Basically it says that the FBI and DOJ went to the FISA court, and said they had an independent document produced by a long-time FBI source with no interest in the matter, saying Carter Page was possibly acting against the US on behalf of Russia in an espionage case. They also pointed to a Yahoo News article as corroborating the charges independently.
Despite the FISA rules requiring that judges be given access to any exculpatory or relevant information (to protect innocent citizens from unilateral abuses of governmental surveillance powers), that was all the information that was provided to the court, implying there were no other factors that might call the material into question.
In reality, the FBI agents, DOJ officials, and the document’s author were biased against Trump’s election ideologically, and in some cases financially. The dossier was bought with money from Hillary’s campaign, paid to a private company to smear Trump. The author was actually documented in an FBI report as saying he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected, and was passionate that he not be President.” The FBI Deputy Director’s wife was given a few hundred thousand dollars from a Clinton associate for a campaign run. A DOJ official’s wife was employed by the Clinton campaign through a proxy company, to smear Trump. Presumably the DOJ official was aware of this, as well as the fact that those payments might continue in other capacities were Hillary elected, and would end with her candidacy should she lose. The FBI and DOJ also used a Yahoo News article as independent verification, despite the fact it was written based on an interview by the reporter with the same author of the original dossier, who was both known to hate Trump and who was paid by Hillary to do all of this.
In addition it reveals Strzok’s texts with Page reveal extensive orchestration of leaks to the media, presumably to help Hillary and politicize the investigation, as well as a meeting with McCabe to discuss an “insurance policy” to deal with Trump, in the event Trump did manage to get elected.
What was pointed out is this is not the full body of information the House Intelligence Committee has from its investigation. According to reports, it will also reveal that Strzok and Page discussed getting IPhones so they could text privately about this case, without the texts being available to anyone for review. So these are the innocent texts they didn’t bother to conceal. There will be a whole raft of not so innocent texts which have yet to be revealed.
Supposedly it has been said that there is an IG report coming which shows that McCabe ordered agents to modify signed 302 forms, meaning the agents swore in the form an interviewee said one thing, McCabe then made them go back and change to form to say they said something else, and they left it signed. We also know there is at least one informant, presumably an FBI agent or DOJ official, who has cooperated with the committee, and who was present at “off site” meetings by a secret society containing Bureau agents which was dedicated to undercutting or overthrowing Trump. We know the intelligence products produced by this investigation were unmasked within the political side of the Obama administration, and some have said it travelled to the Clinton campaign. There are rumors the FBI somehow liaised with British intelligence to perform some sort of surveillance on the Trump Campaign, though that would presumably have happened outside of the FISA warrant’s purview. And we know Rand Paul was unmasked at least once in his confidential communications, implying Congressmen and Senators may have been spied upon.
I would also assume the committee will have access to the methods of surveillance employed by the agents executing the warrant, and the information gathered. I suspect that may not be released, as one thing which I am sure keeps domestic intelligence up at night is the idea of the full body of their capabilities being publicly revealed to the populace.
Where I suspect this is going is to some sort of aggressive oversight agency or oversight procedures on domestic surveillance. There are two ways that may go. One is the agencies involved quietly acquiesce, and a quiet rollback of domestic surveillance powers will ensue behind the scenes as some sort of oversight agency comes online. I suspect that will be unlikely. The other possibility is the agencies refuse to cede their powers, and they try to fight any hint of oversight. If they do that, Trump will either have to acquiesce, or he will have to burn everything to the ground.
I have no idea which way that would go. It is possible every investigation of what happened will be effectively shut down entirely. I have heard in passing from someone familiar with that scene that even the CIA is afraid of the FBI, presumably because of the all the blackmail material they have amassed, and their ability to lay waste to any opposition by exposing the opposition’s illegal domestic activities. When everyone is dirty, nobody will come clean.
Regardless there will be much more to come out of the committee, presumably. In the future the buildup should be minimized, and the release should be sudden.
The problem in this area today is that I think intelligence agencies seem to view Americans as weak, and unable to tolerate the state of threat that is necessary to freedom. Personally, I would prefer to live in an environment where there were risks but I was left alone, over an environment where external risks were minimized but one bureaucrat can decide unilaterally to manipulate the machinery and bury me using the full force of government.
The Founders gave us a system of checks and balances for a reason. What seems to have happened is a Fourth branch of government showed up on the scene in the interim while remaining in the shadows. It has taken unified control over the three other branches, ostensibly for the protection of the citizens, even though it realizes it can never let the citizenry know it has done so because they would never acquiesce to this level of omnipotence.
Unfortunately the system of checks and balances was created because no institution of government has ever proven able to constrain the least moral within it forever. Without any institution to constrain it, this fourth branch will inevitably become an unseen monarchy, if it has not already.
All hail the New King.
Tell everyone about r/K Theory, because if we wanted a Monarchy, we’d have kept our Monarchy
Yes, something tells me the Donald is the kind of guy who says something nicely, only once. After that…
You’re Fired.
This is why the FBI is fucked.
They can do that to the GOP. They can’t do that to Trump.
Trump has laughed at that sword of Damocles his entire life. It was the secret to his success as a developer in Atlantic city. The way business is done in Atlantic city is that you find the dirt on your opposition, you trade that dirt for the dirt they have on you, and everyone splits up the business.
They couldn’t find dirt on trump. He filed his permits, he followed the codes, he paid his contractors, he got his financing above board, everything they would normally hold over someone was MISSING with trump. Shit, they are pointing at Stormy Daniels right now. “Oh, billionaire trump slept with porn stars.” Yeah, that’s what billionaires do. Ask Lawrence from office space. What would he do with a million dollars? “Two chicks at the same time.”
If their plan with trump is MAD, they are fucked. He doesn’t care if the GOP goes down. He has been a dem more of his life than a republican. Ryan et al are a means to the end. Trump would gladly govern over a pile of ashes, because ashes are better than the slime we have now.
I find it very difficult to believe long term Trump is going to let this boil on the nation’s rump just sit there. He’s not that kind of guy.
He’ll bide his time if necessary but will slowly choke the feeding tube someway, somehow.
It’s very difficult to believe there is some collection of insurmountable enemies given the level of adolescent banter between Page and Stroczk. I think like rabbits they depend on shadows and secrecy, once that’s exposed they quickly become harmless.
What I would really like to believe is that Trump has recorded videos ready for broadcast if anything happens to him. Those videos will include enemies, names, addresses, departments, etc. with instructions to “finish the job.”
amazingly. well not really. 8ch figured this out months ago.
What you have is that Government bureaucrats engaging in a coup-de-etat and the complicity of the Mainstream Media. Instead of the Media protecting us, like we were taught in the 5th grade, our media is complicit in this game of subverting an election. They were all in on it. Rod Rosenstein has to go. Mueller has to go. Really, this situation, does mark the end of America.
The last two paragraphs are germane to your discussions on just how deep surveillance can go.
“In total, this sketchy assembly of political campaign research was used by the FBI as evidence to back-up their claim U.S. person Carter Page was working as a foreign agent; essentially saying: he was a spy. This application assembly was then certified on four different occasions by specific officials within the DOJ and FBI.
Without knowing the court had been provided political research, the FISA Court granted the FBI full surveillance authority for U.S. Person Carter Page. The distinction is rather stark.
The FBI were not targeting Page incidentally as an outcome of foreign intelligence collection; the FBI was targeting Carter Page directly. AND as such they carried full surveillance authority upon all of this activities, interactions, communications and contacts therein.
Because of this direct approach, any group, organization or entity who came in contact with U.S. Person Carter Page was then open for ancillary review and FBI investigation. Those who engaged in contact with Carter Page became subject to surveillance and searches in the same manner as if Page was an actual foreign agent.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/02/inside-the-hpsci-memo-a-key-distinction-being-conflated-title-i-vs-title-vii/
The “FISA Memo” is the dimming of the lights before the show starts. I have to give the GOP credit for their approach here: lead off with the memos from the GOP-chaired congressional committees, give the Dems time to double-down and deny everything, prepare the normies for what’s to come, and then BOOM, the report from Inspector General Horowitz and possibly the God-Emperor declassifying the underlying intel.
On FOX News last night, Greg Jarret reported that his “congressional source” said Rosenstein threatened to subpoena the text messages and emails of Rep Nunes and other members of the House Intel Committee because he was tired of dealing with them!
Between these threats and assassination attempts, the Deep State is doing a great job of in-grouping the cuckservatives with the God-Emperor solely for their own survival.
If that’s true, that’s pretext enough to fire Rosenstein.
The reason the Allies held the Nuremberg war trials at the end of World War Two was not because they needed to prove that the Nazis were guilty so they could punish them. They did it so there would be a record given by Hitler’s inner circle so no one could ever confuse or deny what happened. It is the same reason the Allies marched Germans through the Death Camps.
Perhaps the most frightening thing for me is the denial by Leftists and the Media (I repeat myself) that nothing was going on with the FBI and DOJ. When I look at CNN or MSNBC, what I see are people so unable to admit the truth that they will go to any length to avoid it. This of course is very bad because it is a very real threat to our democracy.
It is absolutely critical that one, or hopefully more, of the conspirators pleads guilty and give a full unadulterated public confession as part of their punishment. Only by McCabe, Stryok, or one of the higher level mucky mucks ratting out the rest will the spell be broken. Hillary, Comey, Lynch, and Obama will never fess up. At least Hitler, Himmler, and Goering had the decency to eat cyanide. I think Git mo is going to have to be renamed Spandau.
I think that in terms of possibilities regarding oversight etc, there is a 3rd possibility that we have seen before that may be a likely outcome here – and that is for the organization to push for an “internal task force” charged with “reviewing” policies and providing oversight (a type of “internal affairs”). Not only do I see this as a likely outcome, it is also (by far) the least satisfying…