Durham investigation (Update: Sussman acquitted) (12 Viewers)

[SaintForLife]

It looks like the first shoe has dropped with the Durham investigation with the Clinesmith plea deal. Clinesmith wasn't a low level FBI employee involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

He worked with Strzok to arrange sending an FBI agent into Trump-Flynn briefing, was on the Mueller team, he took part in the Papadopoulos interviews, and he participated in the FISA process.



From the NYT article:

Ex-F.B.I. Lawyer Expected to Plead Guilty in Review of Russia Inquiry (Published 2020)

Prosecutors did not reveal any evidence of the kind of broad anti-Trump conspiracy among law enforcement officials that the president has long alleged.

www.nytimes.com

I wonder who else knew about the lies?

 

[Ayo]

an investigation into Barr's dealings sounds more than reasonable to me

 

[SaintForLife]

In a new op-ed, the argument is made that what Barr is doing on the one hand, is totally invalidating what his other hand is doing. Good read.

Bill Barr Can’t Investigate Barack Obama. Who Says So? Bill Barr.

Whatever Obamagate is, Barr can’t probe it by his own standards, which hold that a president is the law and can do practically anything.

www.thedailybeast.com

Are we really supposed to trust Renuka's analysis after she has been so wrong on Russiagate?

It Ain’t Easy Getting a FISA Warrant: I Was an FBI Agent and Should Know

In his latest round of twiplash, President Trump on Saturday leveled a very serious accusation: that President Obama had personally ordered the “tapping” of telephone lines in Trump Tower in the months leading up to the November 2016 election. His tweets (scarily) reveal more about what he...

www.justsecurity.org

 

[MT15]

So this caught my eye this morning. As more info comes out, remember reading about the mysterious server at Trump Tower that was found to be in communication with some other entities for no known reason? It was never explained what that was about. Turns out that Fancy Bear was paid by bitcoin.

This is total speculation, of course, but it seems this thread is for that anyway so I thought I’d add some more.

 

[SaintForLife]

Papadopoulos statement to Downer is what started the entire investigation. It seems pretty flimsy. Why didn't Mueller mention the Misfud 302 in his report? Probably because Misfud had said that he had no knowledge about Russia & the emails and that he didn't make any offers to Papadopoulos.

 

[MT15]

SFL, you realize that Herridge is speculating that it was Mifsud, don’t you? I mean she says the person wasn’t named. If she is wrong about this key speculation then the whole house of cards she just built comes tumbling down.

Meantime, there’s new info about Trump’s bank, money laundering and mysterious servers in Trump Tower that contacted bitcoin processing companies 72 times during the election. Wonder why that happened? Just a coincidence that the Fancy Bear hackers were paid by someone in bitcoin, huh?

Speculation, sure. But the truth will come out eventually. I would lend far more credence to Manafort and Trump being completely slimy and criminal than I would to a vast “deep state” conspiracy led by the very conservative and Republican FBI. Your theories require a large number of very straight laced conservative people suddenly going rogue. Vast conspiracies hardly ever really happen. My theory relies on a few crooks doing what crooks do.

 

[SaintForLife]

SFL, you realize that Herridge is speculating that it was Mifsud, don’t you? I mean she says the person wasn’t named. If she is wrong about this key speculation then the whole house of cards she just built comes tumbling down.

That specific document doesn't name Misfud, but we already knew that Mueller said it was Misfud that told Papadopoulos that the Russian's had dirt on Clinton.

Meantime, there’s new info about Trump’s bank, money laundering and mysterious servers in Trump Tower that contacted bitcoin processing companies 72 times during the election. Wonder why that happened? Just a coincidence that the Fancy Bear hackers were paid by someone in bitcoin, huh?

Speculation, sure. But the truth will come out eventually. I would lend far more credence to Manafort and Trump being completely slimy and criminal than I would to a vast “deep state” conspiracy led by the very conservative and Republican FBI. Your theories require a large number of very straight laced conservative people suddenly going rogue. Vast conspiracies hardly ever really happen. My theory relies on a few crooks doing what crooks do.

Is that new information about the Alfa bank story, because the original one was debunked? I saw the tweet, but is there an article or source for the claim?

Horowitz report: "The FBI investigated whether there were cyber links between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, but had concluded by early February 2017 that there were no such links."

Is McMaster talking about the supposed Deep State?

 

[SaintForLife]

Uh oh. Weissman is turning on Mueller and Zebly. Weissman was asked if Mueller let the country down and his response was "Absolutely, yep."



There have been 3 recent books that have tried to rehabilitate the Mueller probe: Weissmann, Schmidt, and Toobin.

 

[MT15]

New information, SFL. There were 72 contacts between the Trump Tower server and a company that processes cyber currency payments during the election, that is new. And i don’t believe the reason for the existence of the server was ever discovered.

I have long thought that Mueller wasn’t intended to actually do a real investigation, and I know I’ve said that before. I’m not sure why or how, but he definitely went easy, he should have insisted that Trump give live testimony, he should have insisted on testimony from the kids, including Kushner. He soft peddled the obstruction with his weird phrasing. He left things, like the taxes and financial records untouched. What Weissman is saying doesn’t fit your belief that there wasn’t anything there, btw.

In other Trump crime news, NY state said today that they have reason to believe Trump committed tax fraud. No wonder Barr is having a hissy fit toward NYC.

McMaster isn’t talking about some sort of conspiracy in the FBI. He’s talking about the early group of WH advisors who were competent public servants and found themselves horrified by Trump’s words and actions. Men like Mattis, and Coates. And even Kelly, really. That’s no deep state, those are Trump’s own picks getting worried about his craziness and incompetence.

 

[Ayo]

What Weissman is saying doesn’t fit your belief that there wasn’t anything there, btw.

I can't believe that's the argument being made. It's obvious Weissman is being critical of the investigation not going far enough. It seems to work against his general arguments than in support of.

 

[SaintForLife]

New information, SFL. There were 72 contacts between the Trump Tower server and a company that processes cyber currency payments during the election, that is new. And i don’t believe the reason for the existence of the server was ever discovered.

I have long thought that Mueller wasn’t intended to actually do a real investigation, and I know I’ve said that before. I’m not sure why or how, but he definitely went easy, he should have insisted that Trump give live testimony, he should have insisted on testimony from the kids, including Kushner. He soft peddled the obstruction with his weird phrasing. He left things, like the taxes and financial records untouched. What Weissman is saying doesn’t fit your belief that there wasn’t anything there, btw.

In other Trump crime news, NY state said today that they have reason to believe Trump committed tax fraud. No wonder Barr is having a hissy fit toward NYC.

McMaster isn’t talking about some sort of conspiracy in the FBI. He’s talking about the early group of WH advisors who were competent public servants and found themselves horrified by Trump’s words and actions. Men like Mattis, and Coates. And even Kelly, really. That’s no deep state, those are Trump’s own picks getting worried about his craziness and incompetence.

Where did that claim come from about the bitcoin and Alfa bank? I saw the tweet, but where did he get his information from? Is there an article?

Don't you find it awfully convenient for those people to claim Mueller was somehow restricted in his investigation only after Mueller didn't find what was expected? There wasn't talk of Mueller being restricted in his investigation while it was going on. It was quite the opposite...walls closing in.

There is no evidence for your claim that Mueller didn't look into Trump’s taxes or finances. Mueller said in testimony that nobody told him he couldn't look at Trump's taxes and he refused to answer when he was asked if he got them. Mueller had the IRS Criminal Division working with him. What do you think the IRS Criminal Division did for Mueller if they didn't look into Trump's taxes and finances?

I know exactly what Weissmann is saying which I don't buy for a second just like him "accidentally" wiping his phone twice. I just find it ironic that he's turning on Mueller now. I wonder if Durham is looking into Weissman's actions?

 

[TaylorB]

Why didn't Mueller mention the Misfud 302 in his report? Probably because Misfud had said that he had no knowledge about Russia & the emails and that he didn't make any offers to Papadopoulos.

Mueller *did* mention FBI interview of Mifsud, and noted that he lied and got away with lying in the interview because Papadopoulos had lied about the same things a month earlier:

That's why the SCO charged Papadopoulos -- he impeded the investigation:

 

[RobF]

Mueller had the IRS Criminal Division working with him. What do you think the IRS Criminal Division did for Mueller if they didn't look into Trump's taxes and finances?

Looked into the taxes and finances of some of the many other people they investigated. Obviously.

 

[SaintForLife]

Looked into the taxes and finances of some of the many other people they investigated. Obviously.

Oh so they looked into everyone's taxes & finances except for Trump? You actually believe that?

 

[SaintForLife]

Between all the journalists that interviewed Strzok this week it took freaking Bill Maher to ask a question?

“You said in a private text, so we know it was real, you said, ‘My gut sense and concern is there’s no big there there’… The New York Times had a big story in 2017 right after Trump was inaugurated. ‘Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence,’ was the headline, and you said ‘We have not seen evidence’ of any of that. You said, ‘We are unaware of ANY Trump advisors engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials.’ That confuses me.”

He brought up the Trump Tower meeting and Paul Manafort’s contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik before asking, “Why did you say there was no there there?”

Strzok said, regarding the Times report, they were trying to figure out who was talking to the press, because some details were wrong and some were right.

He told Maher in that statement he was talking about someone like a “full-fledged foreign intelligence officer, not somebody who might be working with them, and that’s the kind of person we saw all over the Trump campaign.”

“Person after person after person in the Trump campaign had these undisclosed contacts with the Russians taht they started and continued not telling the truth about,” Strokz said, telling Maher he meant “I don’t think Trump is sitting like a mastermind on top of all these contacts controlling and coordinating what’s going on. What I thought was there are a bunch of grifters, opportunists, people trying to make money all sort of individually pursuing their agendas in a way that made them vulnerable to Russian intelligence.”

Bill Maher Questions Peter Strzok on Trump-Russia Investigation: 'Why Did You Say There Was No There There?'

Bill Maher, returning to air with a limited audience and a socially-distanced panel Friday night, spoke with former FBI agent Peter Strzok and asked him about the Trump-Russia investigation.

www.mediaite.com

 

[RobF]

Looked into the taxes and finances of some of the many other people they investigated. Obviously.

Oh so they looked into everyone's taxes & finances except for Trump? You actually believe that?

See what you did there?

On some level, you know it's entirely plausible that an investigation into Russian government's effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election would have investigated the taxes and finances of some of the "individuals associated with the campaign of Donald Trump", as was its remit, without it necessarily becoming prudent and/or necessary to investigate the taxes and finances of Donald Trump himself.

Because the bottom line is the only way you can realistically argue that's not plausible is if your argument is that Trump is, a) guilty, and b) so vastly incompetent that no investigation into the Russian government's effort to interfere in the election could have failed to pick up on a blatant trail leading straight to Trump's personal finances, and I don't think that's what you're going for here.

So you substitute the correct 'some of' for the ludicrous 'everyone'. But no, they would not have investigated everyone's taxes and finances, and no, they would not have necessarily had to investigate Trump's, and since Weissman's first-hand account is that they indeed did not investigate Trump's taxes, yes, it seems pretty darn likely that they didn't investigate Trump's taxes.

Why are you apparently unable to accept that?

 

[MT15]

SFL, did you read Strzok’s answer? It’s a really good answer, to me, it lays out what was likely going on in the Trump campaign. Even now, in the Trump administration. People who defend Trump are constantly mis-stating the views of people who oppose Trump. It’s easier to do that than to actually defend him. By far. Nobody has seriously said that Trump is a Russian agent. But what Strzok described is a realistic view of what was likely going on from someone who should know.

The reality most likely is that we have a collection of people who are in various ways grifting on their positions, carrying out their power fantasies, and are compromised by their contacts with Russian agents and/or oligarchs. What we seemingly don’t have is anyone thinking about what is best for US interests or what is best for the people of the US.

Even Dan Coates left the administration believing that Trump is compromised in some way by Putin. He’s no never Trumper, he’s certainly no leftist.

We don’t know exactly what is going on just yet, but we will find out one day. One thing I can say with certainty though is that there won’t be some discovery that there’s a vast “deep state” conspiracy to “get” Trump at the direction of the left. Opposition to Trump will possibly be discovered, but it will have originated from people who are genuinely alarmed by his anti-American views and his incompetency.

 

[SaintForLife]

This appears to be a bombshell and it contains actual evidence and no unnamed sources. The evidence includes recently released FBI texts that Flynn’s lawyer filed in court. Here is the court filing:



I'll go to some of the MCB's favorites on Russiagate:

'Trump Was Right': FBI Texts Detail Furor Over 'Crossfire Hurricane'

Newly disclosed internal FBI notes and text messages detail internal furor at the FBI's improper conduct during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

thefederalist.com

Thread:

 

[SaintForLife]

The more we find out about the investigation the worse it stinks.