The US Presidency 2019

[PPCLI Guy]

MM, from your postings, I get the impression you’ve absorbed nothing more than that wiki page and maybe a few CNN hit pieces on this topic.

From your postings, lacking any real analysis other than quoting that which has been said by others, I get the impression that you have absorbed everything that you have been told by your usual sources.

See how that confirmation bias thing works?

 

[kkwd]

Media Matters, https://www.mediamatters.org/trumprussia/horowitz-report-busts-these-right-wing-media-conspiracy-theories

In regards to your link to the Media Matters piece. Here is a quote from it. So what is it? They didn't put CHSs inside the campaign but had them interact externally with campaign personnel. That last line from the author of this piece just doesn't seem appropriate. How did the CHSs already in the Trump campaign get there? Just volunteers or so0mehitng else. I guess the IG didn't dig down too deep on that.

Was there an FBI “informant” or “spy” in the Trump campaign? Not relating to this investigation.

Interestingly, the report says there were individuals involved with Trump who were already FBI contacts — known as “confidential human sources” (CHSs) — but they did not have any substantial involvement in this particular investigation:

    In addition, we identified several individuals who had either a connection to candidate Trump or a role in the Trump campaign, and were also FBI CHSs, but who were not tasked as part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. One such CHS did provide the Crossfire Hurricane team with general information about Crossfire Hurricane subjects Carter Page and Paul Manafort, but we found that this CHS had no further involvement in the investigation.

The bottom line: “Additionally, we found no evidence that the FBI attempted to place any CHSs within the Trump campaign, recruit members of the Trump campaign as CHSs, or task CHSs to report on the Trump campaign.”

Instead, the FBI had contacts interact from outside the campaign, by speaking to people who were involved in it:

    We found no evidence that the FBI placed any CHSs or UCEs within the Trump campaign or tasked any CHSs or UCEs to report on the Trump campaign. However, through our review, we determined that, during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Crossfire Hurricane team tasked four CHSs and a few UCEs [“Under Cover Employees”], which resulted in interactions with Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and a high-level Trump campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation. We found that the Crossfire Hurricane team tasked CHSs to interact with Page and Papadopoulos both during the time Page and Papadopoulos were advisors for the Trump campaign, and after Page and Papadopoulos were no longer affiliated with the Trump campaign.

In other words, as the old saying goes: “Loose lips sink ships.”

 

[mariomike]

Media Matters, https://www.mediamatters.org/trumprussia/horowitz-report-busts-these-right-wing-media-conspiracy-theories

Interesting headline,

The Horowitz report busts these right-wing media conspiracy theories

Not that it’s stopping them from still trying

 

[QV]

From your postings, lacking any real analysis other than quoting that which has been said by others, I get the impression that you have absorbed everything that you have been told by your usual sources.

See how that confirmation bias thing works?

Oh I don't know about that.  Up thread I've commented quite a lot about why I think the IG report findings are very bad, criminal intent in fact.  My analysis is based on my personal understanding on what it takes to obtain warrants, of any kind.  So when I see what the IG identified, and being familiar with the processes to obtain, also looking at this very high profile case and the levels and amounts of expertise and oversight involved... as the last article I posted mentioned it is just not believable any of these "errors" were honest mistakes.  I suspect one of my more usual detractors remains silent on this topic because he too would have familiarity with the processes and knows just how bad this is but is probably struggling to come to terms that Trump was right when he said his campaign was spied on.  Trump and his campaign are victims of what will probably go down as the biggest political scandal in American history.  If you have trouble with that last statement, I don't think you have a clear understanding of what has happened in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation (I don't begrudge anyone that point, the democrats and MSM are working overtime to minimize the significance of the FISC abuses and as a distraction push the impeachment of Trump for what Biden actually did).   

 

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=QV ](I don't begrudge anyone that point, the democrats and MSM are working overtime to minimize the significance of the FISC abuses and as a distraction push the impeachment of Trump for what Biden actually did).   
[/quote]

Major FISA Failures

The inspector general found “at least 17 significant errors or omissions” concerning FBI efforts to obtain secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Page, which started in October 2016 after he had left the Trump campaign.

The mistakes included failing to convey to the Justice Department or the FISA court information that cast doubt on a dossier complied by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, as well as material that was exculpatory for Page. The report recommends that all FBI officials involved in the case work have their actions administratively reviewed
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-09/no-bias-or-spying-on-trump-but-17-fbi-mistakes-key-takeaways

17 mistakes from the FBI when investigating the highest office in the country?

Whether some is obsessed about Trumps daily Twitter spelling mistakes or think he's the 3rd coming of Christ you gotta really start having some doubts about the FBI.

 

[mariomike]

QV, you cracked PPCLI Guy for -300 mil-points in his reply to you. You were the only one who did that.

I guess you didn't like what he had to say to you.

Others awarded him +mil-points for his reply to you.

At any rate, that's what mil-points are for.

But, in the comment section you said to him, "You get too emotional ".

If you don't mind me asking, why did you say that?

 

[PuckChaser]

Take it to PMs. Debate the positions or issues, not the people making them.

 

[QV]

17 mistakes from the FBI when investigating the highest office in the country?

Whether some is obsessed about Trumps daily Twitter spelling mistakes or think he's the 3rd coming of Christ you gotta really start having some doubts about the FBI.

Exactly.

 

[Good2Golf]

17 mistakes from the FBI when investigating the highest office in the country?

Whether some is obsessed about Trumps daily Twitter spelling mistakes or think he's the 3rd coming of Christ you gotta really start having some doubts about the FBI.

While I haven't read all 476 pages of the report (link: https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf ), I have read the executive summary in its entirety and then read sections (particularly Chapter 8 ) where the IG expands on the errors committed during the investigation.  While many are 'omitted' (which don't firmly state whether the omission was deliberate or happenstance), the error that jumps out to me as an overt, deliberate act is noted at para 9 on page xi. of the exec summary:

9. Omitted Page's prior relationship with another U.S. government agency, despite being reminded by the other agency in June 2017, prior to the filing of the final renewal application, about Page's past status with that other agency; instead of including this information in the final renewal application, the OGC Attorney altered an email from the other agency so that the email stated that Page was "not a source" for the other agency, which the FBI affiant relied upon in signing the final renewal application;

That seems pretty clear that the OGC lawyer was deliberately trying not only to downplay Page's use by another IC agency, but deny such employment, to reinforce the FBI's case for renewal of the FISA extension.  That individual needs to be held to account for that deliberate fabrication.

Certainly the IG's recommendation for an administrative type review of the involved in any of those procedural errors (or outrigh fabrications) must be considered seriously.

Regards
G2G

 

[FJAG]

And to change the focus and pace slightly, this recent article from the Guardian:

This was the decade the US’s self-serving myths fell apart
Aziz Rana

The 2010s was the decade that forced American politicians and commentators to confront the limits of the country’s own mythology. Political elites in both parties had long shared the same conventional wisdom about the United States, grounded in ideas of exceptionalism and institutional perfection. But with the rise of Donald Trump and the return of a virulent politics of xenophobia and exclusion, it became increasingly difficult, even for many in the political establishment, to reproduce these past homilies. Today the US is truly at a crossroads. Are Americans willing to confront the failures that led to the present, or will the US remain trapped in the same cycles of crisis and popular disaffection?
...

See rest of article here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/30/america-myths-exceptionalism-meritocracy-donald-trump

:cheers:

 

[PPCLI Guy]

While I haven't read all 476 pages of the report (link: https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf ), I have read the executive summary in its entirety

Certainly the IG's recommendation for an administrative type review of the involved in any of those procedural errors (or outrigh fabrications) must be considered seriously.

Regards
G2G

Thanks for the link - I have just finished reading the Executive Summary as well, and find the report to be quite damning.  It is clear that errors were made at multiple levels, and that procedural safeguards were ignored and in some cases deliberately flouted.  I hope that the key recommendation for performance reviews at all levels is followed up on.

 

[brihard]

While I haven't read all 476 pages of the report (link: https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf ), I have read the executive summary in its entirety and then read sections (particularly Chapter 8 ) where the IG expands on the errors committed during the investigation.  While many are 'omitted' (which don't firmly state whether the omission was deliberate or happenstance), the error that jumps out to me as an overt, deliberate act is noted at para 9 on page xi. of the exec summary:

That seems pretty clear that the OGC lawyer was deliberately trying not only to downplay Page's use by another IC agency, but deny such employment, to reinforce the FBI's case for renewal of the FISA extension.  That individual needs to be held to account for that deliberate fabrication.

Certainly the IG's recommendation for an administrative type review of the involved in any of those procedural errors (or outrigh fabrications) must be considered seriously.

Regards
G2G

Thanks G2G. The FISA thing is not an aspect of this I’ve kept track of at all, and I need to get caught up on that. If, as this thread indicates, investigators deliberately hid/obfuscated information in applying for a judicial authorization - if they lied getting a warrant - someone needs to go to jail; that’s completely inexcusable.

A warrant application on a complex file generally cannot capture all investigative details, but it should be full, frank, and fair inasmuch as it lays out what is believed in good faith to be true, and why, and what is being sought and how it will afford evidence. Evidence that may paint a picture of possible innocence cannot be excluded. The awkward, dirty bits about information sources have to be represented so that the granting judge can make as informed a decision about credibility as circumstances allow.

Lying to get a warrant is a cardinal sin. It’s very different from honest mistakes and omissions that are hard to avoid in a complex file.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Some thoughts from Alexander Hamilton:

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-12-02-0184-0002

(emphasis added)

The idea of introducing a monarchy or aristocracy into this Country, by employing the influence and force of a Government continually changing hands, towards it, is one of those visionary things, that none but madmen could meditate and that no wise men will believe.

If it could be done at all, which is utterly incredible, it would require a long series of time, certainly beyond the life of any individual to effect it. Who then would enter into such plot? For what purpose of interest or ambition?

To hope that the people may be cajoled into giving their sanctions to such institutions is still more chimerical. A people so enlightened and so diversified as the people of this Country can surely never be brought to it, but from convulsions and disorders, in consequence of the acts of popular demagogues.

The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.

Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy—not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

 

[Infanteer]

...he is clearly a Hillary supporter....

 

[PPCLI Guy]

...he is clearly a Hillary supporter....

Obviously.  He writes for a somewhat suspicious sounding journal called "The Federalist Papers".  Probably part of the "deep state".

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The guy in the White House needs a powerful distraction, and Iran stupidly just gave it to him.

More like the Dems need a distraction from their FUBAR impeachment attempt.

 

[dimsum]

More like the Dems need a distraction from their FUBAR impeachment attempt.

It wasn't an "attempt", it was successful.  Impeachment is the charge; the conviction is a separate thing.  Clinton was impeached but not convicted. 

Definition from the US Senate website: 

"If a federal official commits a crime or otherwise acts improperly, the House of Representatives may impeach—formally charge—that official. If the official subsequently is convicted in a Senate impeachment trial, he is removed from office."

https://www.senate.gov/reference/Index/Impeachment.htm

 

[Brad Sallows]

Opinion is divided as to whether Trump has been impeached yet, since the House has not yet voted to send the articles to the Senate.  But I'm sure we'll get there.

 

[FJAG]

Opinion is divided as to whether Trump has been impeached yet, since the House has not yet voted to send the articles to the Senate.  But I'm sure we'll get there.

The House has voted to impeach on December 19th, so he has been "impeached".

Pelosi has not yet sent the articles of impeachment over to the Senate. That's a different matter.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50840934

:cheers:

 

[Remius]

Opinion is divided as to whether Trump has been impeached yet, since the House has not yet voted to send the articles to the Senate.  But I'm sure we'll get there.

I am sure the GOP is anxious to get this done and over with.  Pelosi knows that and will use that as leverage to ensure that the process isn’t just a formality.

By waiting, the President can’t claim exoneration by the senate.  Now it might hurt the dems but it seems they are willing to take the risk.