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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.'"
This is political mudslinging, not news for nerds.
Nunes never read the referenced document? I wonder if Nunes is a slashdot poster.
So happy so see that the Democrats called them on their dishonest bullshit. The Republicans have made it standard procedure to have one idiot spout off a lie, then the rest of him start saying the same crap citing the first moron as a valid source, until pretty soon the whole wingnut echo chamber is reverbrating with the misinformation was. Hopefully someone "leaks" the unredacted version.
and do more actual policy. The right wing corporate Dems seem to be trying to use this to try and win voters back without actually implementing populist policy (Medicare for All, universal college, a New New Deal, $15 min wage, ending the 8 wars, etc, etc). It's not going to work. Maybe if they were as good a fearmongering as the Republicans are, but they're not. Instead we're gonna get another 4 years of Trump + Republican Congress. Probably another big market crash out of all the deregulation that's going on right now.
Trump won for two reasons. First, Hilary took victory for granted and didn't campaign in the swing states (she always was an arrogant bitch). But moreoever Trump ran as a left wing populist. He promised Health Care for all, Jobs for all, good pay for all. He promised the government wouldn't just stand idle while the working class got slapped around by the Invisible Hand. Sure, he lied through his teeth. But when your opponent promised basically nothing, well, like the man said, what have you got to lose?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Yeah. It's almost as if the President was obstructing the release of information from one side in a corrupt attempt at self-preservation.
#MAGA
Mueller Ain't Goin' Away
Twenty-two indictments so far. Five convictions, and counting.
Over 100 Trump officials who have been unable to pass FBI background checks, including the President's son-in-law.
It took over 2 years for the Watergate investigation to nail Nixon. Special Prosecutor Mueller's been at it only 10 months.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's cute. How was he obstructing anything if he released it after one round of mutually-agreed-upon redactions?
nt
This isn't news for nerds, nor stuff that matters.
There isn't even a "right" or "wrong". It's just political junk talk for people who are into that sort of thing.
Total rubbish. Even a crappy Google or Bitcoin article would be better than this horse plop.
Further: Even if they included Page's response to Steele's leaks published by Yahoo instead of using the Yahoo to corroborate Steele ( someone RTFM for me...is that part of the GOP claim rebutted?) that's still smells like fruit of the forbidden tree to me. If the cops are investigating you for something and leak to the press that you've done all sorts of crazy shit, then use your public denials as grounds for a warrant to search your house...that wouldn't hold water at trial, would it?
From page 7 of the Democratic memo (emphasis in the original):
In its Court filings, DOJ made proper use of news coverage. The Majority falsely claims that the FISA materials "relied heavily" on a September 23, 2016 Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff and that this article "does not corroborate the Steele Dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself." In fact, DOJ referenced Isikoff's article, alongside another article the Majority fails to mention, not to provide separate corroboration for Steele's reporting, but instead to inform the Court of Page's public denial of his suspected meetings in Moscow, which Page also echoed in a September 25, 2016 letter to FBI Director Comey. [remainder of paragraph is redacted.]
It was Steele, not the FBI or DOJ, who leaked Page's story to the press. Steele was fired by the FBI in October 2016 because of that. Is any subsequent investigation of Page fruit from a poison tree? I'd say no. Keep in mind that Page had been on the FBI's radar (and in FISA warrants) for a long time before Steele leaked anything to the press.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I see where you're going with this, but I think your argument depends entirely on whether the granting of the FISA renewal was because of Page's denial of the Moscow meetings. I think it's pretty clear it wasn't -- the DOJ simply disclosed it, without making it part of their argument for the warrant. Besides, it doesn't pass the smell-test. How could a denial of an activity possibly be grounds for investigating someone about it?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
1. Nunes Mk II memo (he tried the same thing this time last year) tipped off the Moscow spies as to the dates of the warrants for their surveillance. He did this right before indictments, and clearly was politically trying to save Trump. That memo should never have been released.
2. Democrats releasing the contradictory information, what did they expect? Of course Trump would redact it to bits to cover his ass. Again it should never have been released.
What should happen now is a FISA warrant should be issued against Trump and he should be cleared or prosecuted quickly. All the surveillance data is already recorded, they can go back and look at it. It he really did meet the Russians in 2013 to discuss his upcoming candidacy and their help, then that will be the recorded set which can be looked at if a FISA arrant is issued.
Manasfort is accused by buying politicians, and Republicans need to clear house of their 'Nunes' figures too. FFS, he's using NSA and CIA data on Russia for political points. Russia just attack USA, physically with bullets in Syria, they were not Russian 'mercenaries' if they had orders from Moscow, they were deniable soldiers. Republicans need to expel a few bad apples and move on.
Neither of those things is true. Flynn's guilty plea is still there and in force, and the new judge on the Flynn case has clarified his request and completely debunked the news that turned up in the alt-right media last week.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The 'Nunes didn't read FISA application' is fucking RED HERRING from HELL. Trey Gowdy WROTE the FUCKING thing and GOP has been clear on this since the start.
Are you honestly trying to say that Schiff, who is the ranking democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, wouldn't know exactly what type of information would get redacted? Pull the other one, it's got bells on. If the redacted information was information that shouldn't have been redacted Schiffy would be howling from the rooftops about the redactions. He's not, which means every piece of redacted info in that memo which he demanded be released was there solely to provide cover for useful idiots like you. As for Mueller not going away, that would be evident to anyone who watched his hounding of Steven Hatfill.
Yes, the FBI, that famously Democratic institution (pop quiz: identify the last Democratic director of the FBI). Getting their warrant signed off by four judges - two appointed by George W. Bush, one by George H.W. Bush, and one by Reagan, in that bastion of liberalness, the FISA courts.
The FBI states that it has met all of the subpoenas issued to it (even other House Republicans refused to sign onto Nunes's threatening subpoena letter). “We disagree with the chairman’s characterization and will continue to work with congressional committees to provide the information they request consistent with our national security responsibilities.” The FBI has given the committee hundreds of pages of requested documents and cleared McCabe and Strzok to testify.
Yeah, it's totally ethical for a Trump transition team member to investigate the Trump administration for events that occurred before, during and after the transition. Totally. Nunes totally deserves an ethics prize.
Wow - we're in total agreement! Except it amazes me how a person with more than two brain cells could reach the conclusions you have after doing so. Literally every key complaint made in the original Nunes memo was false or highly misleading. "FISA application was fundamentally built on the dossier" becomes "started months before the dossier was even received, and it only made up a minor portion of the FISA application, and with multiple unrelated corroborating sources". "News article based on information from Steele was used to back up the Steele dossier" becomes "Multiple news articles cited only in the context of quoting Carter Page's response to claims about him". "Courts were not informed about Steele's funding and termination" becomes "FBI was proactive in keeping the court up to date with all information related to Steele, including funding and termination". And on and on and on.
And here we have the Nunes response memo literally confirming the rebuttals. We've gone from "The FISA court wasn't informed!" to "The font size was too small when they wrote ''The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign"! Sneaky, sneaky FBI and their sneaky, sneaky font sizes! Heck, the Nunes response memo to the Democratic memo starts out by confirming that the investigation started in July 2016 (and offers no rebuttal to the claim that the Steele dossier wasn't received until September), arguing that the investigation was "then fueled" by the dossier. Apparently "then" is a two month gap against the self-described "adviser to the Kremlin". My favourite part of the reponse-response is #3:
Damn the FBI for not using their FBI Time Machine to go
You mean this Trey Gowdy?
Funny that the memo - and the response to the Democratic rebuttal - act as though the dossier is some core part of the Russia investigation, something that Gowdy fundamentally disagrees with. Where's your source that Gowdy "WROTE the FUCKING thing"? Because here's what I find Nunes himself saying:
But hey... "wrote it" vs. "took notes", no real difference... And clearly the memo reflects Gowdy's view that the dossier has little significance to the Russia investigation as a whole! (/snark)
Before now, I’ve strongly disliked Nunez - but now I’m warming to him a little.
#DeleteChrome
My understanding is that only one person on the committee was allowed to see the FISA documentation. So how does Schiff make claims about the contents of the documentation and substantiate those claims? That rather damages the thrust if his memo. He then cites some statements by people, themselves under suspicion for wrongdoing in the FBI, to justify a collection of other claims.
{^_^}
Replying to myself to add:
Case in point: a point by point rebuttal of the Democrat memo by the House Intelligence Committee: https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/democrat_memo_charge_and_response.pdf
That is just misdirection Nunes was part of a committee, they could only pick one guy to read it and the committee decided the best guy to read it, he then analysed it for the committee.
Gowdy was the only republican to read the FISA applications. IOW Gowdy is the only source Nunes has for his claims. Gowdy does not assert the same claims as Nunes' memo.
So Nunes asserts claims for which he has no source. Claims that have now been refuted by actual facts.
They played a game of semantics. The Nunes memo claimed that the FISA court has not been informed that the Clinton campaign was (part of) the funding behind the research that led to the Steele dossier.
That is technically correct. Only now we have learned that the FBI *did* inform the FISA court that the dossier was produced by political adversaries. The did not use the name *Clinton*, but did quote the source as political.
Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
Neither of those things is true. Flynn's guilty plea is still there and in force, and the new judge on the Flynn case has clarified his request and completely debunked the news that turned up in the alt-right media last week.
Not what happened. The plea is in-force, but the new judge that replaced the previous one because of a CoI demanded that the muller investigation produce the exculpatory evidence in the case that by law they were required to produce. Instead of doing that and continuing to stonewall this judge, they then opened another indictment in another jurisdiction(aka judge shopping) about 30mi outside of DC, effectively to have him fight two cases on two different fronts. The guy is basically bankrupt from fighting the first case, and Muller seems to be going out of his way to ensure that he can't mount any legal defense because he can't afford to.
Om, nomnomnom...
Vox was founded by Markos (Kos) Moulitsas, it has no credibility as a news outlet. It lives down in the mud with Huff Post and USA Today.
The FBI *did* include information about the political motivation of the Steele dossier
"was likely looking for information" is not the same as "was hired by Candidate #2"
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.
And that's a) counter to the established facts, and b) now discredited based on the contents of this new memo.
Having read both, it's pretty impressive how terribly written and sloppy Nunes' was, and how decently well written and comprehensive this one is. Given the lack of detail in Nunes', it seems pretty clear that his was the more creatively cherry-picked of the two.
I'm honestly a little confused why Nunes would produce such obvious garbage. Didn't think the other side would get a rebuttal, or figured it wouldn't matter, since the right is immune to facts that go against their scary fantasy world?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Your understanding is wrong.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think you mean here that Trey Gowdy does not think that the memo invalidates the Muller probe. I personally think Gowdy is one of the people who will do and say what is right without considering politics. Gowdy does agree with the memo just not implications that it invalidates the Muller investigation. Gowdy would tell you not to make conclusions but wait until all testimony has been heard. Trey Gowdy believes that the FISA warrants were not done correctly or legally (he would say there are some serious questions that need to be answered and it should be investigated.)
Nunes relying on Gowdy is actually better than Nunes reading he material himself. So back to my point Nunes not reading the source document is just fud being thrown at the memo. However this is the democratic game it seems ignore facts and try and make up FUD.
Comey tells Trump that the document is salacious and unverified and then signs off that it is factual and verified to the court, does anyone see a problem?
If I present to the market a report on your product saying it is crap and at the bottom there is a "*source from market data." But the actual source is your direct competitor who is trying to discredit you with lies and false information do you see a difference.
Lets go further they did not verify anything except the guy (forgot his name) flew to Russia, is this enough to produce as court evidence? Remember Steele produced this dossier with a personal motivation that he hates Trump and would do anything to make sure he is not elected, as well as getting paid indirectly by the DNC, he was sending it to the papers etc. is this foreign election tampering?
Nunes, Gowdy and most of the world know that this was not correct method to get a warrant, lets move on it will either be investigated as a crime or not.
Remember when Trump said they had tapped his phones and everyone laughed well no one is laughing about that now.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
You didn’t read my sig, I take it. Oh well, it’s a bad joke if it has to be explained...
#DeleteChrome
RightwingNutjob has been posting for over a decade. If he's a foreign shill, he must be one of them "deep cover" spooks you read about, comrade.
Your link is about Mueller. I said nothing about Mueller. I said the scandal is DOJ surveillance Page in the first place. Page could very well argue that evidence collected against him from the wiretapping is inadmissible without running afoul of what your link says.
Actually, as far as I can tell both memos are factual. The Nunes memo is simply playing games around the facts. It claimed that the FISA court was not notified that the dossier had been prepared by Steele, working for Fusion GPS, to dig up dirt on Republicans. The Democrat memo claims that the FBI redacted actual names and used arbitrary designations, and disclosed everything relevant that way. The Nunes memo also claims that a certain news article didn't corroborate the dossier, and never actually claimed that the FBI claimed it corroborated it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The wiretapping was based on legal warrants, and predated the mention of the Steele dossier. There's no way Page is going to be able to overturn those warrants, so the wiretapping evidence is admissible.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The appearance of impropriety comes from the fact that the DOJ was under the direction of a political appointee from one party, the wiretap warrant was against the candidate of the opposing party motivated in part by the political operation of the party in power, all within the context of the very same political appointee appearing to downgrade a concurrent investigation into wrongdoing by the candidate from her own party running for the same office.
Again...you'd have to have more information to determine one way or the other. And that brings us to the next point: this was a secret warrant. If all of this were playing out in open court...it'll fix itself with disinfecting sunshine. A lot of the concern here comes from the fact that all of this stuff is secret and being secret in a justice system meant to be skewed in favor of the accused, it is controversial and subject to extra scrutiny and concern over improper behavior. You might well be right, but surely you appreciate the concerns at play here.
Reading through the top modded comments in this thread, there are lots of posts like this from people who seem almost excited by the fact Trump will eventually be charged.
I don't really get this (btw I'm not a US citizen). Is it just because you don't like the decisions he makes? Or is it because he doesn't act as bureaucratic as the typical candidate? The way I see it is he bullshits as much as any other politician, but I feel far more confident when Trump says something that he isn't straight up lying to our faces. He may change his opinion on matters, as is good when new information comes about. I know the media parrots this as lying or flipping, but I see it as what should happen if the person in charge isn't purely ideological about things.
To date there hasn't bee any evidence of anything unreasonable from Trump's family, although it's sure true Washington is full of slimy people on both sides. It also sure seems like the Democrats were using some federal departments not fully honestly.. so this point should be recognized and the Democrats rightly berated. The election result definitely surprised some people in the Democrats and now their dirty laundry is being aired. Both parties have people we're finding are not honest, so let's root them all out. Finding glee in this is simply because you hope your person gets elected next time around. Sore losers if you ask me - the party I strongly support didn't win our last election, but I can still keep things civil.
Maybe because he's dangerous and not doing anything with any competence? It's not a question of even liking his position or not - he can't keep his position straight over the course of hours, let alone a presidency.
The glee is in seeing a dangerous idiot who campaigned to be not corrupt being nailed to the wall by the corruption they encourage.
Judging by the memos, it seems the republicans are hell-bent on misrepresenting what happened. The judges involved are all right-leaning and appointed by republicans. The "smoking gun" timeline they purport is factually incorrect, which doesn't help this seemingly-desperate attempt at misdirection seem legitimate.
Why is this such an issue now, though? Where were all these shrill voices proclaiming this guy's innocence when others were in front of these courts? It seems rather convenient to decry the system when "your guy" is being hammered by it.
Then why don't you explain to everybody why the judge has demanded exculpatory evidence be presented and the FBI is stonewalling.
Om, nomnomnom...
It's all explained in the link I provided earlier. I'll put it here again. The judge's clerk used outdated boilerplate text to file the original "Brady order" in the case. It has since been refiled and the judge has clarified. If the FBI were "stonewalling", the judge would have already thrown the case out. Flynn has plead guilty and his guilty plea stands. He is cooperating with the Mueller investigation. What you're looking for starts about half-way through the article below.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's not what's happening in the case though. The washington post article is factually wrong, this wasn't caused by the clerk. This shouldn't be a surprise that he article is wrong either, since most reporters on legal matters haven't spent even 1 day in a law 101 class. If you did you'd also already know why this is happening. This was caused by new evidence being discovered by the defense and the FBI refusing to turn it over as required by law so the defendant can have a *complete defense*. The FBI is stonewalling go read the latest briefs, they're refusing to turn over evidence to the defense which is required by law. This isn't an isolated case, it has also happened in the Bundy case. You realize what happened in that one don't you? That was an in-force guilty plea at the time as well...
This isn't even touching on the modified 302s, and "lost" email and text messages. There's incomplete chains of evidence, there's lost chains of evidence, there's failure to disclose by law.
Om, nomnomnom...
The Wall Street Journal has confirmed, as has Ken White over at Popehat. The filing has nothing to do wiht "new evidence being discovered by the defense". You have been lied to by the Trump dead-enders at The Federalist.
In other news, 30 people in the Trump administration, including the President's son-in-law, have lost their security clearance because they couldn't pass a background check, that same son-in-law got loans totaling over $150,000,000.00 after meeting with companies while working as a senior presidential advisor, and Robert Mueller is looking into the president's rather unique finances (which Trump previously said was a "red line"). Also, the president's longest serving-staffer and communications director just resigned a day after giving secret testimony to the intelligence committee and admitting to "white lies" on the president's behalf and Trump just called for guns to be confiscated without due process. And, there have now been FIVE convictions stemming from the Mueller investigation.
All those things happened this week, and it's only Wednesday. Mishiki, your god-emperor Trump is in an uncontrolled skid, and it's glorious to watch. The net is tightening, and his performance at the "bi-partisan meeting with members of congress on gun control" shows that he's cracking like the vinyl upholstery in a '78 Matador.
You are welcome on my lawn.