Slashdot Mirror
House Democrats' Counter-Memo Released, Alleging Major Factual Inaccuracies (vox.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Rei writes: Three weeks ago, on a party-line vote, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee voted to release a memo from committee chair and Trump transition team member Devin Nunes. The "Nunes Memo" alleged missteps by the FBI in seeking a FISA warrant against Trump aide Carter Page; a corresponding Democratic rebuttal memo was first blocked from simultaneous release by the committee, and subsequently the White House. Tonight, it has finally been released.
Among its many counterclaims: the Steele Dossier, only received in September, did not initiate surveilance of Page which began in July; the Steele dossier was only one, minor component of the FISA application, and only concerning Page's Moscow meetings; Steele's funding source and termination was disclosed in the application; and a number of other "distortions and misrepresentations that are contradicted by the underlying classified documents". Perhaps most seriously, it accuses Nunes of having never read the FISA application which his memo criticized.
Vox argues the memo proves that no one was misled when the surveillance was authorized. "The FBI clearly states right there in the FISA application that they believe Steele was hired to find dirt on Trump... After the Schiff memo was released on Saturday, House Republicans released a document rebutting its core claims. Their response to this damning citation is -- and I am not making this up -- that the vital line in which the FBI discloses the information about Steele was 'buried in a footnote.'"
Among its many counterclaims: the Steele Dossier, only received in September, did not initiate surveilance of Page which began in July; the Steele dossier was only one, minor component of the FISA application, and only concerning Page's Moscow meetings; Steele's funding source and termination was disclosed in the application; and a number of other "distortions and misrepresentations that are contradicted by the underlying classified documents". Perhaps most seriously, it accuses Nunes of having never read the FISA application which his memo criticized.
Vox argues the memo proves that no one was misled when the surveillance was authorized. "The FBI clearly states right there in the FISA application that they believe Steele was hired to find dirt on Trump... After the Schiff memo was released on Saturday, House Republicans released a document rebutting its core claims. Their response to this damning citation is -- and I am not making this up -- that the vital line in which the FBI discloses the information about Steele was 'buried in a footnote.'"
It must be pretty awesome for Trump to see how many people are focused on this Russian Snipe Hunt while he and the GOP just trucking along with changes to the government.
Twenty-two indictments so far. Five convictions, and counting.
And fuck-all of an effect on anything real.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The DOJ and FBI refused to comply with the House Oversignt comittee, even ignoring lawful subpoenas (this is getting into scary territory for a Constitutional Republic when unelected bureaucrats who despise their elected leaders refuse to obey them).
Because the House is lead by timid Republican establishment pick Paul Ryan, the House chose to negotiate with the DOJ and FBI rather than fight them, and in the negotiations it was deterimined that only 1 House Republican and 1 House Democrat would be allowed to read the FISA stuff. Nunes chose to have Trey Gaudy, a lawyer and former prosecutor with lots of experience filing and reading such documents, be the Republican who would go read the docs. Gaudy went and read them and reported on their contents to Nunes. This has never been a secret - it was discussed very publicly on C-SPAN at the time for those of us who care about our Republic to monitor.
It's pretty funny to see the Democrats use that as a ploy to try to trick the public, which they apparently think are all idiots, into thinking something wrong happened in the way Nunes handled this. It's just like the bogus ethics charges they filed against him that got him off the case for months until the ethics comittee had to admit there was nothing and Nunes could go back to work on this case. Smoke and mirrors to distract an inattentive public.
I urge everybody to do what literate and responsible citizens should do:
1. Read the Nunes memo (The Republican one the Democrats spent weeks arguing on TV should never be published because it would endanger the nation)
2. Read the Schiff memo (this Democrat one that tries to spin the story, but actually fails to answer any of the Nunes memo)
3. If you fail to see what a complete joke the Democrat memo is on your own, then go read the Nunes response that takes it apart line-by-line. the Nunes response does not need to twist anything, it just points out all the things the Schiff memo fails to answer and the things the Schiff memo gutlessly implies but does not actually assert in an attempt to mislead the uninformed.
That's the sad part about this whole thing: this is the Legislative branch, exercising its oversight of the FISA court which it established. They found abuses; they are now addressing those abuses. That the Executive branch is resisting tooth and nail and telling the Legislative branch that they are not under democratic control, that is the real scandal here. The attitude seems to be, "We'll do whatever the hell we want, and if you try to tell us no, we have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you."
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I'm old enough to remember when Republicans said, "There were crimes committed, but President Nixon knew nothing about it!"
The question is, are you intelligent enough to see that that's a completely ridiculous comparison? The two situations have nothing to do with one another. Never mind your carefully avoiding the fact that the indictments of the Russians was explicitly accompanied by them telling you that nobody worked with them, wittingly. Which conspiracy is it that you're alleging that involves nobody actually working with the people indicted? You're also, in your indictment count, including indictments that have exactly zero to do with the period of time Trump was a candidate, let alone anything to do with collusion. Manafort's dodgy reporting on his earlier activities not only don't have anything to do with Trump or his campaign, they don't even have anything to do with Russians trying to influence the election. Again, which campaign conspiracy is it you're talking about? Was there some sort of time travel involved?
Meanwhile, you keep tap dancing right past the fact that the Dem memo doesn't even attempt to refute the central parts of the Republican memo: that the FISA judge was NOT told who spent money on the Russian fiction compiled by Steele (Hillary and the DNC), and more importantly, the Dems aren't contradicting the other memo's revelation that the FBI asserted there wouldn't have been any FISA request at all, without the novella that Hillary paid Steele to get Russian help writing. You want a conspiracy? Lift up that rock and look under it.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"The FBI clearly states right there in the FISA application that they believe Steele was hired to find dirt on Trump
This was not a contention of the Nunes Memo. The problem was that the FBI knew that the Steele dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, and the FBI knew about it, yet hid those facts from the FISA court, a major ethical breakdown to say the least.
The author of the Dem response memo, Adam Schiff, is so full of shit that if he told you Barack Obama is black, you'd want to ask for a DNA test just to be sure. He's one of the loudest proponents of the idea that Russia handed the election to Trump - but Schiff just voted to give Trump incredible powers to spy on Americans without warrants. And rather than look a camera in the eye and back up any of claims specifically, he breaks out his McCarthy act on a right-wing news show.
The DNC/Clinton machine paid for the Steele Dossier which was used as justification for FISA warrant to spy on the opposition campaign. Hillary masked her purchase through two legal proxies (one of whom pled the fifth in a deposition) and hired a foreign spy as part of gathering the intel. This is big stuff, Watergate big, I mean using Oppo Research to spy on people in the middle of an election. Watergate was just a third-rate burglary. This is 50 times what that was. This is no longer some pie-in-the-sky conspiracy. There is massive evidence, including statements from the co-conspirators, that highlights this exact operation in detail.
It is almost certain that the FBI used the dossier to get FISA court warrants to spy on Trump associates, meaning it used the opposition research of the party in power to convince a court to let it spy on the candidate of the other party - likely without telling the court of the dossier's political link.
This goes well beyond basic criminality. We're getting into serious sedition, high crimes, and treason territory here. The FBI and NSA aren't "accidentally losing" hundreds of text messages and emails because nothing is at stake.
Did you know Manafort worked for the Podesta Group in helping seal up the Uranium One deal, and the Podestas worked directly with the Russian government to do it? The smoking gun.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Tell me again how great democracy is, when we all know that people in groups have trouble coming up with coherent answers to any question more complex than "what restaurant should we go to for lunch?" Clearly the Left is trying to conceal the fact that they launched a politically-motivated investigation, sort of like how they used the IRS to suppress Right-wing groups.
Alternative Right.