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FBI Director Comey Confirms Investigation Into Trump Campaign (reuters.com)
FBI Director James Comey confirmed during testimony before Congress Monday that the FBI is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with a covert Russian campaign to interfere with the election. From a report on Reuters: Comey told a congressional hearing on Russian activities that the probe "includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. Because it is an open, ongoing investigation and is classified, I cannot say more about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining," Comey said. Earlier, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Republican Representative Devin Nunes, told the same hearing that the panel had seen no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. Nunes also denied an unsubstantiated claim from Trump that there had been a wiretap on his Trump Tower in New York but said it was possible other surveillance was used against the Republican.
Can we trust Comey?
It all needs to be investigated, From Trump's current list of issues all the way back to seeing just how much involvement Russia had with pushing Clinton through the primaries.
Why hasn't Trump apologized to Obama? It would seem to be the decent thing to do.
Trump kept saying Obama was born in Kenya. Then during the election when it was politically expeditious and like a weasel coward said "Obama was born in the US period." No apology nothing. Now the bully we elected president due to the lack of choice has slandered and falsely accused Obama of wiretapping him. What Trump is doing is evil, no president should be falsely accusing people of crimes. If anyone says anything negative about Trump, he takes revenge on them. Trump is like an female dog in heat who can't control control his emotional state. Expect him to carry out many injustices we won't even be told about. As a general rule don't believe in weighing evidence or considering two sides of an issue. Plus he is old, old people's brains stay fixed on an opinion even when shown opposing evidence. They may temporarily agree, and three revert back to their old opinion. It's been proven.
I have far more confidence and trust in Comey, than I do President Trump.
Whatever was the problem with Clinton was surely of much lesser magnitude than Trump's people having secret dealing with foreign state entities.
Ezekiel 23:20
If by interfere we mean "she didnt get elected when it was her time" then, sure, its fairly apparent the trump campaign achieved this by campaigning in more states and cities, and on issues the average person could more easily relate to.
Full Disclosure, im a California Liberal. That being said, Hillary was a turd of a candidate with a domestic policy that was unrelateable outside of large cities. she ignored two intelligence scandals, rigged her primary to destroy her opponent, and took questions from moderators ahead of the debate. She was the epitome of liberal elite, showing up in a fifteen thousand dollar burlap sack from Beverly Hills to lecture the midwest on povery and jobs.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Only in America!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
For sure, Hillary is much better at keeping her secret deals secret.
I'm not sure how well we should trust Comey, but so far he's being pretty level. Most important question asked so far. "Is there any evidence that votes were change in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania..." to which the director of the NSA and FBI both stated "no".
When the Benghazi hearings were going, we had Democrats yelling about gun control and demanding censorship of Youtube instead of asking questions related to the actual issues. The grandstanding to keep the hearings away from Clinton were simply despicable. I'm not surprised that a couple of Democrats are sitting and spinning fairy tales about "Russia" by simply repeating narratives crafted by media already proven false.
This will be a fun couple days.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Can we trust Comey?
Effective government should not depend on trust of specific individuals. Designing laws and institutions is like designing a network protocol: You build in self-corrections for lack of integrity.
Um, the story only says that there is an investigation and nothing else. They got this crazy story from listening to the head of the FBI who used those words when speaking in an official capacity to members of the US House of Representatives. Are we now to the point that simple statements such as these are "flimsy" ????
Sure, let's play this game.
Obama's 2008 vacations: total cost to US taxpayer: $4.8 million.
Every time Trump flies to Mar-a-Lago: cost to US taxpayer: $3.5 million.
Trump's travel expenses in first month alone: $10 million.
Total Obama spent over the full 8 years in office, $96 million US taxpayer dollars on security, vacations and travel.
In the first month alone, Trump spent $97 million US taxpayer dollars on security, vacations and travel.
So I guess it's fair to call him Parasite Trump.
So you don't think the US was involved in any way during the "arab spring" in Libya? Wow. You're a naive little one.
Trump's a buffoon. Clinton had malice running through her blood.
I see you're using the alt-right interpretation of "Fake News" where anyathing that goes against your god-emperor is "Fake".
The FBI confirmed an investigation - he hasn't confirmed the exact people (neither did the headline). It's pretty clear the investigation involves the Trump campaign.
The Republicans on the other hand, HAVE spent a lot more time examining the circumstances in which the information was disclosed even though it's unrelated to investigation.
Oh give it up. His late-election statements that Clinton Emails were back under investigation likely cost her the election. He appears to be no one's friend.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Now, now... He spends way more time (and taxpayer funds) flying back and forth to Mar-a-Lago in Florida *every* weekend, and I'm sure he gets some work done on those flights -- or, at least, catches up on nap-time.
Don't forget that he flies to his resort at a cost of $3 million in tax money per trip just days after he proposes a budget to cut health insurance and benefits for millions of poor and middle class people. The arrogance is breathtaking. I'd say hypocrisy if it were anyone else but he's never been "one of the people" to anyone actually paying attention.
official government business was done in Florida, you are not accounting correctly
In that case the public record should show who Trump met with during his stays at his private residence. You can't have it both ways.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
What did Democrats think of Comey right before and after the election?
I didn't vote for Trump, but, gosh, people like you make me glad he won. You're really channeling all the lies, dishonesty, corruption, and violence of his opponents. Keep it up!
You have no clue as to how much his almost-every-weekend visit to FL costs us as taxpayers and to the local community in which Mar-a-Lago is located.
In one month, it's predicted that he spent $10 million for his trips to Mar-a-Lago. He's done that for the last 2 months now, so he's probably close to $18-$20 million already. Obama spent $97 million over 8 years.
Don't forget to tally the near $1 million price tag that Palm Beach County has already had to spend of their own money for the extra police staffing and overtime while Trump is at Mar-a-Lago.
https://www.bustle.com/p/how-m...
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-...
Lets also consider the taxpayers cost for Secret Service to shuttle the Trump family around on constant vacations, and Melania's insistence of staying in New York, which itself costs a substantial amount of money for security on a daily basis.
You can be upset at welfare families all you want but your Emperor is consuming vast amounts of tax payer money simply for playing golf, and will be surpassing what Obama spent in a matter of months.
But please... don't let these facts remove you from your precious bubble of ignorance.
The Reuters article did not say or imply that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign. The Reuters article did report that the FBI is investigating Russian meddling in the US election. When asked whether the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign's possible collusion with the Russian hacking, Comey would only say he could not comment on that. I've been watching the testimony; there isn't any implied confirmation that the FBI is investigating Trump campaign intermediaries.
I have far more confidence and trust in Comey, than I do President Trump.
Based on what?
The fact that Comey blatantly violated the law by interfering in the election (sending a big announcement of Clinton investigation right before election and then retracting it in a few days?)
Wikileaks disagreed with the MSM narrative. So they blame it on Russia and try to ignore the information. Hillary supporters eat it up...
The biggest losers in the last election were CNN and The NYTimes. They will never regain credibility. The plan was for Hillary to give them first question and all interviews for until she dropped dead, then give them exclusive access to that circus. Ha Ha.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So, having government email on a private email server is like jaywalking. It's a minor offence and the law that punishes it carries no real penalties.
No, the analogy was not meant to relate the severity of the crime of jaywalking to the severity of the crime of mishandling classified information. I was just giving an example of the commission of a crime that law enforcement chooses to exercise discretion against prosecuting. These are generally malum prohibitum crimes, not malum in se, because no one would understand an analogy in which the officer decided to let you off with a warning for rape and murder.
So what would colluding with another government to influence the outcome of a presidential election be like? Grand Theft Auto?
I don't know. What law does that break? I mean, we have lots of examples of representatives of other governments influencing our election. Trudeau spoke out for Hillary and against Trump. Was that Canada trying to influence our elections? Nigel Farage spoke at a Trump rally. He's an elected representative of the UK in the EU, is that the UK or the EU influencing our election? Obama went to Britain and spoke against Brexit. Was he colluding with the UK government to influence that referendum?
Assume Putin personally haxx0red the DNC and phished Podesta. What would he need to collude with the Trump campaign for? Clearly Putin would prefer someone who wants to ally with Russia against their common enemy (ISIS/general Islamic jihad) rather than someone who wants to set up a no fly zone for Russian planes over Syria and remove Putin's ally Assad. What's there to collude over? Just hack and release. There's no communication necessary. Assuming Putin was behind the hacking, do you think he would have done the same thing had, say, Rand Paul (also against intervention in Syria) been the nominee instead of Trump?
So, I'd need to know what law specifically (give me the statute numbers, please) you're alleging Trump broke to gauge the severity of the crime.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
trump is a disaster who advocated abandoning nato, japan, and south korea so that we could be "allies" with putin.
I'd rather be on good terms with the nation that's an actual superpower than:
1 - Continue to fund a failed organization nearly by ourselves
2 - Be military allies with a nation that's barred from having a real standing military, even if we've becomes friends since they were Nazi Germany's other half in WWII.
3 - Be involved with the powder keg that is South/North Korea.
But of course, it's not a this-or-that scenario.
We can and should demand that other NATO members pay their own way. We can and should step back a bit from other regions in the far east. We can (and should) be friendly with Russia. They're our actual ally. And yes, so is China. Yeah, both do shady shit most people don't agree with. That's their business, as is our shady shit most people don't agree with. But the media really wants to trump up this Trump/Putin link (despite zero evidence being proffered), while ignoring everything regarding China or everything Clinton has done.
None of this means we have to abandon NATO or our far east allies. And it doesn't mean we have to lick Putin's boot. It just means we stop paying for everything and we stop stirring shit outside of our borders.
Yeah, that sounds good on paper, but obviously you've never attempted to apply any of those ideals to the real world.
Let's take for example, Education. By your accounting, that should be left up to the individual states, as that's not something that should be administered by the Federal Government.
In your worldview, every state can have different education standards, which would create chaos later in life -- when those students move to another state to attend college, some from, say Texas, might encounter problems when they suddenly find out that Jesus did not ride Dinosaurs and the Earth is round and not flat.
And the other problem is of course that in the real world, there's only ONE set of textbooks for all states regardless of education standards, because states cannot afford custom textbooks just for them.
So in the end, Texas sets the standards because they are the largest market -- meaning whatever the STATE legislature of Texas choses, that's what goes nationally.
So, we *all* wind up with Jesus rode Dinosaurs and the Earth is Flat textbooks. And Christianity is the only true religion. All others are going to bring you eternal damn-nation. If you find that one state can control what we think and teach our children throughout the nation, then essentially, all you're doing is moving Federal Power to a different State -- Texas.
Because that's how the REAL world works. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the rest of us have to live in this world, not your fantasy of it. And in that case, I'd rather that the federal government control this instead of the Texas state legislature -- which I didn't vote for.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Just keep those fake claims coming. Now suddenly it's the "establishment"?
There was no wiretapping of Trump. Never happened. What there was was spying on Russians, and the fact that the likes of Flynn and Sessions are such fucking idiots that they would basically use open communication systems to yack with the Russians indicates not only are they traitors, but pretty fucking stupid ones.
Obama didn't order wiretapping, Britain's GCHQ didn't do it for him. It never happened. It was a conspiracy theory started by Mark Levin, picked up by Breitbart, and Trump, being a pretty stupid man himself, picked up that ball and went with it. Whatever comes out of these hearings and the FBI's investigation, the fact is that Trump asked for it. He's the one that demanded the wiretapping claims be investigated, he's the one that forced a Republican-dominated Congress to continue digging even when I suspect most House and Senate Republicans would rather not even pick up a shovel.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No.
Nah, that would have been her decision not to campaign in the Rust Belt where Trump was actively going out and asking people to vote for him. Didn't help that Clintonbots had been shouting that if 'Trump didn't accept the election results he was undermining our democracy'. Because when it came time to do recounts, they couldn't do it without looking like the pathetic idiots they are, and had to rely on Jill Stien to do it for them.
If her name was Hillary Johnson she'd be serving decades in prison just for the obstruction of justice charges over her destruction of evidence. Comey is the greatest friend Hillary has ever had.
"the accusation is that Russia influenced the election through the slow release of hacked emails"
The press is just miffed that they didn't find it and disclose it first. Really, if the DNC hadn't worked to sway the primaries against Sanders, and CNN employee Brazile hadn't violated journalistic ethics by leaking debate questions to HRC and then lying about it, there wouldn't have been much fire beneath the smoke. Pointing to the Russians or Wikileaks is just an attempt at misdirection by blaming the messenger for revealing things the media would have been praised for revealing.
Oh, and HRC flat-out lied about Bengazi, first by telling the public and families of those killed that it was an unpredictable violent protest over a video while privately admitting to a planned and foreseeable terrorist attack.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Don't get me wrong. I never said I thought Comey was completely trustworthy. I only stated I would trust him, more than Trump. Trump and his surrogates constantly lie, deflect and distract the public and the press. I would trust a stranger on the street, over Trump.
The biggest losers in the last election were CNN and The NYTimes. They will never regain credibility.
Because their polls were off? Weren't everybody's? If you mean being called out as "FAKE NEWS" by Trump, I don't think that's hurt their credibility at all - Trump is demonstratively full of shit. His fact-checking is non-existent.
What's wrong with being a conspiracy theorist?
Many of the "crackpot" theories regarding the government these "nuts" had over the past 3 decades have been proven to be correct.
I'll challenge your definition of "many" unless you've got a hearty list of examples. And if "many" were right, that means a "shit-load" were wrong. What's wrong with being a conspiracy theorist? Nothing absolutely, conspiracies exist. 9/11 was undoubtedly a conspiracy, but the "theorists" expand that to being a conspiracy involving the U.S. government which is just nonsense. Suggesting collusion between Obama and the Brits to wiretap DJT holds about as much water. Most of these nuts' crackpot theories are just that - Crackpot theories.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Killing off the free press was always one of Trump's stated goals with his desire to open up libel laws in order to facilitate suing the press.
That's not exactly right. He doesn't really want to kill the free press. He wants try to make everybody but Fox News report from the sideline so that they lose influence. He's not trying to shut down, say, CNN, but he wants to limit their access to him. I have friends who honestly believe that the only fair and impartial news source at all is Fox News. They all believe that CNN is insanely liberal and they have no idea at all that MSNBC is actually pretty far left of CNN. They don't seem to know that MSNBC even exists. There's no need to kill the free press when half the country believes that only one news sources is accurate and impartial and that news source is so biased it's not ever going to say anything against a Republican. You can let CNN, MSNBC, NPR, etc. report all they want to, but when half the country by choice refuses to listen to what they say, they are pretty effectively silenced although technically still alive.
What "Free Press"? are you referring to? The "Free Press" that did everything in their power to get Trump elected, because as we found out later the Democrats believed he would be the easiest for Hillary to beat? The one that colluded with the DNC to install a particular person to the highest office in the land after the two Primaries? The one that continues to collude to disrupt the current President? The painfully obvious slander and hit jobs by CNN and MSNBC colluding with (and repeating the stories of) NYT, WP, etc..? That "Free Press"?
The "Free" press has been dead for quite a while. We were put on notice by journalists when the monopolization was legalized (previously restricted by law).
I believe it would be more apt to say that Trump wanted to attack an openly corrupt media establishment. A whole lot of people agree with him, and of course the owners of that powerful block of corruption are doing all they can to maintain power and control.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The problem here, as I've seen many times in other contexts is that those making these claims aren't really interested in whether the claim has any foundation in truth, or even in any way properly sourced. What counts is that the claim was made. The claim can be utter rubbish, and not even make any damned sense at all (i.e. Pizzagate), but once made, it can be published and then endlessly repeated. The point here is simply to say something, anything, and repeat it long after it was debunked. That way, when the issue comes up for discussion, the declaration can be made "Yeah well, I read this from a totally reliable guy like Napolitano!"
This, in the Creationist debate circles is known as the Gish Gallop, based upon (in)famous Creationist Duane Gish, whose debating style was to making as many unfounded and ludicrous assertions as possible during a debate, knowing full well that his interlocutors could never possibly deal with all of them in the allotted time, and then he and his supporters could champion those untouched claims as showing the falsehood of evolution. What's more, even where all the claims were debunked, he'd simply repeat them anyways.
The object of this kind of rhetoric is simply to overwhelm one's opponents or the generally incredulous with as many claims as possible, to overwhelm the opponents and make it seem as if they are faltering under the weight of the evidence of a vast conspiracy. And we see now how it has been used to extraordinary effect, that in this particular /. thread alone, there must be a dozen or more claims that were debunked or traced back to unreliable or non-existent sources. But they keep being made, over and over again.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Translation: No, Clinton operatives did not leak the information, but I need to sex up what actually happened to perpetrate the "evil Clinton Crime Empre" conspiracy I hold so near and dear.
And for fuck's sake, the WP has been delivered leaked information for a long goddamned time now. Do you feel Nixon got a raw deal because Deep Throat picked Bob Woodward? At the end of the day, leaks suck, but if the leaks actually point to misconduct and malfeasance, ought not your primary concern be those doing bad things, rather than those who blow the whistle?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So the guy that recommended against indicting Hillary, because she "lacked intent" to violate a statute *with no intent requirement*, was actually trying to hurt her? Everyone working in intelligence all agree that if they did what she did, they'd 100% be charged. Never understood that one. What, did he change his mind? What's worse, whenever I try to discuss this point, I'm labeled a Trump supporter and the conversation is shut down, despite the fact that even if all the worse claims against her were true, I'd still rather have her in office than comrade cheeto. The downmods will flow before people even get to that sentence.
I don't know very many people claiming the Russians altered the vote, and I think most people are aware the POTUS isn't selected by popular vote. The claim is that the Russians used a selective information/disinformation release campaign to undermine support for Clinton. And the US isn't the only country where this kind of these kinds of activities have been seen, so why it's so damned unbelievable in the US is beyond me. But at any rate, there seems to be this conflation between "interfering in the election" and "tampering with ballots" used by Trump defenders, the reason being the former has some people in fairly high places stating it happened, whereas the latter is indeed a left-wing conspiracy theory that no one takes seriously.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We can and should demand that other NATO members pay their own way
This alone shows that you have drunk the cheeto flavoured kool-aid and have no idea how NATO operates.
NATO members pay for their own standing armies, they are not subsidised.
NATO membership includes a commitment that says you should be spending a certain percentage of your GDP on defense. The bone of contention is that other members have not been spending enough to meet the commitment, even though they have been raising % spending. In other words, their armies "aren't large enough".
Many countries are literally finding it difficult to increase military spending without going down the US route of boondoggles to siphon taxpayer money into the military-industrial complex. They aren't set up that way.
The short version is that NATO members owe the US squat in terms of money.
We can (and should) be friendly with Russia.
Russia has recently annexed the Crimea and show no signs of slowing down, eyeing up the eastern Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, all the while attempting to destabilise major European countries in the same manner. It's apparent that Russia has big ambitions.
Russia is by all accounts a oligarch-run criminal hellhole where civil rights and opposition parties are being stamped out and a cult of leadership is in place. Nobody in their right mind wants to see their country become part of Russia.
Maybe the current US administration thinks it can be friendly with Russia, but that immediately sets the US against the rest of NATO and the EU.
None of this means we have to abandon NATO or our far east allies. And it doesn't mean we have to lick Putin's boot. It just means we stop paying for everything and we stop stirring shit outside of our borders.
Well, as a matter of fact legitimising Russia's behaviour *is* abandoning your allies.