Russia! Russia!! Russia!!!

[kybkh]

The dossier is not what led to the Mueller special council. It was all of the meetings, and failures to disclose meetings, and the things Trump and his family kept saying about their close ties to Russia before people started asking questions about it.

In fact, if memory serves, serious people rejected the dossier pretty much out of hand since it was a bunch of un-vetted slanderous nonsense, released and and not collaborated by friggin' Buzzfeed.

I am not saying the Clinton's aren't a bunch of shady sum'bitches, but don't rewrite history to place the Steel dossier in a position it never occupied.

CNN
Updated 8:07 PM ET, Tue April 18, 2017
FBI used dossier allegations to bolster Trump-Russia investigation

The FBI last year used a dossier of allegations of Russian ties to Donald Trump's campaign as part of the justification to win approval to secretly monitor a Trump associate, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.

The dossier has also been cited by FBI Director James Comey in some of his briefings to members of Congress in recent weeks, as one of the sources of information the bureau has used to bolster its investigation, according to US officials briefed on the probe.
This includes approval from the secret court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to monitor the communications of Carter Page, two of the officials said. Last year, Page was identified by the Trump campaign as an adviser on national security.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/18/politics/ ... index.html

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Oh, NOW we are listening to CNN and considering Comey a 'serious person.' Convenient.

The dossier wasn't a major part of what was going on. It isn't why Sessions recused himself. It had nothing to do with suspicions over high officials not reporting their meetings with Russians. It had nothing to do with Trumps own claims about his relationship with Russia.

The only people I have heard mention the dossier in months before WaPo (which was another one of those untrustworthy fake news sources until quite recently, it would seem) brought it up were shitty comedians, who cared about it because it involved pee pee, and they are childish.

[C-Mag]

This should help clarify this point.

The official story is that Steele was a dedicated whistleblower who decided to message an FBI pal for reasons “above party politics” while the Fusion GPS boss was so dedicated that he spent his own money on it after the election. Some figures in the FBI decided to take Steele’s material, offering to pay him for his work and reimbursing some of his expenses. Portions of the dossier were used to justify the FISA eavesdropping on Trump officials and were then rolled into the Mueller investigation.

That is how cells coordinate by breaking up a larger plot into a series of individual actions that just happen to produce the ideal result. Hillary and the DNC hire Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS hires Steele. Steele contacts an FBI pal. The FBI takes up the dossier. And then it’s turned into a pretext for eavesdropping.

How Obama Used Hillary’s Dossier to Spy on Trump
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268230/ ... greenfield

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

This should help clarify this point.

The official story is that Steele was a dedicated whistleblower who decided to message an FBI pal for reasons “above party politics” while the Fusion GPS boss was so dedicated that he spent his own money on it after the election. Some figures in the FBI decided to take Steele’s material, offering to pay him for his work and reimbursing some of his expenses. Portions of the dossier were used to justify the FISA eavesdropping on Trump officials and were then rolled into the Mueller investigation.

That is how cells coordinate by breaking up a larger plot into a series of individual actions that just happen to produce the ideal result. Hillary and the DNC hire Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS hires Steele. Steele contacts an FBI pal. The FBI takes up the dossier. And then it’s turned into a pretext for eavesdropping.

How Obama Used Hillary’s Dossier to Spy on Trump
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268230/ ... greenfield

'Rolled into the Mueller investigation' seems to imply the investigation already existed for other reasons.

[C-Mag]

This should help clarify this point.

The official story is that Steele was a dedicated whistleblower who decided to message an FBI pal for reasons “above party politics” while the Fusion GPS boss was so dedicated that he spent his own money on it after the election. Some figures in the FBI decided to take Steele’s material, offering to pay him for his work and reimbursing some of his expenses. Portions of the dossier were used to justify the FISA eavesdropping on Trump officials and were then rolled into the Mueller investigation.

That is how cells coordinate by breaking up a larger plot into a series of individual actions that just happen to produce the ideal result. Hillary and the DNC hire Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS hires Steele. Steele contacts an FBI pal. The FBI takes up the dossier. And then it’s turned into a pretext for eavesdropping.

How Obama Used Hillary’s Dossier to Spy on Trump
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268230/ ... greenfield

'Rolled into the Mueller investigation' seems to imply the investigation already existed for other reasons.

It looks like to me that they wanted a legal way to spy on Trump, they had submitted previous FISA court requests but were denied. Then they used the bogus Steele Dossier, as 'evidence of wrong doing' to get the FISA warrant they wanted anyway.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Yeah, it looks pretty shady.

I don't know how common it is for the FBIs to buy dossiers off private investigators. And I am even less certain how common it is for the FBI and a dirt digging operation like Fusion to draw from the same well.

But it don't smell right.

I just took issue with the idea that the dossier was responsible for the special council.

[C-Mag]

Yeah, it looks pretty shady.

I don't know how common it is for the FBIs to buy dossiers off private investigators. And I am even less certain how common it is for the FBI and a dirt digging operation like Fusion to draw from the same well.

But it don't smell right.

I just took issue with the idea that the dossier was responsible for the special council.

This brings up another problem, the FBI outsourcing investigations. I've read that the FBI has outsourced many investigations including data mining social media to find out how long you've been a terrorist. Ya know, some work is just inherently government. National Security is one of them. We don't need Kazymyr working for a private contractor reporting to the FBI that Kath is a terrorist.

Fusion is resisting Congressional inquiries hard, but I believe they are under subpoena now, so they are at least going to have to show up and plead the 5th. I think we all are going to learn more about government outsourcing in general, and specifically in this case.

[kybkh]

I just took issue with the idea that the dossier was responsible for the special council.

Without the FISA ease dropping you don't have the Flynn story. You don't know about these other meetings, in which nothing out of the ordinary happened.

If Commey didn't use the Trump dossier to get FISA warrant would Trump had fired him?

If the dossier didn't exist would there even be a Russia-Gate?

The best possible light you can paint this in is the FBI used a opposition research piece to justify tapping a political opponents phone and in turn discovered that Trump campaign officials were in contact with Russians talking about nothing substantial.

[Speaker to Animals]

To get a warrant, does somebody from the FBI not have to affirm under penalty of perjury that the probable cause evidence presented is to the best of his knowledge truthful and accurate?

If the FBI knowingly purchased bogus opposition research and used that to obtain a warrant to gather intelligence against the opposition party's campaign, then it seems to me more than a handful of people in that agency exposed themselves to prosecution and prison time. At the very least.

This really does appear to be without a doubt the worst political crime in our nation's history.

[C-Mag]

I just took issue with the idea that the dossier was responsible for the special council.

Without the FISA ease dropping you don't have the Flynn story. You don't know about these other meetings, in which nothing out of the ordinary happened.

If Commey didn't use the Trump dossier to get FISA warrant would Trump had fired him?

If the dossier didn't exist would there even be a Russia-Gate?

The best possible light you can paint this in is the FBI used a opposition research piece to justify tapping a political opponents phone and in turn discovered that Trump campaign officials were in contact with Russians talking about nothing substantial.

+1
I don't think there is a way to put lipstick on this pig.