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President Trump on Thursday hit back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for warning she may postpone the State of the Union address by scrapping her planned trip overseas.
In a letter to Pelosi, Trump told her that a congressional delegation trip she intended to take to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, which he dismissed as a “public relations event,” is now “postponed.”
“We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over,” Trump wrote. “I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the shutdown.”
The announcement appears to mean that Trump will refuse to provide military transportation for lawmakers to make the journey, which would have included a stop in a war zone.
Trump added, however, if Pelosi wanted to go ahead by flying commercial, “that would certainly be your prerogative.”
The Hill
The tit for tat enters its third or fourth round. Pelosi/Schumer attack his walkout, Trump attacks their ultimatum. Trump attacks their vacations in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Schumer Pelosi threaten cancellation of SOTU. Trump threatens cancellation onf their foreign trip.
And to be abundantly clear, the SOTU should just be a letter sent to Congress laying out priorities. Also, the Congressional delegation should've already been canceled because of the shutdown.
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On January 18 2019 05:41 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +President Trump on Thursday hit back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for warning she may postpone the State of the Union address by scrapping her planned trip overseas.
In a letter to Pelosi, Trump told her that a congressional delegation trip she intended to take to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, which he dismissed as a “public relations event,” is now “postponed.”
“We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over,” Trump wrote. “I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the shutdown.”
The announcement appears to mean that Trump will refuse to provide military transportation for lawmakers to make the journey, which would have included a stop in a war zone.
Trump added, however, if Pelosi wanted to go ahead by flying commercial, “that would certainly be your prerogative.” The HillThe tit for tat enters its third or fourth round. Pelosi/Schumer attack his walkout, Trump attacks their ultimatum. Trump attacks their vacations in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Schumer Pelosi threaten cancellation of SOTU. Trump threatens cancellation onf their foreign trip. And to be abundantly clear, the SOTU should just be a letter sent to Congress laying out priorities. Also, the Congressional delegation should've already been canceled because of the shutdown.
so by doing exactly what you think should be done in calling for the SOTU to be written, you still claim that is participation in tit for tat? that’s just logically inconsistent.
but why should this afghanistan codel be cancelled? why just this one, and not the one from 12/28? or Trumps visit to Iraq 12/26? or the upcoming trip to Davos (which is hilarious in its own right) on the 22nd? is there any reason that fits just this one and not the rest, or do you think this decision in fact was purely for spite?
and it’s not just a threat, the delegation is back from the airport.
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On January 18 2019 05:48 brian wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 05:41 Danglars wrote:President Trump on Thursday hit back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for warning she may postpone the State of the Union address by scrapping her planned trip overseas.
In a letter to Pelosi, Trump told her that a congressional delegation trip she intended to take to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, which he dismissed as a “public relations event,” is now “postponed.”
“We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over,” Trump wrote. “I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the shutdown.”
The announcement appears to mean that Trump will refuse to provide military transportation for lawmakers to make the journey, which would have included a stop in a war zone.
Trump added, however, if Pelosi wanted to go ahead by flying commercial, “that would certainly be your prerogative.” The HillThe tit for tat enters its third or fourth round. Pelosi/Schumer attack his walkout, Trump attacks their ultimatum. Trump attacks their vacations in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Schumer Pelosi threaten cancellation of SOTU. Trump threatens cancellation onf their foreign trip. And to be abundantly clear, the SOTU should just be a letter sent to Congress laying out priorities. Also, the Congressional delegation should've already been canceled because of the shutdown. so by doing exactly what you think should be done in calling for the SOTU to be written, you still claim that is participation in tit for tat? that’s just logically inconsistent. why should this afghanistan codel be cancelled? why just this one, and not the one from 12/28? or Trumps visit to Iraq? or the upcoming trip to Davos (which is hilarious in its own right) on the 22nd?
Pelosi made her intent obvious in the letter. If you haven't read it, this would be a good time to tell me what about it logically conforms to intent for tit to tat. I'd have zero qualms if she said she was canceling/delaying because SOTU speeches are a stupid tradition. Again, read it, and get back to me.
It's a congressional delegation during a shutdown, where Congress is a necessary party to ending the shutdown. If this thing had been going on for maybe three months with no end in sight, that would be another thing.
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On January 18 2019 06:01 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 05:48 brian wrote:On January 18 2019 05:41 Danglars wrote:President Trump on Thursday hit back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for warning she may postpone the State of the Union address by scrapping her planned trip overseas.
In a letter to Pelosi, Trump told her that a congressional delegation trip she intended to take to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, which he dismissed as a “public relations event,” is now “postponed.”
“We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over,” Trump wrote. “I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the shutdown.”
The announcement appears to mean that Trump will refuse to provide military transportation for lawmakers to make the journey, which would have included a stop in a war zone.
Trump added, however, if Pelosi wanted to go ahead by flying commercial, “that would certainly be your prerogative.” The HillThe tit for tat enters its third or fourth round. Pelosi/Schumer attack his walkout, Trump attacks their ultimatum. Trump attacks their vacations in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Schumer Pelosi threaten cancellation of SOTU. Trump threatens cancellation onf their foreign trip. And to be abundantly clear, the SOTU should just be a letter sent to Congress laying out priorities. Also, the Congressional delegation should've already been canceled because of the shutdown. so by doing exactly what you think should be done in calling for the SOTU to be written, you still claim that is participation in tit for tat? that’s just logically inconsistent. why should this afghanistan codel be cancelled? why just this one, and not the one from 12/28? or Trumps visit to Iraq? or the upcoming trip to Davos (which is hilarious in its own right) on the 22nd? Pelosi made her intent obvious in the letter. If you haven't read it, you may do so now. I'd have zero qualms if she said she was canceling/delaying because SOTU speeches are a stupid tradition. Again, read it, and get back to me. It's a congressional delegation during a shutdown, where Congress is a necessary party to ending the shutdown. If this thing had been going on for maybe three months with no end in sight, that would be another thing.
i read it. it was pretty clear, and yet also included, in no uncertain terms, exactly what you said should be done. 🤷🏻♂️
and does that same line of reasoning not preclude all the others? (it does.) So do i take this to mean you too believe it’s just out of spite?
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On January 18 2019 06:03 brian wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 06:01 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 05:48 brian wrote:On January 18 2019 05:41 Danglars wrote:President Trump on Thursday hit back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for warning she may postpone the State of the Union address by scrapping her planned trip overseas.
In a letter to Pelosi, Trump told her that a congressional delegation trip she intended to take to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan, which he dismissed as a “public relations event,” is now “postponed.”
“We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the shutdown is over,” Trump wrote. “I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the shutdown.”
The announcement appears to mean that Trump will refuse to provide military transportation for lawmakers to make the journey, which would have included a stop in a war zone.
Trump added, however, if Pelosi wanted to go ahead by flying commercial, “that would certainly be your prerogative.” The HillThe tit for tat enters its third or fourth round. Pelosi/Schumer attack his walkout, Trump attacks their ultimatum. Trump attacks their vacations in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Schumer Pelosi threaten cancellation of SOTU. Trump threatens cancellation onf their foreign trip. And to be abundantly clear, the SOTU should just be a letter sent to Congress laying out priorities. Also, the Congressional delegation should've already been canceled because of the shutdown. so by doing exactly what you think should be done in calling for the SOTU to be written, you still claim that is participation in tit for tat? that’s just logically inconsistent. why should this afghanistan codel be cancelled? why just this one, and not the one from 12/28? or Trumps visit to Iraq? or the upcoming trip to Davos (which is hilarious in its own right) on the 22nd? Pelosi made her intent obvious in the letter. If you haven't read it, you may do so now. I'd have zero qualms if she said she was canceling/delaying because SOTU speeches are a stupid tradition. Again, read it, and get back to me. It's a congressional delegation during a shutdown, where Congress is a necessary party to ending the shutdown. If this thing had been going on for maybe three months with no end in sight, that would be another thing. i read it. it was pretty clear, and yet also included, in no uncertain terms, exactly what you said should be done. 🤷🏻♂️ and does that same line of reasoning not preclude all the others? (it does.) So do i take this to mean you too believe it’s just out of spite?
I do find your reading kind of fascinating. Tell me, if you say "I want to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan because foreign involvements are immoral and wasteful," is it logically equivalent to instead saying "I want to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan because they are urgently needed in South Korea?"
If those two things are not "logically inconsistent" for you, then I know you mean something different than what I thought when I read "that's just logically inconsistent."
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i mean it seems like an inherent contradiction to hold both views, that they would be mutually exclusive. specifically that Pelosi is both participating in a childhood game but also doing what you think should be done anyway. your comparison falls short; rather it’d be like saying that or saying ‘We should withdraw from afghanistan because Trump is a dumbass.’
in my case, the result is no different, i just provided a reasoning you don’t like. whereas in your example, it is. the troops go somewhere different. that’s what’s different. i mean you said it yourself, to paraphrase: you’ve only thought differently because she used reasoning you didn’t like.
i think i understand that you think just blaming trump is her participation in the tit for tat, though in the action she takes she still is doing exactly what you think is the right thing. in a world where trump talks shit on twitter for all to hear, i don’t think blaming trump qualifies as a play in this game. again, in the end, she asked for exactly what you think should be the case. my view of tit for tat would involve some kind of consequence.
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ah shit i hit quote instead of edit. sorry.
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On January 18 2019 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 02:43 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:20 IgnE wrote:On January 17 2019 13:21 xDaunt wrote:We're getting pretty close to actual evidence that the FBI defrauded the FISA court: When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI’s Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele’s Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative’s work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and might be biased.
Ohr’s briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general. Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A redacted version of the FISA application released last year shows the FBI did not mention any connection to the DNC or Clinton. Rather, it referred to Steele as a reliable source in past criminal investigations who was hired by a person working for a U.S. law firm to conduct research on Trump and Russia.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Yet, in testimony last summer to congressional investigators, Ohr revealed the FBI and Justice lawyers had no need to speculate: He explicitly warned them in a series of contacts, beginning July 31, 2016, that Steele expressed biased against Trump and was working on a project connected to the Clinton campaign.
Ohr had firsthand knowledge about the motive and the client: He had just met with Steele on July 30, 2016, and Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the same firm employing Steele.
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Ohr went further, saying he disclosed to FBI agents that his wife and Steele were working for the same firm and that it was conducting the Trump-Russia research project at the behest of Trump’s Democratic rival, the Clinton campaign.
“These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who’s related to the Clinton campaign and be aware,” Ohr told Congress, explaining what he warned the bureau.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented both the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election, belatedly admitted it paid Fusion GPS for Steele’s work on behalf of the candidate and party and disguised the payments as legal bills when, in fact, it was opposition research.
When asked if he knew of any connection between the Steele dossier and the DNC, Ohr responded that he believed the project was really connected to the Clinton campaign.
“I didn’t know they were employed by the DNC but I certainly said yes that they were working for, you know, they were somehow working, associated with the Clinton campaign,” he answered.
“I also told the FBI that my wife worked for Fusion GPS or was a contractor for GPS, Fusion GPS.”
Ohr divulged his first contact with the FBI was on July 31, 2016, when he reached out to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page. He then was referred to the agents working Russia counterintelligence, including Peter Strzok, the now-fired agent who played a central role in starting the Trump collusion probe.
But Ohr’s contacts about the Steele dossier weren’t limited to the FBI. He said in August 2016 — nearly two months before the FISA warrant was issued — that he was asked to conduct a briefing for senior Justice officials.
Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor.
Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.
Ohr’s extensive testimony also undercuts one argument that House Democrats sought to make last year.
When Republicans, in early 2018, first questioned Ohr’s connections to Steele, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to minimize the connection, insisting he only worked as an informer for the FBI after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016.
The memo from Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) team claimed that Ohr’s contacts with the FBI only began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
But Ohr’s testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred.
And his detailed answers provide a damning rebuttal to the FBI’s portrayal of the Steele material.
In fact, the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee’s campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump’s election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don’t take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
“We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting,” Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. “You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths.”
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court. Source. Long story short, Bruce Ohr briefed the FBI about the dossier in August 2016, explained its problematic history, and recommended that the FBI verify the contents before relying upon it. All of this was omitted from the FISA applications, which is a huge no-no. Furthermore, the applicants certified that the dossier was verifiable and reliable to the FISA court. It's becoming increasingly obvious this certification was fraudulent. And here's the real kicker. There's a paper trail on this point, because Lisa Page testified that the FBI kept a verification file on the dossier. It's only a matter of time before what really happened comes to light. Also, note that this story completely blows the Adam Schiff memo on the FISA application out of the water. Either Schiff was lied to, or he's involved as well. so now you can see why Snowden is a hero and not a traitor. FISA courts are not a sufficient protection against our intelligence agencies Not even Congressional oversight is sufficient protection. Brennan lied his ass off on at least two occasions while testifying to Congress denying mass interception of American's communications. The presumed tradeoff was allowing wiretapping of Americans with proof of overseas contacts with terrorists/terror financiers, and return assurance that the agencies weren't vacuuming up everyone with the possibility of wrongdoing with broad access to recorded communications. After Snowden and Nunes memo, the FISA authorization bill should've been torpedoed and replaced with something different as means of keeping unaccountable police state-style powers in check. On January 18 2019 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:
Conservatives and Democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works.
Kinda rote procedure from both sides: AOC staging a protest with visits and letters Right wing media laughs at lack of success making the "show" include Congressmen running away and shooing them away AOC alleges fake news Next: Right wing media wonders when Democratic congresswomen will stop attacking the press? lol I say performance art on both sides. Fox gets wanted attention, AOC gets wanted attention, everybody wins while pretending everybody's delivering sick burns. See, blatantly lied to, doesn't care. I could show examples of Democrats doing the same thing. This looks absolutely bonkers to me.
Same here. Partisanship I get, but not the willingness to redefine reality for convenience.
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On January 18 2019 08:18 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 18 2019 02:43 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:20 IgnE wrote:On January 17 2019 13:21 xDaunt wrote:We're getting pretty close to actual evidence that the FBI defrauded the FISA court: When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI’s Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele’s Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative’s work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and might be biased.
Ohr’s briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general. Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A redacted version of the FISA application released last year shows the FBI did not mention any connection to the DNC or Clinton. Rather, it referred to Steele as a reliable source in past criminal investigations who was hired by a person working for a U.S. law firm to conduct research on Trump and Russia.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Yet, in testimony last summer to congressional investigators, Ohr revealed the FBI and Justice lawyers had no need to speculate: He explicitly warned them in a series of contacts, beginning July 31, 2016, that Steele expressed biased against Trump and was working on a project connected to the Clinton campaign.
Ohr had firsthand knowledge about the motive and the client: He had just met with Steele on July 30, 2016, and Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the same firm employing Steele.
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Ohr went further, saying he disclosed to FBI agents that his wife and Steele were working for the same firm and that it was conducting the Trump-Russia research project at the behest of Trump’s Democratic rival, the Clinton campaign.
“These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who’s related to the Clinton campaign and be aware,” Ohr told Congress, explaining what he warned the bureau.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented both the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election, belatedly admitted it paid Fusion GPS for Steele’s work on behalf of the candidate and party and disguised the payments as legal bills when, in fact, it was opposition research.
When asked if he knew of any connection between the Steele dossier and the DNC, Ohr responded that he believed the project was really connected to the Clinton campaign.
“I didn’t know they were employed by the DNC but I certainly said yes that they were working for, you know, they were somehow working, associated with the Clinton campaign,” he answered.
“I also told the FBI that my wife worked for Fusion GPS or was a contractor for GPS, Fusion GPS.”
Ohr divulged his first contact with the FBI was on July 31, 2016, when he reached out to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page. He then was referred to the agents working Russia counterintelligence, including Peter Strzok, the now-fired agent who played a central role in starting the Trump collusion probe.
But Ohr’s contacts about the Steele dossier weren’t limited to the FBI. He said in August 2016 — nearly two months before the FISA warrant was issued — that he was asked to conduct a briefing for senior Justice officials.
Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor.
Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.
Ohr’s extensive testimony also undercuts one argument that House Democrats sought to make last year.
When Republicans, in early 2018, first questioned Ohr’s connections to Steele, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to minimize the connection, insisting he only worked as an informer for the FBI after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016.
The memo from Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) team claimed that Ohr’s contacts with the FBI only began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
But Ohr’s testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred.
And his detailed answers provide a damning rebuttal to the FBI’s portrayal of the Steele material.
In fact, the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee’s campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump’s election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don’t take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
“We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting,” Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. “You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths.”
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court. Source. Long story short, Bruce Ohr briefed the FBI about the dossier in August 2016, explained its problematic history, and recommended that the FBI verify the contents before relying upon it. All of this was omitted from the FISA applications, which is a huge no-no. Furthermore, the applicants certified that the dossier was verifiable and reliable to the FISA court. It's becoming increasingly obvious this certification was fraudulent. And here's the real kicker. There's a paper trail on this point, because Lisa Page testified that the FBI kept a verification file on the dossier. It's only a matter of time before what really happened comes to light. Also, note that this story completely blows the Adam Schiff memo on the FISA application out of the water. Either Schiff was lied to, or he's involved as well. so now you can see why Snowden is a hero and not a traitor. FISA courts are not a sufficient protection against our intelligence agencies Not even Congressional oversight is sufficient protection. Brennan lied his ass off on at least two occasions while testifying to Congress denying mass interception of American's communications. The presumed tradeoff was allowing wiretapping of Americans with proof of overseas contacts with terrorists/terror financiers, and return assurance that the agencies weren't vacuuming up everyone with the possibility of wrongdoing with broad access to recorded communications. After Snowden and Nunes memo, the FISA authorization bill should've been torpedoed and replaced with something different as means of keeping unaccountable police state-style powers in check. On January 18 2019 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Conservatives and Democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works. https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1085939614559412224 Kinda rote procedure from both sides: AOC staging a protest with visits and letters Right wing media laughs at lack of success making the "show" include Congressmen running away and shooing them away AOC alleges fake news Next: Right wing media wonders when Democratic congresswomen will stop attacking the press? lol I say performance art on both sides. Fox gets wanted attention, AOC gets wanted attention, everybody wins while pretending everybody's delivering sick burns. See, blatantly lied to, doesn't care. I could show examples of Democrats doing the same thing. This looks absolutely bonkers to me. Same here. Partisanship I get, but not the willingness to redefine reality for convenience.
It's the one "slippery slope" no one seems to give a damn about, probably the most dangerous too.
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On January 18 2019 07:05 brian wrote:
i mean it seems like an inherent contradiction to hold both views, that they would be mutually exclusive. specifically that Pelosi is both participating in a childhood game but also doing what you think should be done anyway. your comparison falls short; rather it’d be like saying that or saying ‘We should withdraw from afghanistan because Trump is a dumbass.’
in my case, the result is no different, i just provided a reasoning you don’t like. whereas in your example, it is. the troops go somewhere different. that’s what’s different. i mean you said it yourself, to paraphrase: you’ve only thought differently because she used reasoning you didn’t like.
i think i understand that you think just blaming trump is her participation in the tit for tat, though in the action she takes she still is doing exactly what you think is the right thing. in a world where trump talks shit on twitter for all to hear, i don’t think blaming trump qualifies as a play in this game. again, in the end, she asked for exactly what you think should be the case. my view of tit for tat would involve some kind of consequence.
Since you don't renew the allegation that there is a logical inconsistency here, I'll drop it too.
I have no argument against the results are the same. I said that. The actors make it cheap verbal retaliation along the way. I see you think it is justified, and I'd agree that both sides have given provocation, but I still can't really understand why you argue that it isn't tit for tat. I like the outcome (if it's actually cancelled and not just postponed), but still accurately call it the exchanging of barbs because it participates in larger context. Have it your way if you really, deeply think it's unfair of me to call it tit for tat if I happen to agree with the result.
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On January 18 2019 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 02:43 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:20 IgnE wrote:On January 17 2019 13:21 xDaunt wrote:We're getting pretty close to actual evidence that the FBI defrauded the FISA court: When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI’s Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele’s Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative’s work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and might be biased.
Ohr’s briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general. Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A redacted version of the FISA application released last year shows the FBI did not mention any connection to the DNC or Clinton. Rather, it referred to Steele as a reliable source in past criminal investigations who was hired by a person working for a U.S. law firm to conduct research on Trump and Russia.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Yet, in testimony last summer to congressional investigators, Ohr revealed the FBI and Justice lawyers had no need to speculate: He explicitly warned them in a series of contacts, beginning July 31, 2016, that Steele expressed biased against Trump and was working on a project connected to the Clinton campaign.
Ohr had firsthand knowledge about the motive and the client: He had just met with Steele on July 30, 2016, and Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the same firm employing Steele.
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Ohr went further, saying he disclosed to FBI agents that his wife and Steele were working for the same firm and that it was conducting the Trump-Russia research project at the behest of Trump’s Democratic rival, the Clinton campaign.
“These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who’s related to the Clinton campaign and be aware,” Ohr told Congress, explaining what he warned the bureau.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented both the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election, belatedly admitted it paid Fusion GPS for Steele’s work on behalf of the candidate and party and disguised the payments as legal bills when, in fact, it was opposition research.
When asked if he knew of any connection between the Steele dossier and the DNC, Ohr responded that he believed the project was really connected to the Clinton campaign.
“I didn’t know they were employed by the DNC but I certainly said yes that they were working for, you know, they were somehow working, associated with the Clinton campaign,” he answered.
“I also told the FBI that my wife worked for Fusion GPS or was a contractor for GPS, Fusion GPS.”
Ohr divulged his first contact with the FBI was on July 31, 2016, when he reached out to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page. He then was referred to the agents working Russia counterintelligence, including Peter Strzok, the now-fired agent who played a central role in starting the Trump collusion probe.
But Ohr’s contacts about the Steele dossier weren’t limited to the FBI. He said in August 2016 — nearly two months before the FISA warrant was issued — that he was asked to conduct a briefing for senior Justice officials.
Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor.
Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.
Ohr’s extensive testimony also undercuts one argument that House Democrats sought to make last year.
When Republicans, in early 2018, first questioned Ohr’s connections to Steele, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to minimize the connection, insisting he only worked as an informer for the FBI after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016.
The memo from Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) team claimed that Ohr’s contacts with the FBI only began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
But Ohr’s testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred.
And his detailed answers provide a damning rebuttal to the FBI’s portrayal of the Steele material.
In fact, the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee’s campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump’s election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don’t take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
“We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting,” Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. “You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths.”
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court. Source. Long story short, Bruce Ohr briefed the FBI about the dossier in August 2016, explained its problematic history, and recommended that the FBI verify the contents before relying upon it. All of this was omitted from the FISA applications, which is a huge no-no. Furthermore, the applicants certified that the dossier was verifiable and reliable to the FISA court. It's becoming increasingly obvious this certification was fraudulent. And here's the real kicker. There's a paper trail on this point, because Lisa Page testified that the FBI kept a verification file on the dossier. It's only a matter of time before what really happened comes to light. Also, note that this story completely blows the Adam Schiff memo on the FISA application out of the water. Either Schiff was lied to, or he's involved as well. so now you can see why Snowden is a hero and not a traitor. FISA courts are not a sufficient protection against our intelligence agencies Not even Congressional oversight is sufficient protection. Brennan lied his ass off on at least two occasions while testifying to Congress denying mass interception of American's communications. The presumed tradeoff was allowing wiretapping of Americans with proof of overseas contacts with terrorists/terror financiers, and return assurance that the agencies weren't vacuuming up everyone with the possibility of wrongdoing with broad access to recorded communications. After Snowden and Nunes memo, the FISA authorization bill should've been torpedoed and replaced with something different as means of keeping unaccountable police state-style powers in check. On January 18 2019 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Conservatives and Democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works. https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1085939614559412224 Kinda rote procedure from both sides: AOC staging a protest with visits and letters Right wing media laughs at lack of success making the "show" include Congressmen running away and shooing them away AOC alleges fake news Next: Right wing media wonders when Democratic congresswomen will stop attacking the press? lol I say performance art on both sides. Fox gets wanted attention, AOC gets wanted attention, everybody wins while pretending everybody's delivering sick burns. See, blatantly lied to, doesn't care. I could show examples of Democrats doing the same thing. This looks absolutely bonkers to me.
Haha you're a riot. You actually think I'm going to look to Stephanie Hamill, apparently some kind of webzine/opinion contributor for Fox, to whether or not AOC checked his real office before showing up in this building? I've never even heard of her. You're up here acting like some tweet or spot on Fox News is proof that "conservatives and democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works."
You've got quite a lot of conspiracy theories. No, I'm not part of this cabal that is so triggered by her dance video and popularity that I'm psychically encouraging a liar's response. I'm just going to comment on the continuing parade and ignore all the bullshit vast right wing conspiracy junk. Please let me know if you're going to put your ass on the line for the next thing MSNBC or CNN puts up.
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On January 18 2019 08:51 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 18 2019 02:43 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:20 IgnE wrote:On January 17 2019 13:21 xDaunt wrote:We're getting pretty close to actual evidence that the FBI defrauded the FISA court: When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI’s Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele’s Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative’s work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and might be biased.
Ohr’s briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general. Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A redacted version of the FISA application released last year shows the FBI did not mention any connection to the DNC or Clinton. Rather, it referred to Steele as a reliable source in past criminal investigations who was hired by a person working for a U.S. law firm to conduct research on Trump and Russia.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Yet, in testimony last summer to congressional investigators, Ohr revealed the FBI and Justice lawyers had no need to speculate: He explicitly warned them in a series of contacts, beginning July 31, 2016, that Steele expressed biased against Trump and was working on a project connected to the Clinton campaign.
Ohr had firsthand knowledge about the motive and the client: He had just met with Steele on July 30, 2016, and Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the same firm employing Steele.
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Ohr went further, saying he disclosed to FBI agents that his wife and Steele were working for the same firm and that it was conducting the Trump-Russia research project at the behest of Trump’s Democratic rival, the Clinton campaign.
“These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who’s related to the Clinton campaign and be aware,” Ohr told Congress, explaining what he warned the bureau.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented both the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election, belatedly admitted it paid Fusion GPS for Steele’s work on behalf of the candidate and party and disguised the payments as legal bills when, in fact, it was opposition research.
When asked if he knew of any connection between the Steele dossier and the DNC, Ohr responded that he believed the project was really connected to the Clinton campaign.
“I didn’t know they were employed by the DNC but I certainly said yes that they were working for, you know, they were somehow working, associated with the Clinton campaign,” he answered.
“I also told the FBI that my wife worked for Fusion GPS or was a contractor for GPS, Fusion GPS.”
Ohr divulged his first contact with the FBI was on July 31, 2016, when he reached out to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page. He then was referred to the agents working Russia counterintelligence, including Peter Strzok, the now-fired agent who played a central role in starting the Trump collusion probe.
But Ohr’s contacts about the Steele dossier weren’t limited to the FBI. He said in August 2016 — nearly two months before the FISA warrant was issued — that he was asked to conduct a briefing for senior Justice officials.
Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor.
Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.
Ohr’s extensive testimony also undercuts one argument that House Democrats sought to make last year.
When Republicans, in early 2018, first questioned Ohr’s connections to Steele, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to minimize the connection, insisting he only worked as an informer for the FBI after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016.
The memo from Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) team claimed that Ohr’s contacts with the FBI only began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
But Ohr’s testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred.
And his detailed answers provide a damning rebuttal to the FBI’s portrayal of the Steele material.
In fact, the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee’s campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump’s election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don’t take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
“We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting,” Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. “You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths.”
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court. Source. Long story short, Bruce Ohr briefed the FBI about the dossier in August 2016, explained its problematic history, and recommended that the FBI verify the contents before relying upon it. All of this was omitted from the FISA applications, which is a huge no-no. Furthermore, the applicants certified that the dossier was verifiable and reliable to the FISA court. It's becoming increasingly obvious this certification was fraudulent. And here's the real kicker. There's a paper trail on this point, because Lisa Page testified that the FBI kept a verification file on the dossier. It's only a matter of time before what really happened comes to light. Also, note that this story completely blows the Adam Schiff memo on the FISA application out of the water. Either Schiff was lied to, or he's involved as well. so now you can see why Snowden is a hero and not a traitor. FISA courts are not a sufficient protection against our intelligence agencies Not even Congressional oversight is sufficient protection. Brennan lied his ass off on at least two occasions while testifying to Congress denying mass interception of American's communications. The presumed tradeoff was allowing wiretapping of Americans with proof of overseas contacts with terrorists/terror financiers, and return assurance that the agencies weren't vacuuming up everyone with the possibility of wrongdoing with broad access to recorded communications. After Snowden and Nunes memo, the FISA authorization bill should've been torpedoed and replaced with something different as means of keeping unaccountable police state-style powers in check. On January 18 2019 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Conservatives and Democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works. https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1085939614559412224 Kinda rote procedure from both sides: AOC staging a protest with visits and letters Right wing media laughs at lack of success making the "show" include Congressmen running away and shooing them away AOC alleges fake news Next: Right wing media wonders when Democratic congresswomen will stop attacking the press? lol I say performance art on both sides. Fox gets wanted attention, AOC gets wanted attention, everybody wins while pretending everybody's delivering sick burns. See, blatantly lied to, doesn't care. I could show examples of Democrats doing the same thing. This looks absolutely bonkers to me. Haha you're a riot. You actually think I'm going to look to Stephanie Hamill, apparently some kind of webzine/opinion contributor for Fox, to whether or not AOC checked his real office before showing up in this building? I've never even heard of her. You're up here acting like some tweet or spot on Fox News is proof that "conservatives and democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works." You've got quite a lot of conspiracy theories. No, I'm not part of this cabal that is so triggered by her dance video and popularity that I'm psychically encouraging a liar's response. I'm just going to comment on the continuing parade and ignore all the bullshit vast right wing conspiracy junk. Please let me know if you're going to put your ass on the line for the next thing MSNBC or CNN puts up.
It's your complacency with the constant stream of misinformation or #FakeNews that I was highlighting which it doesn't seem you are disputing despite your dismissive tone.
There's plenty of evidence that both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to deal with AOC. Whether it's Republican politicians and corporate media figures blatantly lying to the people that trust them about AOC or how taxes work or Francis and Warren live streaming him getting his teeth cleaned or her awkwardly drinking a beer in her kitchen. If the past months haven't convinced you she's already knee deep in their asses I'm sure there will be more in the near future.
No one accused you of being part of some conspiracy or psychically encouraging liars?
My point was simply that the bipartisan complacency with being lied to is a remarkably pervasive problem.
EDIT: You're paying less attention than I thought if you are under the impression I don't think MSNBC and CNN are also trash outlets lying to the people that trust them.
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On January 18 2019 09:04 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 08:51 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 18 2019 02:43 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:20 IgnE wrote:On January 17 2019 13:21 xDaunt wrote:We're getting pretty close to actual evidence that the FBI defrauded the FISA court: When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI’s Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele’s Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative’s work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and might be biased.
Ohr’s briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general. Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A redacted version of the FISA application released last year shows the FBI did not mention any connection to the DNC or Clinton. Rather, it referred to Steele as a reliable source in past criminal investigations who was hired by a person working for a U.S. law firm to conduct research on Trump and Russia.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Yet, in testimony last summer to congressional investigators, Ohr revealed the FBI and Justice lawyers had no need to speculate: He explicitly warned them in a series of contacts, beginning July 31, 2016, that Steele expressed biased against Trump and was working on a project connected to the Clinton campaign.
Ohr had firsthand knowledge about the motive and the client: He had just met with Steele on July 30, 2016, and Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the same firm employing Steele.
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Ohr went further, saying he disclosed to FBI agents that his wife and Steele were working for the same firm and that it was conducting the Trump-Russia research project at the behest of Trump’s Democratic rival, the Clinton campaign.
“These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who’s related to the Clinton campaign and be aware,” Ohr told Congress, explaining what he warned the bureau.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented both the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election, belatedly admitted it paid Fusion GPS for Steele’s work on behalf of the candidate and party and disguised the payments as legal bills when, in fact, it was opposition research.
When asked if he knew of any connection between the Steele dossier and the DNC, Ohr responded that he believed the project was really connected to the Clinton campaign.
“I didn’t know they were employed by the DNC but I certainly said yes that they were working for, you know, they were somehow working, associated with the Clinton campaign,” he answered.
“I also told the FBI that my wife worked for Fusion GPS or was a contractor for GPS, Fusion GPS.”
Ohr divulged his first contact with the FBI was on July 31, 2016, when he reached out to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page. He then was referred to the agents working Russia counterintelligence, including Peter Strzok, the now-fired agent who played a central role in starting the Trump collusion probe.
But Ohr’s contacts about the Steele dossier weren’t limited to the FBI. He said in August 2016 — nearly two months before the FISA warrant was issued — that he was asked to conduct a briefing for senior Justice officials.
Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor.
Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.
Ohr’s extensive testimony also undercuts one argument that House Democrats sought to make last year.
When Republicans, in early 2018, first questioned Ohr’s connections to Steele, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to minimize the connection, insisting he only worked as an informer for the FBI after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016.
The memo from Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) team claimed that Ohr’s contacts with the FBI only began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
But Ohr’s testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred.
And his detailed answers provide a damning rebuttal to the FBI’s portrayal of the Steele material.
In fact, the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee’s campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump’s election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don’t take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
“We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting,” Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. “You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths.”
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court. Source. Long story short, Bruce Ohr briefed the FBI about the dossier in August 2016, explained its problematic history, and recommended that the FBI verify the contents before relying upon it. All of this was omitted from the FISA applications, which is a huge no-no. Furthermore, the applicants certified that the dossier was verifiable and reliable to the FISA court. It's becoming increasingly obvious this certification was fraudulent. And here's the real kicker. There's a paper trail on this point, because Lisa Page testified that the FBI kept a verification file on the dossier. It's only a matter of time before what really happened comes to light. Also, note that this story completely blows the Adam Schiff memo on the FISA application out of the water. Either Schiff was lied to, or he's involved as well. so now you can see why Snowden is a hero and not a traitor. FISA courts are not a sufficient protection against our intelligence agencies Not even Congressional oversight is sufficient protection. Brennan lied his ass off on at least two occasions while testifying to Congress denying mass interception of American's communications. The presumed tradeoff was allowing wiretapping of Americans with proof of overseas contacts with terrorists/terror financiers, and return assurance that the agencies weren't vacuuming up everyone with the possibility of wrongdoing with broad access to recorded communications. After Snowden and Nunes memo, the FISA authorization bill should've been torpedoed and replaced with something different as means of keeping unaccountable police state-style powers in check. On January 18 2019 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Conservatives and Democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works. https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1085939614559412224 Kinda rote procedure from both sides: AOC staging a protest with visits and letters Right wing media laughs at lack of success making the "show" include Congressmen running away and shooing them away AOC alleges fake news Next: Right wing media wonders when Democratic congresswomen will stop attacking the press? lol I say performance art on both sides. Fox gets wanted attention, AOC gets wanted attention, everybody wins while pretending everybody's delivering sick burns. See, blatantly lied to, doesn't care. I could show examples of Democrats doing the same thing. This looks absolutely bonkers to me. Haha you're a riot. You actually think I'm going to look to Stephanie Hamill, apparently some kind of webzine/opinion contributor for Fox, to whether or not AOC checked his real office before showing up in this building? I've never even heard of her. You're up here acting like some tweet or spot on Fox News is proof that "conservatives and democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works." You've got quite a lot of conspiracy theories. No, I'm not part of this cabal that is so triggered by her dance video and popularity that I'm psychically encouraging a liar's response. I'm just going to comment on the continuing parade and ignore all the bullshit vast right wing conspiracy junk. Please let me know if you're going to put your ass on the line for the next thing MSNBC or CNN puts up. It's your complacency with the constant stream of misinformation or #FakeNews that I was highlighting which it doesn't seem you are disputing despite your dismissive tone. There's plenty of evidence that both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to deal with AOC. Whether it's Republican politicians and corporate media figures blatantly lying to the people that trust them about AOC or how taxes work or Francis and Warren live streaming him getting his teeth cleaned or her awkwardly drinking a beer in her kitchen. If the past months haven't convinced you she's already knee deep in their asses I'm sure there will be more in the near future. No one accused you of being part of some conspiracy or psychically encouraging liars? My point was simply that the bipartisan complacency with being lied to is a remarkably pervasive problem. EDIT: You're paying less attention than I thought if you are under the impression I don't think MSNBC and CNN are also trash outlets lying to the people that trust them.
You're just trying to make your perspective out to be THE ONE AND ONLY PERSPECTIVE.
When you write it, I'm being complacent. For me, I'm rationing my attention. AOC stunts and no-name webzine opinion commentators don't pass muster. You're huffing about it and the "lies." Get me some hard news reporter or someone with a byline I'd recognize that isn't another Hannity or Maddow for all I know.
Meanwhile, you're offering up these bizarre fan-boyish thoughts about how us conservatives are scared of AOC's popularity and dancing. Popularity and dancing. We're resorting to lies because of her popularity and dancing. Sometimes, I really think this is all an elaborate troll and you burst out laughing saying "Haha he really thought I thought he was mad about popularity and dancing. It was satire, and it's a shame you didn't recognize it!"
And when I'm not sufficiently outraged at some opinion contributor I've never heard of, I'm complacent.
EDIT: You're paying less attention than I thought if you are under the impression I don't think MSNBC and CNN are also trash outlets lying to the people that trust them.
If I'm to channel you for a minute, all your feeble attempts to distance yourself from MSNBC and CNN are pathetic, and you're really just ashamed they've been revealed to be dishonest and fake news. It's why you have to blubber about people scared of fun dancing (so much evidence that I'm shaking in my boots right now). It all makes sense. This conspiracy crafting thing is great. Far-left radical makes feeble attempt to distance himself from CNN and MSNBC, deflects to his enemies being so scared of someone's dancing, and calls everything trash outlets now, but demands others decry them too or they're complicit.
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On January 18 2019 09:22 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 09:04 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 18 2019 08:51 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 18 2019 02:43 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:20 IgnE wrote:On January 17 2019 13:21 xDaunt wrote:We're getting pretty close to actual evidence that the FBI defrauded the FISA court: When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI’s Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele’s Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative’s work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and might be biased.
Ohr’s briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general. Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A redacted version of the FISA application released last year shows the FBI did not mention any connection to the DNC or Clinton. Rather, it referred to Steele as a reliable source in past criminal investigations who was hired by a person working for a U.S. law firm to conduct research on Trump and Russia.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Yet, in testimony last summer to congressional investigators, Ohr revealed the FBI and Justice lawyers had no need to speculate: He explicitly warned them in a series of contacts, beginning July 31, 2016, that Steele expressed biased against Trump and was working on a project connected to the Clinton campaign.
Ohr had firsthand knowledge about the motive and the client: He had just met with Steele on July 30, 2016, and Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the same firm employing Steele.
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Ohr went further, saying he disclosed to FBI agents that his wife and Steele were working for the same firm and that it was conducting the Trump-Russia research project at the behest of Trump’s Democratic rival, the Clinton campaign.
“These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who’s related to the Clinton campaign and be aware,” Ohr told Congress, explaining what he warned the bureau.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented both the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election, belatedly admitted it paid Fusion GPS for Steele’s work on behalf of the candidate and party and disguised the payments as legal bills when, in fact, it was opposition research.
When asked if he knew of any connection between the Steele dossier and the DNC, Ohr responded that he believed the project was really connected to the Clinton campaign.
“I didn’t know they were employed by the DNC but I certainly said yes that they were working for, you know, they were somehow working, associated with the Clinton campaign,” he answered.
“I also told the FBI that my wife worked for Fusion GPS or was a contractor for GPS, Fusion GPS.”
Ohr divulged his first contact with the FBI was on July 31, 2016, when he reached out to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page. He then was referred to the agents working Russia counterintelligence, including Peter Strzok, the now-fired agent who played a central role in starting the Trump collusion probe.
But Ohr’s contacts about the Steele dossier weren’t limited to the FBI. He said in August 2016 — nearly two months before the FISA warrant was issued — that he was asked to conduct a briefing for senior Justice officials.
Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor.
Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.
Ohr’s extensive testimony also undercuts one argument that House Democrats sought to make last year.
When Republicans, in early 2018, first questioned Ohr’s connections to Steele, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to minimize the connection, insisting he only worked as an informer for the FBI after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016.
The memo from Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) team claimed that Ohr’s contacts with the FBI only began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
But Ohr’s testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred.
And his detailed answers provide a damning rebuttal to the FBI’s portrayal of the Steele material.
In fact, the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee’s campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump’s election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don’t take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
“We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting,” Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. “You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths.”
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court. Source. Long story short, Bruce Ohr briefed the FBI about the dossier in August 2016, explained its problematic history, and recommended that the FBI verify the contents before relying upon it. All of this was omitted from the FISA applications, which is a huge no-no. Furthermore, the applicants certified that the dossier was verifiable and reliable to the FISA court. It's becoming increasingly obvious this certification was fraudulent. And here's the real kicker. There's a paper trail on this point, because Lisa Page testified that the FBI kept a verification file on the dossier. It's only a matter of time before what really happened comes to light. Also, note that this story completely blows the Adam Schiff memo on the FISA application out of the water. Either Schiff was lied to, or he's involved as well. so now you can see why Snowden is a hero and not a traitor. FISA courts are not a sufficient protection against our intelligence agencies Not even Congressional oversight is sufficient protection. Brennan lied his ass off on at least two occasions while testifying to Congress denying mass interception of American's communications. The presumed tradeoff was allowing wiretapping of Americans with proof of overseas contacts with terrorists/terror financiers, and return assurance that the agencies weren't vacuuming up everyone with the possibility of wrongdoing with broad access to recorded communications. After Snowden and Nunes memo, the FISA authorization bill should've been torpedoed and replaced with something different as means of keeping unaccountable police state-style powers in check. On January 18 2019 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Conservatives and Democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works. https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1085939614559412224 Kinda rote procedure from both sides: AOC staging a protest with visits and letters Right wing media laughs at lack of success making the "show" include Congressmen running away and shooing them away AOC alleges fake news Next: Right wing media wonders when Democratic congresswomen will stop attacking the press? lol I say performance art on both sides. Fox gets wanted attention, AOC gets wanted attention, everybody wins while pretending everybody's delivering sick burns. See, blatantly lied to, doesn't care. I could show examples of Democrats doing the same thing. This looks absolutely bonkers to me. Haha you're a riot. You actually think I'm going to look to Stephanie Hamill, apparently some kind of webzine/opinion contributor for Fox, to whether or not AOC checked his real office before showing up in this building? I've never even heard of her. You're up here acting like some tweet or spot on Fox News is proof that "conservatives and democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works." You've got quite a lot of conspiracy theories. No, I'm not part of this cabal that is so triggered by her dance video and popularity that I'm psychically encouraging a liar's response. I'm just going to comment on the continuing parade and ignore all the bullshit vast right wing conspiracy junk. Please let me know if you're going to put your ass on the line for the next thing MSNBC or CNN puts up. It's your complacency with the constant stream of misinformation or #FakeNews that I was highlighting which it doesn't seem you are disputing despite your dismissive tone. There's plenty of evidence that both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to deal with AOC. Whether it's Republican politicians and corporate media figures blatantly lying to the people that trust them about AOC or how taxes work or Francis and Warren live streaming him getting his teeth cleaned or her awkwardly drinking a beer in her kitchen. If the past months haven't convinced you she's already knee deep in their asses I'm sure there will be more in the near future. No one accused you of being part of some conspiracy or psychically encouraging liars? My point was simply that the bipartisan complacency with being lied to is a remarkably pervasive problem. EDIT: You're paying less attention than I thought if you are under the impression I don't think MSNBC and CNN are also trash outlets lying to the people that trust them. You're just trying to make your perspective out to be THE ONE AND ONLY PERSPECTIVE. When you write it, I'm being complacent. For me, I'm rationing my attention. AOC stunts and no-name webzine opinion commentators don't pass muster. You're huffing about it and the "lies." Get me some hard news reporter or someone with a byline I'd recognize that isn't another Hannity or Maddow for all I know. Meanwhile, you're offering up these bizarre fan-boyish thoughts about how us conservatives are scared of AOC's popularity and dancing. Popularity and dancing. We're resorting to lies because of her popularity and dancing. Sometimes, I really think this is all an elaborate troll and you burst out laughing saying "Haha he really thought I thought he was mad about popularity and dancing. It was satire, and it's a shame you didn't recognize it!" And when I'm not sufficiently outraged at some opinion contributor I've never heard of, I'm complacent. Show nested quote +EDIT: You're paying less attention than I thought if you are under the impression I don't think MSNBC and CNN are also trash outlets lying to the people that trust them. If I'm to channel you for a minute, all your feeble attempts to distance yourself from MSNBC and CNN are pathetic, and you're really just ashamed they've been revealed to be dishonest and fake news. It's why you have to blubber about people scared of fun dancing (so much evidence that I'm shaking in my boots right now). It all makes sense. This conspiracy crafting thing is great. Far-left radical makes feeble attempt to distance himself from CNN and MSNBC, deflects to his enemies being so scared of someone's dancing, and calls everything trash outlets now, but demands others decry them too or they're complicit.
hah.
This "One and only perspective" thing is a common trope so I'll address it. No. I don't. You guys misunderstand the terrible quality of your opinions + my opinions for the entirety of perspectives. It's not that mine is the only perspective, it's just that Democrats and Republicans positions are almost universally trash, and there are better ones out there. Mine are some of them, but far from the only ones and plenty of much better ones that I would consider worse than mine but a substantial improvement. Presumably some better than anything I know as well, but if there were better policy/ideas than what I supported I would support that.
Beyond that, isn't that what Trump is doing right now to your cheers?
As to the AOC part, I get it, you think Republicans have her handled and that their voters are so dopey that their major outlets lying to them about core principle issues like how taxes work is a feature, not a bug.
You're bad at channeling me but I feel like I've made it pretty clear where my distaste for corporate media comes from and provided many examples of them all (not literally all) being trash. You seem to be reaching really hard to make this some sort of fan-fic or something but more and more people are noticing the party lines are the ones that don't match reality, though as you've helped me demonstrate, some people are still buying their bs for the most part.
EDIT: For instance a country with trillions of dollars but hungry kids, people without shelter, decreasing life expectancy, increasing maternal death rates , and so on has bipartisan trash policy.
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Not hard to see why trump threatened Michael Cohen's family with retaliation the other day. That tweet will be Exhibit B in the articles of impeachment. If the buzzfeed story proves to be pivotal it will be because Mueller got ahold of trump org witnesses and docs (well first they got michael cohen):
The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.
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On January 18 2019 09:53 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2019 09:22 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 09:04 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 18 2019 08:51 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:44 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 18 2019 02:43 Danglars wrote:On January 18 2019 02:20 IgnE wrote:On January 17 2019 13:21 xDaunt wrote:We're getting pretty close to actual evidence that the FBI defrauded the FISA court: When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI’s Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele’s Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative’s work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and might be biased.
Ohr’s briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general. Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A redacted version of the FISA application released last year shows the FBI did not mention any connection to the DNC or Clinton. Rather, it referred to Steele as a reliable source in past criminal investigations who was hired by a person working for a U.S. law firm to conduct research on Trump and Russia.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Yet, in testimony last summer to congressional investigators, Ohr revealed the FBI and Justice lawyers had no need to speculate: He explicitly warned them in a series of contacts, beginning July 31, 2016, that Steele expressed biased against Trump and was working on a project connected to the Clinton campaign.
Ohr had firsthand knowledge about the motive and the client: He had just met with Steele on July 30, 2016, and Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the same firm employing Steele.
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Ohr went further, saying he disclosed to FBI agents that his wife and Steele were working for the same firm and that it was conducting the Trump-Russia research project at the behest of Trump’s Democratic rival, the Clinton campaign.
“These guys were hired by somebody relating to, who’s related to the Clinton campaign and be aware,” Ohr told Congress, explaining what he warned the bureau.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented both the DNC and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election, belatedly admitted it paid Fusion GPS for Steele’s work on behalf of the candidate and party and disguised the payments as legal bills when, in fact, it was opposition research.
When asked if he knew of any connection between the Steele dossier and the DNC, Ohr responded that he believed the project was really connected to the Clinton campaign.
“I didn’t know they were employed by the DNC but I certainly said yes that they were working for, you know, they were somehow working, associated with the Clinton campaign,” he answered.
“I also told the FBI that my wife worked for Fusion GPS or was a contractor for GPS, Fusion GPS.”
Ohr divulged his first contact with the FBI was on July 31, 2016, when he reached out to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page. He then was referred to the agents working Russia counterintelligence, including Peter Strzok, the now-fired agent who played a central role in starting the Trump collusion probe.
But Ohr’s contacts about the Steele dossier weren’t limited to the FBI. He said in August 2016 — nearly two months before the FISA warrant was issued — that he was asked to conduct a briefing for senior Justice officials.
Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor.
Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.
Ohr’s extensive testimony also undercuts one argument that House Democrats sought to make last year.
When Republicans, in early 2018, first questioned Ohr’s connections to Steele, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to minimize the connection, insisting he only worked as an informer for the FBI after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016.
The memo from Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) team claimed that Ohr’s contacts with the FBI only began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
But Ohr’s testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred.
And his detailed answers provide a damning rebuttal to the FBI’s portrayal of the Steele material.
In fact, the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee’s campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump’s election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don’t take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
“We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting,” Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. “You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths.”
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court. Source. Long story short, Bruce Ohr briefed the FBI about the dossier in August 2016, explained its problematic history, and recommended that the FBI verify the contents before relying upon it. All of this was omitted from the FISA applications, which is a huge no-no. Furthermore, the applicants certified that the dossier was verifiable and reliable to the FISA court. It's becoming increasingly obvious this certification was fraudulent. And here's the real kicker. There's a paper trail on this point, because Lisa Page testified that the FBI kept a verification file on the dossier. It's only a matter of time before what really happened comes to light. Also, note that this story completely blows the Adam Schiff memo on the FISA application out of the water. Either Schiff was lied to, or he's involved as well. so now you can see why Snowden is a hero and not a traitor. FISA courts are not a sufficient protection against our intelligence agencies Not even Congressional oversight is sufficient protection. Brennan lied his ass off on at least two occasions while testifying to Congress denying mass interception of American's communications. The presumed tradeoff was allowing wiretapping of Americans with proof of overseas contacts with terrorists/terror financiers, and return assurance that the agencies weren't vacuuming up everyone with the possibility of wrongdoing with broad access to recorded communications. After Snowden and Nunes memo, the FISA authorization bill should've been torpedoed and replaced with something different as means of keeping unaccountable police state-style powers in check. On January 18 2019 01:44 GreenHorizons wrote:Conservatives and Democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works. https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1085939614559412224 Kinda rote procedure from both sides: AOC staging a protest with visits and letters Right wing media laughs at lack of success making the "show" include Congressmen running away and shooing them away AOC alleges fake news Next: Right wing media wonders when Democratic congresswomen will stop attacking the press? lol I say performance art on both sides. Fox gets wanted attention, AOC gets wanted attention, everybody wins while pretending everybody's delivering sick burns. See, blatantly lied to, doesn't care. I could show examples of Democrats doing the same thing. This looks absolutely bonkers to me. Haha you're a riot. You actually think I'm going to look to Stephanie Hamill, apparently some kind of webzine/opinion contributor for Fox, to whether or not AOC checked his real office before showing up in this building? I've never even heard of her. You're up here acting like some tweet or spot on Fox News is proof that "conservatives and democrats have really been struggling to find an answer to AOC's popularity so now that the dance video failed they are just outright lying and hoping that works." You've got quite a lot of conspiracy theories. No, I'm not part of this cabal that is so triggered by her dance video and popularity that I'm psychically encouraging a liar's response. I'm just going to comment on the continuing parade and ignore all the bullshit vast right wing conspiracy junk. Please let me know if you're going to put your ass on the line for the next thing MSNBC or CNN puts up. It's your complacency with the constant stream of misinformation or #FakeNews that I was highlighting which it doesn't seem you are disputing despite your dismissive tone. There's plenty of evidence that both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to deal with AOC. Whether it's Republican politicians and corporate media figures blatantly lying to the people that trust them about AOC or how taxes work or Francis and Warren live streaming him getting his teeth cleaned or her awkwardly drinking a beer in her kitchen. If the past months haven't convinced you she's already knee deep in their asses I'm sure there will be more in the near future. No one accused you of being part of some conspiracy or psychically encouraging liars? My point was simply that the bipartisan complacency with being lied to is a remarkably pervasive problem. EDIT: You're paying less attention than I thought if you are under the impression I don't think MSNBC and CNN are also trash outlets lying to the people that trust them. You're just trying to make your perspective out to be THE ONE AND ONLY PERSPECTIVE. When you write it, I'm being complacent. For me, I'm rationing my attention. AOC stunts and no-name webzine opinion commentators don't pass muster. You're huffing about it and the "lies." Get me some hard news reporter or someone with a byline I'd recognize that isn't another Hannity or Maddow for all I know. Meanwhile, you're offering up these bizarre fan-boyish thoughts about how us conservatives are scared of AOC's popularity and dancing. Popularity and dancing. We're resorting to lies because of her popularity and dancing. Sometimes, I really think this is all an elaborate troll and you burst out laughing saying "Haha he really thought I thought he was mad about popularity and dancing. It was satire, and it's a shame you didn't recognize it!" And when I'm not sufficiently outraged at some opinion contributor I've never heard of, I'm complacent. EDIT: You're paying less attention than I thought if you are under the impression I don't think MSNBC and CNN are also trash outlets lying to the people that trust them. If I'm to channel you for a minute, all your feeble attempts to distance yourself from MSNBC and CNN are pathetic, and you're really just ashamed they've been revealed to be dishonest and fake news. It's why you have to blubber about people scared of fun dancing (so much evidence that I'm shaking in my boots right now). It all makes sense. This conspiracy crafting thing is great. Far-left radical makes feeble attempt to distance himself from CNN and MSNBC, deflects to his enemies being so scared of someone's dancing, and calls everything trash outlets now, but demands others decry them too or they're complicit. hah. This "One and only perspective" thing is a common trope so I'll address it. No. I don't. You guys misunderstand the terrible quality of your opinions + my opinions for the entirety of perspectives. It's not that mine is the only perspective, it's just that Democrats and Republicans positions are almost universally trash, and there are better ones out there. Mine are some of them, but far from the only ones and plenty of much better ones that I would consider worse than mine but a substantial improvement. Presumably some better than anything I know as well, but if there were better policy/ideas than what I supported I would support that. Beyond that, isn't that what Trump is doing right now to your cheers? As to the AOC part, I get it, you think Republicans have her handled and that their voters are so dopey that their major outlets lying to them about core principle issues like how taxes work is a feature, not a bug. You're bad at channeling me but I feel like I've made it pretty clear where my distaste for corporate media comes from and provided many examples of them all (not literally all) being trash. You seem to be reaching really hard to make this some sort of fan-fic or something but more and more people are noticing the party lines are the ones that don't match reality, though as you've helped me demonstrate, some people are still buying their bs for the most part. EDIT: For instance a country with trillions of dollars but hungry kids, people without shelter, decreasing life expectancy, increasing maternal death rates , and so on has bipartisan trash policy.
Isn't American literacy dropping significantly as well?
To tie this back to an earlier discussion, I find it odd that in the America First era, none of those issues are getting half as much attention as... building a wall.
Keeping the world out's no help when the problems are already in and of your own making.
And as far as I can tell the Trump administration hasn't talked about much of any of these issues save as part of Trump's doom and gloom message, where bizarrely he used to point out how much America sucks, claim he was going to fix it, then do nothing to do so and still enjoy massive support.
It's not ideal but understandable to want to win the elections; but once you have it's time to stop gloating and hold elected representatives' feet to the fire so that they do what they're promising. If the people don't expect them to live up to their word, you can be pretty confident they won't.
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Shocking....
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office on Friday issued an extraordinary statement disputing a bombshell news report claiming President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie about the timing of discussions over a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.
“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, said Friday.
The statement is remarkable in that Mueller's team rarely issue statements in response to news stories. But BuzzFeed's story sparked immense interest from Democrats, who called for renewed investigations and even suggesting the allegations could form the basis for impeachment proceedings.
Source.
I'm not surprised that it's fake. The fact that the story appeared in Buzzfeed suggests that major media publications like the NYT and WashPo had already turned the story down for reliability issues.
Apparently someone was desperate to get the story aired (like with the dossier back in 2016-2017) and had trouble doing so. What does surprise me, however, is that Mueller issued a correction this quickly (if at all).
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On January 19 2019 10:05 xDaunt wrote:Shocking.... Show nested quote +Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office on Friday issued an extraordinary statement disputing a bombshell news report claiming President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie about the timing of discussions over a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.
“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, said Friday.
The statement is remarkable in that Mueller's team rarely issue statements in response to news stories. But BuzzFeed's story sparked immense interest from Democrats, who called for renewed investigations and even suggesting the allegations could form the basis for impeachment proceedings. Source. I'm not surprised that it's fake. The fact that the story appeared in Buzzfeed suggests that major media publications like the NYT and WashPo had already turned the story down for reliability issues. Apparently someone was desperate to get the story aired (like with the dossier back in 2016-2017) and had trouble doing so. What does surprise me, however, is that Mueller issued a correction this quickly (if at all).
I gotta give them credit. This debunked "bombshell" actually involved issues that could be high crimes and misdemeanors for selling impeachment to the American people (suborning perjury) + Show Spoiler +Though Clinton proved it was more popularity contest than impeachment process
But then again, sourcing to two anonymous sources in today's media culture is suicidal. Buzzfeed, as a news organization, remains "confident in the accuracy of our report." Hmm.
Meanwhile:
The obvious suggestion is a declaration of emergency. Behind that is some military deployment, re-appropriation of unspent funding ala TARP. He should just wait until Democrats come around on the border barrier during the shutdown. It's too much pen-and-phone actions post-Obama, regardless of nitpicking about ACA funding vs illegal alien problem.
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Like I said, both sides. Granted most "left wing" (read centrist) outlets had the sense to add some sort of "we haven't independently confirmed these reports" before talking about them like they were probably facts so that's why Libs give them a pass as opposed to your guys' excuses for top right wing outlets lying to their consumers about how taxes work.
What I wonder is are independents/non-voters still looking at these two dumpster fires of political parties and thinking "yeah that's the best we can do". If there are any out there lurking, I can assure you that yes, there are better options but the media and most people here will do anything they can to make you out to be a fool for not wanting to support Trump or whatever corporate puppet (save Bernie obv) Democrats run.
Watch how these discussions evolve over the next year and you'll see.
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EPT
