Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on May 25, 2018 12:55:46 GMT -5
"any criminal could do anything and escape prosecution" By this you mean "escape prosecution for 9 months, assuming they didn't simply tell the presidential candidate 'fire this guy and get ready for blowback because we think he's a Russian mole', or 'keep this guy on your campaign staff but for the love of sweet snowy leopards don't grant him access to privileged data'". |
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on May 25, 2018 13:03:16 GMT -5
"any criminal could do anything and escape prosecution" By this you mean "escape prosecution for 9 months, assuming they didn't simply tell the presidential candidate 'fire this guy and get ready for blowback because we think he's a Russian mole', or 'keep this guy on your campaign staff but for the love of sweet snowy leopards don't grant him access to privileged data'". If Trump and his cohorts had done even a modest amount of vetting, they would have discovered that both Manafort and Page had large dossiers in the FBI regarding Russia.
Trump either didn't bother to vet, going with his 'gut feelings' which he claims are so awesome, or he knew their history and didn't care.
Either way, he allowed at least two people with known Russian ties to hang out on his campaign, and the FBI felt the need to keep tabs on them.
Which is called 'doing their job.'
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Post by Opti on May 25, 2018 13:12:52 GMT -5
Do you remember any of this Virgil?
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fbi-warned-trump-2016-russians-would-try-infiltrate-his-campaign-n830596 WASHINGTON — In the weeks after he became the Republican nominee on July 19, 2016, Donald Trump was warned that foreign adversaries, including Russia, would probably try to spy on and infiltrate his campaign, according to multiple government officials familiar with the matter.
The warning came in the form of a high-level counterintelligence briefing by senior FBI officials, the officials said. A similar briefing was given to Hillary Clinton, they added. They said the briefings, which are commonly provided to presidential nominees, were designed to educate the candidates and their top aides about potential threats from foreign spies. ... By the time of the warning in late July or August, at least seven Trump campaign officials had been in contact with Russians or people linked to Russia, according to public reports. There is no public evidence that the campaign reported any of that to the FBI. In July 2016, Manafort sent an email offering a private briefing on the Trump campaign to his former business partner, a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin.
Manafort left the campaign Aug. 19, two days after Trump's first intelligence briefing.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on May 25, 2018 13:19:22 GMT -5
You seem to be suggesting that when these two known Russian friends ended up working for Trump, the FBI should have stood back and left it alone, that somehow working for a presidential candidate means you are untouchable to law enforcement. (1) On the contrary, the FBI was concerned that Russia, with their known habit of trying to tamper with elections in western democracies, would approach these two men, and, unbeknownst to Trump, bribe or blackmail them into spying on Trump's campaign for them. (2) They were trying to protect the Trump campaign from the Russians. (3) Trump has very successfully turned that around 180 degrees to claim the FBI, under some dark world control, was trying to spy on HIM. Which is total bullshit, unless you're willing to believe that everyone in the FBI is a traitor who sold their souls to the black hole/dark hat people. (4)
We have one of the best DOJ agencies in the world, uncorrupted by politics, staffed mostly by people with a strong sense of defending the US and the world from the bad guys. (5) At least we did, before Trump started denigrating it for his own political ends. Morale has to be pretty shitty there right now. Thanks to Trump. - This is exactly what I'm suggesting, given the particulars of this case. Nope. If Trump had vetted these guys - at all - he wouldn't have allowed them not only be on his campaign, but for Manafort to RUN it. Since Trump apparently doesn't bother to vet, it then falls to the FBI to watch the known Russian pals that Trump allowed into his campaign.
- This isn't nearly sufficient justification for the surveillance. Even in a hypothetical universe where the FBI had rock-solid evidence--not merely vague suspicions--that Mr. Manafort and Mr. Page were compromised by the Kremlin and that they'd surely become privy to valuable secrets (?) they could pass along to their handlers, the surveillance is contraindicated by horrible optics and two reasons besides: i) entrapment is absolutely the wrong way to go about protecting a campaign from Russian influence; there are superior options, and ii) the leaks, insinuations, and speculation that ultimately stemmed from the surveillance did more harm to Pres. Trump's campaign and presidency that the Russians ever could. Talk about killing the patient in order to save him. Who said anything about entrapment? The informant didn't go in and try to 'catch' these guys doing something wrong. He set up meetings with them and talked to them, to feel them out on what they knew and how close they were to Russia. That is all. Not 'spy' on them by listening through keyholes and going through their trash.
- You can't prove this. To your credit, Paul can't prove otherwise, but you can by no means make this assertion. And I hate to say it but all the little bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that have come to light thus far fit with his theory better than they fit with yours. Of course I can. The FBI sent this guy in to talk to a couple people with a known history with Russia. And that's ALL he did. If he was actually a spy intent on bringing down the campaign, he would have been trying to connect up with a bunch of other people in the campaign, would have sifted through trash cans looking for useful information, planted bugs, etc. He did none of those things.
- It wasn't "everyone in the FBI". It was apparently a small working group. And you know that how? You think upper management wasn't aware? This wasn't the mob. It's a government agency.
- This is the million-dollar question, isn't it? Twenty years ago, I imagine most Americans would rate the CIA about average, and the FBI/DoJ as extremely trustworthy. But then came the Patriot Act, then torturegate, Mr. Snowden, the clandestine drone and assassination programs, the surge in whistleblower prosecutions, Vault 5, the Steele dossier, and the icing on the cake was Ms. Clinton's walk on emailgate.
The issue isn't "Is every single person in the FBI/DoJ corrupted by politics?", it's "Can a working group exist within the FBI/DoJ corrupted by politics?" and "Could this hypothetical working group operate in the shadows for any length of time without being publicly exposed?"
The Snowden and Vault 5 leaks have cemented an affirmative answer to the latter question as far as I'm concerned. Regarding the former, I simply don't know. I'd like to believe "one of the best DOJ agencies in the world, uncorrupted by politics" still applies, but as the 21st Century rolls on, it's really becoming a matter of faith over evidence.
Sorry you've drunk Paul's Koolaid.
I'm pretty sure, in another 12 or 24 or 36 months or so, when all the cards are on the table regarding both the Mueller and the Cohen investigations, the truth will out. Let's wait and see how that goes.
But keep this one question in mind - if there really is no 'there' there, why the hell has Trump mounted a full scale assault on the integrity of the DOJ? If he really has nothing to hide, why is he trying to hard to obfuscate the truth? I don't know if you're old enough to recall the whole Whitewater thing, but the Clintons waited four years for that to drag out, and that was a failed real estate deal in Arkansas that ultimately netting about 6 prosecutions. Now we have possible Russian collusion/obstruction by the highest office in the land, and it's already netted how many arrests and guilty pleas? Occam's razor, Virgil, how likely is there a 'there' there that Trump is desperately trying to keep concealed by attacking the DOJ?
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 25, 2018 14:15:55 GMT -5
"any criminal could do anything and escape prosecution" By this you mean "escape prosecution for 9 months, assuming they didn't simply tell the presidential candidate 'fire this guy and get ready for blowback because we think he's a Russian mole', or 'keep this guy on your campaign staff but for the love of sweet snowy leopards don't grant him access to privileged data'". Manafort was hired before Trump became the GOP nominee. Not sure what FBI policies are and what they should be. Should the FBI advise on hiring choices of all candidates just in case? When can we hold Trump accountable for his bad choices instead of arguing the FBI should have saved him? If he hires several interestingly connected folks, is there a good reason the FBI should assume he's simply unaware?
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/how-did-these-guys-get-hired/544358/
The reasons why Manafort, Gates, and Papadopoulos were disastrously unwise picks were different, although they are all converging in the special counsel’s investigation.
When Manafort joined the Trump team, in March 2016, the campaign had little capacity for vetting. The barebones team had unexpectedly rampaged through the Republican presidential field, in spite of repeated missteps and gaffes. But the campaign team consisted of inexperienced, flailing aides, and the campaign was in danger of facing a floor fight for the nomination at the Republican National Convention. Manafort had experience in floor fights, dating to a 1976 battle between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and besides, he came recommended by his former business partner Roger Stone, an occasional adviser to Trump.
The fact that Manafort, a hired-gun operative, was willing to work for free ought to have raised alarms. It’s also hard to imagine that Trump didn’t know about Manafort’s work for Yanukovych, for example.
But Gates, who faces the same charges as Manafort and also pleaded not guilty Monday, stuck around long after that. First, he served on Trump’s inaugural committee, and then he went to work for an outside political group lobbying on behalf of the administration, from which he was forced out in April as the Russia probe intensified. Even though Gates lacked Manafort’s track record, his closeness to Manafort should have rung all the same alarm bells.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 25, 2018 14:52:07 GMT -5
"But if this is your suspicion, Mr. Comey, don't lie through your teeth and claim the surveillance was to protect him and his campaign."
Please Virgil explain to me why Comey or anyone should be held to a higher standard than Potus? FWIW, I haven't read about what Comey said or did not say. There are things that ideally are not said in a public forum unless we want to make Russia and other foreign countries better at screwing with our elections. The bottom line though, is the way it was handled obviously enabled Trump's campaign to triumph. |
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 25, 2018 17:14:23 GMT -5
Getting worse by the second. Trump's end-game comes into focus as he calls for total transparency, and the deep state desperately leaks information to diffuse the impact of the coming #spygate dam burst...
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Post by Rukh O'Rorke on May 25, 2018 17:16:53 GMT -5
Dream weaver🎶🎵🎵🎶 🗯🗯🃏🗯🗯 ♦️♠️♣️♥️ |
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on May 25, 2018 17:53:32 GMT -5
Oh, God, more Conservative Nuthouse BS.
Why don't you just post from Breitbart?
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 25, 2018 18:05:41 GMT -5
You seem to be suggesting that when these two known Russian friends ended up working for Trump, the FBI should have stood back and left it alone, that somehow working for a presidential candidate means you are untouchable to law enforcement. (1) On the contrary, the FBI was concerned that Russia, with their known habit of trying to tamper with elections in western democracies, would approach these two men, and, unbeknownst to Trump, bribe or blackmail them into spying on Trump's campaign for them. (2) They were trying to protect the Trump campaign from the Russians. (3) Trump has very successfully turned that around 180 degrees to claim the FBI, under some dark world control, was trying to spy on HIM. Which is total bullshit, unless you're willing to believe that everyone in the FBI is a traitor who sold their souls to the black hole/dark hat people. (4)
We have one of the best DOJ agencies in the world, uncorrupted by politics, staffed mostly by people with a strong sense of defending the US and the world from the bad guys. (5) At least we did, before Trump started denigrating it for his own political ends. Morale has to be pretty shitty there right now. Thanks to Trump. - This is exactly what I'm suggesting, given the particulars of this case. I'll Add: if they'd shown the same concern over the DNC and the Clinton campaign actively working with British and Russian foreign agents to, we now know, concoct a phony, fraudulent, fake intelligence document they labeled "dossier" for effect like 8th graders after a 007 marathon, they might have some credibility here. However, you can't investigate people. Period. You can investigate CRIMES. That's how this country works. As of yet none of you have answered the question- there has been no answer to the question yet anywhere from anyone: WHAT CRIME is Robert Mueller investigating?
- This isn't nearly sufficient justification for the surveillance. Sure isn't. Even in a hypothetical universe where the FBI had rock-solid evidence--not merely vague suspicions--that Mr. Manafort and Mr. Page were compromised by the Kremlin and that they'd surely become privy to valuable secrets (?) they could pass along to their handlers, the surveillance is contraindicated by horrible optics and two reasons besides: i) entrapment is absolutely the wrong way to go about protecting a campaign from Russian influence; there are superior options, and ii) the leaks, insinuations, and speculation that ultimately stemmed from the surveillance did more harm to Pres. Trump's campaign and presidency that the Russians ever could. Talk about killing the patient in order to save him. Give me a fucking break. They were using the spying apparatus for POLITICAL purposes and the DOSSIER and the entrapment created the PRETEXT for the spying. They thought they'd win and never be discovered, but having lost the stakes were too high not to undermine Trump and drive him from office if they could get away with it. They failed. Now, they're screwed and the denials and evolving explanations are laughable.
- You can't prove this. To your credit, Paul can't prove otherwise, but you can by no means make this assertion. And I hate to say it but all the little bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that have come to light thus far fit with his theory better than they fit with yours. Occam's Razor. I'll admit I'm a little bit over my skis, but I know these people like every square inch of my glorious naked body and I can see where we've been- and where we're going. Given what we already know, the handful of missing pieces that still need to fall into place do not prevent the full picture puzzle from coming into view.
- It wasn't "everyone in the FBI". It was apparently a small working group. Correct.
- This is the million-dollar question, isn't it? Twenty years ago, I imagine most Americans would rate the CIA about average, and the FBI/DoJ as extremely trustworthy. But then came the Patriot Act, then torturegate, Mr. Snowden, the clandestine drone and assassination programs, the surge in whistleblower prosecutions, Vault 5, the Steele dossier, and the icing on the cake was Ms. Clinton's walk on emailgate.
The issue isn't "Is every single person in the FBI/DoJ corrupted by politics?", it's "Can a working group exist within the FBI/DoJ corrupted by politics?" and "Could this hypothetical working group operate in the shadows for any length of time without being publicly exposed?"
The Snowden and Vault 5 leaks have cemented an affirmative answer to the latter question as far as I'm concerned. Regarding the former, I simply don't know. I'd like to believe "one of the best DOJ agencies in the world, uncorrupted by politics" still applies, but as the 21st Century rolls on, it's really becoming a matter of faith over evidence. We used to have the best intelligence services in the world. It remains to be seen whether the majority of decent people still serving in the CIA, NSA, State Department (and let's be honest- the State Department has been a nest of vipers for a long time), DOJ, FBI, ODNI, et al can be salvaged from the near total corruption of the Obama years. I happen to be optimistic on this point. However, it's going to require people to put politics aside- by which I mean Democrats FINALLY abandoning pragmatic, ends-justify-the-means politics, acknowledging what has happened here, agreeing with us that it's unacceptable, and working with us to clean house and letting the chips fall where they may.
Nixon was a mistake. So was Obama. It wasn't an attack on public servants to force Nixon to resign and put Liddy, Colson and others in lock-up. Nor is it a mistake to lock up Hillary Clinton, Lorretta Lynch, Bill Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, Susan Rice, Peter Strzok, Andy McCabe, Lisa Page, Susan Power, James Comey et al.
People have to go down for this.
- Interestingly, we STILL DO NOT KNOW who hacked the DNC servers. They claim it was the Russians, but "the best DOJ / FBI in the world" has STILL never examined the servers. They took the word of the DNC's contractor, Crowdstrike, and reported that the Russians hacked their servers. We don't know a lot of things, but we have a pretty good idea for a variety of reasons (including Julian Assange's own word- which has NEVER been contradicted) that it's extremely likely it was NOT the Russians.
By the way...has the best DOJ / FBI in the world gotten to the bottom of the Pakistani hackers / blackmailers / extortionists hired by the DNC? And all the liberals said, "Whuuu "
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on May 25, 2018 19:43:00 GMT -5
By this you mean "escape prosecution for 9 months, assuming they didn't simply tell the presidential candidate 'fire this guy and get ready for blowback because we think he's a Russian mole', or 'keep this guy on your campaign staff but for the love of sweet snowy leopards don't grant him access to privileged data'". If Trump and his cohorts had done even a modest amount of vetting, they would have discovered that both Manafort and Page had large dossiers in the FBI regarding Russia.
Trump either didn't bother to vet, going with his 'gut feelings' which he claims are so awesome, or he knew their history and didn't care.
Either way, he allowed at least two people with known Russian ties to hang out on his campaign, and the FBI felt the need to keep tabs on them.
Which is called 'doing their job.' If they planned to infiltrate his campaign (and the State Department), he needed to know exactly who they were investigating and why. None of this cloak and dagger. I'm sorry. |
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 25, 2018 19:48:07 GMT -5
Getting worse by the second. Trump's end-game comes into focus as he calls for total transparency, and the deep state desperately leaks information to diffuse the impact of the coming #spygate dam burst... This post using ZeroHedge is a great example of how parts of the "conservative" media lie while at the same time appear to give you information. First you start with stating things you want your readers to believe as true by stating them as fact or foregone conclusions. Notice how they write that Halper infiltrated the Trump campaign even though its a brazen lie with no truth behind it. Fact: Halper met with both Page and Papa Smurf outside of the country. He met Page at a conference in Cambridge England weeks before he was asked to speak to him. Papa Smurf aka Papadap, man with the long name, in truth gave him nothing. So so far not much of a big reveal.
It gets better. ZeroHedge like Trump wants to link Obama to this, so they reveal what might possibly maybe be the actual amount of money he was paid during part of Obama's & Trump's terms. They of course conveniently leave out how much he was paid by Reagan, Ford, Bush, etc. because that clouds the narrative that this is not an Obama guy. He's a guy who actually got accused of stealing Carter's debate notebook, but like Zero Hedge's bit of info, that is also irrelevant trivia.
Notice how nowhere are you enlightened by any actual useful facts about any interaction Halper had with Page or anyone in the Trump campaign. In spite of asserting he wormed his way into the campaign there is actually no proof or discussion whatsoever of how this allegedly occurred. That's by design, because this is a propaganda hit piece. If it were actually news it would make an assertion and then support it with facts. Useful, important facts.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on May 25, 2018 19:50:44 GMT -5
Do you remember any of this Virgil?
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fbi-warned-trump-2016-russians-would-try-infiltrate-his-campaign-n830596 WASHINGTON — In the weeks after he became the Republican nominee on July 19, 2016, Donald Trump was warned that foreign adversaries, including Russia, would probably try to spy on and infiltrate his campaign, according to multiple government officials familiar with the matter.
The warning came in the form of a high-level counterintelligence briefing by senior FBI officials, the officials said. A similar briefing was given to Hillary Clinton, they added. They said the briefings, which are commonly provided to presidential nominees, were designed to educate the candidates and their top aides about potential threats from foreign spies. ... By the time of the warning in late July or August, at least seven Trump campaign officials had been in contact with Russians or people linked to Russia, according to public reports. There is no public evidence that the campaign reported any of that to the FBI. In July 2016, Manafort sent an email offering a private briefing on the Trump campaign to his former business partner, a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin.
Manafort left the campaign Aug. 19, two days after Trump's first intelligence briefing.
Are you suggesting they indeed came to him with their suspicions about Mr. Manafort in August and that's why Pres. Trump fired him? If this is the case--it's documented and they admit to it--it would strike a blow to Paul's theory. But regarding the pro forma "beware the Reds" warning about foreign adversaries immediately after he won the nomination, not nearly the same thing as "Mr. Trump, we believe your campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is too friendly with the Russians and we'll be keeping him under surveillance".
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on May 25, 2018 20:23:55 GMT -5
- This is exactly what I'm suggesting, given the particulars of this case. Nope. If Trump had vetted these guys - at all - he wouldn't have allowed them not only be on his campaign, but for Manafort to RUN it. Since Trump apparently doesn't bother to vet, it then falls to the FBI to watch the known Russian pals that Trump allowed into his campaign.
- This isn't nearly sufficient justification for the surveillance. Even in a hypothetical universe where the FBI had rock-solid evidence--not merely vague suspicions--that Mr. Manafort and Mr. Page were compromised by the Kremlin and that they'd surely become privy to valuable secrets (?) they could pass along to their handlers, the surveillance is contraindicated by horrible optics and two reasons besides: i) entrapment is absolutely the wrong way to go about protecting a campaign from Russian influence; there are superior options, and ii) the leaks, insinuations, and speculation that ultimately stemmed from the surveillance did more harm to Pres. Trump's campaign and presidency that the Russians ever could. Talk about killing the patient in order to save him. Who said anything about entrapment? The informant didn't go in and try to 'catch' these guys doing something wrong. He set up meetings with them and talked to them, to feel them out on what they knew and how close they were to Russia. That is all. Not 'spy' on them by listening through keyholes and going through their trash.
- You can't prove this. To your credit, Paul can't prove otherwise, but you can by no means make this assertion. And I hate to say it but all the little bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence that have come to light thus far fit with his theory better than they fit with yours. Of course I can. The FBI sent this guy in to talk to a couple people with a known history with Russia. And that's ALL he did. If he was actually a spy intent on bringing down the campaign, he would have been trying to connect up with a bunch of other people in the campaign, would have sifted through trash cans looking for useful information, planted bugs, etc. He did none of those things.
- It wasn't "everyone in the FBI". It was apparently a small working group. And you know that how? You think upper management wasn't aware? This wasn't the mob. It's a government agency.
- This is the million-dollar question, isn't it? Twenty years ago, I imagine most Americans would rate the CIA about average, and the FBI/DoJ as extremely trustworthy. But then came the Patriot Act, then torturegate, Mr. Snowden, the clandestine drone and assassination programs, the surge in whistleblower prosecutions, Vault 5, the Steele dossier, and the icing on the cake was Ms. Clinton's walk on emailgate.
The issue isn't "Is every single person in the FBI/DoJ corrupted by politics?", it's "Can a working group exist within the FBI/DoJ corrupted by politics?" and "Could this hypothetical working group operate in the shadows for any length of time without being publicly exposed?"
The Snowden and Vault 5 leaks have cemented an affirmative answer to the latter question as far as I'm concerned. Regarding the former, I simply don't know. I'd like to believe "one of the best DOJ agencies in the world, uncorrupted by politics" still applies, but as the 21st Century rolls on, it's really becoming a matter of faith over evidence.
Sorry you've drunk Paul's Koolaid.
I'm pretty sure, in another 12 or 24 or 36 months or so, when all the cards are on the table regarding both the Mueller and the Cohen investigations, the truth will out. Let's wait and see how that goes.
But keep this one question in mind - if there really is no 'there' there, why the hell has Trump mounted a full scale assault on the integrity of the DOJ? If he really has nothing to hide, why is he trying to hard to obfuscate the truth? I don't know if you're old enough to recall the whole Whitewater thing, but the Clintons waited four years for that to drag out, and that was a failed real estate deal in Arkansas that ultimately netting about 6 prosecutions. Now we have possible Russian collusion/obstruction by the highest office in the land, and it's already netted how many arrests and guilty pleas? Occam's razor, Virgil, how likely is there a 'there' there that Trump is desperately trying to keep concealed by attacking the DOJ? - Agree to disagree.
- "He set up meetings with them and talked to them, to feel them out on what they knew and how close they were to Russia." ...but "didn't go in and try to 'catch' these guys doing something wrong".
Maybe he wanted their advice on real estate investing in Moscow, to pass that along to the FBI?
Sorry. This is also an "agree to disagree".
- "He did none of those things." We don't know this either. Plus, aren't there rumblings about a second informant?
- The working group evidently included Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe. They and 11 (I think) other people in total between the FBI/DoJ knew about the operation.
Somehow I suspect you're not going to follow your own advice here.  He's despised the FBI and DoJ since before he took office, for half a dozen reasons. Perhaps he is running scared. Perhaps he's elated there's finally a bit of gas in his tank with these revelations about Mr. Halpert, and he's gunning the engine for all it's worth. If he's interested in winning and crushing his detractors under heel by any means necessary, is this not the most logical course of action?
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 25, 2018 20:35:28 GMT -5
"People have to go down for this." I agree, I think we should start with Trump.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 25, 2018 20:59:23 GMT -5
Do you remember any of this Virgil?
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fbi-warned-trump-2016-russians-would-try-infiltrate-his-campaign-n830596 WASHINGTON — In the weeks after he became the Republican nominee on July 19, 2016, Donald Trump was warned that foreign adversaries, including Russia, would probably try to spy on and infiltrate his campaign, according to multiple government officials familiar with the matter.
The warning came in the form of a high-level counterintelligence briefing by senior FBI officials, the officials said. A similar briefing was given to Hillary Clinton, they added. They said the briefings, which are commonly provided to presidential nominees, were designed to educate the candidates and their top aides about potential threats from foreign spies. ... By the time of the warning in late July or August, at least seven Trump campaign officials had been in contact with Russians or people linked to Russia, according to public reports. There is no public evidence that the campaign reported any of that to the FBI. In July 2016, Manafort sent an email offering a private briefing on the Trump campaign to his former business partner, a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin.
Manafort left the campaign Aug. 19, two days after Trump's first intelligence briefing.
Are you suggesting they indeed came to him with their suspicions about Mr. Manafort in August and that's why Pres. Trump fired him? If this is the case--it's documented and they admit to it--it would strike a blow to Paul's theory. But regarding the pro forma "beware the Reds" warning about foreign adversaries immediately after he won the nomination, not nearly the same thing as "Mr. Trump, we believe your campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is too friendly with the Russians and we'll be keeping him under surveillance".
Virgil, since he was a candidate not the President, I don't know if protocol allowed them to name names even if they wanted to. I'm not sure what should have happened had I ruled the universe. In RL, Trump was warned off Flynn by many people by name, but he hired him anyway. Manafort or Page was floated loan money from Trump's friends after they left the Trump campaign. This was despite knowing about their Russia connections.
Your scenario sounds nice and fair if Trump was an unaware innocent lamb. Bottom line, even if he had been, an investigation becomes tainted the moment you let people know who you are investigating that they interact with. They will act differently at the very least. They might even let the targets know you are investigating them.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 25, 2018 21:32:30 GMT -5
Dream weaver🎶🎵🎵🎶 🗯🗯🃏🗯🗯 ♦️♠️♣️♥️ I really hate this genre of political fantasy fiction. They keep throwing more and more characters into the fray to distract from the lack of plot. "My campaign has been spied on" cries Trump. "They hacked my phone in Trump Tower". "This has nothing to do with Russians. Its all about me, me ,me".
And then when you look for the plot line that shows how Trump is being spied on, its a fat goose egg. Yet lots of evidence of investigating people connected to Russia. Is Trump jealous? Does he feel marginalized because they aren't investigating his ties to Putin?... 
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 25, 2018 21:53:57 GMT -5
Worth reading - www.vox.com/2018/5/25/17380212/spygate-trump-russia-spy-stefan-halper-fbi-explained Trump and Republicans say that Halper was a spy planted in the Trump campaign by the Obama administration “for political purposes” — in other words, to hurt Trump’s electoral chances. The president has dubbed this “SPYGATE,” calling it a “scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before!”
The reality is much less exciting. The scandal here isn’t that Trump was “spied on.” It’s that the FBI’s legitimate investigation into Russia is becoming a cudgel for the president to attack the Justice Department publicly and undermine its independence. Less than a week later, Halper met Page at a conference on US foreign policy and the 2016 election held in Cambridge. The two men struck up an email correspondence.
It’s not clear whether that initial meeting was done at the FBI’s behest. It’s possible that these two men just had a lot in common and established a sort of friendship; Halper is reportedly known for being a major networker.
But on July 31, about three weeks after Halper and Page first met, the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to infiltrate the Trump campaign and alter the outcome of the 2016 election. As part of this investigation, they asked Halper to reach out to two Trump advisers — Page and George Papadopoulos — to see what he could learn about connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 25, 2018 22:02:17 GMT -5
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 25, 2018 22:17:15 GMT -5
Worth reading - www.vox.com/2018/5/25/17380212/spygate-trump-russia-spy-stefan-halper-fbi-explained Trump and Republicans say that Halper was a spy planted in the Trump campaign by the Obama administration “for political purposes” — in other words, to hurt Trump’s electoral chances. The president has dubbed this “SPYGATE,” calling it a “scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before!”
The reality is much less exciting. The scandal here isn’t that Trump was “spied on.” It’s that the FBI’s legitimate investigation into Russia is becoming a cudgel for the president to attack the Justice Department publicly and undermine its independence. Less than a week later, Halper met Page at a conference on US foreign policy and the 2016 election held in Cambridge. The two men struck up an email correspondence.
It’s not clear whether that initial meeting was done at the FBI’s behest. It’s possible that these two men just had a lot in common and established a sort of friendship; Halper is reportedly known for being a major networker.
But on July 31, about three weeks after Halper and Page first met, the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to infiltrate the Trump campaign and alter the outcome of the 2016 election. As part of this investigation, they asked Halper to reach out to two Trump advisers — Page and George Papadopoulos — to see what he could learn about connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.
You realize there are several major problems with this premise: 1. There has thus far been no legitimate intelligence service origin for this investigation. 2. The FBI's timeline has been moved 3 times now, because with each new revelation the FBI story of the timeline is contradicted 3. The evidence for the "small group" first revealed in the Peter Strzok / Lisa Page text messages, and more recently identified in released James Comey email as the "Critical Matters" team, is not actually in dispute. 4. If This Were simply Donald Trump defaming the Department of Justice, the FBI, et al, why does the author suppose they recommended James Comey be fired? For what purpose does the author imagine Andrew McCabe was fired, and subsequently referred for criminal investigation? As you can see, there are credible reasons to doubt the claim that all of this is nothing more than a good faith effort on the part of the DOJ, FBI, CIA, et al to protect the country, and Donald Trump from those dastardly Russians. |
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 25, 2018 22:18:40 GMT -5
See the problem with this discussion is that the only argument so far has been that the conservative treehouse is an unreliable source run by quote nutjobs, and or that yours truly is crazy.
I keep posting facts, and the responses thus far are quite weak.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 25, 2018 22:23:39 GMT -5
And of course after lying for the better part of a year about there being no spy in the Trump campaign, Democrats are now hanging their hat on semantics. More specifically they would like to drag us all off into the weeds to discuss the difference between a spy, and a confidential informant.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 26, 2018 6:22:52 GMT -5
I'd like to discuss why Trump lies so much. Why he still can't prove he's been spied on for political reasons, let alone any reason at all. Since lies are often tells about a person, do you suppose this means he spied on Clinton or at least attempted to?
ETA: So Trump's been lying about this to save his hide for more than half a year? I thought it was longer. |
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 26, 2018 8:27:00 GMT -5
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 26, 2018 8:28:47 GMT -5
I'd like to discuss why Trump lies so much. Why he still can't prove he's been spied on for political reasons, let alone any reason at all. Since lies are often tells about a person, do you suppose this means he spied on Clinton or at least attempted to?
ETA: So Trump's been lying about this to save his hide for more than half a year? I thought it was longer. This version of events no longer holds up. |
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 26, 2018 8:31:16 GMT -5
The fact of the matter is that had outgoing President George W bush conducted a similar operation against Obama, he would already be in jail.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on May 26, 2018 10:53:27 GMT -5
Is Michael Caputo lying?
His story changes the FBI timeline...
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on May 26, 2018 11:00:37 GMT -5
The fact of the matter is that had outgoing President George W bush conducted a similar operation against Obama, he would already be in jail. But it would have only been "similar" and thus jail time would be appropriate. What would have been dissimilar is that there would have been no legal basis for doing it. |
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 26, 2018 13:14:53 GMT -5
If the FBI investigated members of Obama's campaign staff that had verified ties to Russia, I would not advocate for George W to go to prison.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on May 26, 2018 13:31:45 GMT -5
Is Michael Caputo lying? His story changes the FBI timeline... It's an interesting development. I can do without the editorializing by Mr. Dobbs, but Mr. Caputo would make the fourth member of the campaign team targeted by the FBI. Is he also supposed to be in bed with the Reds?
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