Ironically enough, the memo in fact confirms the necessity of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller insulated the investigation from the problematic elements of the FBI, disciplined a biased agent (Strzok), and is conducting an investigation that now includes copious amounts of alarming evidence gained independently of the memo — including the evidence that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met with Russians in what was described in an email as a Russian plan to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton."

The FISA application was a much larger document including evidence that predates the dossier, was accepted by a judge, and was apparently renewed, indicating that the initial warrant found something.

Inject partisanship into this if you want but with Republicans running the investigation, Sessions standing behind Wray yesterday (both Trump appointees), Trey Gowdy voicing his confidence in Mueller, and the chorus of non-Trumpist Republicans calling BS, this pathetic memo ruse looks like a fizzled bomb in a Republican civil war for what remains of the party's soul.

OB. Can you please explain just what parts of the Nunes memo constitute a lie? Do you have no concerns about the FBIś apparent failure to inform the FISA court re: the reliability of Steele & his opposition document, or that it was funded by Hillary? When do you predict the Dem rebuttal? Letś just open up all the underlying documents & see who is lying.

Any concern at all that the Mueller witch hunt was originated by Comeyś criminal leaking of classified information and he has now declared his buddy to be his counsel, thereby trying to shield him from telling the truth about it.

www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-01-03%20CEG%20to%20DOJ%20(Classification%20of%20Comey%20Memos).pdf Lotś more interesting questions. Dem media is frantic to shut up those pesky Congress members exercising their Constitutional oversight authority, are they not? Tiny tip of political corruption iceberg exposed so far.

But Hell, I guess 1-1/2 years of digging for evidence of Trump:Russia collusion (whatever that is---it is not criminal) and finding none should not discourage a determined coup attempt. Very dangerous to our freedom that the FBI has apparently been leading the coup, but signs now that parts of intel community even worse.

Just out today:

"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."

These guys are playing you.


“The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. … How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”