The report by special investigator John Durham was recently released. He was charged with looking into the events surrounding the launch of the investigations into alleged Trump-Russia collusion (for which the Mueller investigation indicated there was no evidence of collusion).
It's pretty grim stuff. There's nothing particularly new in there, but it puts an official, well-investigated, evidence-backed, stamp on these things.
There is compelling evidence that Clinton and the DNC commissioned a phony report (the Steele Dossier) in order to dishonestly smear Donald Trump with an accusation of Russia collusion in order to distract from the Hillary email situation. There is written evidence that this occurred and that Brennan, the national security leader, briefed Obama and his administration that this was going on.
The dossier, whose political sources were known by the security establishment, and whose information was ridiculous on its face and not at all confirmed, was used to launch investigations against Trump and his associates which included spying on him. It was also the predicate for the 3 year Mueller investigation which exonerated Trump. The warrants used for the spying were illicitly granted based on the illicit dossier and further lies. The FBI and the CIA were complicit in it all.
While launched as a campaign distraction, when Hillary unexpectedly lost the election, Trump's political opponents continued with the farce in an attempt to have him removed from office or hobbled. I would call that true seditious conspiracy.
The mainstream media ran with this narrative for years, damaging Trumps reputation and decreasing his chances of re-election.
A good video analyzing and summarizing this is from a confirmed Democrat and friend of Hillary who is also one of the best legal minds, Alan Dershowitz:
Or, if your prefer, Russel Brand:
I know many of you dislike Trump and do not want him as President, but can we all agree that this behaviour from certain Democrats, the security establishment, and the uncritical media should be completely denounced?
Can you say, “Banana Republic”? We’ve got law enforcement and intelligence agencies openly colluding to rig elections while media leads cheers for the efforts to establish permanent one-party rule. Our side chants “lock her up,” while the other side actually prosecutes and imprisons political opponents. It’s a dark path, and nobody is going to like how this ends. - david
ReplyDeleteToo true.
DeleteDemocrat voter here. Think Trump is disgusting and likely guilty of many things. But I agree with you on this one. This is the real danger to democracy.
ReplyDeleteI disagree on "likely guilty". That seems to be just your programming talking. He is by now the most investigated person on the planet and they've come up with nothing but nuisance charges that don't hold up. And I think he's great and not disgusting and had a very productive presidency.
DeleteBut we do agree on the abuse of power, at least!
Wrong! NY civil suit for sexual misdeeds, jury found Trump guilty. NY criminal case generally agreed to be a stretch as a felony but absolutely, a serious misdeamor. Georgia criminal case, very strong and likely to go forward soon. Federal criminal case for Jan 6. Strong evidence and while the Justice Department is taking its time to avoid any political taint, it is likely he will be charged. Other investigations are also in progress.
DeleteMost of us had the opportunity to see the evidence as presented to the January 6 committee. Trump supporters try to deny its value and accuse it of being pure politics. Well, yes, it was definitely partisan, but the testimony of Trump aids, all the way to the Attorney General, can't be dismissed by sane citizens.
As far as his presidency goes, it was nothing special. It was destroyed by his efforts to subvert the constitution. I realize this is an emotional issue for you and you work hard to avoid looking at evidence. Trump was "most investigated" because he was constantly caught lying, he attempted to subvert an election, and he tried to start an insurrection at the Capital.
He will probably beat some of the criminal charges, particularly the New York City case, but he will almost certainly be convicted in Georgia. Whether or not he is charged with Federal crimes seems unclear to me. That is an area where it might be too politically incorrect to go ahead against him.
jeez Julie you are just a Trump shill
Deleteif you can't even admit that Trump is corrupt, then there is no point in talking with you
Of course Trump is guilty of so so much. He is obviously evil.
You can call it "programming": I think you are the programmed one
Not guilty, liable. Big distinction as the burden of proof differs. And it will very justifiably be appealed.
DeleteJan.6 case is bonkers. Hard to get around Trump's repeated exhortations to protest peacefully and absolutely zero evidence of him conspiring to organize a violent protest.
Trump honestly believes the election was rigged. Given that honest belief (and there is no evidence that he did not wholeheartedly believe it), all his actions are constitutional, legal, and patriotic.
The Georgia case is very weak. He clearly called for them to find the illegal votes, not manufacture votes.
I offer evidence of Hillary/DNC corruption that you completely ignore in your response, and pivot to "but what about Trump!" with zero evidence. Feels like cognitive dissonance.
You have incorrect information. The Georgia case is based on Trump calling (we heard the recording) the secretary of state of Georgia and imploring him to "find" votes. There's lots more evidence I don't need to rehash.
DeleteYou wrote one incredibly silly point.You claim that because Trump honestly believed that he won, he could legally make all of the illegal moves he tried to overturn the election. That's like saying that because I honestly believe the bank cheated me, I have a right to hold them up with a machine gun.
Julie, it's against the law here to to try to replace duly elected electors with a hand-chosen slate of your supporters. It's against the law to attempt to change election results by pressuring elected officials.
You can disagree about January 6, but then the view from Toronto isn't as good as it is here in the US. I saw Trump implore the crowd to storm the Capital. I watched while he waited over four hours before asking his rioters to withdraw peacefully.
Further, I don't understand why any discussion of another person's illegal activities is relevant. Is Trump absolved because Biden may have done' something wrong too?
There isn't zero evidence of Trump's guilt. I watched his own advisors and cabinet members testify to his illegal and reprehensible actions during and after the elections. I read Bob Woodward's two books about Trump. I heard his interviews with the people he quoted.
When you try to fling mud at Democrats, you aren't giving Trump a bath. By trying to show that he isn't the only corrupt politician doesn't relieve him of any guilt.
In my mind, Trumps greatest crime is his continuing efforts to subvert our democracy. Regardless of any baseless claims of a rigged election, the results were checked, double-checked, and triple-checked. Not one judge, including Trump appointees has found any meaningful irregularities with the 2020 election.
What you don't seem to understand is that our government depends on the orderly transfer of power. Trump isn't the first candidate who felt cheated. George W Bush won when the conservative Supreme Court ruled in his favor in the Florida "hanging chad" business. Unlike Trump, Bush's opponent, gracefully conceded even though he was cheated.
What matters most is the preservation of our delicate democracy. The world will do very well without Donald Trump. I'm not so sure about what will happen if our government becomes a dictatorship.
When listened to in context, the Georgia recording is clearly asking him to do his job and find the illegal votes Trump knew existed.
DeleteTrump made no illegal moves. He tried all legal and constitutional remedies. What illegal move is he credibly even charged with?
You fail to be able to put yourself in the mindset of someone who believes the election was rigged. You would act the same if you believed that against your side.
"When you try to fling mud at Democrats, you aren't giving Trump a bath." I like that!
DeleteTrump was not even part of this conversation except as the victim. YOU are the one who keeps deflecting to supposed Trump crimes when much greater wrongdoings involving Democrats colluding with state actors are revealed. Shame on you.
DeleteYes. It was nothing short of an actual coup (during Trump's term...trying to take out a duly elected president) and, in 2020, election interference on a scale not seen in third world countries. Hundreds of people should be tried and sent to prison.
ReplyDeleteDurham dragged his heels so much that he ran out the 5 year statute of limitation. That and the fact that these are all savvy people and few of the important ones are dumb enough to leave written evidence (though Clapper is apparently dumb enough!). No, they will maintain their plausible deniability so the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" cannot be met. But it certainly happened, and there ought to be a massive press and public call out.
DeleteThese days we do not vote for the Best Candidate, but the one that seems the least corrupt.
ReplyDeleteLook at Obama vs McCain, McCain came across as totally Phony.
Look at Obama vs Romney, Did not really connect with the people.
Trump Vs Hillary, Hillary was an Insider's, Insider's, Insider, didn't connect at all.
Trump vs Biden, Personally I would have voted for the other if a better candidate had run.
The thing is perspective, if a Candidate seems phoney or just cannot connect with the voters he is gone.
Biden and family certainly appears to be extremely corrupt.
DeleteOMG
DeleteLEAST corrupt
Trump is as high on the corrupt scale as one can go
I agree that something is going on with the Bidens. I never liked him or his family. Biden is a horrible choice for president. The problem is that Trump will torpedo democracy in America. This isn't just rhetoric. He actively tried to subvert an election. The evidence is clear that he lost the election, yet he still insists he won. He tried to replace duly elected Federal Electors. I won't go on. The problem is that for our (American) system to work, we need leaders who will gracefully concede loss and leave office. Trump might have been a great president (He wasn't!), but it wouldn't matter because he tried to subvert the orderly transfer of power. That and that alone is more than enough to disqualify him from holding office again.
DeleteTrump has not been shown to be corrupt, despite massive politically motivated investigations.
DeleteBiden appears to be very corrupt, based on the evidence of the foreign payments to family members for doing nothing and the laundering to Biden (eg $50K for Hunter renting his own bedroom in the Biden house!)
The election had many, many irregularities, including the suppression of the laptop, the Zuckerbucks, the changing of election rules with state legislative approval to benefit Dems, and very lax signature checking, to name just a few.
It's a democratic right to protest an election, just as the Dems did in 2016. In the end, Trump transferred power peacefully, while maintaining his belief that the election was rigged.
Julie, how exactly are you defining corruption? You don't think things like what he charged the Secret Service for hotel stays at Trump properties was corrupt? How about a thoroughly worthless trustfunder like Don Jr. getting $50k or more a pop for speaking engagements? Other than being his father's son, what exactly are his qualifications to speak about anything and get paid for it? But, that's just small stuff. How about Kushner's $2 billion "investment" take. You don't think that is Trump family corruption? Anytime Comer and Jim Jordan are asked how they can claim to care about public corruption without investigating Kushner, they have zero coherent response.
DeleteNot remotely comparable to Biden. Kushner has legit businesses around the world and was very, very successful long before Trump became president. Biden's 12 relatives do literally nothing.
DeleteBut you keep deflecting to Trump when I keep expecting you to condemn what the Clinton/DNC/FBI got up to which was the topic. You should reflect on why you seem utterly unable to condemn that.
Sigh. Same old Julie.
DeleteI didn't bring it back to Trump. You did. "Trump has not been shown to be corrupt, despite massive politically motivated investigations." Begging the question, what is your definition of corruption.
DeleteLion brought him up, not me, on a blog where I thought we could come together and condemn the collusion around the Russia investigation.
DeleteYes, and you might note my comment that agreed that the FBI has a long history of politically motivated investigations. The problem is your own comments display no such balance or willingness to concede the patently obvious, like Trump and his family are, in fact, corrupt by the standard you seem to apply to anyone associated with the Bidens and Clintons. Try it. Say, "Yeah, I like Trump, but I guess he was kind of corrupt." Objectivity could be your new experience for the day.
DeleteJulie, no matter what you want to claim, every single alleged election irregularity has been investigated and litigated. No meaningful problem has emerged. I just don't get it. You can't vote here. You are educated, so I would have thought that you would have no skin in the game and would look at the evidence. What hold does Trump have on you?
DeleteDan: you always speak in vague generalities. Please identify the single most corrupt thing you believe Trump is guilty of.
DeleteLion: Well, let's do an example. The suppression under Democrat request of the Hunter Biden laptop story signed off by 50 former intelligence officers, now shown to have been a coordinated lie, politically motivated. Please argue how that one was not rigging the election using dirty tricks.
The single most? That's tough. It also depends on whether you equate corruption and abuse of power. Confining it to corruption, based on dollar volume, probably collecting $250 million from donors for an "election defense fund" that members of his campaign testified never actually existed. Runner up probably would be the hundreds of nights spent at Trump properties, charging the government entourage and Secret Service exorbitant rates. If we're expanding to family, it's Kushner's $2B from the Saudis hands-down, which the panel that advised that sovereign fund said Kushner and his company were not remotely qualified to manage. In term of most galling, Don Jr. getting paid to speak. About anything. To anyone.
DeleteIf we're talking abuse of power and illegal acts while in office, my money is the Georgia criminal investigation producing the most serious charges and likely conviction. I also think he will be indicted, prosecuted and convicted in the classified document investigation, though the conduct at issue doesn't blow my skirt up even if illegal. I personally doubt that January 6th will result in an indictment against Trump himself (though I could be wrong about that), but I think several of his legal advisors and people in the inner circle are headed to jail.
Where did the supposed $250M go? Why are there no charges associated with that? I'll bet it went to pro Trump political stuff which is what the donors expected.
DeleteThe govt paid rack rate for the rooms. You thought they should get a discount? For comparison, can you say how much other Presidents paid for similar services?
Kushner is in the business of raising funds. It's literally what he does, and he's very successful at it, and making money for his investors.
Georgia thing is garbage. It hinges on you misunderstanding a request to find illegal votes, not manufacture votes for him. Any honest listening of the call in context makes it clear.
We agree classified document thing is garbage.
We agree Trump had nothing to do with inciting riots, only calling for "peaceful and patriotic" protests.
Julie
ReplyDeleteBless your little heart
You are so ignorant politically
It hurts my brain to read that balderdash
Seriously
It hurts right now
Please just shut up and dribble
WC
What part of the Mueller report or the Durham report do you believe is incorrect? It paints a very damning evidence-based picture of govt corruption. Your continued denial of these facts is irrational. Joins us in condemning it.
DeleteThat’s exactly what I mean
DeleteYou don’t know the truth cause you watch fox news
Muller found that the Russians interfered with the 16 election to help trump
Muller found trump obstructed
Justice on 8 counts
The only reason he didn’t recommend indictment is because there is a justice department ruling that you can’t indict a sitting president
trump’s going to jail for the rest of his life sooner or later
The Republican Party is going to get wiped out in 24
They’re not coming back
They’re the party of stupid
And
The public knows it
WC
You are mistaking the conclusions of the mueller report.
DeleteYour continued denial of the facts uncovered in the Durham report is blind partisanship.
Julie
DeleteThe Durham report is even worse for republicans than the Muller report
Durham got one plea agreement for misreporting
He brought 2 felony indictments and a jury acquitted both defendants
The facts are right there…..
WC
The evidence presented shows an extreme level of dirty dealing.
DeleteAnd Julie
DeleteThe Hunter Biden investigation is even worse for the republicans
They may charge him for tax evasion
He’s already paid the money back
And the other charge is a firearm violation
He failed to state on his gun application that he had a substance abuse problem
He committed both violations
We will see if the justice department recommends charges
Hardly earth shattering crimes
WC
The more significant stuff, that you are completely ignoring, are the revelations that Hunter has to give half of his salary to Joe, and the reservation of 10% for the Big Guy, with eye witness testimony from a Hunter associate that the Big Guy was Joe Biden. The same guy also testified that Joe met the foreign nationals who were funnelling the money to Hunter.
DeleteWhen you combine this with the fact that there is no legitimate business Hunter and other family is engaged in in return for these payments, and the extent to which they attempted to hide these payments, it paints a damning picture of influence peddling on behalf of foreign nationals on an utterly unprecedented level.
I know you Dems love to tell yourselves it's all about persecuting poor 'ol Hunter. It's not. It's the nexus to the influence peddling of Joe Biden that is the only important thing. Could not give a crap about tax evasion, firearms offences, illegal drug use, and prostitues.
Wood chipper!
ReplyDeleteYup
Delete"There's nothing particularly new in there . . ." That's an understatement. $6.5 million in taxpayer funds and 3 years to do little more than restate the conclusions of the FBI's own IG. As for how much credence to give any of Durham's conclusions, let's remember that his jury trial record is 0 for 2.
ReplyDeleteOh hi Dan, welcome back.
DeleteThe new elements were subpoenaed records that prove what we all knew about the made up dossier and that the important players who pushed the narrative knew it was all phony.
Surprised you are not condemning these actions, even though you dislike Trump.
Well, I'm surprised you don't condemn Trump's perfect call with Ukraine, even though you like him, or that he couldn't answer the basic question of whether he'd like Ukraine to win. The guy was and remains Putin' fluffer-in-chief.
DeleteThat said, the FBI has been a cultural mess and inherently political since Hoover. If, god forbid, I were in one of those presidential debates and the moderator asked me, "Can you identify something you think that former President Trump did right?" near the top of my list would probably be that he fired James Comey. Now, the irony is that Trump probably would not have been President without Comey. Nevertheless, my side needs to be more open to admitting that Comey was a disaster and needed to go and that the FBI has always been a politically sensitive organization.
Though, again, there is an irony there. Do you recall that Trump maintained that the FBI is *not* independent and that the President can direct it (interfere with it) just like any other agency? I don't really disagree with him on that either, because ultimately *every* federal agency needs to be accountable to someone who was actually voted into office. In an ideal world, there would be a bipartisan consensus that the FBI should be independent from *political* interference, but not from executive oversight. The irony is that the same people who are bemoaning the political bias that Durham investigated were just fine with political interference with the Justice Department's operations as long was it was coming from Trump directly or indirectly through Barr.
So, plenty of hypocrisy to go around. As usual.
Still, lost in all the noise is that the R's claimed this report was going to contain some huge bombshell and that it would support Trump's position that the Russia investigation should never have been initiated. But, Durham ultimately concedes that there was reason to implement it. He just kills multiple trees arguing that it should have been a preliminary investigation instead of a full investigation.
It turns out the perfect call involved a very legit question re influence peddling from the Bidens. It's all coming out.
DeleteHe did not say it should have been a preliminary investigation, he said it was utterly unheard of to start with a full investigation. Based on the fact that the dossier was known to be made up by Hillary, there should have been no investigation at all.
The bombshell was that what was speculation before is solidly evidenced now, with evidence that the Obama administration was briefed that the premise was entirely phony and they did nothing to stop it. That's enough of a "bombshell" for me.
Two from the Treehouse: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/05/17/the-purposeful-silos-of-horowitz-mueller-and-durham-why-they-matter-and-what-can-be-done/ and https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/05/16/the-trump-russia-collusion-conspiracy-was-a-coup-detat/
ReplyDeleteI'm going to quote from the second one : "The bottom line is that everything the Obama justice department, IC and FBI did, to include support from Republicans in congress during the 2016 election and aftermath, was a coup d’état against U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration. This is the truth of the thing.
The U.S. media participation and subsequent denial of their culpability looks increasingly pathetic in the aftermath of the report outlined by Special Counsel John Durham. However, it doesn’t take a media admission of the coup effort for the demonstrable actions and evidence of the coup to be factual."
And to show you how far ahead of the curve on this one people like me (Readers of the Treehouse and other select blogs) were: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/05/17/durham-finds-the-importance-of-nellie-ohr/
Of course the snarky leftists in your comments don't even know who most of these people are, let alone anything about them.
Anyway, Sundance refers to the Intelligence Agencies as the "4th Branch " of government, having long since slipped the bonds of their alleged congressional and Executive branch overseers. As just one particularly egregious example: having seen Kevin Clinesmith get a 'slap on the wrist' for doctoring an email and lying to the FISA court to get the third or 4th extension for the spying on Carter Page, part of the operation against Trump, of course, I'm inclined to agree with him. The US is no longer a Democratic Republic. Instead it's an oligarchy largey run by a cabal of intelligence agencies, Big Financiers, and multinational businesses most of which exist as , for all practical purposes worldwide cartels for certain commodities. Our current Justice Department and most of our Intelligence agencies are corrupt and starting to be 'weaponized' against the American people, starting with the Tea Partiers under Obama and continuing through with the MAGA populists under Trump, and now some Democrats are calling all Republicans domestic insurrectionists. The IRS is included in the weaponization as well, starting as far back as 2010 and 2011 when it was found to have unfairly and capriciously audited mostly Conservative accounts (the few lefties were enemies of the Obama administration) to deny them "Non Profit" status which was required for participating in the elections. Oh, years later the courts spanked the IRS up and down and made them pay a few tens of millions in fines. Of course the "election interference" was already done. Of course the taxpayers paid the fines. And of course NO ONE went to prison.
Lastly, there's doubt about the integrity of not only our last two National Elections but also the upcoming one. But me and you have already talked about that. I don't see much good in the next ten years for the US as a whole. If we are extremely lucky and don't fall to out and out fascism via the current out of control leftwing and Federal Government, and if we don't have some sort of violent revolution (more likely to resemble Afghanistan than 1861, though if some States succeed that is a possibility as well), then maybe we will luck out and not suffer not just bad inflation but hyperinflation as the Petrodollar does its inevitable collapse. And we should still be able to feed ourselves because we have the single most land area of fertile land in the world for farming and we also aren't downright destroying our farmers like the idiotic government in the Netherlands is doing. I'm afraid a long, slow decline where the average person still muddles along and still has SOME of the constitutional freedoms is the most we can hope for at this point. That, or a peaceful "National Divorce", but I don't view that as likely.
Thank you, Clarence. Thoughtful comment as always. At this point, Democrats who don't see the abuses refuse to see them, and keep bringing up unfounded allegations against Trump to deflect. But it's becoming very hard for any thinking person to continue to deny the abuses of power.
DeleteMueller: 8 convictions. 1 trial win. 32 grand jury indictments.
DeleteDurham: 1 plea to minor charges. No jail. Jury trial record: 0 for 2
Yes, the Dems were more clever in working the system, no doubt.
DeleteNow, can we agree the events described in the Durham report are corrupt and should be denounced?
Julie, you always speak in vague generalities. Would you please clarify which specific events you believe are corrupt.
DeleteHillary and the DNC using campaign funds and paying through a law firm (declaring it legal fees) to create a fictitious "Steele Dossier" that was used as the predicate to spy on the Trump campaign via the FISA court and smear Trump with Russian collusion allegations and the Mueller investigation. Brennan had briefed Obama and his administration exactly what Hillary was doing and did not put a stop to it.
DeleteThat is very specific and covered off in my blog post.
In addition, the revelations of Biden's family receiving payments from foreign entities through complex cut out companies designed to hide the payments. Those companies have no legitimate business operations at all and the family members were providing no services in exchange. Further evidence that the money found its way back to Joe Biden to fund his lifestyle.
Pretty specific, I'd say.
The Durham Report is about as believable as Aesop’s Fables. A Republican told the Republican side of the story. I could get the same misinformation by watching Fox “news”. But if the simple minded plebeians thinks this is vindication, then congrats to them for continuing to be the speds we all know and enjoy making fun of.
ReplyDeleteDurham is a very distinguished prosecutor with a long career and a reputation for impartiality. He took his own judgment out if it and reported the facts. Facts you seem incapable of dealing with.
DeleteI had some time on my hands, so I actually read through the report, which it's very clear to me now that you have not.
ReplyDeleteRegarding those Obama briefings, footnotes in Durham's report make clear that there was testimony that Obama suggested that defensive briefings *should* be given to the Trump campaign. Durham doesn't dispute that and doesn't suggest that Obama took any inappropriate action or neglected to take any appropriate action. So, your insinuations that the report contains some bombshell about Obama corruption is, frankly, laughable. In addition to the dearth of *any* findings pointing at bad acts by Obama or Biden, here are some other summaries of the evidence and it's strength on various issues. It's a lot, but I know how you hate generalities and vagueness:
“Although the evidence we collected revealed a troubling disregard for the Clinton Plan intelligence and potential confirmation bias in favor of continued investigative scrutiny of Trump and his associates, it did not yield evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any FBI or CIA officials intentionally furthered a Clinton campaign plan to frame or falsely accuse Trump of improper ties to Russia. Nor did it reveal sufficient evidence to prove that the omission of the Clinton Plan intelligence from applications to the FISC was a conscious or intentional decision, much less one intended to influence the Court's view of the facts supporting probable cause.”
“The evidence gathered was not sufficient to prove at trial that any FBI personnel intentionally violated any criminal statutes in relation to the transmittal of the Steele Reports. Nor was there sufficient evidence to establish that any FBI personnel intentionally lied during their interviews.”
“In any event, given the dearth of contemporaneous documentary evidence reflecting the events in question, the available evidence was insufficient to definitively establish that any of the participants intentionally (i) submitted false information to the FISC, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §I621 (2) (perjury), (ii) provided false statements to the Special Counsel, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §100l(a)(2) (false statements), or (iii) violated the civil rights of Page, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §242 (civil rights violations). Again, the Office was unable to establish that any government officials acted with a criminal intent to violate the law, as opposed to mere negligence or recklessness.”
“Although the evidence assembled by the Office may have been sufficient to meet a negligence standard, in order to prove a criminal violation of Page's civil rights, the government would be required to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that one or more persons acted intentionally to violate his rights. What in our judgement would be the admissible evidence in such a prosecution did not meet that standard.”
Good cherry picking! How you can possibly read the Durham report and come away with a sense that "everything is fine" is truly a level of willful disregard for any moral principles whatsoever in regards to democracy and the conduct of politics. Beat Trump at any cost is it? Even at the cost of democracy? Really, truly, disappointing.
Delete"Our findings and conclusions regarding these and related questions are sobering."
"the government possessed no verified intelligence reflecting that Trump or the Trump campaign was involved in a conspiracy or collaborative relationship with officials of the Russian government. 21 Indeed, based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and costly federal investigations of these matters, including the instant investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. "
"the significance of the Clinton plan intelligence was such as to have prompted the Director ofthe CIA to brief the President, Vice President, Attorney General, Director of the FBI, and other senior government officials about its content within days of its receipt. It was also of enough importance for the CIA to send a formal written referral memorandum to Director Corney and the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, Peter Strzok, for their consideration and action."
"With respect to the Alfa Bank materials, our investigation established that Joffe had tasked a number of computer technology researchers who worked for companies he was affiliated with, and who had access to certain internet records, to mine the internet data to establish "an inference" and "narrative" tying then-candidate Trump to Russia. In directing these researchers to exploit their access in this manner, Joffe indicated that he was seeking to please certain "VIPs," in context referring to individuals at Perkins Coie who were involved in campaign matters and the Clinton campaign. During its investigation, the Office also learned that, after the 2016 presidential election, Joffe emailed an individual and told that person that "[he - Joffe] was tentatively offered the top [cybersecurity] job by the Democrats when it looked like they'd win."
"Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report. As noted, former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith committed a criminal offense by fabricating language in an email that was material to the FBI obtaining a FISA surveillance order. In other instances, FBI personnel working on that same FISA application displayed, at best, a cavalier attitude towards accuracy and completeness. FBI personnel also repeatedly disregarded important requirements when they continued to seek renewals of that FISA surveillance while acknowledging - both then and in hindsight - that they did not genuinely believe there was probable cause to believe that the target was knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of a foreign power, or knowingly helping another person in such activities."
"And certain personnel disregarded significant exculpatory information that should have prompted investigative restraint and re-examination."
Did I say "everything is fine"? No. However, you were the spouting about corruption this and corruption that, and claiming that this report documented such corruption by sitting government officials. The one and only person it identifies as engaging in an act beyond mere negligence is Kevin Clinesmith, a minor FBI official, who pleaded guilty to a minor charge and got no jail time. For everyone else you point fingers at, the report concludes that there was, at most, negligence and driven by "confirmation bias," which the report acknowledges is a pretty much universal human tendency to see information in a light consistent with our early conclusions or leanings. Much like how you filter anything out that isn't doesn't depict Trump in a rosy light.
DeleteAnd, of course, you entirely ignore my first point, that you flat-out accused Obama and other senior people in his administration of corruption and claimed that was the "bombshell" in this report, but it says absolutely nothing of the kind. You simply made it up, knowing that 99.9% of your readers wouldn't bother to read anything for themselves.
Ha ha ha ha! "Confirmation bias" An "honest mistake" awwww shucks, dan!
DeleteNo, I maintain that any honest reading of the report you come away with exceptionally grave misgivings about the corrupt dealings of the Dems and the administrative state who intended to get Trump out of power at all costs.
You are incredibly naive, dan.
Closing comments as it's going around in circles. 'Till next time!
ReplyDeleteP.s. the A/C guys came by to do the install. Three of them this time including the original 2. It got a little blushy for me!