So, Russian bots have been promoting the release of a memo that pertains to Carter Page, a man they recruited to spy for them which caused the FBI to intervene in 2013. Page met with known Russian intelligence officials and members of the Russian administration during a supposedly non-campaign related trip to Russia and then again right after the election. He reported back to the Trump team on at least the first of these trips. He traveled to Hungary during the campaign where he does not deny meeting with Russian-allied members of the administration in the presence of at least one Russian. He was identified in the Steele dossier as a key player in the collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign, which is an awfully big coincidence if all of these behaviors were innocent. But Devin Nunes thinks that the FBI was out of line to get a FISA warrant on the guy, and that they improperly relied on the Steele Dossier.
Again, Russian bots are promoting this memo.
Jim Wright’s take on the Nunes memo — long but well worth reading; excerpting it wouldn’t do it justice.
http://www.stonekettle.com/2018/01/dirty-tricks.html
Nice, thanks.
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Well yes but I think Stonekettle is basically intentionally missing the real point here. What Nunes appears to have done is to take actual information about the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign and claim that if they’re investigating Trump, that proves they are biased against him. Specifically, we have learned that he claims that approving a FISA warrant against Carter Page is ipso facto an abuse of power and proves that the Deputy AG is out to get Trump. Or, to put it succinctly, if they’re investigating, they cannot legitimately be investigating.
Oh, yes, there’s that too; but Jim is coming at it from the perspective of someone who knows the intelligence community and its workings with the breadth and intimacy of 20 years’ service in Naval intelligence, a perspective which rarely colors discussion of things like Nunes’s attempted garbage dump. There are many policy, political, and ethical angles from which to view this.
What matters is that 30-40% of the American voting public firmly believes what Rep. Nunes and Johnson are saying to the point they’ll unquestioningly support the executive branch and congressional Republicans openly working to break the FBI.
We seem to keep forgetting we have an actual organized crime family in the White House. Just think of how many decades the organized criminals Trump launders for have wanted to crush that agency?
Excellent point, although I suspect that the “conservative” movement now views money laundering as a virtuous “free market” activity which should not be regulated by Big Gub’mint. Freeedumz!
As for the people “forgetting” that the Trump crime family is squatting in the WH, the boobs were never directly told (by Dems or the corporate media) that Trumper & Sons are financial criminals, or that Der Trumper is a Russian money launderer. Those interested could of course have easily found this out before the election, but that describes perhaps 10% of citizens—and who knows what percent of those had/have their votes suppressed by the Repub election-throwing machine…
To be fair, few would have even heard anything the Dems would have said about it with how small the megaphone the party is allowed. The progressive voice been purged from corporate media, which sadly is were most of the electorate still gets its news and commentary.
Instead, based on post-2008 hiring practices alone, corporate media’s political coverage is specifically designed to keep the Democratic/Progressive/Not-Conservative-Approved-Talking-Points the fuck out of the public square conversation.
An example of how the purge worked can be seen in how the Obama Administration was very careful about publicizing the intelligence community reports on hacking prior to the election because they knew the media would ONLY use it to hang Hillary. Ryan and McConnell knew this was a fact as well because they refused to support Obama in releasing the findings.
If Ryan and McConnell knew the media would ONLY use it to hang Hillary, why would they object? Did they suddenly have a temporary patriotic brain malfunction?
You write:
This is perfectly true, but it is an incomplete view.
First of all, using the word “Dems” and the phrase “progressive voice” in today’s political climate is a non-sequitur. The “Dems” themselves…the DNC, its chosen candidate Hillary Clinton and the use of massive amounts of corporate money…were aimed directly at the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, the most progressive voice in any position of national recognition in the U.S. The DNC’s public position was that he would lose to Trump, and that might be the simple truth of the matter. But in the spirit of HRC’s “public position/private position” gaffe, it seems to me to be quite likely that they opposed Sanders for precisely the same reason that the corporate media have non-personed “progressive” voices at least since the 1968 electoral debacle that bought us the worst president…perhaps short of Trump…that the country has seen in 100 years or more, Richard Nixon. It is also at the very least parenthetically interesting that both Nixon and Trump were heavily influenced Roy Cohn.
Secondly, you also write:
Again…perfectly true, but incomplete.
The truth of the matter is that the corporate-owned media is specifically designed (tasked might be a better word) to oppose all views that in any way threaten the centrist, capitalist monopoly that actually controls this country, progressive or conservative. (Think Ross Perot and Ron Paul for evidence of that statement. Both non-personed to the max by the national media.)
Just sayin’…it really isn’t about “progressives,” it’s simply about control. The fascinating thing about the Trump presidency is that he was opposed/non-personed by the media on levels that defy the imagination compared to what was aimed at Sanders, Perot, Paul and the rest, and it didn’t work!!! Not that he is any kind of ideologue…neither centrist, progressive or conservative…just that he won. Maybe he threatens the control system even more than did his non-personed predecessors precisely because he is not an ideologue. He’s just another thief…like them…only he’s allied with (or at least supported by) opposing gangs.
However, the non-personing didn’t work this time.
How?
Why?
I am not sure. Maybe Trump’s PR talents plus the burgeoning distrust of the media and Washington DC by the citizenry in general created a perfect storm that attracted a larger percentage of anti-media voters than ever before….and repelled an equally large percentage of potential Dem voters who simply refused to vote. Maybe it was just HRC’s entitlement-poisoned campaign. Whatever. He’s in there and they are using every (non-lethal, so far) shoehorn in their power to get rid of him.
How will this all end?
It has run so far off of any previous tracks that I dare not make a prediction. Like any disease, it must run its course. One thing is for sure, though. Before the fever breaks, there is always a crisis. Only after the crisis do we find out if the patient lives or dies.
Watch.
Later…
AG
If it is voted on today to be released then at least the DoJ and Dems will have an opportunity to craft a realistic response. Sounds like the Dems will do their own memo regardless if Nunes’ is released.
The memo does need to get debunked because if Mueller has Carter on his list of those to be indicted it will certainly become problematic for the investigation’s credibility to move forward while this is questioned.
Well the allegation in the memo seems to be that Carter Page was investigated. Not sure why that’s supposed to be a problem, if he’s indicted (and he may already have been, under seal) then obviously he was investigated. The whole thing is ridiculous.
Reports from the Right are that FBI got the FISA warrant against Carter Page using the Steele dossier as primary source vs the storyline that FBI already had verifiable info and that dossier just corraberated what they had.
A judge has to approve the warrant, the DoJ just approves the application. Anyway, the application was to renew the warrant, which requires that they were finding information of importance to the investigation. The original basis for the warrant was irrelevant by this time.
The critique is that the FISA application was not correctly submitted to the judge by using the dossier as the primary source. Of course that doesn’t pass the smell test. But since this is all about political high stakes games to protect Trump at all costs, the truth tellers have been shut out of the room.
The committee voted not to allow the Democratic response be made available.
More specifically, in a party line vote the Republicans on the committee voted not to allow the Democratic response to be made available.
Whatever. The Democratic response will go out publicly. If we have to wait to get it placed into the Congressional record until after we take the House majority, so be it.
The Parties are not the same.
Why should anybody care what the Nunes memo says? He’s a pathological liar, and even when he’s trying to tell the truth he’s so clueless he’s usually wrong. It would be about as informative as a memo by a schizophrenic who thinks they’re getting information from a transmitter implanted in their brain by the CIA.
It’s important not necessarily because of what is in it, but because, within a certain segment it will be believed without actually being read. That’s important.
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They already believe all the nonsense that will be in it anyway. The memo is going to be a weak attempt to invent “evidence” to support the nonsense, and it’s going to collapse because Nunes is an idiot.
Evidence that can be a pretext to fire Rosenstein and replace him with a Trump loyalist who could curtail the Mueller investigation. I have seen a lot of commentators on the tube and in print very worried about that possibility.
Mark Warner has been pushing back this morning, which is nice to see. Democrats need to be far more outspoken and strategic.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/29/mark-warner-global-politico-216545
I’m currently getting a Securi firewall blocking message when I try to post a new diary here. Just posting this comment to see if it blocks comments too.
For those interested, I have also published my diary here
Suggest to preview the contents piece meal wise … part by part to mark when the text blocks posting of the diary.
I too have troubles specifically with images, video’s and twitter content.
That was rather surprising. No videos, nothing but text. I am trying something to see if perhaps it is links to the Irish Times that are being flagged by the security software. Now to click post and test the hypothesis.
Okay. That wasn’t it. Hypothesis test failed. I’m drawing a blank. I wonder – is there any code that you are using unique to Eurotrib when you cross-post diaries that might be the culprit? Admittedly I am throwing spitballs at this point. A shame. Just perused your diary. Looks worthwhile for those of us here at BT as well.
Does that mean he’s a Russian asset or just a useful idiot?
Asking for a friend.
With the NRA connection, likely both. But #2 is a certainty.
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Even NPRs on the freakin media pointed out Russian bots are pushing the memo (and J. Assange).
Yes, Assange is totally down with Congress attempting to help Trump obstruct justice, in the most snotty Fox Newsiest way possible:
Julian Assange ⌛
@JulianAssange
All this hysteria against releasing a memo half of Congress has already seen under the basis that some bureaucrat claimed it was classified? Just give it to Hillary Clinton so she can email it to @WikiLeaks. Problem solved. #ReleaseTheMemo
10:48 AM – 29 Jan 2018
This weekend, the accused rapist and Trump campaign supporter holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy also delighted us with his attempt to help re-write the history of the Holocaust:
Julian Assange ⌛
@JulianAssange
Holocaust: The ignored reality. Most victims were Slavs (including Jewish Slavs). http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/07/16/holocaust-the-ignored-reality/ … #HolocaustMemorialDay
1:49 AM – 27 Jan 2018
What a great, not-at-all-racist guy.
And this was just delish:
Julian Assange Thought He Was Messaging Sean Hannity When He Offered `News’ on Democrat Investigating Trump-Russia. He got a fake Hannity account instead. Hilarity ensued.
Ahem, courtesy of Kilgore Trout: tweet storm on Hannity, Wikileaks, Assange, and Don Jr
Fleshed out from public knowledge November 2017, although hinted at much earlier:
Release the memo, indeed.