Jack Posobiec? Wait a moment...let me counter with Rachel Maddow@!! LOL. Wait...I won't because I know anything coming out of either's mouth carries a specific agenda. The language they use, the evidence they point to while ignoring other evidence...too biased.
So why is the AG have the IG and Huber investigating FISA abuse in the DOJ? Why is Congress investigating the basis for opening the investigation? Was it legit or pure political bias? Apparently everyone can smell the TAINT but you.
Honest answers... FISA abuse is legit and should be investigated. We don't know the outcome of anything yet thus how can you claim "taint" when you don't know yet. See how one can make the claim that you've reached a decision before the evidence is presented? Congress investigating. Anything on the House side is pure political theater and can't be taken seriously. The House Oversight Committee is broken in so many ways. Nunes showed his colors when he met with WH to get evidence then holds a press conference to say "I have evidence" only later to find out it was bogus and his source was the very people he's supposed to be holding accountable. Hey...the NIH alcohol example might be more applicable to Nunes "investigations" than anywhere else. Adam Schiff is simply the counterbalance. Neither are interested in actually investigating but rather started with conclusions then went in search of evidence. The Senate is holding things together a little better.
The fact that the FBI and DOJ are insisting on redactions and hiding evidence from Congress tells me we have more TAINT to uncover.
Deflection? You're better than that. I'm simply saying that Prosobiec is a propagandist, no different than Maddow. They will only surface information supportive of their agenda and will ignore any conflicting evidence. I think we need to revisit the scope of the Mueller investigation. This isn't just about Trump but rather Russia's influence on the campaign. While Trump sycophants (supporters and foes) try to tie all to Trump, we need the full picture. 19 people indited and 5 guilty please so far. I get why you want to focus on 1 single individual (Stzrok) and leverage their personal bias to invalidate the entire investigation. Is this investigation a "witch hunt"?
It's hard for me to believe the kind of harsh language used against Trump can be so compartmentalized that it has no effect on judgment and decisions to follow leads. Hillary was investigated and apparently exonerated. No charges were filed. Is the fact that she was investigated the proof of no bias? It seems to me they had no choice but to investigate her. It was too far out in the open. Proving intent is very difficult without documentary evidence. Asking if that was her intent and accepting her denial does not prove they were unbiased. I just can't believe it can be dismissed so easily. And for the record, I believe if it were the other way around the Left would be on the war path. I appreciate the legalistic and studious attempts to debunk evidence of bias but it's just not credible to me given the emotion and firm handed declarations that he will be stopped were made. Those private conversations are who they are and what they think. And because Strzok was removed from the Russian probe that that proves to me that the stated opinions were evidence of such a deeply held bias that they could not take the chance of it tainting the investigation. Yet the findings from the investigation of Hillary are not to be thrown out. The work of the biased agent/lawyer is to be considered valid. It's hard to accept.
Let me try another analogy. I was a Starbucks employee during the time Howard Schultz, SBUX Co-founder, was selling the team to the OK City ownership. My animosity towards Shultz, Stern, the OK City ownership and the NBA was palpable during that time. In fact, I wrote a letter to David Stern telling them I'd never spend a dime on the NBA ever again due to the NBA's treatment of the Seattle fans. Shultz is accountable too. He claimed he trusted the OK City ownership to keep the team in Seattle. That was pure BS as the OK City ownership wanted what amounted to the 2nd most expensive 100% basketball stadium ever to be built and would put in very limited money and wanted 100% of all advertising revenue year round. This was a deal no city could ever afford. The result, they end up in OK City. Are you saying I couldn't separate my anger at Schultz from my work at Starbucks? I was too busy as were were growing from 30k employees to 175k employees to bring my personal views into work. My pride in my work and desire for advancement also forced me to check any personal views at the door.
On the other hand, I do not know if you have noticed, when it comes to Donald Trump those for and against him tend to get really nutty.
Outside of Manafort, everyone of those guilty pleas and indictments are a joke. Mueller trying to stop a trial for 11 of those indictments (Russian bot farm). Flynn - will get thrown out when the facts come to light. Same for Papadopoulos when it will be shown he was entrapped by a fbi spy.
Agreed. Which is a large part what of the IG's assessed. Did the zealousness of anti-Trumpism influence the investigation? Even with the voluminous text messages and testimony there was "no documentary evidence" that the actions were influenced by the bias, aside from the Weiner laptop. These 5 agents will surely be reprimanded for their use of company assets. One thing that may be also missing was support for HRC. The key players were anti-Trump (Stzrok and Paige) but were they equally pro-HRC? Were they simply ambiguous to HRC?
Flynn didn't lie to FBI investigators? He's already plead guilty. As did Papadopolous and van der Zwaan. The latter spent 30 days in jail and paid $20k fine. Gates took a plea deal to start cooperating against Manafort, it appears. Are you saying Flynn's guilty plea will get thrown out? Flynn is literally awaiting sentencing, and maybe a pardon. If you believe Nunes' version of the House Intelligence Committee's report (I don't as it's 100% politically driven) then I guess you could be taking cues like this. Believing anything coming out of Devin Nunes or Adam Schiff mouth's is a fools errand.
I would think you could do it just like I have to do it with my employer. I think the comment by the FBI agent about doing something about Trump and having the power to do it puts it in a different category.
I'd agree that it deserves more scrutiny which is what the IG just offered up, IMHO. What scared me most about these findings was how nonchalantly these FBI agents used their government phones. They didn't fear getting in trouble. I still carry my own phone rather than take the company up on their subsidized device because I know they get to OWN all my communications. I censor myself on IM because it can and will be used against me should the company desire a reason to fire me and build a case against any wrongful termination litigation. These leaders had none of that fear. Then again...that could be due to where they are at the top of the org charts.
Same with Hillary and others who use servers/phones so carelessly. That is also why I think the bias may be more of a problem in this matter because their lack of fear possibly extends into everything they do. DC is so divided and acrimonious that it's a way of life (What did Vincent Foster say; "Here ruining people is considered sport"). That kind of ruthlessness and unapologetic, arrogant partisanship is a cancer that has infected all levels of government including our watch-dog. It creates a level of zealotry and self-righteousness that can't be controlled. That and their absolute cynicism over the American people's short-attention span and general stupidity. They also know that nobody believes anything the other side says so a real crime has to be somebody shooting someone on camera. Thousands of hours of interviews and a denial of bias is easy to slide by people.
It's a culture in D.C. rather than a right/left thing. Remember during the HRC investigation it was uncovered that Colin Powell and Gates had also used "private" (they were public services) email? I heard a reference that it was noted that James Comey also used his gmail account in a limited way. He of all people should know how unsafe that is. Keep in mind, the inverse to that story is also true. The bias is so pervasive that anyone can take a comment out of context and make it be more than it actually is. Yes, you have people on the left out for Trumps head. There are also people carrying Trump's water who's sole purpose is to discredit the investigation (e.g. Nunes). That's why the IG's report carries so much weight for me. Here is a non-partisan role coming in to look at all the evidence and making a determination based on their best judgement. The primary purpose of the report was to determine whether political bias influenced FBI decisions. To that, he found no documentary evidence in spite of how brazenly these handful of agents shared their opinions. Horowitz worked under multiple administrations (both Bush, Clinton, Obama and now Trump). I trust his judgement more than most of the media, WH or Legislative branch at this point because they've all become so hyper-partisan.
LOL. You think Mueller could win a conviction today after the IG report? When is Mueller going after Clapper and McCabe for lying?
@Seattle Husker I figure Maxine Water's zeal to impeach Trump somewhat washes out those who carry the water for Trump. There is always a partisan (lacking in good faith) investigation going on between the two parties. It is very difficult to know what is credible. You've decided that Horowitz is; maybe I need to do more homework. But we do have documented evidence that these two FBI employees (with the power to cause mischief) were out for blood. You say they weren't necessarily in league to see that Hillary would be elected but what was the remaining choice? You think they wanted any of the other Republicans? Rubio? Bush? What you have to believe is that they are real patriots who want only what's best for America and that their negative comments about Trump were solely about Trump and not about a Republican taking office. Because to me, Trump is not that far removed from many Republicans in terms of policy. He just has an unhinged mouth. Besides, the President really doesn't have that much power unless he abuses the executive orders. And I don't consider rescinding a stay on enforcing immigration laws to be a form of abuse.
Maxine Waters is a kook with ZERO power. She's a good stooge for the right to point to as a "typical Democrat/liberal". Here is how little power she has amongst her peers in Congress: She's so powerful her voice was nonexistent as the House rolled back nearly all the Dodd-Frank rules put in place to protect us from another financial meltdown. Out for blood or simply overreacting like every other liberal in the US at the thought of a Trump presidency? I do think conservatives are overreacting to some texts every bit as much as these 2 liberals were doing in the moment. From my perspective, Liberals weren't upset at any Trump policies other than his anti-Muslim stance. It was his clear sexism and misogyny that were a central tenor of his campaign speeches that drove the anti-Trump movement. They were upset at the social norms he proudly flouted. The fact that he could say "blood coming out of her you know where" and mock Fiorina's looks and his supporters said "so what?". In fact, they proudly adopted his crassness in the form of T-Shirts saying Hillary for Prison as a badge of honor. This is what drove the million woman "pussyhat" march immediately following his inauguration. Did Trump hardly talk about policy on the campaign trail? To me, he preferred to proffer in cute nicknames and colloquialisms. If anything, he was the shallowest POTUS candidate we've had in my lifetime. If you're talking about issues since the election then yes, he's advanced the rights agenda. Keep in mind these FBI texts that were recovered were leading up to and on the election. To my knowledge we haven't seen any texts post election. I used to think that but Trump has deftly stolen the power from Congress. They've abdicated any check on his power. In some ways, they aid him (see Nunes). They look the other way as he profits daily from being POTUS. Do you think it's a coincidence that Ivanka Trump gets 10-20 trademarks approved in China the week leading up to DJT's visit? How about the $500M China invested recently in a Trump branded development in Malaysia? I firmly believe Paul Ryan sold his soul to Trump simply to get the largest tax cut passed. This is the only reason I can gather that Ryan hasn't stepped in to pull Nunes back. In many ways, the right leadership has sold their souls. They've given up conservative values for Trump values. In return, they get conservative judges, the EPA and Consumer Protection Bureau raped and a massive tax cut that will saddle our future generations with an every increasing debt. Just like Bush...somehow we leverage the good economic times to dramatically increase the debt rather than pay it down.
More taint: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-17/second-fbi-informant-tried-entrap-trump-campaign-2-million-offer-hillary-dirt-roger
@Seattle Husker I understand the concerns about a conflict of interest between Trump and his family business. The two issues you cited are a partner who hired a construction company to build a resort that has nothing to do with Trump (someone has to build it; maybe that company is the best in that part of the world. This is apparently a world-class development) and the other are trademarks that protect the brand (in part to fend off piracy). If the Trademarks are legitimate (meaning there is no other legitimate competing or prior interest in the same trademark that is being denied illegally for political reasons) then it's a standard business practice. I suppose the pure play would be to force Trump and everyone in his family to completely divest their interest in every business they own. Or maybe Trump should not have run at all. I don't know the answer. I don't know how realistic those choices are. The Democrats are going after him on this. We'll see if they can find DOCUMENTED evidence of quid pro quo's. If the appearance of a conflict of interest is all that matters then it is possible he is guilty of that. We know the Chinese government heavily regulates their economy; certainly it's possible they could go easy on Ivanka just to see if it would influence Trump. It would be better if that possibility did not exist. I suppose you're thinking that the tax decrease (for instance) is the Republican Congress paying Trump back for not pursuing the conflict of interest angle. That would mean that Trump really was not in favor of the tax decrease because if he was then how can you say Congress bowed to him when it would have been a win-win for Trump on both issues? I think the tax cut is a conservative value (though you are probably saying it would raise the debt/deficit which is not a stated conservative value). A conservative would believe that money in the hands of the people is better than money in the hands of the government that can be politicized. I am not in favor of increasing the national debt or the deficit. It doubled under Obama. I have felt that the favorable economic metrics he wishes to show as evidence of his good leadership were bought and paid for by the debt. You can't separate the two in my opinion. I think both parties have no care for the debt at all. The true Conservatives (the Tea Party) forced the sequester and entrenched Republicans such as the former Speaker who had a nice tan and all the Democrats objected probably because it interfered with business as usual. I hoped that Trump would be as fiscally tough on the debt as the Tea Party hard-liners. I am glad he nominated Gorsuch. I consider Sotomayor a total racist and a made as instructed jurist. I am in favor of strict environmental controls. How strict? It's tough to say but clean air and clean water is a very good thing. I don't like the the religious element that has been introduced. I think Moore was a total disaster. I don't like Sessions either. Pence is also too evangelical for me. But that sort of thing is playing to the voting base. It's an unfortunate reality. As for Waters I will say this; she may not appear to have power in Congress but I think she has power with the black voter. Do you think she pushes black voters to the right or possibly just a loose cannon the black leadership wishes would go away? I don't. I think she provides much impetus to the anger that must be present to sustain true activism that can make a difference. Sorry, this was a bit of a ramble. You don't have to answer everything obviously.
Bizzarro world. If you act like something doesn't exist and say it over and over enough times, people will believe it doesn't exist. For prosperity, here is a site that links all the legal documents including Flynn's plea agreement.
