Release the Krak... err FISA Memo!

[fskimospy]

I get that and the GOP are being little shits about it. Release it all. Everything. Today.

The GOP refuses to do that and is actively suppressing releasing information about this.

It all comes down to the fact that this is a controversy over almost certainly nothing. The GOP decided to make a crisis by cherry picking intelligence and using it to smear federal law enforcement. The right answer is to release nothing and bring Nunes and White House officials up on ethics charges.

Failing that, the less wrong answer is to release both Nunes’s memo and the critical evaluation of it. Unsurprisingly the GOP has taken the only 100% wrong route.

 

[UglyCasanova]

The FBI knew the info was politically based and flimsy and didn’t disclose that.

 

[UglyCasanova]

The GOP refuses to do that and is actively suppressing releasing information about this.

It all comes down to the fact that this is a controversy over almost certainly nothing. The GOP decided to make a crisis by cherry picking intelligence and using it to smear federal law enforcement. The right answer is to release nothing and bring Nunes and White House officials up on ethics charges.

Failing that, the less wrong answer is to release both Nunes’s memo and the critical evaluation of it. Unsurprisingly the GOP has taken the only 100% wrong route.

Yep the GOP refuses to do that which is wrong.

Doesn’t mean this is nothing.

 

[K1052]

The idea that the Clinton campaign commissioned the Steele dossier to discredit trump then didn't use it in the campaign because really the goal was to get the (very liberal) FBI to pry deeper in to Trumpworld is some top shelf delusion. The memo is reportedly all about Paige who was already of interest to the US government years prior to Trump ever becoming a candidate. If Page was further implicated by subsequent information (dossier) that would justify continued surveillance authorized by via FISA

 

[fskimospy]

Yep the GOP refuses to do that which is wrong.

Doesn’t mean this is nothing.

I mean you have to admit the most likely answer is that this is nothing. Regardless, doing it this way is worse than doing nothing. Way, WAY worse. When you only release part of the relevant information you don’t make it any easier to understand what actually happened but make it was easier to get what happened wrong.

I hope we can all agree that Nunes needs to be brought up on more charges because of this.

 

[UglyCasanova]

No I don’t have to admit that. By all accounts it’s definitely something.

 

[fskimospy]

The FBI knew the info was politically based and flimsy and didn’t disclose that.

Your own sources disagree. They use the weasel words that they did not ‘fully’ disclose it, which could mean anything. Again, this is what judges are for. They don’t assume sources aren’t biased because they weren’t born yesterday.

It’s interesting to watch the GOP go into full retreat over this though. They lied a lot about the FBI before and now that it seems the information they were trying to suppress will come out if they release this memo they are trying to caveat the hell out of their claims.

 

[K1052]

The FBI knew the info was politically based and flimsy and didn’t disclose that.

It's raw intelligence, which is very often inherently biased because it's generated by humans. It's the job of the FBI to analyze the information and see if they can corroborate it or not using the tools at their disposal.

 

[Paratus]

Yep the GOP refuses to do that which is wrong.

Doesn’t mean this is nothing.

No it doesn’t have to mean it’s nothing but it is almost certainly nothing.

And you are:

 

[fskimospy]

No I don’t have to admit that. By all accounts it’s definitely something.

Only if by ‘all accounts’ you are excluding literally everyone with actual or professional knowledge about the situation who isn’t a Republican partisan, hahaha. I mean you have intel professionals from both parties going back decades all roundly condemning this.

Like I said, let’s all agree on bringing Nunes up on ethics charges at least. Nobody wants this sort of unethical action from Congress.

 

[UglyCasanova]

They need to hurry up and release the thing, my body is ready.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Only if by ‘all accounts’ you are excluding literally everyone with actual or professional knowledge about the situation who isn’t a Republican partisan, hahaha. I mean you have intel professionals from both parties going back decades all roundly condemning this.

Like I said, let’s all agree on bringing Nunes up on ethics charges at least. Nobody wants this sort of unethical action from Congress.

Condemning it because it’s something, not nothing.

 

[fskimospy]

Condemning it because it’s something, not nothing.

False. They are condemning Republican actions and saying this appears to have been a totally normal and justified action by the FBI. Again, this is across parties going back a long time.

Would you support Mueller adding this to his investigation to see if it’s part of continuing attempts to obstruct justice?

 

[HomerJS]

The memo supposedly implicated some of these straight arrow FBI types so maybe, just maybe, they might not be telling the whole truth?

Read through The Hill article I posted above, I don’t think you’ve thought this through.


The GOP's arguments that the FBI investigated on flimsy evidence will zero in on ex-British intelligence operative Christopher Steele, whose unverified dossier of Trump allegations gave enormous momentum to the probe during the bitterly fought 2016 presidential election, say sources familiar with the memo.

They will argue the FBI failed to critically assess the political motives and credibility of Steele and did not fully disclose that evidence came from Clinton supporters as it sought to get permission from courts for surveillance warrants.

“The fact that half to three-quarters of the evidence the FBI used to unleash the most awesome of surveillance powers upon Donald Trump’s inner circle came from sources tied directly to his Democratic opponent should worry us all, especially when that happened during an election,” said one senior Republican directly familiar with the evidence, describing the party’s core concerns.

“The FBI allowed itself to be used by Clinton partisans to parlay single-sourced, mostly unverified evidence into a counterintelligence probe with clear weaknesses that weren’t disclosed,” the source added.

A few responses.

The underlying data for the dossier was paid for by Republicans. When Trump won the nomination Dems took over financing.

A FISA warrant would not be granted solely based on the dossier. LE would have had other evidence to not only corroborate the dossier but other data to rise to the level of probable cause. It is then presented to FISA judge and then he/she decides.

Christopher Steele does not have a history of fabricating evidence to support a pre-determined conclusion.

Evidence gathering can be biased meaning trying to prove guilt of a suspect. After all LE down to local police are trying to prove their case. In fact FISA law states evidence just has to be credible. Bias is allowed. Guess who just reauthorized that FISA law? Republicans.

One final thing. There are claims Obama's justice department used FISA to spy on Trump's team. Carter Paige was being surveiled long before Trump brought him on the team. In fact if Trump had done his due diligence Carter would never have been chosen. He was hastily brought on the team because there was pressure to show he had a foreign policy team ready to go.

 

[UglyCasanova]

A few responses.

The underlying data for the dossier was paid for by Republicans. When Trump won the nomination Dems took over financing.

A FISA warrant would not be granted solely based on the dossier. LE would have had other evidence to not only corroborate the dossier but other data to rise to the level of probable cause. It is then presented to FISA judge and then he/she decides.

Evidence gathering can be biased. After all LE down to local police are trying to prove their case. In fact FISA law stated evidence just has to be credible. Bias is allowed. Guess who just reauthorized that FISA law? Republicans.

One final thing. There are claims Obama's justice department used FISA to spy on Trump's team. Carter Paige was being surveiled long before Trump brought him on the team. In fact if Trump had done his due diligence Carter would never have been chosen. He was hastily brought on the team because there was pressure to show he had a foreign policy team ready to go.

That’s the whole thing though, FISA warrants are handed out like candy. They didn’t need anything other than the dossier.

 

[HomerJS]

The FBI knew the info was politically based and flimsy and didn’t disclose that.

FBI would also need corroborating evidence in order for the judge to grant the warrant. Dossier alone is not enough. They obviously had it.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

That’s the whole thing though, FISA warrants are handed out like candy. They didn’t need anything other than the dossier.

I'm sorry can you cite any evidence that they are handed out like candy please? They are rarely rejected, but that is due to the underlying process that must be followed before they ever get in front of a judge.

 

[HomerJS]

That’s the whole thing though, FISA warrants are handed out like candy. They didn’t need anything other than the dossier.

You have zero evidence of that.

 

[HomerJS]

That’s the whole thing though, FISA warrants are handed out like candy. They didn’t need anything other than the dossier.

For someone who said they would wait for the report(s) to come out before drawing conclusions you seem to have already created a conclusion portrait.

 

[UglyCasanova]

 

[UglyCasanova]

For someone who said they would wait for the report(s) to come out before drawing conclusions you seem to have already created a conclusion portrait.

Where’d I say that

 

[K1052]

That’s the whole thing though, FISA warrants are handed out like candy. They didn’t need anything other than the dossier.

Even if remotely true maybe the current congress and president shouldn't have just reauthorized FISA as is if they were truly concerned about abuse.

This is entirely a political game.

 

[fskimospy]

That’s the whole thing though, FISA warrants are handed out like candy. They didn’t need anything other than the dossier.

Your own sources say they had more than just the dossier though so even if that’s the case that doesn’t apply here. Also, Republicans literally wrote the law covering this and have reauthorized it several times. The idea that they are against the process is laughable.

They are against investigating Republicans, which is deeply corrupt. Again, can’t we at least agree on more ethics charges for Nunes?

 

[fskimospy]

Lol. Trump is now complaining that his own Republican appointees are biased against Republicans and citing Judicial Watch.

He’s panicking and I love it.

 

[UNCjigga]

You have zero evidence of that.

He's willfully ignoring the fact that this was the THIRD or FOURTH time a FISA warrant was executed on Mr. Page. The only reason this renewal mattered to the GOP is because it references the Steele Dossier.

I think there is something else entirely going on with this memo. Sure, it's another opportunity to throw shade at Clinton and her campaign's!involvement with the Steele Dossier, and please the base with cries of "politically motivated!" But if what I'm hearing is true, and Rod Rosenstein is somehow shown to have withheld information from the FISA judge, then it provides Trump with cover to fire Rosenstein and get the heads rolling.