Why the surveillance memo matters

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I’m kind of bummed about the memo to be honest. I thought it was going to be fun to argue about but it isn’t even interesting. It confirms what everyone with half a brain could surmise about the investigation: the FBI was able to independently verify some of the claims in the Steele dossier and applied for a warrant to surveil a guy they’d been interested in since 2013.

Have a good weekend CAF.
 
Imachine:
. . . . the FBI was able to independently verify some of the claims in the Steele dossier and applied for a warrant to surveil a guy they’d been interested in since 2013.
If you believe that then, don’t use a document that you knew was put out by opposition campaign operatives to prop up a FISA request.
 
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From Congressman Jim Jordan (with parenthetical addition mine for added context and one spelling correction that has not yet been edited by Breitbart News Service) . . . .
What destroys trust (in US Government intelligence agencies) is when you dress up an oppo research document that Jim Comey himself, this is not my words or Marks’ words, he said under oath that they were ‘salacious’ and ‘unverified.’ What destroys trust is when you take that kind of document dress it up make it appear like it is legitimate intelligence and then take it to a court to get a warrant you don’t tell them important facts like, ‘oh by the way the Clinton campaign paid for this,’ and you do all of this in the context of a presidential campaign. It is really that basic. He’s the one that said it was unverified and salacious. McCabe said we had to use it or we wouldn’t get a warrant. When they went to the judge why they didn’t tell them who paid for it?
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They used the Isikoff story that they knew was Steele was giving information to the reporter and they presented it as a separate and corroborating piece of information? That’s unbelievable. That’s what took place here.
 
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1/2

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  • The anti-Trump dossier funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee formed an “essential” part of the initial and all three renewal surveillance applications against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page;
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  • The political origins of the dossier were “known to senior DOJ and FBI officials,” but those origins were not included in applications to obtain the warrant;
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  • Also used to justify the surveillance warrants against Page was a news story supposedly corroborating the dossier, that was pushed by the dossier author Christopher Steele himself — yet the FISA application incorrectly says Steele did not provide the information in the article;
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  • Perkins Coie — the law firm for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee hosted a meeting with Steele, Fusion GPS and media (this revelation makes it harder for the Clinton campaign and the DNC to deny they knew about the dossier, though Clinton and other top DNC officials at that time have denied knowing about it);
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  • Steele was “suspended and then terminated” as an FBI source, after the FBI learned that he made an authorized disclosure of his relationship with the FBI to liberal media magazine Mother Jones, and he lied to the FBI about his previous media contacts with Yahoo! and other outlets;
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  • Steele — although portrayed as a “boy scout” by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson — had personal bias against candidate Donald Trump, telling senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr that he was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president”;
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  • Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr assisted with the dossier, but the FBI or the DOJ did not disclose this connection in the application for the FISA warrant, even though Bruce Ohr worked “closely” with Deputy Attorney Generals Sally Yates and then Rod Rosenstein — who both signed off on at least one FISA application or renewal;
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  • At the time that the FBI used the dossier to obtain the spy warrant on Page in October 2016, head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division Bill Priestap had assessed that the corroboration of the dossier was still in its “infancy,” and after Steele was terminated as a source, an FBI unit assessed his reporting as only “minimally corroborated”;
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  • FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe acknowledged to the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 that no warrant would have been sought without the dossier;
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  • The FISA warrant also mentioned information related to another Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, even though there was no evidence of cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos;
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  • The memo does not state what the information about Papadopoulos was, but said that information was the trigger to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation on Russian meddling and collusion in late July 2016 (he had told an Australian diplomat at a London bar that a Maltese professor connected to Russia had told him he had dirt on Clinton in the form of emails);
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  • Peter Strzok, the No. 2 at the FBI’s counterintelligence division opened the bureau’s investigation on Russian meddling and collusion (text messages between him and fellow FBI official and lover Lisa Page show that he held an anti-Trump bias);
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  • The FBI authorized payments to Steele, but never disclosed that in any of the FISA warrant applications.
 
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That’s just what I was thinking. The Ruskies fed info to Steele and he puts it in a dossier James Comey says is salacious and not proven… then he takes it to the court and they deny. So Steele goes to Yahoo and has a news article about the dossier put in circulation, so Comey goes back to the court and bingo. Permission is given to spy on an American Citizen. Listen guys, this could happen to your side as well. Open your eyes…
 
Look in the mirror over there. Who is refusing to work with whom because of the dislike of the President and NOT the good of the country??? Who sat on their hands at the SOTU? Who has no plans for the people except resist? Talk about putting party over country. My mom used to say that was the pot calling the kettle black… (always wondered about that one!)
 
Imachine. Again you said (emphasis mine) . . . .
. . . . the FBI was able to independently verify some of the claims in the Steele dossier and applied for a warrant to surveil a guy they’d been interested in since 2013.
Yet in reading the Congressional Intelligence Committee memo James Comey is quoted as calling the sources “salacious and unverified”.


Who’s testimony should I believe here?
Your’s or Comey’s?
 
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Look in the mirror over there. Who is refusing to work with whom because of the dislike of the President and NOT the good of the country??? Who sat on their hands at the SOTU?
Republicans, for 8 years.
 
Rod Rosenstein should step down as he was involved in the FISA request to spy on Carter Page knowing as I’m sure that the warrant was predicated on a salacious and unverified dossier that was funded by Hillary and the DNC.
 
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The level of hatred doesn’t even compare, and Obama as far as I’m concerned did nothing to ameliorate or “make America great again”, hence, the opposition.
 
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Fivethirtyeight was right. This memo won’t do anything. For those bound and determined to destroy Trump, it will be viewed as a flawed document (as it most certainly is), and for those who believe the Russian allegations are farce and fakery, the memo serves only to increase the volume of the echo chamber. Trump is still no closer to actually exoneration, nor any closer to impeachment. I suspect he never will be.
 
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I think you’re own posts show how you’ve decided the memo’s veracity, even with objections from the FBI, are designed to firm up the base. I get it, Trump’s your man, and nothing will ever sway that, just as nothing will ever sway his opponents.

But the fact is that men like Carter Page, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort, if not outright traitors, then highly problematic individuals that should never have been allowed to get near any major presidential candidate. The Trump campaign seems to have done absolutely no vetting.
 
Rod Rosenstein should step down as he was involved in the FISA request to spy on Carter Page knowing as I’m sure that the warrant was predicated on a salacious and unverified dossier that was funded by Hillary and the DNC.
Rod Rosenstein knew no such thing. That notion of predication is not even consistent with the Nunes memo itself, and has been pointedly contradicted by the minority. Moreover Rosenstein sought renewal fo the warrant, which would involve a demonstration to the judge that the warrant is has been meaningful evidence.
 
I think you’re own posts show how you’ve decided the memo’s veracity, even with objections from the FBI, are designed to firm up the base. I get it, Trump’s your man, and nothing will ever sway that, just as nothing will ever sway his opponents.

But the fact is that men like Carter Page, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort, if not outright traitors, then highly problematic individuals that should never have been allowed to get near any major presidential candidate. The Trump campaign seems to have done absolutely no vetting.
I am beholden to no one but the truth, and just by dint of your attempts to besmirch Page, Manafort and Flynn as traitors without even proof of such tells me all I need to know.

They were not indicted for colluding with Russians to alter the presidential elections, but I know of someone who has, can you guess?
 
So the FBI and the DOJ didn’t know that the dossier was unverified and salacious and/or that it was funded by the DNC?
 
So the FBI and the DOJ didn’t know …
… that the warrant was predicated on a salacious and unverified dossier that was funded by Hillary and the DNC.
Since you apparently missed it the first time. I will repeat:

That notion of predication is not even consistent with the Nunes memo itself, and has been pointedly contradicted by the minority. Moreover Rosenstein sought renewal of the warrant, which would involve a demonstration to the judge that the warrant has yielded meaningful evidence.
 
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Without the dossier and the corroborating article in the Yahoo news article, there would have been no warrant issued!

p.s. I should not have used the word “predicated”, but I meant to convey that without the dossier the warrant would not have been issued, and that’s as per the memo.
 
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