US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1210

On March 14 2019 09:44 Danglars wrote:
I want to add Strassel's excellent piece in the WSJ to xDaunt's Byron York piece to help understand the right's perspective and the facts supporting it on the FBI/DOJ scandal. The recent push has been to move beyond Mueller and into Trump's taxes and alleged FEC violations. I think the major hope from the left and allies is that people forget how aggressively and vocally invested media and political figures were into Manafort/Page/Papadopoulos/Dossier allegations. She titles her piece "Shiffting to Phase 2 of Collusion, conspiracy theorists look for something new, anticipating a Mueller letdown.


WSJ

In a sane world, I think Schiff's participation would be rated as a more political version of Alex Jones. His committee has proof that Page brokered deals, and by the time you wonder about the evidence, he's already onto Manafort's involvement. It might've started with the chemicals turning the frogs gay, but you're already onto the moon landing before he's dealt with biology or chemistry. He's behind on offering proof or apologies for the first four ironclad findings when he presents the fifth one wrapped up in a bow.

We already have an inveterate fabulist in the White House. Schiff makes a second in House committee chairmanship. Why hold to defending the second, and expect people to be more vocal about the first? It's confusing. It's damaging to the hypothesis that this isn't all just partisanship rebranded from old Red Scares to new Red Scares.

When I look back to news stories published two years ago, I see headlines like "If true, this CNN report about Russia could destroy Trump’s presidency" to accompany Schiff's "there is evidence that is “not circumstantial” of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government." I wonder if in another two years, he will have a new bombshell and a new angle, and today's allegations are just left gathering dust in archives. Maybe with four years at a remove, he'll have the common courtesy to say "Never mind about all those old ones, I never really believed them much anyway."

On March 14 2019 22:13 farvacola wrote:
I’m not sold on Beto, but I think he’s relatively well positioned for a ‘20 run. His lack of policy specifics and experience are definite negatives, but his crossover appeal seems to make up for it. I still think Kamala or Bernie are better.

On March 14 2019 13:01 On_Slaught wrote:
All the Schiff hate seems a little premature given he hasn't been disproven by the Mueller report to date. Sure he has said some outlandish things that I would prefer he provide evidence for, but if that was disqualifying noone would be left in the Trump admin.






To start, we know the investigation was already under way well before Steele came in. We know that the DoJ cited "multiple" independent sources concerned Pages relationship with Russia, plus what they learned from Papadopolous. He had just been to Russia in March 2016 for an unusual reason, and had been on the FBIs radar since 2013 for Russia related issues. Senior FBI lawyer Moyer testified that there was at least a 50% chance they would have gone for the FISA warrant even without Steele. All in all, there is every reason to believe they had enough evidence to meet the relatively low bar for a warrant even without Steele. Further, since he was tied to their Russia interference investigation, as that investigation picked up over 2016 so would the chances they go for the warrant eventually regardless of the dossier.

Despite all that, I certainly accept that its possible someone could get it trouble for not auditing the dossier enough before adding it. The whole "Woods Procedure". Few things tho:
- McCabe has said he is being mischaracterizing. He claims he was only saying it was material, not essential. I couldn't find anything about Baker saying it was essential, tho my searchfu may be weak.

- There appears to be some funky timeline issues I'm not clear on. The Dems memo claims that by the time Ohr briefed the FBI that they had already terminated Steele as a source and were independently verifying the dossier. I suppose this will be cleared up if cases go forward. Either way, its self evident that the source being biased is not a sufficient reason to completely disregard evidence (more of a weight thing).

- At least one part of the Steele dossier was corrboraterated by independent FBI info before the first warrant, adding to its credibility. I'm not aware of any part that had been disproved at the time but wasnt included.

- The warrant was vetted by the GC of the FBI (Baker) expressly for the Woods requirement before being submitted. I imagine he wouldnt approve it unless he had some plausible argument that they met the standard.

- The DOJ not only noted in the warrant that the dossier was possibly biased, they explained Steele's relationship with the FBI. Overall, they were transparent about how much weight to give his dossier.

-Steele hedging in the UK means little since 1. He is trying to cover his ass for a libel suit and 2. The first FISA warrant led to info corroborating at LEAST 3 points in Steeles dossier, making it easier to get subsequent warrants.

- Other people not being indicted could mean a number of things. Perhaps the FBI doesnt have multiple corroborating sources against them like they did with Page, or cases are still being built in the background.

All in all, I'll def follow this story assuming Barr actually does anything after getting Nunes/Grahams requests, which isnt guaranteed.

On March 14 2019 22:13 farvacola wrote:
I’m not sold on Beto, but I think he’s relatively well positioned for a ‘20 run. His lack of policy specifics and experience are definite negatives, but his crossover appeal seems to make up for it. I still think Kamala or Bernie are better.

On March 15 2019 03:51 On_Slaught wrote:
Senate vote on the national emergency is underway.

Edit: and Trump lost 59-41. One more argument to throw into the legal briefs.

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1106264820918243328

On March 15 2019 04:03 Gorsameth wrote:
A big loss for Trump, having enough Republicans defect is not nothing.
Not enough to overwrite it he veto's tho.

On March 15 2019 05:13 Danglars wrote:
He's behind on vetoes when compared to the Obama presidency. He has his "divisive" label to keep up, after all.

The only thing the supremes can do at this point is return to originalism and say Congress does not have the power to lend out emergency declarations (and entailed powers) to the executive. They made the process about as subjective as possible. Oops.

On March 15 2019 05:19 IyMoon wrote:


While I disagree with the national emergency, I think this might one of the best things to come out of the trump presidency. He is opening up the door for others to use this for things like climate change

....What remains uncertain in the court of public opinion is whether the FBI possessed evidence suggesting Papadopoulos and Page — and, thus, the larger Trump campaign — were innocent of collusion. Republican lawmakers have suggested for months that such evidence existed and was hidden from the courts, but none has emerged in public.

My reporting from more than two dozen sources, many with access to the FBI’s evidence, suggests one answer to that question lies in Halper’s interactions with the two Trump campaign advisers, some of it documented in FBI records. And interviews with both men reveal just how much they told Halper about their innocence.

Page, an avid biker, rode his mountain bike on Aug. 20, 2016, to a northern Virginia farm after being invited there by Halper for a casual Saturday visit. Page met Halper weeks earlier when invited by Halper’s assistant to a Cambridge academic conference. The two corresponded by email around the time of Page’s trip to Moscow and arranged to meet in Virginia.

By the time Page arrived at Halper’s farm, he had been rattled by media calls during the prior week in which reporters alleged having information that Page met with two senior Russian intelligence figures in Moscow. The reporters suggested his trip might have been part of a larger plot to coordinate with Russia to benefit Trump’s election as president.

That allegation, it turns out, was one of many in the uncorroborated Steele dossier guiding the FBI’s collusion probe.

Page told me he was incredulous at the suggestions and told everyone he knew, including Halper, that he had not met either Russian intel figure and knew of no Trump-Moscow coordination.

“I’m certain that nothing I said that day at the professor’s farm could be deemed as anything other than exculpatory. And once again, in September, I explained reality to the FBI. Contrary to the DNC’s false reports, I have never met those Russians, and I did not know of any effort to coordinate, collude or conspire with Russia. Period.”

Page said he went to Moscow in July 2016 simply to give a speech, at the same university where President Obama spoke a few years earlier. And he said he consciously did not take any actions with Russians that might raise concerns, especially after helping U.S. prosecutors and the FBI in an earlier Russian criminal case and meeting with federal authorities as recently as the previous March.

“I’ve never done anything even vaguely resembling illegality throughout the countless trips to Russia. But I was exceptionally meticulous that trip to carefully avoid anything that could be remotely construed as questionable,” he told me.

Page’s recollection is backed up by a letter he sent to then-FBI Director James Comey a few weeks after his Halper meeting. “For the record, I have not met this year with any sanctioned official in Russia, despite the fact that there are no restrictions on U.S. persons speaking with such individuals,” he wrote in September 2016.

Multiple sources tell me none of the FISA applications the FBI submitted to judges over the course of a year’s surveillance of Page made any mention of exculpatory statements or protestations of innocence that Page made to informants.

If such statements exist, in the form of a tape or a transcript or an FBI interview report — three routine investigative tools the FBI uses when managing informers — then it would be a huge omission that likely violated FBI rules.

A month later, in London, Papadopoulos was paid $3,000 to present a foreign policy paper to Halper. On the second day of his visit with Halper, Papadopoulos said the conversation turned from academic work to a barrage of questions about Russia, Trump and collusion, including whether the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia on the hacked Clinton emails or changed the GOP platform on Ukraine to appease Vladimir Putin.

Papadopoulos told me he pointedly remembers his response: “I made it clear to Halper that what he was suggesting did not only amount to treason, but that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and had no information at all about anyone involved with the campaign who might have been involved with a conspiracy because there never was a conspiracy and no one was colluding with a foreign power, especially Russia.

“Furthermore, I made it clear to him that Ukraine should be supported and that Russia will always remain a competitor, even if Trump decided to work with Russia to stabilize Syria and East Ukraine while checking China’s rise.”

Sources familiar with the FISA applications say they contain no evidence that Papadopoulos made exculpatory statements unwittingly to an FBI informer.

Again, if such statements exist in transcripts, tapes or FBI reports, they’re a major omission.

Page never has been charged with wrongdoing. And Papadopoulos, after an exhaustive investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, was not accused of conspiracy with Russia; instead, he pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI about a months-old conversation with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer regarding a rumor that Russia possessed embarrassing emails from Clinton.

The crime was deemed so minor by the presiding judge that Papadopoulos was sentenced to a mere 14 days in jail.

If Page’s and Papadopoulos’s recollections of what they told Halper are accurate, former FBI officials Comey, James Baker, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok — all of whom played a role in the Russia probe and the FISA warrants — have some serious explaining to do. So does departing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who signed the fourth and final FISA warrant.

My reporting suggests a much bigger scandal — the intentional misleading of the nation’s federal intelligence court — soon may eclipse the Russia narrative that has dominated the media the past two years.

The fastest way to know if that storm is on the horizon is for President Trump to declassify the documents showing exactly how the FBI behaved in this case.

On March 15 2019 05:21 Danglars wrote:

You mean to say that the door was always open for people to declare things national emergencies that are controversial. Tell me, do you know how many active and past national emergencies have been declared, and do you know what percentage you think were justifiably named so?

On March 15 2019 05:35 xDaunt wrote:

The issue isn't whether Trump can declare a national emergency. He clearly can. The issue is the extent to which he can appropriate funds to build the wall. On this last point, the thing that is being overlooked a bit due to the national emergency declaration is the extent to which he already has funding to build the wall. He already has over $5 billion in undisputed funds to use, which he is using now. This comes from existing legislation and other discretionary funding initiatives. By the time that funding from the national emergency declaration even being material, Trump will have gotten done most of what he wanted to do anyway.

On March 15 2019 05:13 Danglars wrote:
He's behind on vetoes when compared to the Obama presidency. He has his "divisive" label to keep up, after all.

The only thing the supremes can do at this point is return to originalism and say Congress does not have the power to lend out emergency declarations (and entailed powers) to the executive. They made the process about as subjective as possible. Oops.

On March 15 2019 05:42 Danglars wrote:

IyMoon's comment was on whether or not Trump opened the door by doing this. I think whether or not Trump took this route, Democrats would try to use similar for their policy ideas. It's not so much opening the door as informing the public that the legislative gave power to the executive. People discovering this for the first time, like IyMoon, think something has changed.

The emergency declaration funds comprised a minority of the funding he can use. That much is also true.