The Russian conspiracy, Comey, Mueller, Durham, Mar a Lago and related matters

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455105/fusion-gps-steele-dossier-collusion-narrative-falls-apart

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fusions-russia-fog-1515024911?shareToken=st9af62b8852e64ae59a857d1ac3be82d7&reflink=article_email_share

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/3/charles-grassley-says-james-comey-likely-leaked-cl/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTWpneU5qYzNZVFppTkdJNSIsInQiOiIxOEcrVmZNQ0lMcHlGY1I5QUwrc2FPVjlhV1psbG9EdzZ1UTFkTTd0cHNFeG1tUVRmUmlNdndZSHB4WDhqazNPVWJxVFBWSmFkMTFsUUY5a0VhNXZqcU1kOHVFeFJCZ3IxTnBFNlpVS3NzZFVjM2NGXC91d2pBQmN1S29VeUREVEcifQ%3D%3D

[G M]

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/373248.php

January 04, 2018
Charles Grassley: The Memos James Comey Illegally Leaked to His Buddy (To Leak to the NYT) Are So Sensitive That I Could Only View Them in a SCIF
Grassley has written a letter to conspirator Rod Rosenstein, demanding answers to questions about Comey's lawbreaking, but of course Rosenstein will ignore these questions, as he ignores all questions about the DOJ's and FBI's behavior in this matter.

This Committee has previously written to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the memoranda that former Director Comey created purportedly memorializing his interactions with President Trump.[1] My staff has since reviewed these memoranda in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at the FBI, and I reviewed them in a SCIF at the Office of Senate Security. The FBI insisted that these reviews take place in a SCIF because the majority of the memos are classified.
Of the seven memos, four are marked classified at the "SECRET" or "CONFIDENTIAL" levels. Only three did not contain classified information. FBI personnel refused to answer factual questions during the document reviews, including questions about the chain of custody of the documents I was reviewing, the date that they were marked classified, and who marked them as classified.

According to press reports, Professor Daniel Richman of Columbia Law School stated that Mr. Comey provided him four of the seven memoranda and encouraged him to "detail [Comey's] memos to the press."[2] If it's true that Professor Richman had four of the seven memos, then in light of the fact that four of the seven memos the Committee reviewed are classified, it would appear that at least one memo the former FBI director gave Professor Richman contained classified information.[3] Professor Richman later read a portion of one of the memos to a New York Times reporter.[4]

When the Committee contacted Professor Richman seeking copies of the memos Mr. Comey had provided him, he refused to provide them, did not say how many he had received from Mr. Comey, and refused to say whether he retained copies.[5] It is unclear whether any of the memos reviewed by the Committee were retrieved from Professor Richman. The Committee has accordingly not determined which of the seven memos Mr. Comey provided him.

Sean M. Davis highlighted this on Twitter. Seb Gorka had a good response:



If you don't get that -- on Twitter, James Comey offers up a lot of self-righteous, self-aggrandizing quotes, often drawn from the Bible.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/senators-grassley-graham-refer-christopher-steele-criminal-investigation

[G M]

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/senators-grassley-graham-refer-christopher-steele-criminal-investigation

About fookin time.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-democrats-russian-descent-1515111025?shareToken=stb4e529384b2442d68a1e3839deace3a0&reflink=article_email_share

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455202/hillary-clinton-email-investigations-trump-justice-department-revives-motive-criminal-intent

[Crafty_Dog]

Haven't had a chance to give this a proper read.  Not familiar with the source-- is this all it thinks it is?

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/05/operation-condor-how-nsa-director-mike-rogers-saved-the-u-s-from-a-massive-constitutional-crisis/

[G M]

Haven't had a chance to give this a proper read.  Not familiar with the source-- is this all it thinks it is?

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/05/operation-condor-how-nsa-director-mike-rogers-saved-the-u-s-from-a-massive-constitutional-crisis/

At first glance, it's pretty compelling.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455267/christopher-steele-dossier-obama-administration-hillary-clinton-campaign-congress-fisa-court

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/368210-five-takeaways-from-the-fusion-gps-testimony

[Crafty_Dog]

(Weekly Update: Live with Tom Fitton)
 
One Step Closer to Facts on Comey Memos
Court Orders State Department to Speed Up Delivery of Clinton Emails
Atlanta Jail Lets Muslim Inmates Wear Hijabs
 
One Step Closer to Facts on Comey Memos
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg has given us an important victory in our quest for the truth about former FBI Director James Comey and his infamous memos.
 
Boasberg rule that the FBI must turn over to the court for in camera, non-public review of Comey’s memos allegedly detailing conversations he had with President Donald Trump:
 
The court, in seeking to review the documents, shows it doesn’t trust the FBI or Justice Department’s representations about the memos. We hope now that Americans are one step closer to knowing the facts about these memos, which were written and leaked for pernicious purposes to target a sitting president with a criminal investigation. It’s high time they begin to see the light of day. We’re glad the court followed up on our specific suggestion that it review the documents directly.
 
The court order tells the government to turn over the Comey memos for review by January 18. In doing so, the court rejects arguments by the Sessions Justice Department to dismiss the lawsuits seeking the Comey information.
 
On June 16, 2017, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for “ FBI Director James Comey’s February 14, 2017 memorandum … memorializing an Oval Office conversation he had with the President on that date regarding former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.”
 
On September 7, 2017, we filed a related FOIA lawsuit on behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation for “all unclassified memoranda authored by former FBI Director James Comey that contemporaneously memorialized his discussions with President Donald Trump and his aides.”
 
We recently made court filings on behalf the Daily Caller News Foundation and on behalf of Judicial Watch, requesting that the Justice Department be ordered to produce all of Comey’s unclassified memoranda about his one-on-one conversations with the president. We argued that, “at a minimum, the Court should review the Comey Memos in camera to determine whether all responsive records have been located. This can be easily accomplished by comparing the memos to the very public testimony of Director Comey.”
 
The Justice Department previously argued to the court that Comey’s leak of the memo regarding former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was unauthorized and compared it to WikiLeaks.
 
Comey admitted to Congress regarding the “Flynn” memo: “I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter [for The New York Times] … I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.” The New York Times published a report about the memo on May 16, 2017. Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed the following day.
 
Both Judicial Watch cases have been consolidated in Cable News Network, Inc., v. Federal Bureau of Investigation (No. 1:17-cv-01167).
 
The Comey leak was outrageous, leading to the appointment of an out-of-control, conflicted, and compromised Robert Mueller. Let’s hope this initial court victory leads to the ultimate success of getting the full truth about Comey’s machination to target President Trump.
Court Orders State Department to Speed Up Delivery of Clinton Emails
The Deep State bureaucracies in Washington give awful life to the cliché that “the wheels of justice turn slowly.” Such has been the case with the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails.
 
Last year, the FBI uncovered 72,000 pages of documents that Clinton attempted to delete or did not otherwise disclose. The State Department had been processing these documents at a rate that would have required us and the American people to wait until at least 2020 to see them.
 
Now I’m pleased to tell you that a federal court judge has ordered State to speed up the processing and production of these emails. U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg ordered State to finish processing the remaining documents by September 28, 2018.
 
Prior to the FBI investigation, Clinton repeatedly stated that the 55,000 pages of documents she turned over to the State Department in December 2014 included all of her work-related emails. In response to a court order in another Judicial Watch case, she declared under penalty of perjury that she had “directed that all my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or are potentially federal records be provided to the Department of State, and on information and belief, this has been done.”
 
Clinton failed to turn over at least 627 emails in that 55,000-page production, further contradicting a statement by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails had been turned over to department.
 
Judge Boasberg’s November 30 order came in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on May 6, 2015, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00687)) seeking:
All emails sent or received by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in her official capacity as Secretary of State, as well as all emails by other State Department employees to Secretary Clinton regarding her non-“state.gov” email address.
The court also ordered the State Department to identify and explain the basis for all documents withheld in full from both the 55,000 pages of emails turned over by Clinton and the 72,000 pages of records recovered by the FBI which have been processed thus far by April 6, 2018.
 
Here is some background. In November 2016, Judge Boasberg ordered the State Department to process no less than 500 pages a month of records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request. The following year, in October 2017, we asked the court to increase the State Department’s processing requirement, noting that, under its current pace of production, the Clinton emails would not be completely released until at least 2020.
 
At the October 2017 hearing, the State Department reported to the court that they were revamping their FOIA processing and reallocating resources. Judge Boasberg then issued an order instructing the State Department to explain “how its anticipated increase in resources will affect processing of records in this case …” Ultimately, JW’s pressure and continued court oversight led to getting the State Department to get on the ball and begin producing records in a timely manner.
 
How ironic it is that the Trump State Department had to be ordered by a federal court to stop slow rolling the release of Clinton emails. Our Freedom of Information Act lawsuits – not Congress or the media – uncovered Clinton’s email cover-up and related crimes. Now it is up to the Justice Department to finally follow up with an honest and independent investigation.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/25828/breaking-indictment-handed-out-russian-bribery-ryan-saavedra?utm_source=shapironewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=011318-news&utm_campaign=position3

[Crafty_Dog]

Serious read here folks:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455426/steele-dossier-fusion-gps-glenn-simpson-trump-russia-investigation?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%202018-01-13&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/11/robert-mueller-money-laundering-push-could-spark-c/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT1dZeVptWmpaalZoTnpWaiIsInQiOiIramQ1cWNaV2VxbDZ1Qld6QklJVUN1bnVBVTFtaHl1RzY0c3RYeWRoYW9yVmZndWlhZU9ZUFN1VUd5NHBDbVFIXC9IUVRHM0F2QldXNnQ4cG9pWlBQY3R4eDFCa1VwSnBDdFdvQ0xkU3ZYXC9jTDFrMUVxc2VcL0ZzaDk5MDZwVWhqRyJ9

[DougMacG]

Is it true that the Hillary campaign hired and paid for a false dossier against her opponent Donald Trump that served as basis for a FISA court order granting authority for the Obama administration "Justice Department" (who was backing Hillary) to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign, and then they fed that information back to political players in the administration to the Hillary campaign?  And that the FBI and DOJ knew the basis information was largely false when they launched the phony collusion investigation that was formed with the authority to include "all matters arising out of the investigation" in order to find and create crimes where none were known to exist?

[Crafty_Dog]

I'm sitting here not liking what I just heard from Judge Napolitano on Bret Baier Special Report just now  , , , ,

Re-posting this-- read with care:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455426/steele-dossier-fusion-gps-glenn-simpson-trump-russia-investigation?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%202018-01-13&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives

but feeling better now that I see this:

Transparency for Fusion and the FBI
Democrats vote to keep documents secret but Congress will see them.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Oct. 24, 2017.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Oct. 24, 2017. Photo: Susan Walsh/Associated Press
By The Editorial Board
Jan. 18, 2018 6:53 p.m. ET
32 COMMENTS

The chance that Americans will learn what really happened between the FBI and Fusion GPS is growing with Thursday’s vote by the House Intelligence Committee to give every House Member access to key information. Soon the House should move to declassify all documents in the case that don’t jeopardize intelligence sources and methods so the public can get the complete story.

Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes also moved Thursday to release to the public his committee’s interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Every Democrat joined Republicans in voting for that public disclosure. Yet every Democrat voted against letting the rest of the House see a memo that will list the facts about the FBI’s use of FISA warrants to surveil members of the Trump campaign in 2016. Strange. What are Democrats afraid of?

Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff has been a loud voice for accountability regarding the Trump-Russia probe, but his outrage evaporates regarding the role that Fusion GPS and its Democratic financiers may have played in persuading the FBI to seek a warrant to eavesdrop on American civilians. What were the FBI’s reasons and the evidence it used to seek such an extraordinary writ?

All of this is relevant to the House’s recent vote to extend Section 702 that allows law enforcement to monitor foreigners. Mr. Nunes provided two closed briefings to Republicans last week as they prepared to renew Section 702, and he assured Members that he’d seen no evidence that government had abused 702 powers. But he also said he had seen evidence that law enforcement misused powers involving the surveillance of U.S. citizens as part of the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign.

Thus the vote to let all Members see a memo describing relevant classified documents at intelligence agencies. The Constitution and Congress impose strict rules on government surveillance of U.S. citizens, and the FISA court relies on the integrity of law enforcement when granting warrants. If a senior Member of the House is attesting to abuse, all of Congress should see the evidence before deciding how to respond.

FBI sources are telling the media that this will endanger national security. But all Members have top-secret clearance and can view any classified information that the House Intelligence Committee grants access to. They must adhere to nondisclosure agreements and are subject to the same criminal penalties for leaking classified information as FBI officials. Recall that former director James Comey leaked by his own admission.

Once the Members have a chance to see the details, the full House can also move to declassify as much as possible and “read in” the American people. The FBI played an extraordinary and troubling role in the 2016 election, and access to the facts of what happened shouldn’t be limited to FBI leakers, their media protectors and partisans in Congress.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://saraacarter.com/2018/01/18/a-bombshell-house-intelligence-report-exposing-extensive-fisa-abuse-could-lead-to-the-removal-of-senior-government-officials/

[Crafty_Dog]

third post

Eventually the President Will Have to Talk
Executive privilege can’t be applied in a criminal probe.
President Donald Trump arriving back at the White House, Jan. 1.
President Donald Trump arriving back at the White House, Jan. 1. Photo: Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
By Sai Prakash and
John Yoo
Jan. 18, 2018 7:05 p.m. ET
29 COMMENTS

As investigations continue into alleged Russian election meddling, potential witnesses are clamming up. Former White House aide Steve Bannon this week refused to answer questions from the House Intelligence Committee. President Trump has flip-flopped on whether he will talk to special counsel Robert Mueller.

Confidants may have urged Mr. Trump to invoke executive privilege—the president’s constitutional right to keep conversations and documents secret—to frustrate both congressional and criminal investigations. While this privilege protects deliberations about national security and diplomacy, it cannot shield Mr. Trump from criminal probes. Ultimately, he would lose any conflict with Mr. Mueller over secrecy.

Presidents have long claimed a right to withhold their confidential talks from Congress and the courts. It began with Thomas Jefferson, who ordered the prosecution of his former vice president, Aaron Burr, for raising a rebellion in Louisiana. Burr claimed Jefferson had blessed his plans and sought military reports to prove his innocence. Chief Justice John Marshall, sitting as the trial judge, subpoenaed the president.

Jefferson ultimately gave up some documents, but he considered ignoring Marshall outright, because the Constitution gives each branch the right “to protect itself from enterprises of force attempted on them by the others.”

In U.S. v. Nixon (1974), which rooted executive privilege in the separation of powers, the Supreme Court suggested that all three branches had a right to confidentiality. Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote that the president’s authority as commander in chief and chief executive might establish an absolute privilege “to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets.” But the justices agreed their duty to ensure a fair trial of the Watergate burglars, who hoped President Nixon’s White House tapes would prove their innocence, outweighed his right to confidential talks.

The Supreme Court has never ruled on executive privilege against congressional investigations. Indeed, the judiciary may never decide. In Nixon v. U.S. (1993), involving a different Nixon, the justices held that matters of impeachment are “political questions” reserved to Congress, not the courts. Similarly, they could leave fights over executive information to the politicians, who can use spending cuts, oversight hearings and refusal to confirm nominees to get information from the executive. Still, delay benefits the president because he has the information Congress seeks.But delay benefits the executive, which enjoys withholding the information.

But the Watergate ruling makes clear that criminal investigations trump executive privilege. Mr. Mueller can seek a court subpoena that would compel Mr. Bannon, the president and his associates to turn over documents or even to testify under oath. If Mr. Trump then wished to prevent the questions, he would have to fire Mr. Mueller. But no matter who replaced him as special counsel, the White House would eventually have to talk.

Mr. Prakash is a law professor at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow at the Miller Center. Mr. Yoo is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

[G M]

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/373438.php

We the people need to see it.

[DougMacG]

Yet another twist in the story, the British English was most likely produced by a lousy Russian to British English translator program with no one checking the myriad of grammar and punctuation errors.

Christopher Steele is a highly skilled writer, at least technically, well educated, he wrote for the Cambridge University student publication.

He didn't write this sentence:
"Alpha held 'kompromat' on Putin and his corrupt business activities from the 1990s whilst although not personally overly bothered by Alpha's failure to reinvest the proceeds of its TNK oil company sale into the Russian economy since, the Russian president was able to use pressure on this count from senior Kremlin colleagues as a lever on Fridman and AVEN to make them do his political bidding."

Nor could it pass the smell test at the FBI, DOJ or FISA Court.

More at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/did_christopher_steele_write_his_dossier_or_did_a_russian_associate.html#ixzz54fY4DYKZ

[Crafty_Dog]

Interesting catch Doug.

Though the prospect of transparency on the Dossier seems quite promising for our side, I do have one deep worry-- prompted by the Andrew McCarthy article I posted a few days ago.  If I have it right, it was and is within President Trump's power to declassify the FISA warrant application.  Why hasn't he?  Per McCarthy, it may be because the Dossier was not the only thing in support of the warrant application and Trump fears whatever else it is that is in there e.g. money laundering stuff.

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/369851-fierce-battle-erupts-over-declassifying-intelligence-report

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/simpson-tried-to-deceive-congress-on-the-fusion-gps-obama-doj-connection.php

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2018/01/fbi-director-mueller-helped-cover-fla-9-11-probe-court-docs-show/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=corruption+chronicles&utm_term=members&utm_content=20180125061520

[Crafty_Dog]

WSJ


By
Ted Van Dyk
 
Jan. 24, 2018 6:28 p.m. ET

Tear him for his bad verses!’ the crowd roars in Shakespeare’s “ Julius Caesar, ” mistaking the poet Cinna for a conspirator. There are myriad reasons to be angry with President Trump’s performance. Based on the publicly available evidence, however, the least of them is “collusion” with Russia to influence the 2016 election. The media and even congressional investigators seem to misunderstand how presidential campaigns and transition teams interact with foreign governments.


Real collusion took place in October 1968, when Republican nominee Richard Nixon directed Anna Chennault, his campaign co-chairman and a longstanding Asia hawk, to intervene with the South Vietnamese government to stop peace negotiations with North Vietnam. Ms. Chennault urged Saigon to boycott the talks because Nixon would continue to support the South Vietnamese war effort, whereas his Democratic opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, had said he’d end the war in 1969.

The White House learned of the initiative through intelligence intercepts. President Lyndon B. Johnson convened his national-security advisers to determine his response. Principally on the advice of Defense Secretary Clark Clifford, he decided to do nothing. Humphrey did not denounce the Nixon intervention publicly, presuming Nixon would call it a last-minute election lie. He did, however, issue a strong statement two days before the election stating that if the South Vietnamese government refused to come to the table, he would negotiate a peace without them. Nixon won narrowly, and the war continued.

The collusion became public early in 1969, but Nixon paid no price. Critics discussed invoking the Logan Act of 1799, which prohibits diplomacy by private citizens. But Logan Act violations are almost never prosecuted, and Nixon, as president, could easily have avoided its application.

In 1996 President Clinton received millions in re-election campaign contributions from an Indonesian consortium and from Asian-American fundraisers thought to be receiving the money from Chinese intelligence agencies. The fundraisers were prosecuted for campaign-finance violations, but nothing happened to Mr. Clinton. There was, in any case, no apparent policy payoff for the campaign money.


There seems little doubt that before Mr. Trump ran for office, he and his associates, possibly including family members, had business dealings with Russians and other offshore players. We know that 2016 campaign figures, some important and some marginal, were in contact with Russians during the campaign year. But did they receive campaign money or collude with the Russian government to influence the outcome? Were policy favors promised? Did the candidate direct them to have the meetings or know about them?

I was Humphrey’s assistant in 1968 and served in senior policy and political roles in several subsequent Democratic presidential campaigns. I often met with foreign ambassadors and other representatives, mainly to clarify my candidate’s campaign positions. No money or favors ever were sought, offered or received from their governments. At times, however, campaign advisers or would-be appointees embarrassed the campaigns by undertaking foreign contacts on their own—most often to enhance their own importance and exposure.

And there was the occasion in 1972 when Pierre Salinger, who’d served as JFK’s press secretary, contacted North Vietnamese peace negotiators in Paris without candidate George McGovern’s authorization. A marginal Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, might well have gotten the Trump campaign into trouble in a similar way.

Presidential campaigns generally consist of the candidate, a handful of close advisers and staff, and a small army of organizers, advance people, media consultants and others. They’re thrown together temporarily in a quasi-wartime environment. There is always a certain amount of chaos—and occasional individual misconduct.

Early in the 1964 presidential campaign, President Johnson was embarrassed by the arrest of his chief of staff, Walter Jenkins, for disorderly conduct in a YMCA restroom. Johnson responded by ordering FBI investigations of all campaign staff. It fell to me to administer the clearances of Humphrey’s vice-presidential campaign staff, mainly Washington attorneys and regulars. I sent a memo to all suggesting that anyone not wishing FBI vetting should simply resign. To my surprise, some 20% quit.




The Trump campaign and transition were characterized by high personnel turnover and glitches generated by an ignorant and inexperienced candidate and senior staff. The Trump White House and cabinet, especially in national-security roles, have shown greater professionalism. But Mr. Trump and his closest associates, a year later, remain less at home in the White House than any modern president and his team.

Mr. Trump has been guilty of many “bad verses,” in Shakespeare’s phrase, but none thus far that have reflected any collusion with Russia. Perhaps such collusion will be proved at the end of the special counsel and congressional committee inquiries. But until that happens, critics would be well served to muffle public cries for impeachment. This polarized country needs evidence that due process and the rule of law still prevail.

Mr. Van Dyk was active in Democratic national policy and politics for 40 years. He is author of “Heroes, Hacks and Fools” (University of Washington Press, 2007).

[DougMacG]

McCabe's wife took almost $700,000 for a failed political campaign in Virginia from Clinton chum and VA governor Terry McAuliffe, WHILE McAuliffe was under investigation by the feds for accepting campaign donations from shifty sources.

[DougMacG]

A lot of wisdom in that piece, 'wait for evidence and due process before calling for impeachment', but this is not your father's Democratic party.
-------
Trump is saying he will happily testify under oath. I would suggest he require the same of Mueller in exchange:
Mr. Trump, did you illegally collude with the Russians to win this election?
Mr. Mueller, have you found any evidence of Trump campaign collusion with the Russians in a year of searching at the cost of millions of dollars and the cloud it puts over our government to justify  continuing the investigation?

[Crafty_Dog]

The clip I saw of Trump talking about looking forward to Mueller also had him saying "subject to his lawyers' advice".

Somehow that qualifier seems to be getting left out of most reports , , ,

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/26282/muellers-investigation-targets-trump-over-supposed-ben-shapiro?utm_source=shapironewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=012518-news&utm_campaign=position1

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.westernjournal.com/dick-morris-mccains-revenge-how-he-helped-set-up-trump/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=deepsix&utm_content=2018-01-25&utm_campaign=can

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455757/release-the-memo-lets-see-in-it?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202018-01-25&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1HWNcLDK88&feature=youtu.be

[Crafty_Dog]

WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.

Amid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation, two of the people said.

Photo
Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, believed that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic impact on the presidency and would raise more questions about whether the White House was trying to obstruct the Russia investigation. Credit Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call, via Associated Press

First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May.

After receiving the president’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.


Mr. McGahn disagreed with the president’s case and told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency. Mr. McGahn also told White House officials that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own. The president then backed off.

Ty Cobb, who manages the White House’s relationship with Mr. Mueller’s office, said in a statement, “We decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process.”


Mr. McGahn, a longtime Republican campaign finance lawyer in Washington who served on the Federal Election Commission, was the top lawyer on Mr. Trump’s campaign. He has been involved in nearly every key decision Mr. Trump has made — like the firing of the former F.B.I. director — that is being scrutinized by Mr. Mueller.  Mr. McGahn was also concerned that firing the special counsel would incite more questions about whether the White House was trying to obstruct the Russia investigation.

Around the time Mr. Trump wanted to fire Mr. Mueller, the president’s legal team, led then by his longtime personal lawyer in New York, Marc E. Kasowitz, was taking an adversarial approach to the Russia investigation. The president’s lawyers were digging into potential conflict-of-interest issues for Mr. Mueller and his team, according to current and former White House officials, and news media reports revealed that several of Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors had donated to Democrats.

Mr. Mueller could not legally have considered political affiliations when making hiring decisions. But for Mr. Trump’s supporters, it reinforced the idea that, although Mr. Mueller is a Republican, he had assembled a team of Democrats to take down the president.

Another option that Mr. Trump considered in discussions with his advisers was dismissing the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, and elevating the department’s No. 3 official, Rachel Brand, to oversee Mr. Mueller. Mr. Rosenstein has overseen the investigation since March, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself.

Mr. Trump has significantly ratcheted back his criticisms of Mr. Mueller since he hired Mr. Cobb for his legal team in July. A veteran of several high-profile Washington controversies, Mr. Cobb has known Mr. Mueller for decades, dating to their early careers in the Justice Department.

He advised Mr. Trump that he had nothing to gain from combat with Mr. Mueller, a highly respected former prosecutor and F.B.I. director who has subpoena power as special counsel. Since Mr. Cobb’s arrival, the White House has operated on the premise that the quickest way to clear the cloud of suspicion was to cooperate with Mr. Mueller, not to fight him.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump has wavered for months about whether he wants to fire Mr. Mueller, whose job security is an omnipresent concern among the president’s legal team and close aides. The president’s lawyers, including Mr. Cobb, have tried to keep Mr. Trump calm by assuring him for months, amid new revelations about the inquiry, that it is close to ending.


Mr. Trump has long demonstrated a preoccupation with those who have overseen the Russia investigation. In March, after Mr. McGahn failed to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the inquiry, Mr. Trump complained that he needed someone loyal to oversee the Justice Department.

The former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said Mr. Trump asked him for loyalty and encouraged him to drop an investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Mr. Comey said he sidestepped those requests. He was soon fired.

In an interview with The New York Times in the Oval Office in July, the president pointedly kept open the option of firing Mr. Mueller, saying that the special counsel would be passing a red line if his investigation expanded to look at Mr. Trump’s finances. Mr. Trump said he never would have made Mr. Sessions the attorney general if he had known he would recuse himself from the investigation.

Last month, as Republicans were increasing their attacks on the special counsel, Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Times that he believed Mr. Mueller was going to treat him fairly.

“No, it doesn’t bother me because I hope that he’s going to be fair,” Mr. Trump said in response to a question about whether it bothered him that Mr. Mueller had not yet ended his investigation. “I think that he’s going to be fair.”

Mr. Trump added: “There’s been no collusion. But I think he’s going to be fair.”

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/370801-trump-poised-for-clash-with-doj-over-classified-memo

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/370806-facebook-tells-senators-it-cannot-prove-or-disprove-collusion-between-trump

[DougMacG]

"Mr. Mueller could not legally have considered political affiliations when making hiring decisions."

   - He was the FBI Director, the greatest investigative agency in the world(?) and either had no awareness of what agents were doing, saying, donating or even sleeping with, or he hired nothing but left wing activists by choice.  He could not take overwhelming bias that into consideration?  Surely they jest.  Any professional in that situation would recuse him or herself.  Any decision short of that makes them either a political hack or ignorant and incompetent.  There is nothing (legally) wrong with the idea of firing Mueller at the time that Trump and the public started to find all this out.  As a practical and political matter, he may be better off to cooperate and let the witch hunt run its course.

[Crafty_Dog]

By Kimberley A. Strassel
Jan. 25, 2018 7:09 p.m. ET

Rep. Adam Schiff has many talents, though few compare to his ability to function as a human barometer of Democratic panic. The greater the level of Schiff hot, pressured air, the more trouble the party knows it’s in.


Mr. Schiff’s millibars have been popping ever since the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, on which he is ranking Democrat, last week voted to make a classified GOP memo about FBI election year abuses available to every House member. Mr. Schiff has spit and spun and apoplectically accused his Republican colleagues of everything short of treason. The memo, he insists, is “profoundly misleading,” not to mention “distorted” and “political,” and an attack on the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He initially tried to block his colleagues from reading it. Having failed, he’s now arguing Americans can know the full story only if they see the underlying classified documents.

This is highly convenient, given the Justice Department retains those documents and is as eager to make them public as a fox is to abandon the henhouse. Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes had to threaten a contempt citation simply to get permission for his committee to gain access, and even then investigators had to leave Capitol Hill to view them, and were allowed only to take notes. Mr. Nunes has no authority to declassify them. The best he can do in his continuing transparency efforts is to summarize their contents. Only in Schiff land is sunshine suddenly a pollutant.

The Schiff pressure gauge is outmatched only by the Justice Department and the FBI, which are now mobilizing their big guns to squelch the truth. That included a Wednesday Justice Department letter to Mr. Nunes—written by Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, designed as a memo to the media, copied to its allies in Washington, and immediately leaked to the public. And the department wonders why anyone doubts the integrity of all its hardworking professionals.


Mr. Boyd gets in his cheap shots, for instance slamming Mr. Nunes for moving to release a memo based on documents that Mr. Nunes hasn’t even “seen.” He apparently thinks Rep. Trey Gowdy —the experienced former federal prosecutor Mr. Nunes asked to conduct the review of those docs—isn’t qualified to judge questions of national security. He hyperventilates that it would be “reckless” for the committee to make its memo public without first letting the Justice Department review it and “advise [the committee] of the risk of harm to national security.” Put another way, it is Mr. Boyd’s position that the Justice Department gets to provide oversight of Congress. The Constitution has it the other way around.

The bigger, swampier game here is to rally media pressure, and to mau-mau Mr. Nunes into giving the department a veto over the memo’s release. Ask Sen. Chuck Grassley how that goes. Mr. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, recently sent a referral to the department for a criminal probe into dossier author Christopher Steele. He then in good faith asked the department its views on an unclassified portion of that referral that he wants to make public. The department invented a classified reason to block public release, and has refused to budge for weeks.

The Boyd letter is also a first step toward a bigger prize: President Trump. Under House rules, a majority of the Intelligence Committee can vote to declassify the memo. Mr. Trump then has up to five days to object to its release. If he doesn’t object, the memo goes public. If he does, a majority of the House would have to vote to override him.

The shrieks of reckless harm and national security are designed to pressure Mr. Trump to object. And wait for it: In coming days the Justice Department’s protectors will gin up a separate, desperate claim that Mr. Trump will somehow be “interfering” in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe unless he objects to the release. According to this view, it is Mr. Trump’s obligation not just to sit by while the media and the Mueller team concoct their narrative, but to block any evidence that might undercut it.

The slippery shadow in all this is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal put Mr. Rosenstein in charge of digging into the actions—right or wrong—of the Justice Department and FBI in 2016. Instead of taking up that challenge, he named an old and dear friend of the FBI as special counsel, and directed him only to look at Mr. Trump. And Mr. Rosenstein appears to have signed up as an active participant in the effort to thwart any congressional investigation of the other side of the issue.


A department head interested in truth doesn’t flout subpoenas. He doesn’t do a runaround of the Intelligence Committee and try to sucker House Speaker Paul Ryan into aiding a stonewall by asking him to intervene just before a deadline and block a contempt citation. He doesn’t sit on the knowledge of outrageous texts between FBI agents and force Congress to drag it out of him. And he doesn’t sign off on the leaks and character assassination in which his department daily engages to undermine Congress.

The good news is that these frantic reactions are a sign Americans are getting closer to the truth. So long as the truth-tellers keep moving forward.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/dutch-spies-infiltrated-russian-hacking-unit-dnc-attack/?utm_source=PJMCoffeeBreak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=January2018

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455841/trump-mueller-interview-president-refuse-request

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-01-25%20CEG%20LG%20to%20Brazile%20(Steele%20Dossier).pdf

[Crafty_Dog]

Fourth post

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/01/27/what-alleged-illegality-is-mueller-investigating-trump-exercising-lawful-presidential-authority.html

[ccp]

why should Trump walk through a mine field ?  He should refuse though he could be called in front of grand jury and made to testify?
Although there is still no evidence of wrong doing

[DougMacG]

why should Trump walk through a mine field ?  He should refuse though he could be called in front of grand jury and made to testify?
Although there is still no evidence of wrong doing

ccp, I agree.  He eliminates the public demand to testify for now by saying he wants to do it, but he never will if his attorneys have any say in the matter.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/455885/print

[G M]

https://mobile.twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/958204411204968449


Sharyl Attkisson
Sharyl Attkisson
@SharylAttkisson
Prior to any FBI interview w/@realDonaldTrump, has FBI authored an exoneration memo, promised immunity to his top associates & agreed not to record the interview? If not, it implies: 1. Hillary probe wasn't done according to norm or 2. Trump is being treated differently.Thoughts?
9:05 PM · Jan 29, 2018

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/30/trump-russia-collusion-fbi-cody-shearer-memo

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

https://www.facebook.com/votevets/videos/10154944748801022/?hc_ref=ARTLcGMpByTEB3G2oS2frW8sOJaJZIbLnJlfmZNnowyx_Zfvbl4FGKwZ0tDWbtZlcsw

A savvy friend notes:

"The article’s author fails to spot the fact that, just because two documents say the same thing, it may still not be true.  Especially if the two documents are relying on information from the same source.  Even moreso if the source is FSB controlled.  Which seems likely."

[DougMacG]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/30/trump-russia-collusion-fbi-cody-shearer-memo

I agree with your friend.

Not convincing to me that both came up with all this including the least credible part, the 'lewd act' in Russia, "independently" though both were tied to the Clintons and Dems and both made their reports just in time to affect the result of the election, an October Surprise, when Hillary IIRC bragged of having one coming - which we presumed was the Access Hollywood tape.  

The Steele Dossier was not written by Steele, see an earlier post.  This story looks timed to confuse the Nunes memo release.  If the FISA was based on both, that doesn't vindicate either of them.  My guess is this report dated Oct 2016 and this story TODAY were created and placed by the same puppet masters who write Adam Schiff's script.  Trump is a germaphobe who assumes Russian Hotels are bugged and filmed to get his money, making the 'golden showers' story beyond unlikely.  Trump's weakness is money and maybe sex, not urination or racism, the alleged and not credible motive for the 'lewd act'.  The Guardian is as independent as CNN/MSNBC.   I don't buy any of this but it is good that we know this is out there.

At the end of the story the Guardian basically admits they don't have resources to check the stories they print.
"More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast."
They are vouching for the Dossier's existence, not its validity.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/30/adam-schiffs-versions-of-events-are-frequently-false-or-missing-key-details/

[ccp]

"shyster"  Schiff fits better then shifty schiff
but for those who don't know yiddish - 'shifty' will do.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/internal-justice-department-probe-eyes-mccabes-role-in-final-weeks-of-2016-election/2018/01/30/db2ea8f0-05c7-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.1c5237ffc4a9

[Crafty_Dog]

F.B.I. Condemns Push to Release Secret Republican Memo

By ADAM GOLDMAN and NICHOLAS FANDOSJAN. 31, 2018
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Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, went to the White House to try to stop the release of the memo on Monday. Credit Zach Gibson for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, clashed publicly with the president for the first time on Wednesday, condemning a push by House Republicans to release a secret memo that purports to show how the bureau and the Justice Department abused their authorities to obtain a warrant to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser.

The “F.B.I. was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,” the bureau said in a statement. “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

Though Mr. Wray’s name was not attached to the statement, the high-profile comment by the F.B.I. thrust him into a confrontation with President Trump, who abruptly fired his predecessor, James B. Comey. Mr. Trump wants to see the memo released, telling people close to him that he believes it makes the case that F.B.I. and Justice Department officials acted inappropriately when they sought the highly classified warrant in October 2016 on the campaign adviser, Carter Page.

The president’s stance puts him at odds with much of his national security establishment. The Justice Department has warned repeatedly that the memo, prepared by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, is misleading and that its release would set a bad precedent for making government secrets public. F.B.I. officials have said privately that the president is prioritizing politics over national security and is putting the bureau’s reputation at risk.

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

People who have read the three-and-a-half-page memo say it contends that officials from the F.B.I. and the Justice Department were not forthcoming to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge in seeking the warrant. It says that the officials relied on information assembled by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, without adequately explaining to the judge that Democrats had financed the research.
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Recent Comments
Ron 3 minutes ago

One cannont but come to the conclusion, based on the desparate actions taken to impune the FBI and DOJ, that this President and his...
Hastings 3 minutes ago

Most politicians are hypocritical, but the astounding heights the GOP has recently reached is mind boggling. Think of the false outrage they...
William Case 3 minutes ago

The FBI should provide the omitted facts tp the House Intelligence Committee for inclusion in the memo.

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Mr. Page, a former Moscow-based investment banker, had been on authorities’ radar for years. He had visited Moscow in July 2016 and was preparing to return there that December when investigators obtained the warrant in October 2016.

The memo has come to the forefront in a string of attempts by Mr. Trump’s allies to shift attention from the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling and toward the actions of the investigators themselves. Republicans in Congress and in conservative media have asserted that the memo will show political bias in the early stages of the Russia investigation.

The Republican-led Intelligence Committee voted along party lines on Monday night to release it, invoking an obscure, never-before-used House rule to sidestep the usual back-and-forth between lawmakers and the executive branch over the government’s most closely held secrets. Democrats on the committee objected and have prepared their own 10-page point-by-point rebuttal of the Republican document. The committee voted against releasing the Democrats’ memo publicly.

Under the rule, Mr. Trump has five days to try to stop the release for national security reasons.

Democrats have called the Republican document a dangerous effort to build a narrative to undercut the department’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s associates colluded with Russians and whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice. They say it uses cherry-picked facts assembled with little or no context and could do lasting damage to faith in federal law enforcement.

The F.B.I. statement ran counter to the decidedly low-key approach that Mr. Wray has taken as director, avoiding news media interviews and delivering anodyne speeches to law enforcement groups. He had worked quietly in the hopes of keeping the F.B.I. out of the president’s cross hairs.
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Since taking over the F.B.I. about six months ago, Mr. Wray has had to defend the F.B.I. against the president’s broadsides. But the director has done so in a nonconfrontational manner. In December, when Mr. Trump said the F.B.I.’s standing was the “worst in history” and its reputation in “tatters,” Mr. Wray sent a message to the bureau’s more than 35,000 agents and support staff saying that the professionalism and dedication was inspiring.

Mr. Wray had strongly objected to the move to release the memo and was allowed to review it only on Sunday, after the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Devin Nunes of California, relented. Mr. Wray made a last-ditch effort on Monday, going to the White House with the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to try to persuade the White House to stop the release of the memo. They spoke to John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, but were unsuccessful.

Mr. Trump could only block the release of the memo, not make it public himself, but with his approval, House Republicans were expected to move quickly to unveil the document. Mr. Kelly said on Wednesday that he expected the memo to be released “pretty quick,” while cautioning that White House lawyers were still reviewing it.

Ultimately, though, Mr. Trump was eager to see the document released. Even as the White House’s review was continuing, Mr. Trump was overheard on Tuesday night as he exited his first State of the Union address assuring a House Republican that he would see to the document’s release.

“Oh, don’t worry, 100 percent,” Mr. Trump told the lawmaker, Representative Jeff Duncan of South Carolina. “Can you imagine that?”

The memo is also said to highlight the role of several senior law enforcement officials, including Mr. Rosenstein, who authorized a renewal of the surveillance of Mr. Page in the spring of 2017. Mr. Trump has recently expressed his displeasure with Mr. Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel conducting the Russia investigation, Robert S. Mueller III. And the memo could expose Mr. Rosenstein to some of the criticisms being directed by Republicans at other officials.

Also mentioned is Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy director of the F.B.I., who has been a target of Republicans in Congress and of Mr. Trump. Mr. McCabe stepped down on Monday, telling people close to him that he had felt pressured to because of a separate Justice Department inspector general investigation.

During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Wray foreshadowed Wednesday’s confrontation. He told senators that he was no pushover and would resist political interference.

Mr. Wray has followed through. He resisted White House pressure to replace staff members, including Mr. McCabe, who were once loyal to Mr. Comey, to avoid appearing as though he was taking orders from the president in a job that is supposed to be politically independent. Mr. Wray did eventually sideline Mr. McCabe, who stepped down abruptly, but only after finding cause to do so.

In late September, Mr. Wray said in a speech in Washington that the F.B.I. would abide by the rule of law and that wouldn’t change as long as he was director. He also said the F.B.I. would not bow to intimidation.

“We’re going to follow the facts independently,” he said, “no matter where they lead, no matter who likes it.”