Exiled wrote:Res Ipsa wrote:Don’t gaslight me, bro. The claim in 2017 by the intelligence agencies was Russian interference, not collusion. The Mueller report documented that interference. It was exactly as advertised.
The FBI had evidence of potential collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia with regard to that interference. It did exactly what it was supposed to do: an investigation. That investigation became the Mueller investigation. No one involved in that investigation ever “advertised” anything about the investigation, let alone about collusion. They investigated and they reported.
There is no evidence of any mistakes by the intelligence agencies other than the fever dreams of conspiracy theorists. Trump’s phone call with the Ukraine president is part of a broader effort to manufacture evidence to support Trump’s re-election. Sure, intelligence agencies can make mistakes or act improperly. But sending Rudy Giuliani to chase after bizarre conspiracy theories is not the way to investigate anything. Neither is coercing other countries into making up evidence.
If you want to see a real live actual conspiracy, just open your eyes and look at Trump, Barr, Giuliani, and Pompeo.
Don't gaslight me bro???? Mueller based his conclusions on a redacted report from crowdstrike, a firm hired by the DNC, regarding the email theft. He never gained possession of the actual server to do a proper investigation and he didn't bother to interview Assange (who denied that any state actor provided him with the emails). I think it is far from proven. The mueller report is merely like an indictment and as you know, sometimes prosecutors can't get convictions on their indictments.
The dossier turned out to be opposition research, that Ohr warned the FBI about in 2016, during the campaign. This fact was conspicuously left out of the fisa warrant application. Looks like someone may have jumped the gun and possibly for political reasons.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/425739-fisa-shocker-doj-official-warned-steele-dossier-was-connected-to-clintonSure, investigate Trump but let's see how russiagate evolved as well. We are talking about politics and all sides use dirty tricks. Trump is a buffoon and asking the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden was highly questionable. However, getting the fisa warrant in 2016 was also highly questionable and it started an investigation into a political opponent based on paid for opposition research.
You’re still doing it. You have no idea what Mueller based his conclusions on, let alone that they were based solely on a redacted report. That’s because Barr won’t release the exhibits to the report, even to the relevant committees. But it’s obvious that the FBI went far beyond what Crowdstrike did. Crowdstrike based their conclusions on the malware they found on the servers. They had expertise in attacks of this type, and were familiar with the two Russian groups based on past experience. And they’ve said multiple times that they gave all of their evidence and analysis to the FBI. Mueller’s report goes way beyond Crowdstrike’s work. It traces the progression of the attacks, from the first fishing attacks on a wide range of individuals, to breaking into the DCCCs network, to Podesta’s computer, and ultimately to the DNC. It identifies specific members of the Russian military involved in different phases of the attack. It described the server the Russians installed in Arizona and another in Malaysia that were used in the attack. It quotes from e-mails to which Crowdstrike had no access.
Crowdstrike worked off of images of servers, and it gave those images to the FBI. Those images are the best evidence of the state of the servers at the time that Crowdstrike started its work — not the server hardware weeks or months later. And there is zero reason to believe that Crowdstrike gave inaccurate or altered images to the FBI. What a bunch of dudes in the tinfoil hat brigade imagine could be true is not evidence or a reason to conduct an investigation. This conspiracy nonsense has been pushed non-stop by Russian government controlled media, and it’s based on speculation that contradicts fact.
And Assange? Who cares. He’s been cagey about his sources, and fueled the despicable Seth Rich conspiracy rumor. He published documents the Russians stole. He requested them through a fictional character created by the Russians. Whether he revived them directly from the Russians or through an intermediary is a minor detail. And it’s irrelevant to the identity of the thief whole stole the documents.
Personally, I think “FISA abuse” is redundant. I’m not a fan. But your description of use of the Steele dossier in the FISA application for Carter Page is inaccurate. First, the copy that was released has pages and pages and pages of the material setting out the basis for the warrant redacted. It is clear that the material from the Steele dossier was a small portion of the facts presented to the court.
Second, only one part of the dossier was used — the report of a meeting between Page and an official of Gazprom. It was accompanied by a footnote that explained where the information had come from, including the FBI’s “speculation” that it was campaign opposition research. The application argued, correctly, that the person who obtained the information was not aware of who the ultimate client was and was a trusted source used by the FBI in the past.
Third, the FBI had been concerned about Page’s contacts with the Russians in the past, and had conducted surveillance on him before.
So, in short, your claim of FISA abuse is based on a small part of the evidence, the provenance of which was explained to the judge, and for which there is zero evidence of bias by the investigator. How in the world can you call this evidence of a conspiracy, while describing Trump’s phone call as just unfortunate?
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951