Release the Krak... err FISA Memo!

[zinfamous]

Apparently this whole memo is about the FBI extending surveillance coverage on Carter Page. Carter Page. Yes, that Carter Page. The most idiotic of useful idiots. This is the person that the gopstapo is mounting their battle over. All of this in an attempt to try and fling mud at Rosenstein since he's what is standing in the way of dumping Mueller.

2018 election can't happen soon enough. Hopefully the correct lever is pulled and all of these turds are flushed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/us/politics/rod-rosenstein-carter-page-secret-memo.html

how dare the FBI surveil one of the GOP's more improbably public neo-Nazis! What are they up to???!

#deepstate

#nytimesfakenews

 

[hal2kilo]

I imagine what you will get from this memo when it is released (and I bet it eventually will be!) is a cherry picked set of facts that Nunes has used to paint whatever picture he's looking for. After all, we have already seen him deliberately try and mislead the American people on this topic already.

If they wanted to release ALL of the information related to this memo, or at least if we could trust them to make a good faith effort to paint things accurately I would totally agree. What we will almost certainly get instead is misleading red meat for conservatives.

You know this is all about answering the first horrible accusation that this administration claimed is that Obama ordered the CIA and the FBI to tap the Trump campaign. Remember Nunes and the mysterious memos that he could only look at in a special room at the White House, blah, blah. This is just a continuation of the same claim on steroids because Mueller is getting way to close to the mark. Nunes the great distractor.

 

[interchange]

The whole thing is conspiracy mongering. It's a memo written by Republicans summarizing other intelligence sources from a slanted perspective and written in a sequence which paints things to be connected in certain ways. And if the memo is released the underlying intelligence which is summarized cannot be due to its security significance even the information is not so important but relate would disclose sources and methods.

Since it hasn't been released, I'm guessing they are using it strategically and are either waiting until greater shade is needed or that it wasn't much of anything in the first place.

Sadly, this Trump presidency has highlighted how easy it is to take facts out of context and present conspiracies which are highly compelling even after being disproven. Unfortunately, he has taken such to the mainstream.

 

[Amused]

Apparently this whole memo is about the FBI extending surveillance coverage on Carter Page. Carter Page. Yes, that Carter Page. The most idiotic of useful idiots. This is the person that the gopstapo is mounting their battle over. All of this in an attempt to try and fling mud at Rosenstein since he's what is standing in the way of dumping Mueller.

2018 election can't happen soon enough. Hopefully the correct lever is pulled and all of these turds are flushed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/us/politics/rod-rosenstein-carter-page-secret-memo.html

Behind a paywall. Can you copy-pasta?

 

[Moonbeam]

The memo will attack the credibility of Rod Rosenstein with the intent of justifying his firing so that somebody can be appointed to limit the Mueller investigation and keep it out of an investigation of Trump's financial dealings. Even his base won't like what goes on there.

Furthermore the Republican are playing chicken, threatening to release classified material that could damage the country if Mueller doesn't back off. Once again they will try to force the hand of sane people by threatening to do the insane.

I read, or so I thought, the whole thread looking for the above and missed not only vi edits post but those who quoted it. Eye surgery is scheduled for late February.

 

[vi edit]

Behind a paywall. Can you copy-pasta?

WASHINGTON — A secret, highly contentious Republican memo reveals that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein approved an application to extend surveillance of a former Trump campaign associate shortly after taking office last spring, according to three people familiar with it.

The renewal shows that the Justice Department under President Trump saw reason to believe that the associate, Carter Page, was acting as a Russian agent. But the reference to Mr. Rosenstein’s actions in the memo — a much-disputed document that paints the investigation into Russian election meddling as tainted from the start — indicates that Republicans may be moving to seize on his role as they seek to undermine the inquiry.

The memo’s primary contention is that F.B.I. and Justice Department officials failed to adequately explain to an intelligence court judge in initially seeking a warrant for surveillance of Mr. Page that they were relying in part on research by an investigator, Christopher Steele, that had been financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Democrats who have read the document say Republicans have cherry-picked facts to create a misleading and dangerous narrative. But in their efforts to discredit the inquiry, Republicans could potentially use Mr. Rosenstein’s decision to approve the renewal to suggest that he failed to properly vet a highly sensitive application for a warrant to spy on Mr. Page, who served as a Trump foreign policy adviser until September 2016.

A handful of senior Justice Department officials can approve an application to the secret surveillance court, but in practice that responsibility often falls to the deputy attorney general. No information has publicly emerged that the Justice Department or the F.B.I. did anything improper while seeking the surveillance warrant involving Mr. Page.

Mr. Trump has long been mistrustful of Mr. Rosenstein, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, who appointed the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and now oversees his investigation into Mr. Trump’s campaign and possible obstruction of justice by the president. Mr. Trump considered firing Mr. Rosenstein last summer. Instead, he ordered Mr. Mueller to be fired, then backed down after the White House counsel refused to carry out the order, The New York Times reported last week.

Mr. Trump is now again telling associates that he is frustrated with Mr. Rosenstein, according to one official familiar with the conversations.

It is difficult to judge whether Republicans’ criticism of the surveillance has merit. Although House members have been allowed to view the Republican memo in a secure setting, both that memo and a Democratic one in rebuttal remain shrouded in secrecy. And the applications to obtain and renew the warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are even more closely held. Only a small handful of members of Congress and staff members have reviewed them.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, whose staff wrote the memo, could vote as early as Monday, using an obscure House rule, to effectively declassify its contents and make it available to the public. Mr. Trump would have five days to try to block their effort, potentially setting up a high-stakes standoff between the president and his Justice Department, which opposes its immediate release.

The White House has made clear to the Justice Department in recent days that it wants the Republican memo to be made public. Asked about the issue on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Marc Short, the White House’s head of legislative affairs, said that if the memo outlined serious concerns, “the American people should know that.”

But Stephen E. Boyd, an assistant attorney general, warned in a letter last week to the committee’s chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, that it would be “extraordinarily reckless” to release a memo drawing on classified information without official review and pleaded with the committee to consult the Justice Department. He said the department was “unaware of any wrongdoing related to the FISA process.”

To obtain the warrant involving Mr. Page, the government needed to show probable cause that he was acting as an agent of Russia. Once investigators get approval from the Justice Department for a warrant, prosecutors take it to a surveillance court judge, who decides whether to approve it.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment, and a spokesman for Mr. Nunes did not reply to requests for comment. The people familiar with the contents of the memo spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details remained secret.

A White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said in a statement: “The president has been clear publicly and privately that he wants absolute transparency throughout this process. Based on numerous news reports, top officials at the F.B.I. have engaged in conduct that shows bias against President Trump and bias for Hillary Clinton. While President Trump has the utmost respect and support for the rank-and-file members of the F.B.I., the anti-Trump bias at the top levels that appear to have existed is troubling.”

Mr. Page, a former Moscow-based investment banker who later founded an investment company in New York, had been on the F.B.I.’s radar for years. In 2013, an investigation revealed that a Russian spy had tried to recruit him. Mr. Page was never charged with any wrongdoing, and he denied that he would ever have cooperated with Russian intelligence officials.

But a trip Mr. Page took to Russia in July 2016 while working on Mr. Trump’s campaign caught the bureau’s attention again, and American law enforcement officials began conducting surveillance on him in the fall of 2016, shortly after he left the campaign. It is unclear what they learned about Mr. Page between then and when they sought the order’s renewal roughly six months later. It is also unknown whether the surveillance court granted the extension.

The renewal effort came in the late spring, sometime after the Senate confirmed Mr. Rosenstein as the Justice Department’s No. 2 official in late April. Around that time, following Mr. Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director in May, Mr. Rosenstein appointed Mr. Mueller, a former head of the bureau, to take over the department’s Russia investigation. Mr. Rosenstein is overseeing the inquiry because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself.

Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, who is close to Mr. Trump and House Republicans, signaled interest in Mr. Rosenstein this month as news of the memo’s existence first circulated, asking on air if Mr. Rosenstein had played a role in extending the surveillance. “I’m very interested about Rod Rosenstein in all of this,” he said.

In a speech on Friday in Norfolk, Va., Mr. Sessions appeared to wade into the debate. Without mentioning the Republican memo, he said that federal investigations must be free of bias, and that he would not condone “a culture of defensiveness.” While unfair criticism should be rebutted, he added, “it can never be that this department conceals errors when they occur.”

 

[jackstar7]

Wait, so this is going to blow up in their faces?

*gasp!*

Page is the certainly a person to have been tracking. Rosenstein will hopefully get support from the right places.

 

[Amused]

WASHINGTON — A secret, highly contentious Republican memo reveals that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein approved an application to extend surveillance of a former Trump campaign associate shortly after taking office last spring, according to three people familiar with it.

The renewal shows that the Justice Department under President Trump saw reason to believe that the associate, Carter Page, was acting as a Russian agent. But the reference to Mr. Rosenstein’s actions in the memo — a much-disputed document that paints the investigation into Russian election meddling as tainted from the start — indicates that Republicans may be moving to seize on his role as they seek to undermine the inquiry.

The memo’s primary contention is that F.B.I. and Justice Department officials failed to adequately explain to an intelligence court judge in initially seeking a warrant for surveillance of Mr. Page that they were relying in part on research by an investigator, Christopher Steele, that had been financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Democrats who have read the document say Republicans have cherry-picked facts to create a misleading and dangerous narrative. But in their efforts to discredit the inquiry, Republicans could potentially use Mr. Rosenstein’s decision to approve the renewal to suggest that he failed to properly vet a highly sensitive application for a warrant to spy on Mr. Page, who served as a Trump foreign policy adviser until September 2016.

A handful of senior Justice Department officials can approve an application to the secret surveillance court, but in practice that responsibility often falls to the deputy attorney general. No information has publicly emerged that the Justice Department or the F.B.I. did anything improper while seeking the surveillance warrant involving Mr. Page.

Mr. Trump has long been mistrustful of Mr. Rosenstein, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, who appointed the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and now oversees his investigation into Mr. Trump’s campaign and possible obstruction of justice by the president. Mr. Trump considered firing Mr. Rosenstein last summer. Instead, he ordered Mr. Mueller to be fired, then backed down after the White House counsel refused to carry out the order, The New York Times reported last week.

Mr. Trump is now again telling associates that he is frustrated with Mr. Rosenstein, according to one official familiar with the conversations.

It is difficult to judge whether Republicans’ criticism of the surveillance has merit. Although House members have been allowed to view the Republican memo in a secure setting, both that memo and a Democratic one in rebuttal remain shrouded in secrecy. And the applications to obtain and renew the warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are even more closely held. Only a small handful of members of Congress and staff members have reviewed them.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, whose staff wrote the memo, could vote as early as Monday, using an obscure House rule, to effectively declassify its contents and make it available to the public. Mr. Trump would have five days to try to block their effort, potentially setting up a high-stakes standoff between the president and his Justice Department, which opposes its immediate release.

The White House has made clear to the Justice Department in recent days that it wants the Republican memo to be made public. Asked about the issue on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Marc Short, the White House’s head of legislative affairs, said that if the memo outlined serious concerns, “the American people should know that.”

But Stephen E. Boyd, an assistant attorney general, warned in a letter last week to the committee’s chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, that it would be “extraordinarily reckless” to release a memo drawing on classified information without official review and pleaded with the committee to consult the Justice Department. He said the department was “unaware of any wrongdoing related to the FISA process.”

To obtain the warrant involving Mr. Page, the government needed to show probable cause that he was acting as an agent of Russia. Once investigators get approval from the Justice Department for a warrant, prosecutors take it to a surveillance court judge, who decides whether to approve it.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment, and a spokesman for Mr. Nunes did not reply to requests for comment. The people familiar with the contents of the memo spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details remained secret.

A White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said in a statement: “The president has been clear publicly and privately that he wants absolute transparency throughout this process. Based on numerous news reports, top officials at the F.B.I. have engaged in conduct that shows bias against President Trump and bias for Hillary Clinton. While President Trump has the utmost respect and support for the rank-and-file members of the F.B.I., the anti-Trump bias at the top levels that appear to have existed is troubling.”

Mr. Page, a former Moscow-based investment banker who later founded an investment company in New York, had been on the F.B.I.’s radar for years. In 2013, an investigation revealed that a Russian spy had tried to recruit him. Mr. Page was never charged with any wrongdoing, and he denied that he would ever have cooperated with Russian intelligence officials.

But a trip Mr. Page took to Russia in July 2016 while working on Mr. Trump’s campaign caught the bureau’s attention again, and American law enforcement officials began conducting surveillance on him in the fall of 2016, shortly after he left the campaign. It is unclear what they learned about Mr. Page between then and when they sought the order’s renewal roughly six months later. It is also unknown whether the surveillance court granted the extension.

The renewal effort came in the late spring, sometime after the Senate confirmed Mr. Rosenstein as the Justice Department’s No. 2 official in late April. Around that time, following Mr. Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director in May, Mr. Rosenstein appointed Mr. Mueller, a former head of the bureau, to take over the department’s Russia investigation. Mr. Rosenstein is overseeing the inquiry because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself.

Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, who is close to Mr. Trump and House Republicans, signaled interest in Mr. Rosenstein this month as news of the memo’s existence first circulated, asking on air if Mr. Rosenstein had played a role in extending the surveillance. “I’m very interested about Rod Rosenstein in all of this,” he said.

In a speech on Friday in Norfolk, Va., Mr. Sessions appeared to wade into the debate. Without mentioning the Republican memo, he said that federal investigations must be free of bias, and that he would not condone “a culture of defensiveness.” While unfair criticism should be rebutted, he added, “it can never be that this department conceals errors when they occur.”

Thank you! And, just as expected, it's yet another attempt to deflect that will inevitably blow up in their faces. But everyone knew that, didn't they?

What the GOP base has not realized yet, is that innuendo and baseless conspiracies, along with cries of "fake news" and bias may work on their base, but they will not work in a court of law.

I think the GOP/Trump leadership gameplan right now is to maintain control after the midterms so they never have to face a real inquiry.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

Well clearly Nunes is again playing White House bitch boy laying the groundwork against Rosenstein. Now with McCabe departing today as well as a couple other FBI executive level personnel seen as Comey people it’s clear they are going to let Trump do all the damage he can to these agencies and their career staff.

 

[interchange]

I think they are trying to throw Rosenstein under the bus as a way of either removing Mueller or justifying Trump's push to do so in order to mitigate obstruction charges. Keep in mind Rosenstein is the one who appointed Mueller. I don't see this move going very far. At this point, I think a lot of people are trying to simply pander to the conspiracy-hungry base that Trump provides. That will keep the heads of Republican politicians not aligned with Trump firmly buried in the sand for risk of alienating their constituents. Those who have defected can easily be written off. If there were a few who were trying to still maintain favor with Republicans to continue their political career but doing so with integrity and appropriate opposition to Trump, that would be a much harder group to contend with. Too many are trying to ride out the storm.

 

[UNCjigga]

I wonder what impact McCabe's earlier departure will have on Rosenstein...will GOP amp up the pressure or leave things alone, lest the public see this whole affair as meddling in the investigation?

 

[MomentsofSanity]

I’m just imagining the rights response if this were Obama or, god forbid, Clinton doing this. Holy shit they’d be rioting in the streets.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I wonder what impact McCabe's earlier departure will have on Rosenstein...will GOP amp up the pressure or leave things alone, lest the public see this whole affair as meddling in the investigation?

Its highly anticipated that Rosenstein is next on Trump's list.

 

[fskimospy]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly, the President of the United States is actively working to purge federal law enforcement leadership of those who are not personally loyal to him in regards to an investigation into criminal activity undertaken by at a minimum members of his campaign and administration and potentially the president himself.

It should not have to be explained why this is effectively already a constitutional crisis. The fact that impeachment proceedings have not already started is a sad statement as to how far short Congress has fallen in its duties to oversee and discipline the executive branch.

 

[vi edit]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly, the President of the United States is actively working to purge federal law enforcement leadership of those who are not personally loyal to him in regards to an investigation into criminal activity undertaken by at a minimum members of his campaign and administration and potentially the president himself.

It should not have to be explained why this is effectively already a constitutional crisis. The fact that impeachment proceedings have not already started is a sad statement as to how far short Congress has fallen in its duties to oversee and discipline the executive branch.

A week or two ago Maddow did a segment on exactly this. The upper levels of FBI leadership that could corroborate Comey's story have either been fired, reassigned, or quit. It was something like 6/8 associate directors under him have been purged. Scary shit indeed.

 

[brandonbull]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly, the President of the United States is actively working to purge federal law enforcement leadership of those who are not personally loyal to him in regards to an investigation into criminal activity undertaken by at a minimum members of his campaign and administration and potentially the president himself.

It should not have to be explained why this is effectively already a constitutional crisis. The fact that impeachment proceedings have not already started is a sad statement as to how far short Congress has fallen in its duties to oversee and discipline the executive branch.

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly-er, the President of the United States is actively working to purge TOP federal law enforcement leadership of those who appear to have obstructed justice and attempted to influence the 2016 election.

 

[fskimospy]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly-er, the President of the United States is actively working to purge TOP federal law enforcement leadership of those who appear to have obstructed justice and attempted to influence the 2016 election.

If you actually believe this you are mentally ill.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly-er, the President of the United States is actively working to purge TOP federal law enforcement leadership of those who appear to have obstructed justice and attempted to influence the 2016 election.

Trump certainly looks dirty and is seemingly conducting obstruction to save his own hide.

 

[HomerJS]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly-er, the President of the United States is actively working to purge TOP federal law enforcement leadership of those who appear to have obstructed justice and attempted to influence the 2016 election.

Just in case anyone needs this stated even more plainly-er, if you think Donald Trump cares one iota if the FBI treated Hillary unfairly, crack is on sale this week.

 

[fskimospy]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly-er, the President of the United States is actively working to purge TOP federal law enforcement leadership of those who appear to have obstructed justice and attempted to influence the 2016 election.

If you actually believe this you are mentally ill.

 

[Jhhnn]

If you actually believe this you are mentally ill.

It's the talking point he's been given.

 

[kage69]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly, the President of the United States is actively working to purge federal law enforcement leadership of those who are not personally loyal to him in regards to an investigation into criminal activity undertaken by at a minimum members of his campaign and administration and potentially the president himself.

It should not have to be explained why this is effectively already a constitutional crisis. The fact that impeachment proceedings have not already started is a sad statement as to how far short Congress has fallen in its duties to oversee and discipline the executive branch.

Nail, meet hammer.

Well said eski.

 

[Jhhnn]

Just in case anyone needs this stated more plainly-er, the President of the United States is actively working to purge TOP federal law enforcement leadership of those who appear to have obstructed justice and attempted to influence the 2016 election.

Yes, investigating Russian interference in the election is obviously obstruction of justice because members of the Trump team have already been implicated. Can't have that because association with the Donald, the precious, means that they're above the law. At least in the post-truth realm you inhabit.

 

[fskimospy]

Just in case anyone needs this stated even more plainly-er, if you think Donald Trump cares one iota if the FBI treated Hillary unfairly, crack is on sale this week.

I'm pretty sure he's actually trying to argue that the FBI was trying to influence the election AGAINST Trump in 2016. That's how insane he's gone.

 

[brycejones]

If you actually believe this you are mentally ill.

I think its bath salts.