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REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS
The secret plot to depose Trump
Monday, June 17, 2019 5:37 PM
1KIKI
Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.
Quote:Originally posted by 1kiki: But also because - and this is addressed to you old fart, and to you cereal-mush-brains - these specifics claims by Nunes are facts. So unless you can refute them WITH FACTS AND LINKS - and I know you can't - stop using this website as your personal bathroom.
Quote:Originally posted by SECOND: fart
Monday, June 17, 2019 5:45 PM
6IXSTRINGJACK
Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by 1kiki: But also because - and this is addressed to you old fart, and to you cereal-mush-brains - these specifics claims by Nunes are facts. So unless you can refute them WITH FACTS AND LINKS - and I know you can't - stop using this website as your personal bathroom. And if democrats don't do anything different, how are they any better? tic tac Trump said: "No collusion, no obstruction." in big TV interview. www.cnn.com/2019/06/17/politics/donald-trump-george-stephanopoulos-abc/index.html But that is not what Mueller said. Here's what the report said: "(I)f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. ... Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." And collusion? Mueller said on page 2 that collusion does not mean anything legally and he wished that fucking idiots and Trump would stop using that word: "In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of “collusion.” In so doing, the Office recognized that the word “collud[ej” was used in communications with the Acting Attorney General confirming certain aspects of the investigation’s scope and that the term has frequently been invoked in public reporting about the investigation. But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law. In connection with that analysis, we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign “coordinat[ed]”—a term that appears in the appointment order—with Russian election interference activities. Like collusion, “coordination” does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." Everybody and Mueller knows Trump can't even coordinate with his Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who he sees everyday. There is no way for Trump to coordinate with Putin because Trump can't get his shit together. He's stupid. www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2019/06/17/trump-kicks-out-mulvaney-coughing-stephanopoulos-abc-interview/1475364001/ The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Quote:Originally posted by 1kiki: But also because - and this is addressed to you old fart, and to you cereal-mush-brains - these specifics claims by Nunes are facts. So unless you can refute them WITH FACTS AND LINKS - and I know you can't - stop using this website as your personal bathroom. And if democrats don't do anything different, how are they any better? tic tac
Monday, June 17, 2019 7:06 PM
JONGSSTRAW
Quote:Originally posted by 1kiki: Partial transcript of the video. Quote:more than 2 years since democrats from this publicly committee claimed to have more than circumstantial evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to hack the 2016 presidential election And what was Mueller's conclusion, again? NO COLLUSION. And that 'evidence'? Not so much. Quote:more than 2 years since they read false allegations from the Steele dossier into the Congressional record WAS there false evidence in the Steele 'dossier'? Yes. Quote:endless hysteria by the media, democrats, and anonymous intelligence leakers Yep. There were frequent new breathless allegations; and multiple repeating and rehashing of old ones on a DAILY basis online, in print, and on TV; not to mention of course an actual committee wasting their valuable time NOT doing the people's business. Quote:bombshell story ... ... which purportedly proved Trump or some Trump associate was a treacherous Russian agent. Yep. And I don't even need to go elsewhere to find the proof. All I need to do is quote you gullible, weak-minded, and morally-corrupted people HERE. You know who you are. Don't you old fart. Don't you old cereal-mush-brains.Quote:Democrats on this committee regularly joined the news pundits in denouncing the traitors ... A fact. Quote: The entire scheme has imploded, and the collusion accusation has become exposed as a hoax ... Though, I think it's more than a hoax. Quote: One would think the democrats would simply apologize and get on with the business of lawmaking and oversight. One would think. One would think the democrats would have just a small bit of shame about being so very wrong. One would think that a small bit of reflection would be in order.Quote: After years of false accusations and McCarthyite smears, the collusion hoax now defines the democratic party. It sure does seem to. Democrats have no single unifying idea, or legislative goal, beyond that. Quote: The Mueller dossier, as I now call it, debunked many of their conspiracies or did not even find them worthy of discussing. Here we get to the laundry list of specific bombshell 'revelations' and 'news reports' that were false accusations, but which were flogged endlessly as if they were facts.Quote: Michael Cohen did not travel to Prague to conspire with the Russians No evidence that Carter Paige conspired with Russians. No mention of Paul Manafort visiting Julian Assange in London. No mention of secret communications between a Trump Tower computer server and Russia's Alfa Bank. And no mention of NRA's former lawyer Cleta Mitchell or her supposed knowledge of a scheme to launder Russian money though the NRA for the Trump campaign. ... These insinuations against Mitchell originated with Fusion GPS Chief Glenn Simpson, and were first made public in a document published by democrats on this committee. A long litany of ordinary contacts between Trump associates and Russians (please note - since the Mueller report concluded there was no collusion, these contacts are, according the report, ordinary), as if a certain number of contacts indicate a conspiracy even if no conversations actually created or discussed a conspiracy. Excerpts from a voice mail from John Dowd that the Mueller team selectively edited to make it seem threatening and nefarious. No comment on the close relationship between democrat operatives and Fusion GPS and MULTIPLE Russians (who) participated in the June 9th, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. In fact, no comment or mention of Fusion GPS at all. No useful information on figures who played key roles in the investigation, such as Joseph Misfud a Malta diplomat, or the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, or the democrat-paid operative, former spy Christopher Steele. No useful information about the many irregularities that marred the FBI's Russia investigation. Furthermore, the Mueller dossier cites dozens of articles from the reporters of publications that were most responsible for perpetuating the Russian hoax. Thus Mueller produced a perfect feedback loop: intelligence leakers spinning false stories to the media. The media publishes the stories. Mueller cites the stories. And the media and the democrats then fake outrage at Mueller's findings. I went to the bother of posting this here (I'll try to finish up later) because I wanted this to be documented somewhere other than a potentiality volatile link. But also because - and this is addressed to you old fart, and to you cereal-mush-brains - these specifics claims by Nunes are facts. So unless you can refute them WITH FACTS AND LINKS - and I know you can't - stop using this website as your personal bathroom. And if democrats don't do anything different, how are they any better? tic tac
Quote:more than 2 years since democrats from this publicly committee claimed to have more than circumstantial evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to hack the 2016 presidential election
Quote:more than 2 years since they read false allegations from the Steele dossier into the Congressional record
Quote:endless hysteria by the media, democrats, and anonymous intelligence leakers
Quote:bombshell story ... ... which purportedly proved Trump or some Trump associate was a treacherous Russian agent.
Quote:Democrats on this committee regularly joined the news pundits in denouncing the traitors ...
Quote: The entire scheme has imploded, and the collusion accusation has become exposed as a hoax ...
Quote: One would think the democrats would simply apologize and get on with the business of lawmaking and oversight.
Quote: After years of false accusations and McCarthyite smears, the collusion hoax now defines the democratic party.
Quote: The Mueller dossier, as I now call it, debunked many of their conspiracies or did not even find them worthy of discussing.
Quote: Michael Cohen did not travel to Prague to conspire with the Russians No evidence that Carter Paige conspired with Russians. No mention of Paul Manafort visiting Julian Assange in London. No mention of secret communications between a Trump Tower computer server and Russia's Alfa Bank. And no mention of NRA's former lawyer Cleta Mitchell or her supposed knowledge of a scheme to launder Russian money though the NRA for the Trump campaign. ... These insinuations against Mitchell originated with Fusion GPS Chief Glenn Simpson, and were first made public in a document published by democrats on this committee. A long litany of ordinary contacts between Trump associates and Russians (please note - since the Mueller report concluded there was no collusion, these contacts are, according the report, ordinary), as if a certain number of contacts indicate a conspiracy even if no conversations actually created or discussed a conspiracy. Excerpts from a voice mail from John Dowd that the Mueller team selectively edited to make it seem threatening and nefarious. No comment on the close relationship between democrat operatives and Fusion GPS and MULTIPLE Russians (who) participated in the June 9th, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. In fact, no comment or mention of Fusion GPS at all. No useful information on figures who played key roles in the investigation, such as Joseph Misfud a Malta diplomat, or the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, or the democrat-paid operative, former spy Christopher Steele. No useful information about the many irregularities that marred the FBI's Russia investigation. Furthermore, the Mueller dossier cites dozens of articles from the reporters of publications that were most responsible for perpetuating the Russian hoax. Thus Mueller produced a perfect feedback loop: intelligence leakers spinning false stories to the media. The media publishes the stories. Mueller cites the stories. And the media and the democrats then fake outrage at Mueller's findings.
Monday, June 17, 2019 7:10 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Do Right, Be Right. :)
Monday, June 17, 2019 8:05 PM
SIGNYM
I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.
Quote:Originally posted by 1kiki: Quote:Originally posted by 1kiki: But also because - and this is addressed to you old fart, and to you cereal-mush-brains - these specifics claims by Nunes are facts. So unless you can refute them WITH FACTS AND LINKS - and I know you can't - stop using this website as your personal bathroom.Quote:Originally posted by SECOND: fart You post had absolutely NOTHING to do with mine. Stop using this website as your bathroom. And if democrats don't do anything different, how are they any better? tic tac
Monday, June 17, 2019 8:18 PM
JEWELSTAITEFAN
Monday, June 17, 2019 8:47 PM
Quote:Originally posted by captaincrunch: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-dark-twisted-failure-of-devin-nunes-202154/ The Dark Twisted Failure of Devin Nunes The House Intel chair is carving out a place in history as Trump and Putin’s most useful idiot on Capitol Hill Someday, when Hollywood starts making movies and episodic dramas about this bizarre epoch in American history – that time when Russia installed a fat, orange-tinted fourth-grader in the White House, and “conservatives” cheered and plotted to keep him there – there will be a whole dog-kennel’s worth of knaves to fill out any plot, from sweaty international man-of-mystery Paul Manafort to rosy-cheeked son-of-a-felon Jared Kushner. Screenwriters will be forced to pick and choose their villains; there will be far too many to pack into a script. But when it comes to comic relief, the choices (beyond Donald Trump himself) will be easy and universal: Failed-academic-in-a-Gilligan-hat Carter Page is guaranteed to become a stock character in the saga, as the eager stooge too dumb to be a spy. And Devin Nunes, the climate-denying mediocrity from Tulare, California, will take his place in the mythology as Trump and Putin’s most useful idiot on Capitol Hill. Before Trump came along, Nunes was just another hack in the Republican House, a Central Valley milk-farmer from Portuguese stock cursed with a face that looks permanently astonished. After lucking his way into Congress in 2003, he’d risen to chair the House Intelligence Committee the old-fashioned way, through sycophancy. He endeared himself to future Speaker Paul Ryan by glomming on to his fever dream of demolishing the social safety net, and earned his Intelligence chairmanship by serving as an attack dog for then-Speaker John Boehner when Tea Partiers wanted to shut down the government in 2013; Nunes memorably assailed the GOP rebels as “lemmings with suicide vests.” Then, in 2016, his fast friendship with deposed General Michael Flynn (“I talk to Flynn virtually every day, if not multiple times a day,” Nunes proudly told a reporter in December 2016) landed him on the executive committee of Trump’s presidential transition team. From there, it was a short step into historical infamy last March, when Nunes made his clandestine “midnight run” to the White House to be given (by one of Flynn’s toadies) classified documents that falsely “proved” President Obama had “wiretapped Trump Tower,” which he proceeded to make public in a manner so clumsy he almost lost his Intelligence perch. Ever since, Nunes has gleefully embraced his role as Trump’s congressional stooge, turning the House investigation of Russia’s election meddling into a bumbling fake-news shitshow that’s been essential in the effort to distract both the media and Trump-supporters from the actual story. This year, Nunes laid his second great claim to historical infamy by ordering up the four-page #ReleaseTheMemo that purported to prove that Christopher Steele’s dossier, sponsored by Hillary Clinton, was the FBI’s sole rationale for launching an investigation into the Trump-Russia connection. The fact that the memo showed exactly the opposite was a minor inconvenience; Memogate, like the original Nunes caper, became (and remains) a deadly effective weapon of mass distraction. This past weekend, another twist in the screwball Nunes plot was uncovered by Politico. Not content to cry “fake news” in response to any challenge to his pro-Trump propaganda, Nunes had, below the radar, begun to produce his own fake news, with his campaign team publishing a website called The California Republican. Billing itself on Facebook as a “media/news company” that publishes “the best of US, California, and Central Valley news, sports, and analysis,” The California Republican turned out to be little more than an aggregation of pro-Trump propaganda lifted from The National Review and The Federalist, leavened with borrowed stories about the evils of California liberalism and (you truly cannot make this stuff up) a steady flow of reports about Fresno State University’s football team. Almost nobody was reading The California Republican until Politico noticed the thing; it had fewer than 4,000 “likes” and followers on Facebook. Aside from the occasionally witty headline (“The Russians are everywhere … and nowhere,” “Raisin Hell: Weather batters raisin crop to 35-year worst“), there wasn’t much to read. But Politico blew it up into something scandalous: “Devin Nunes creates his own alternative news site,” screeched the headline, followed by the subhead: “Embattled California congressman finds a way to bypass the mainstream media.” Called by Politico for comment, Nunes’ chief of staff Anthony Ratekin snidely declined to give one until “Politico retracts its multitude of fake stories on Congressman Nunes.” On Sunday, shortly after the story began to circulate, The California Republican went down, redirecting traffic to an error message on Facebook – and creating a whole new raft of headlines and irresistible intrigue. The explanation given for the site crash was intentionally muddled and mysterious: “Due to heavy traffic and an attack on our servers, you may encounter an error message when attempting to reach The Republican.” Had the site really become popular overnight, or had it actually been hacked at the very same moment it hit the headlines? Was the site actually just a version of a congressional newsletter, designed for the fans back home, or some more sinister attempt at propagating Trump-Russian propaganda? Enquiring minds needed to know! The fact that, for one crucial day, the only way to access the site was through the Wayback Machine only added to the intrigue. The site is back up now, for all to see, with its weird mix of local news from Tulare and the Fresno State gridiron and borrowed content from folks like National Review’s resident Trump apologist, Victor Davis Hanson. But thanks to the free publicity, it’ll now become a go-to source for many conspiratorial conservatives. It doesn’t matter that it’s a “news” site paid for by Nunes’s campaign (which is, not surprisingly, flush with extraneous cash). It doesn’t matter that it’s a glorified aggregation site, with staffers adding snarky headlines (“CNN busted for peddling fake news AGAIN!”) and brief introductions to excerpts from borrowed content. Like Nunes himself, it’s now been “attacked” by Washington elites, and thus become a thing in spite of itself. On Twitter, the suddenly famous California Republican has been having a field day. On Sunday, it tweeted: “We are real news, POLITICO.” It posted a photo of Nunes with the caption: “This is what an American hero looks like.” Yesterday, it defended Milo Yiannopolous against the “accusation” that he’s a white nationalist, among other things, and declared in another tweet that “‘Dreamers’ are killing Americans.” The brief and puffed-up controversy over Nunes’s publishing venture will be, of course, a mere footnote in the history of a congressional mediocrity’s weird rise to national prominence as a witting tool of Vladimir Putin – and, according to a New York Times op-ed on Monday, potentially as another target of Robert Mueller’s investigation into obstruction of justice. But it’s a telling subplot in the larger drama, as one more instance of the unquestioned talent Trump and his co-conspirators have displayed for ratfucking the media, and ultimately the American public. While Nunes cried “fake news” at every turn – “Almost every story that runs about me is fake,” he mock-complained to Rush Limbaugh last week – his massive campaign kitty was being used to produce a website devoted to partisan spin.
Thursday, June 20, 2019 8:10 PM
Quote:Originally posted by Jongsstraw: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Do Right, Be Right. :)
Friday, June 21, 2019 12:42 AM
Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Weird.I just paused the scroll with that vid clip at the top of the screen, and only the knees down were visible. Kinda looked like gorilla calves with gloves and bike shorts. Or something. Maybe really dark leggings.
Friday, June 21, 2019 4:50 PM
Quote:Originally posted by Jongsstraw: Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Weird.I just paused the scroll with that vid clip at the top of the screen, and only the knees down were visible. Kinda looked like gorilla calves with gloves and bike shorts. Or something. Maybe really dark leggings. Hey, a little respect please! It takes a lot of practice and hard work to look THAT gay.
Monday, July 22, 2019 3:39 PM
Monday, July 22, 2019 9:42 PM
Quote: Comey Under DOJ Investigation For Misleading Trump While Targeting Him In FBI Probe Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while refusing to admit to this in public. According to RealClearInvestigations' Paul Sperry, "Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will file a report in September which contains evidence that Comey was misleading the president" while conducting an active investigation against him. Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a target, the former director was secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president, while at times acting as an investigative agent. -RCI According to two US officials familiar with Horowitz's upcoming report on FBI misconduct, Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI's sources say that Horowitz has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the president during their January 2017 meeting in New York. What's more, Comey had an FBI agent in the White House who reported the activities of Trump and his aides, according to 'other officials familiar with the matter.' The agent, Anthony Ferrante, who specialized in cyber crime, left the White House around the same time Comey was fired and soon joined a security consulting firm, where he contracted with BuzzFeed to lead the news site's efforts to verify the Steele dossier, in connection with a defamation lawsuit. -RCI
Quote:According to the report, Horowitz and his team have examined over 1 million documents and conducted over 100 interviews - including sit-downs with Comey and other current and former FBI and DOJ employees. "The period covering Comey’s activities is believed to run from early January 2017 to early May 2017, when Comey was fired and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as the acting FBI director, formally opened full counterintelligence and obstruction investigations of the president."
Quote: McCabe’s deputy, Lisa Page, appeared to dissemble last year when asked in closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee if Comey and other FBI brass discussed opening an obstruction case against Trump prior to his firing in May 2017. Initially, she flatly denied it, swearing: “Obstruction of justice was not a topic of conversation during the time frame you have described.” But then, after conferring with her FBI-assigned lawyer, she announced: “I need to take back my prior statement.” Page later conceded that there could have been at least “discussions about potential criminal activity” involving the president. -RCI Comey coordination Sperry notes that Comey wasn't working in isolation on the Trump effort. In particular, Horowitz has looked at the January 6, 2017 briefing on the infamous 'Steele Dossier' - a meeting which was used by BuzzFeed, CNN and others to legitimize reporting on the dossier's salacious and unsubstantiated claims. Comey’s meeting with Trump took place one day after the FBI director met in the Oval Office with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to discuss how to brief Trump — a meeting attended by National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who would soon go to work for CNN. -RCI While Comey claims in his book, "A Higher Loyalty" that he didn't have "a counterintelligence case file open on [Trump]," former federal prosecutor and National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy notes that just because Trump's name wasn't on a formal file or surveillance warrant doesn't mean that he wasn't under investigation. "They were hoping to surveil him incidentally, and they were trying to make a case on him," said McCarthy. "The real reason Comey did not want to repeat publicly the assurances he made to Trump privately is that these assurances were misleading. The FBI strung Trump along, telling him he was not a suspect while structuring the investigation in accordance with the reality that Trump was the main subject." What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. "They had no probable cause against Trump himself for ‘collusion’ or espionage," he said, adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found nothing." What remains unclear is why Comey would take such extraordinary steps against a sitting president. The Mueller report concluded there was no basis for the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theories. Comey himself was an early skeptic of the Steele dossier -- the opposition research memos paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign that were the road map of collusion theories – which he dismissed as “salacious and unverified.” -RCI According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop" Trump's presidency for political reasons. "You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information" to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview. Read the rest of Sperry's report here.
Monday, July 22, 2019 9:48 PM
Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Quote:Originally posted by Jongsstraw: Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Weird.I just paused the scroll with that vid clip at the top of the screen, and only the knees down were visible. Kinda looked like gorilla calves with gloves and bike shorts. Or something. Maybe really dark leggings. Hey, a little respect please! It takes a lot of practice and hard work to look THAT gay.I was thinking they would look more gay if their legs were shaved instead of rolled Brillo pads.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019 3:19 PM
Monday, July 29, 2019 3:40 PM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: Mueller's FBI 'Attack Dog' Weissmann Begged Ukrainian Oligarch For Dirt On Trump .... Quote:How Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann's offer to an oligarch could boomerang on DOJ By John Solomon, opinion contributor The ink was still drying on special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment papers when his chief deputy, the famously aggressive and occasionally controversial prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, made a bold but secret overture in early June 2017. Weissmann quietly reached out to the American lawyers for Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash with a tempting offer: Give us some dirt on Donald Trump in the Russia case, and Team Mueller might make his 2014 U.S. criminal charges go away. The specifics of the never-before-reported offer were confirmed to me by multiple sources with direct knowledge, as well as in contemporaneous defense memos I read. Two years later, Weissmann’s overture may have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), here and abroad. His former boss, Mueller, is slated to testify Wednesday before Congress. The DOJ, Mueller’s office and Weissmann did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment on Monday. At first blush, one might ask, “What’s the big deal?” It’s not unusual for federal prosecutors to steal a page from Monty Hall’s “Let’s Make a Deal” script during plea negotiations. But Weissmann’s overture was wrapped with complexity and intrigue far beyond the normal federal case, my sources indicate. At the time, pressure was building inside the DOJ and the FBI to find smoking-gun evidence against Trump in the Russia case because the Steele dossier — upon which the early surveillance warrants were based — was turning out to be an uncorroborated mess. (“There’s no big there there,” lead FBI agent Pete Strzok texted a few days before Weissmann’s overture.) Likewise, key evidence that the DOJ used to indict Firtash on corruption charges in 2014 was falling apart. Two central witnesses were in the process of recanting testimony, and a document the FBI portrayed as bribery evidence inside Firtash’s company was exposed as a hypothetical slide from an American consultant’s PowerPoint presentation, according to court records I reviewed. In other words, the DOJ faced potential embarrassment in two high-profile cases when Weissmann made an unsolicited approach on June 4, 2017, that surprised even Firtash’s U.S. legal team. To some, the offer smacked of being desperately premature. Mueller was appointed just two weeks earlier, did not even have a full staff selected, and was still getting up to speed on the details of the investigation. So why rush to make a deal when the prosecution team still was being selected, some wondered. Second, Weissmann’s approach was audaciously aggressive, even for a prosecutor with his reputation. According to a defense memo recounting Weissmann’s contacts, the prosecutor claimed the Mueller team could “resolve the Firtash case” in Chicago [where commodities trading takes place- SIGNY] and neither the DOJ nor the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office “could interfere with or prevent a solution,” including withdrawing all charges. “The complete dropping of the proceedings … was doubtless on the table,” according to the defense memo. Firtash’s team suspected Weissmann’s claim was exaggerated. While Mueller had full authority to investigate the Russia case, he wasn’t an independent counsel separate of the DOJ but, rather, a special counsel subject to the attorney general’s oversight. The third red flag came in how much Weissmann communicated to Firstash’s lawyers about his hopes for the Ukrainian oligarch’s testimony. Prosecutors in plea deals typically ask a defendant for a written proffer of what they can provide in testimony and identify the general topics that might interest them. But Weissmann appeared to go much further in a July 7, 2017, meeting with Firtash’s American lawyers and FBI agents, sharing certain private theories of the nascent special counsel’s investigation into Trump, his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russia, according to defense memos. For example, Firtash’s legal team wrote that Weissmann told them he believed a company called Bayrock, tied to former FBI informant Felix Sater, had “made substantial investments with Donald Trump’s companies” and that prosecutors were looking for dirt on Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Weissmann told the Firtash team “he believes that Manafort and his people substantially coordinated their activities with Russians in order to win their work in Ukraine,” according to the defense memos. And the Mueller deputy said he “believed” a Ukrainian group tied to Manafort “was merely a front for illegal criminal activities in Ukraine,” and suggested a “Russian secret service authority” may have been involved in influencing the 2016 U.S. election, the defense memos show. Weissmann’s private observations and sharing of prosecutor’s theories went beyond what prosecutors normally do in proffer negotiations and risked planting ideas that could lead the witness to craft his testimony, according to legal experts I consulted. Remarkably, Firtash turned down Weissmann’s plea overtures even though the oligarch has been trapped in Austria for five years, fighting extradition on U.S. charges in Chicago alleging that he engaged in bribery and corruption in India related to a U.S. aerospace deal. He denies the charges. The oligarch’s defense team told me that Firtash rejected the deal because he didn’t have credible information or evidence on the topics Weissmann outlined. NO CREDIBLE INFORMATION ON TRUMP-RUSSIA COLLUSION Quote:But now, as Firtash escalates his fight to avoid extradition, the Weissmann overture is being offered to an Austrian court as potential defense evidence that the DOJ’s prosecution is flawed by bogus evidence and political motivations. In a sealed court filing in Austria earlier this month, Firtash’s legal team compared the DOJ’s 13-year investigation of Firtash to the medieval inquisitions. It cited Weissmann’s overture as evidence of political motivation, saying the prosecutor dangled the “possible cessation of separate criminal proceedings against the applicant if he were prepared to exchange sufficiently incriminating statements for wide-ranging comprehensively political subject areas which included the U.S. President himself as well as the Russian President Vladimir Putin.” After years of litigation, the U.S. Justice Department won a ruling in Austria to secure Firtash’s extradition to Chicago. But then his legal team secretly filed new evidence that included the Weissmann overture, and Austrian officials suddenly reversed course last week and ordered a new, lengthy delay in extradition. That new court filing asserts that two key witnesses, cited by the DOJ in its extradition request as affirming the bribery allegations against Firtash, since have recanted, claiming the FBI grossly misquoted them and pressured them to sign their statements. One witness claims his 2012 statement to the FBI was “prewritten by the U.S. authorities” and contains “relevant inaccuracies in substance,” including that he never used the terms “bribery or bribe payments” as DOJ claimed, according to the Austrian court filing. So the FBI was pressuring Firtash's business colleagues in order to build a case against Firtash, and then using that case to pressure Firtash for dirt on Trump? Gee ... whooda thunk? Quote:That witness also claimed he only signed the 2012 statement because the FBI “exercised undue pressure on him,” including threats to seize his passport and keep him from returning home to India, the memo alleges. That witness recanted his statements the same summer as Weissmann’s overture to Firtash’s team. Firtash’s lawyers also offered the Austrian court evidence of alleged prosecutorial wrongdoing. A key document submitted to Austrian authorities to support Firtash’s extradition was portrayed by DOJ as having come from Firtash’s corporate files and purported to show he sanctioned a bribery scheme in India. In fact, the document was created by the McKinsey consulting firm as part of a hypothetical ethics presentation for the Boeing Co. and had no connection to Firtash’s firm. Moreover, McKinsey claims in an official statement that it had no knowledge of a bribery scheme by Firtash, and the PowerPoint’s use of the phrase “bribery payments” never came from Firtash or his company and were, instead, hypothetical “assumptions by McKinsey about standard business practices in India,” according to the new Austrian court filing. Firtash’s U.S. legal team told me it alerted Weissmann to DOJ’s false portrayal of the McKinsey document in 2017, but he downplayed the concerns and refused to alert the Austrian court. The document was never withdrawn as evidence, even after the New York Times published a story last December questioning its validity. “Submitting a false and misleading document to a foreign sovereign and its courts for an extradition decision is not only unethical but also flouts the comity of trust necessary for that process where judicial systems rely only on documents to make that decision,” Firtash’s American legal team wrote in a statement to me. “DOJ’s refusal to rescind the document after being specifically told it is false and misleading is an egregious violation of U.S. and international law.” Weissmann long has been a favorite target of conservatives, in part because his earlier work as a prosecutor in the Enron case was overturned unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court because of overly aggressive prosecutorial tactics. Former DOJ official Sidney Powell strongly condemned Weissmann’s past work as a prosecutor in “Licensed to Lie,” a book critical of DOJ’s pressure tactics. It is now clear that Weissmann’s overture to a Ukrainian oligarch in the summer of 2017 is about to take on new significance in Washington, where Mueller is about to testify, and in Austria, where Firtash’s extradition fight has taken a new twist. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/454185-how-mueller-deputy-andrew-weissmanns-offer-to-an-oligarch-could-boomerang
Quote:How Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann's offer to an oligarch could boomerang on DOJ By John Solomon, opinion contributor The ink was still drying on special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment papers when his chief deputy, the famously aggressive and occasionally controversial prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, made a bold but secret overture in early June 2017. Weissmann quietly reached out to the American lawyers for Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash with a tempting offer: Give us some dirt on Donald Trump in the Russia case, and Team Mueller might make his 2014 U.S. criminal charges go away. The specifics of the never-before-reported offer were confirmed to me by multiple sources with direct knowledge, as well as in contemporaneous defense memos I read. Two years later, Weissmann’s overture may have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), here and abroad. His former boss, Mueller, is slated to testify Wednesday before Congress. The DOJ, Mueller’s office and Weissmann did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment on Monday. At first blush, one might ask, “What’s the big deal?” It’s not unusual for federal prosecutors to steal a page from Monty Hall’s “Let’s Make a Deal” script during plea negotiations. But Weissmann’s overture was wrapped with complexity and intrigue far beyond the normal federal case, my sources indicate. At the time, pressure was building inside the DOJ and the FBI to find smoking-gun evidence against Trump in the Russia case because the Steele dossier — upon which the early surveillance warrants were based — was turning out to be an uncorroborated mess. (“There’s no big there there,” lead FBI agent Pete Strzok texted a few days before Weissmann’s overture.) Likewise, key evidence that the DOJ used to indict Firtash on corruption charges in 2014 was falling apart. Two central witnesses were in the process of recanting testimony, and a document the FBI portrayed as bribery evidence inside Firtash’s company was exposed as a hypothetical slide from an American consultant’s PowerPoint presentation, according to court records I reviewed. In other words, the DOJ faced potential embarrassment in two high-profile cases when Weissmann made an unsolicited approach on June 4, 2017, that surprised even Firtash’s U.S. legal team. To some, the offer smacked of being desperately premature. Mueller was appointed just two weeks earlier, did not even have a full staff selected, and was still getting up to speed on the details of the investigation. So why rush to make a deal when the prosecution team still was being selected, some wondered. Second, Weissmann’s approach was audaciously aggressive, even for a prosecutor with his reputation. According to a defense memo recounting Weissmann’s contacts, the prosecutor claimed the Mueller team could “resolve the Firtash case” in Chicago [where commodities trading takes place- SIGNY] and neither the DOJ nor the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office “could interfere with or prevent a solution,” including withdrawing all charges. “The complete dropping of the proceedings … was doubtless on the table,” according to the defense memo. Firtash’s team suspected Weissmann’s claim was exaggerated. While Mueller had full authority to investigate the Russia case, he wasn’t an independent counsel separate of the DOJ but, rather, a special counsel subject to the attorney general’s oversight. The third red flag came in how much Weissmann communicated to Firstash’s lawyers about his hopes for the Ukrainian oligarch’s testimony. Prosecutors in plea deals typically ask a defendant for a written proffer of what they can provide in testimony and identify the general topics that might interest them. But Weissmann appeared to go much further in a July 7, 2017, meeting with Firtash’s American lawyers and FBI agents, sharing certain private theories of the nascent special counsel’s investigation into Trump, his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russia, according to defense memos. For example, Firtash’s legal team wrote that Weissmann told them he believed a company called Bayrock, tied to former FBI informant Felix Sater, had “made substantial investments with Donald Trump’s companies” and that prosecutors were looking for dirt on Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Weissmann told the Firtash team “he believes that Manafort and his people substantially coordinated their activities with Russians in order to win their work in Ukraine,” according to the defense memos. And the Mueller deputy said he “believed” a Ukrainian group tied to Manafort “was merely a front for illegal criminal activities in Ukraine,” and suggested a “Russian secret service authority” may have been involved in influencing the 2016 U.S. election, the defense memos show. Weissmann’s private observations and sharing of prosecutor’s theories went beyond what prosecutors normally do in proffer negotiations and risked planting ideas that could lead the witness to craft his testimony, according to legal experts I consulted. Remarkably, Firtash turned down Weissmann’s plea overtures even though the oligarch has been trapped in Austria for five years, fighting extradition on U.S. charges in Chicago alleging that he engaged in bribery and corruption in India related to a U.S. aerospace deal. He denies the charges. The oligarch’s defense team told me that Firtash rejected the deal because he didn’t have credible information or evidence on the topics Weissmann outlined.
Quote:But now, as Firtash escalates his fight to avoid extradition, the Weissmann overture is being offered to an Austrian court as potential defense evidence that the DOJ’s prosecution is flawed by bogus evidence and political motivations. In a sealed court filing in Austria earlier this month, Firtash’s legal team compared the DOJ’s 13-year investigation of Firtash to the medieval inquisitions. It cited Weissmann’s overture as evidence of political motivation, saying the prosecutor dangled the “possible cessation of separate criminal proceedings against the applicant if he were prepared to exchange sufficiently incriminating statements for wide-ranging comprehensively political subject areas which included the U.S. President himself as well as the Russian President Vladimir Putin.” After years of litigation, the U.S. Justice Department won a ruling in Austria to secure Firtash’s extradition to Chicago. But then his legal team secretly filed new evidence that included the Weissmann overture, and Austrian officials suddenly reversed course last week and ordered a new, lengthy delay in extradition. That new court filing asserts that two key witnesses, cited by the DOJ in its extradition request as affirming the bribery allegations against Firtash, since have recanted, claiming the FBI grossly misquoted them and pressured them to sign their statements. One witness claims his 2012 statement to the FBI was “prewritten by the U.S. authorities” and contains “relevant inaccuracies in substance,” including that he never used the terms “bribery or bribe payments” as DOJ claimed, according to the Austrian court filing.
Quote:That witness also claimed he only signed the 2012 statement because the FBI “exercised undue pressure on him,” including threats to seize his passport and keep him from returning home to India, the memo alleges. That witness recanted his statements the same summer as Weissmann’s overture to Firtash’s team. Firtash’s lawyers also offered the Austrian court evidence of alleged prosecutorial wrongdoing. A key document submitted to Austrian authorities to support Firtash’s extradition was portrayed by DOJ as having come from Firtash’s corporate files and purported to show he sanctioned a bribery scheme in India. In fact, the document was created by the McKinsey consulting firm as part of a hypothetical ethics presentation for the Boeing Co. and had no connection to Firtash’s firm. Moreover, McKinsey claims in an official statement that it had no knowledge of a bribery scheme by Firtash, and the PowerPoint’s use of the phrase “bribery payments” never came from Firtash or his company and were, instead, hypothetical “assumptions by McKinsey about standard business practices in India,” according to the new Austrian court filing. Firtash’s U.S. legal team told me it alerted Weissmann to DOJ’s false portrayal of the McKinsey document in 2017, but he downplayed the concerns and refused to alert the Austrian court. The document was never withdrawn as evidence, even after the New York Times published a story last December questioning its validity. “Submitting a false and misleading document to a foreign sovereign and its courts for an extradition decision is not only unethical but also flouts the comity of trust necessary for that process where judicial systems rely only on documents to make that decision,” Firtash’s American legal team wrote in a statement to me. “DOJ’s refusal to rescind the document after being specifically told it is false and misleading is an egregious violation of U.S. and international law.” Weissmann long has been a favorite target of conservatives, in part because his earlier work as a prosecutor in the Enron case was overturned unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court because of overly aggressive prosecutorial tactics. Former DOJ official Sidney Powell strongly condemned Weissmann’s past work as a prosecutor in “Licensed to Lie,” a book critical of DOJ’s pressure tactics. It is now clear that Weissmann’s overture to a Ukrainian oligarch in the summer of 2017 is about to take on new significance in Washington, where Mueller is about to testify, and in Austria, where Firtash’s extradition fight has taken a new twist.
Thursday, August 1, 2019 4:00 PM
Thursday, August 15, 2019 8:33 PM
Sunday, August 18, 2019 4:32 PM
Quote:The closest Baquet came to identifying a moment when the paper had misjudged current events was when he described it as being “a little tiny bit flat-footed” after the Mueller investigation ended. “Our readers who want Donald Trump to go away suddenly thought, ‘Holy shit, Bob Mueller is not going to do it,’” Baquet said. “And Donald Trump got a little emboldened politically, I think. Because, you know, for obvious reasons. And I think that the story changed. A lot of the stuff we’re talking about started to emerge like six or seven weeks ago.” By this account, the question of how to address presidential racism was a newly emerged one, something the paper would need to pivot into.
Sunday, August 18, 2019 4:55 PM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: The NYT (and presumably the rest of the M$M) have decided that RUSSIA!RUSSIA!RUSSIA! i no longer an effective hobby-horse. The NYT has decided to pivot to "Trump is a racist". And all of the little minds that follow the M$M ... to whom RUSSIA!RUSSIA!RUSSIA! was such a compelling and existential issue ... have pivoted with it. Russia is down the memory hole. The new witch hunt is racism. Quote:The closest Baquet came to identifying a moment when the paper had misjudged current events was when he described it as being “a little tiny bit flat-footed” after the Mueller investigation ended. “Our readers who want Donald Trump to go away suddenly thought, ‘Holy shit, Bob Mueller is not going to do it,’” Baquet said. “And Donald Trump got a little emboldened politically, I think. Because, you know, for obvious reasons. And I think that the story changed. A lot of the stuff we’re talking about started to emerge like six or seven weeks ago.” By this account, the question of how to address presidential racism was a newly emerged one, something the paper would need to pivot into. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/new-york-times-meeting-transcript.html ----------- Pity would be no more, If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY
Quote:On November 27, 2017, Olbermann announced his retirement from political commentary after episode 147 had aired,[4][5] citing his belief that "this . . . presidency of Donald John Trump will end prematurely and end soon, and I am thus also confident that this is the correct moment to end this series of commentaries"
Monday, August 19, 2019 2:04 AM
Monday, August 19, 2019 7:26 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: And so the Democrats will make this entire thing about Trump for the next year and 2 months, failing completely to realize that none of it is about Trump at all. Trump's just the symptom. If it wasn't him, it would have been someone else. If the Democrats don't fix their shit, they just might find out how true this is, and just like they pine over the days of GWB in the current Trump Presidency, they're going to be wishing that it was Donald Trump sitting in that seat when that day comes. Believe it or not, I don't want to see a Republican monopoly on politics for a generation to come. You're already looking at a great chance that Trump will have 5 more years in office. In that time, the Supreme Court will be heavily stacked in favor of the GOP. Scores of Republican justices are being placed with very little news coverage, with the MSM instead deciding that lying about Russia for two years was a better course of action. He's expertly drawing attention to Cenk Uygur's Justice Democrat freshmen, goading them to continually embarrass themselves on a national stage and put a hard split right down the center of the Democratic Party. One might blame him for the coming implosion of the Democratic Party, but he's barely even doing anything but tweeting from his office, or maybe his cell phone while he's out golfing every other day. He's got the Democratic Party dancing on his strings and cannibalizing each other while he's literally just phoning it in. All the while, his approval rating has barely moved an inch, and is plenty high enough to secure the next election. Against a pool of 20 or so Democratic hopefuls, the Democratic voters are still somewhat united behind them in their "We must remove Trump at any cost" message, but a lot of that support will wane when the field is finally narrowed to that single candidate that will inevitably turn off a large part of the Democratic voting base almost as much as Trump does. That's not to mention how easily he's going to be able to destroy nearly all of those candidates in 1 on 1 debates when they are completely unable to walk back to the center with how left their talking points and sound bytes have been up to this point. And in the end of all of this, the Democrats from 2015 to 2020 will be squarely to blame for all of it. Do Right, Be Right. :)
Monday, August 19, 2019 10:52 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Jongsstraw: Damn, what an outstanding opinion piece! That's as good or better than anything professional opinion journalists have ever written on the subject.
Monday, August 19, 2019 11:21 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by Jongsstraw: Damn, what an outstanding opinion piece! That's as good or better than anything professional opinion journalists have ever written on the subject. Thanks. It's amazing what a sober and positive mind can achieve. I'd clean it up and take out the cuss words and submit it somewhere, but I'm just an aging white dude in 2019 and nobody really cares what my opinion is anymore. That's okay with me. I'm just here for the ride. But because common sense like this isn't something that grabs clicks on social media because you can't put a hate-bait title on it, nobody is going ponder any of these truths, and just like in 2016 when the Democrats lose again in 2020, those that aren't crying and ranting all over social media are going to sit in stunned shock and abject disbelief that it happened again and ignorantly wonder just what the fuck it is that is going on because the echo chamber they've been sitting in the last 5 or 6 years has utterly failed them twice. Do Right, Be Right. :)
Monday, August 19, 2019 3:19 PM
Quote:Originally posted by Jongsstraw: I know your post would be appreciated and praised by my buds over at RightNation, or perhaps submit it to your local newspaper in the Letters section. Coincidentally, there was an article posted today by William Marshall of Town Hall which touched on some of the same topics as you did. I liked your commentary, however, a lot more than his. You definitely have a talent for writing. FWIW my advice is don't waste it on the lunatics in RWED. https://townhall.com/columnists/williammarshall/2019/08/19/this-is-the-most-important-result-of-donald-trumps-election-n2551859
Tuesday, August 20, 2019 4:05 PM
Tuesday, August 20, 2019 5:40 PM
CAPTAINCRUNCH
... stay crunchy...
Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Word is that NYT got 2 Pulitzer Prizes for this anthology series on the Witch Hunt Fishing Expedition, which managed to get the entire historic story all wrong, backwards. Pulitzer is making a reputation for FAKE AWARDS.
Thursday, August 22, 2019 8:18 PM
Quote:Originally posted by captaincrunch: Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Word is that NYT got 2 Pulitzer Prizes for this anthology series on the Witch Hunt Fishing Expedition, which managed to get the entire historic story all wrong, backwards. Pulitzer is making a reputation for FAKE AWARDS. Do you know on what basis Pulitzers are given out?
Wednesday, August 28, 2019 5:40 PM
Friday, August 30, 2019 5:54 PM
Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: I understand that there are 4 or 5 reports coming out soon. Tomorrow is supposed to be about 60 pages of report on Comey and his crimes. Then a report on McCabe, something like his lies and crimes and such. Then a second report on McCabe, on his leaking. Then the IG Horowitz report on FISA and FISC Abuse. At some point it is believed that there will be a Barr/Dunham report on the criminal origins of the Mueller Witch Hunt Fishing Expedition, aka the secret plot to depose Trump.
Friday, August 30, 2019 10:21 PM
Monday, September 2, 2019 7:58 AM
Thursday, September 5, 2019 8:18 PM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: Previously known info about Comey is that he engaged in wholly-inappropriate one-on-one meetings with Trump, wrote secret memos about them which he SHOULD have classified (but didn't), took them out of the FBI w/o authorization (one COULD say he "stole" FBI prpperty) and then leaked them to his friend, who leaked them to the press. What I DIDN'T know is that he had comm links, even satellite links, all set up so he sould go off to his car and start communicating right away. Clearly pre=planned on Comey's part. It looks like yet another entrapment operation,
Thursday, September 12, 2019 3:44 PM
Thursday, September 12, 2019 4:37 PM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: Quote:Gen. Flynn’s Endgame Approaches Brian Cates Commentary Having followed Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s perjury case from the beginning, it’s been apparent to me for some time that there are a lot of things in this case that just don’t add up. Strange occurrences abound. Here are just some of the twists and turns in the case, which has gone on for more than three years. 1 Flynn’s trip to Russia in 2015, where it was claimed Flynn went without the knowledge or approval of the DIA or anyone in Washington, was proven not to be true. 2 Flynn was suspected of being compromised by a supposed Russian agent, Cambridge academic Svetlana Lokhova, based on allegations from Western intelligence asset Stefan Halper. This was also proven to be not true. 3 Flynn’s phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were framed as being incredibly shady and a potential violation of the Logan Act. This allegation was always preposterous. 4 Unnamed intelligence officials leaked the details of the Flynn-Kislyak phone calls to The Washington Post. 5 FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joseph Pientka were dispatched by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe to interview Flynn at the White House, even though the FBI had already reviewed the transcripts of the calls and cleared Flynn of any crimes. 6 Both FBI Director James Comey and McCabe testified to Congress that Flynn didn’t lie. 7 Despite what McCabe and Comey both testified to under oath before Congress, the Mueller special counsel’s office decided to prosecute Flynn for perjury in November of 2017. 8 The very strange post-dated FD-302 form on the FBI’s January 2017 interview of Flynn that wasn’t filled out until August 2017, almost seven months afterward, is revealed in a court filing by Flynn’s defense team. 9 FBI agent Pientka became the “DOJ’s Invisible Man,” despite the fact that Congress has repeatedly called for him to testify. Pientka has remained out of sight and out of mind more than a year and a half since his name first surfaced in connection with the Flynn case. 10 Judge Rudolph Contreras was removed from the Flynn case immediately after accepting Flynn’s guilty plea and was replaced by Judge Emmit Sullivan. 11 Sullivan issued what’s known as a Brady order to prosecutors–which ordered them to immediately turn over any exculpatory evidence to Flynn’s defense team. Flynn’s team then made a filing alleging the withholding of exculpatory evidence. 12 Flynn was given a chance to withdraw his guilty plea by Judge Sullivan but refused, and insisted to go forward with sentencing. 13 Flynn suddenly fired his lawyers for the past two years and hired Sidney Powell to lead his new legal team following special counsel Robert Mueller’s disastrous testimony to Congress. And now, the latest startling development: 14 Flynn filed to have the Mueller prosecution team replaced for having withheld exculpatory evidence, despite Sullivan having directly ordered them to hand any such evidence over months ago. AND NOW, ABOUT THAT "TROLL FARM" Quote:Now, it’s not that far-fetched of an idea that the Mueller special counsel prosecutors would hide exculpatory evidence from the Flynn defense team, since they’ve just admitted to having done exactly that in another case their office has been prosecuting. The defense team for Internet Research Agency/Concord, more popularly known as “the Russian troll farm case,” hasn’t been smooth going for the Mueller prosecutors. First, the prosecution team got a real tongue-lashing from Judge Dabney L. Friedrich in early July, when it turned out they had no evidence whatsoever to prove their assertion that the Russian troll farms were being run by the Putin government. Then, in a filing submitted to the court on Aug. 30, the IRA/Concord defense team alerted Judge Friedrich that the prosecutors just got around to handing them key evidence the prosecutors had for the past 18 months. The prosecution gave no explanation whatsoever as to why they hid this key evidence for more than a year. It’s hard to see at this point how the entire IRA/Concord case isn’t tossed out. Back to Flynn Quote:What would it mean for Flynn’s prosecutors to have been caught hiding exculpatory evidence from him and his lawyers, even after the presiding judge explicitly ordered them in February to hand over everything they had? It would mean that the Flynn case is tossed out, since the prosecution team was caught engaging in gross misconduct. Now you can see why Flynn refused to withdraw his guilty plea when Judge Sullivan gave him the opportunity to do so in late December 2018. A withdrawal of the guilty plea or a pardon would let the Mueller prosecution team off the hook. And they’re not getting off the hook. Flynn hired the best lawyer he possibly could have when it comes to exposing prosecutorial misconduct. Nobody knows the crafty, corrupt, and dishonest tricks federal prosecutors use better than Powell, who actually wrote a compelling book about such matters, entitled “License to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.” Everything this Mueller prosecution team did in withholding exculpatory evidence from Flynn’s defense team—and continued to withhold even after Judge Sullivan specifically issued an order about it—is going to be fully exposed. Defying a federal judge’s Brady order is a one-way ticket to not only getting fired, it’s a serious enough offense to warrant disbarment and prosecution. If it turns out Mueller special counsel prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence— not only in the IRA/Concord case, but also in the cases against Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and others—that will have a huge impact. If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn’t they do the same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven’t they have already demonstrated they are willing to break the rules? Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and author of “Nobody Asked For My Opinion … But Here It Is Anyway!” He can be reached on Twitter @drawandstrike. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Quote:Gen. Flynn’s Endgame Approaches Brian Cates Commentary Having followed Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s perjury case from the beginning, it’s been apparent to me for some time that there are a lot of things in this case that just don’t add up. Strange occurrences abound. Here are just some of the twists and turns in the case, which has gone on for more than three years. 1 Flynn’s trip to Russia in 2015, where it was claimed Flynn went without the knowledge or approval of the DIA or anyone in Washington, was proven not to be true. 2 Flynn was suspected of being compromised by a supposed Russian agent, Cambridge academic Svetlana Lokhova, based on allegations from Western intelligence asset Stefan Halper. This was also proven to be not true. 3 Flynn’s phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were framed as being incredibly shady and a potential violation of the Logan Act. This allegation was always preposterous. 4 Unnamed intelligence officials leaked the details of the Flynn-Kislyak phone calls to The Washington Post. 5 FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joseph Pientka were dispatched by Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe to interview Flynn at the White House, even though the FBI had already reviewed the transcripts of the calls and cleared Flynn of any crimes. 6 Both FBI Director James Comey and McCabe testified to Congress that Flynn didn’t lie. 7 Despite what McCabe and Comey both testified to under oath before Congress, the Mueller special counsel’s office decided to prosecute Flynn for perjury in November of 2017. 8 The very strange post-dated FD-302 form on the FBI’s January 2017 interview of Flynn that wasn’t filled out until August 2017, almost seven months afterward, is revealed in a court filing by Flynn’s defense team. 9 FBI agent Pientka became the “DOJ’s Invisible Man,” despite the fact that Congress has repeatedly called for him to testify. Pientka has remained out of sight and out of mind more than a year and a half since his name first surfaced in connection with the Flynn case. 10 Judge Rudolph Contreras was removed from the Flynn case immediately after accepting Flynn’s guilty plea and was replaced by Judge Emmit Sullivan. 11 Sullivan issued what’s known as a Brady order to prosecutors–which ordered them to immediately turn over any exculpatory evidence to Flynn’s defense team. Flynn’s team then made a filing alleging the withholding of exculpatory evidence. 12 Flynn was given a chance to withdraw his guilty plea by Judge Sullivan but refused, and insisted to go forward with sentencing. 13 Flynn suddenly fired his lawyers for the past two years and hired Sidney Powell to lead his new legal team following special counsel Robert Mueller’s disastrous testimony to Congress. And now, the latest startling development: 14 Flynn filed to have the Mueller prosecution team replaced for having withheld exculpatory evidence, despite Sullivan having directly ordered them to hand any such evidence over months ago.
Quote:Now, it’s not that far-fetched of an idea that the Mueller special counsel prosecutors would hide exculpatory evidence from the Flynn defense team, since they’ve just admitted to having done exactly that in another case their office has been prosecuting. The defense team for Internet Research Agency/Concord, more popularly known as “the Russian troll farm case,” hasn’t been smooth going for the Mueller prosecutors. First, the prosecution team got a real tongue-lashing from Judge Dabney L. Friedrich in early July, when it turned out they had no evidence whatsoever to prove their assertion that the Russian troll farms were being run by the Putin government. Then, in a filing submitted to the court on Aug. 30, the IRA/Concord defense team alerted Judge Friedrich that the prosecutors just got around to handing them key evidence the prosecutors had for the past 18 months. The prosecution gave no explanation whatsoever as to why they hid this key evidence for more than a year. It’s hard to see at this point how the entire IRA/Concord case isn’t tossed out.
Quote:What would it mean for Flynn’s prosecutors to have been caught hiding exculpatory evidence from him and his lawyers, even after the presiding judge explicitly ordered them in February to hand over everything they had? It would mean that the Flynn case is tossed out, since the prosecution team was caught engaging in gross misconduct. Now you can see why Flynn refused to withdraw his guilty plea when Judge Sullivan gave him the opportunity to do so in late December 2018. A withdrawal of the guilty plea or a pardon would let the Mueller prosecution team off the hook. And they’re not getting off the hook. Flynn hired the best lawyer he possibly could have when it comes to exposing prosecutorial misconduct. Nobody knows the crafty, corrupt, and dishonest tricks federal prosecutors use better than Powell, who actually wrote a compelling book about such matters, entitled “License to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.” Everything this Mueller prosecution team did in withholding exculpatory evidence from Flynn’s defense team—and continued to withhold even after Judge Sullivan specifically issued an order about it—is going to be fully exposed. Defying a federal judge’s Brady order is a one-way ticket to not only getting fired, it’s a serious enough offense to warrant disbarment and prosecution. If it turns out Mueller special counsel prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence— not only in the IRA/Concord case, but also in the cases against Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and others—that will have a huge impact. If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn’t they do the same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven’t they have already demonstrated they are willing to break the rules? Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and author of “Nobody Asked For My Opinion … But Here It Is Anyway!” He can be reached on Twitter @drawandstrike. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Thursday, September 12, 2019 11:32 PM
Quote: Justice Department Rejects McCabe’s Appeal to Avoid Indictment The Justice Department on Thursday notified lawyers for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that they have rejected his appeal to avoid being criminally charged, according to a person close to his legal team. The move likely clears the way for him to be indicted for lying to federal agents. The developments come about a month after McCabe sued the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney General William Barr, claiming his firing was unlawful. McCabe was ousted by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions last year after an internal investigation into his role in disclosing a Clinton Foundation probe to the media. The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia informed McCabe’s legal team last month that charges against McCabe were being recommended, according to a person familiar with the matter. McCabe and his legal team met with Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the U.S. attorney, Jessie Liu, on Aug. 21 to appeal the recommendation, according to the person. McCabe’s lawyers still have the right to request a meeting with Barr over the matter, the person said. McCabe, 51, spent two decades working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His termination came 10 months after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, who at the time was leading the bureau’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and whether anyone associated with President Donald Trump’s campaign conspired in the operation. Trump repeatedly pressed for the firing of McCabe, accusing him of being biased in favor of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton ally, had helped fund an unsuccessful bid by McCabe’s wife for a Democratic Virginia state Senate seat in 2015 when he was the state’s governor. The president later called McCabe’s firing “a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI.” The Justice Department declined to comment when asked about the appeal.
Sunday, September 15, 2019 4:10 PM
Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: I understand that there are 4 or 5 reports coming out soon. Tomorrow is supposed to be about 60 pages of report on Comey and his crimes. (This came out 29 August) Then a report on McCabe, something like his lies and crimes and such. Then a second report on McCabe, on his leaking. Then the IG Horowitz report on FISA and FISC Abuse. At some point it is believed that there will be a Barr/Dunham report on the criminal origins of the Mueller Witch Hunt Fishing Expedition, aka the secret plot to depose Trump.
Monday, September 23, 2019 7:28 PM
Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: I understand that there are 4 or 5 reports coming out soon. Tomorrow is supposed to be about 60 pages of report on Comey and his crimes. Then a report on McCabe, something like his lies and crimes and such. Then a second report on McCabe, on his leaking. Then the IG Horowitz report on FISA and FISC Abuse. At some point it is believed that there will be a Barr/Dunham report on the criminal origins of the Mueller Witch Hunt Fishing Expedition, aka the secret plot to depose Trump. #1 yesterday. http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=63253
Quote:Rep. Jim Jordan takes over from where Steube was and asks Horowitz if any Committee Chairman has asked him to testify. Horowitz confirms that neither Chairman Nadler nor Chairman Cummings has asked for IG testimony. Democrats are attempting to hide the investigative findings.
Sunday, October 6, 2019 3:29 PM
Sunday, October 6, 2019 8:58 PM
Sunday, October 6, 2019 9:12 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: I think Trump is just fine and this is all a large social experiment that started before Hillary lost.
Quote:I can't imagine what it must be like to be on the other side of the fence right now. Constantly being emboldened by a Legacy Media that lies to you every day and tells you that your "side" is winning.
Quote: Constantly getting your hopes up every single day that this time it will be different.
Quote:Constantly getting yourself wrapped up so much in all of it emotionally that it becomes part of who you are so when it falls apart again it feels like a piece of you just died.
Quote:It's almost as if there is a coordinated plan in effect right now to literally drive a few million people insane... And it seems to be working. Do Right, Be Right. :)
Sunday, October 6, 2019 11:18 PM
Sunday, October 6, 2019 11:33 PM
Monday, October 7, 2019 4:31 PM
Saturday, October 19, 2019 6:15 PM
Quote:CIA Analysts Lawyer Up As Brennan, Clapper Ensnared In Expanding Russiagate Probe CIA analysts involved in the intelligence assessment of Russia's activities during the 2016 US election have begun to hire attorneys, as Attorney General William Barr expands his investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, led by US Attorney John Durham. The prosecutor conducting the review, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has expressed his intent to interview a number of current and former intelligence officials involved in examining Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, Brennan told NBC News. -NBC NBC learned of the 'lawyering up' from three former CIA officials "familiar with the matter," while two more anonymous leakers claim there's tension between the Justice Department and the CIA over what classified documents Durham has access to. With Barr’s approval, Durham has expanded his staff and the timeframe under scrutiny, according to a law enforcement official directly familiar with the matter. And he is now looking into conduct past Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, a Trump administration official said. One Western intelligence official familiar with Durham's investigation leaked that Durham has been asking foreign officials questions related to former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who was fed the rumor that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton by a Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud. While US media has sought to portray Mifsud as a Russian asset, the self-described member of the Clinton foundation has far stronger ties to the West. A Western intelligence official familiar with what Durham has been asking of foreign officials says his inquiries track closely with the questions raised about the Russia investigation in right-wing media—a line of inquiry based on accusations made by George Papadopoulos. https://t.co/pku50keorJ — Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) October 19, 2019 According to congressional testimony given by Papadopoulos last October as well as statements he's made over Twitter, the whole thing was an FBI setup - as a 'woman in London, who was the FBI's legal attache in the UK' and "had a personal relationship to Bob Mueller after 9/11" was the one who recommended that he meet with Mifsud in Rome. To be clear: a woman in London, who was the FBI’s legal attaché in the U.K., and had a personal relationship to Bob Mueller after 9/11, encouraged me to meet Joseph Mifsud in Rome in March 2016 and introduced Bruce Ohr to the top U.K. prosecutor 4 days before the Trump tower mtg. — George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 30, 2019 As the theory goes; Mifsud, a US intelligence asset, feeds Papadopoulos the rumor that Russia has Hillary Clinton's emails shortly after he announces he's going to join the Trump campaign. Papadopoulos repeats the email rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who alerts Australia's intelligence community, which notifies the FBI, which then launches operation "Crossfire Hurricane" during which the FBI sent multiple spies (including a 'honeypot') to infiltrate the Trump campaign. Notably, former FBI employee Peter Strzok flew to London to meet with Downer the day after Crossfire Hurricane was launched - while Strzok's boss, Bill Priestap was in London the day before the Downer-Papadopoulos encounter. We have now pinned Peter Strzok’s boss, Bill Priestap, in London the week of May 6th, 2016 and on the 9th. The day before Alexander Downer was sent to spy on me and record our meeting. Congress must release the transcripts and embarrass the deep state. — George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) April 20, 2019 And if this is all true, Durham has a lot to untangle - including the Clinton / DNC-funded Steele Dossier.
Sunday, October 20, 2019 2:52 PM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: In the brouhaha about IMPEACHMENT!! people are forgetting that other investigations are already underway ... Quote:CIA Analysts Lawyer Up As Brennan, Clapper Ensnared In Expanding Russiagate Probe CIA analysts involved in the intelligence assessment of Russia's activities during the 2016 US election have begun to hire attorneys, as Attorney General William Barr expands his investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, led by US Attorney John Durham. The prosecutor conducting the review, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has expressed his intent to interview a number of current and former intelligence officials involved in examining Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, Brennan told NBC News. -NBC NBC learned of the 'lawyering up' from three former CIA officials "familiar with the matter," while two more anonymous leakers claim there's tension between the Justice Department and the CIA over what classified documents Durham has access to. With Barr’s approval, Durham has expanded his staff and the timeframe under scrutiny, according to a law enforcement official directly familiar with the matter. And he is now looking into conduct past Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, a Trump administration official said. One Western intelligence official familiar with Durham's investigation leaked that Durham has been asking foreign officials questions related to former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who was fed the rumor that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton by a Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud. While US media has sought to portray Mifsud as a Russian asset, the self-described member of the Clinton foundation has far stronger ties to the West. A Western intelligence official familiar with what Durham has been asking of foreign officials says his inquiries track closely with the questions raised about the Russia investigation in right-wing media—a line of inquiry based on accusations made by George Papadopoulos. https://t.co/pku50keorJ — Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) October 19, 2019 According to congressional testimony given by Papadopoulos last October as well as statements he's made over Twitter, the whole thing was an FBI setup - as a 'woman in London, who was the FBI's legal attache in the UK' and "had a personal relationship to Bob Mueller after 9/11" was the one who recommended that he meet with Mifsud in Rome. To be clear: a woman in London, who was the FBI’s legal attaché in the U.K., and had a personal relationship to Bob Mueller after 9/11, encouraged me to meet Joseph Mifsud in Rome in March 2016 and introduced Bruce Ohr to the top U.K. prosecutor 4 days before the Trump tower mtg. — George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 30, 2019 As the theory goes; Mifsud, a US intelligence asset, feeds Papadopoulos the rumor that Russia has Hillary Clinton's emails shortly after he announces he's going to join the Trump campaign. Papadopoulos repeats the email rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who alerts Australia's intelligence community, which notifies the FBI, which then launches operation "Crossfire Hurricane" during which the FBI sent multiple spies (including a 'honeypot') to infiltrate the Trump campaign. Notably, former FBI employee Peter Strzok flew to London to meet with Downer the day after Crossfire Hurricane was launched - while Strzok's boss, Bill Priestap was in London the day before the Downer-Papadopoulos encounter. We have now pinned Peter Strzok’s boss, Bill Priestap, in London the week of May 6th, 2016 and on the 9th. The day before Alexander Downer was sent to spy on me and record our meeting. Congress must release the transcripts and embarrass the deep state. — George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) April 20, 2019 And if this is all true, Durham has a lot to untangle - including the Clinton / DNC-funded Steele Dossier.
Wednesday, October 23, 2019 8:31 PM
Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: I understand that there are 4 or 5 reports coming out soon. Tomorrow is supposed to be about 60 pages of report on Comey and his crimes. Then a report on McCabe, something like his lies and crimes and such. Then a second report on McCabe, on his leaking. Then the IG Horowitz report on FISA and FISC Abuse. At some point it is believed that there will be a Barr/Dunham report on the criminal origins of the Mueller Witch Hunt Fishing Expedition, aka the secret plot to depose Trump. #1 yesterday. http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=63253 Looks like Cummings and Nadler have no curiosity or interest in the facts of the IG Report. Quote:Rep. Jim Jordan takes over from where Steube was and asks Horowitz if any Committee Chairman has asked him to testify. Horowitz confirms that neither Chairman Nadler nor Chairman Cummings has asked for IG testimony. Democrats are attempting to hide the investigative findings. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/09/18/inspector-general-michael-horowitz-testifies-on-matters-of-high-interest/comment-page-1/ https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/inspector-general-michael-horowitz-testifies-on-matters-of-high-interest-fisa-comey-mccabe-spygate/
Wednesday, October 23, 2019 9:08 PM
Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Apparently Elijah Cummings Died this past week.
Thursday, October 24, 2019 6:59 AM
THG
Thursday, October 24, 2019 7:00 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN: Apparently Elijah Cummings Died this past week. Yes. He will be remembered for his legacy of rat infested streets in Baltimore, as well as being a recognized member of the White Power movement, according to the ADL's new rules. https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture Do Right, Be Right. :)
Thursday, October 24, 2019 8:34 AM
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