Russia Collusion Scandal (aka A Leftist fantasy)

[zitothebrave]

Thanks meta for taking more time that I ever would care to. It will still fall on deaf ears. But it's good to see that you still have some hope that facts can prevail in this world.

[Metaphysicist]

You know me Zito, I'm nothing if not an optimist.

[thethe]

Thank you for responding. On the road with the lady headed to a christmas dinner.

Browsed some points and am looking forward to respond.

[nsacpi]

Thank you for responding. On the road with the lady headed to a christmas dinner.

Browsed some points and am looking forward to respond.

Enjoy your dinner. And Merry Christmas!

[nsacpi]

It will still fall on deaf ears.

of that we can rest assured

[thethe]

Meta,

I want to first thank you again for taking the time to respond to my post. I will do my best to give a coherent response but written word is not my specialty obviously. I have been following this whole case from beginning to the end because I felt strongly the previous administration was corrupt.

1) I don't see that in here. The report explicitly says:

"We concluded that Priestap's exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision."
"We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations."
"We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI's decision to seek FISA authority on Carter Page."
"Finally, we also found no documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivations influenced the FBI's decision to use CHSs or UCEs to interact with Trump campaign officials in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."

The existence of "bias" in the abstract is irrelevant. This current admin is obviously "biased" against Obama; I'm sure you would agree that's only relevant if it results in them actually doing something wrong.

Horowitz found that there was sufficient predication of opening the investigation and therefore no bias could be found. He also indicated that there wasn't sufficient explanations provided as to why evidence was withheld and ALTERED. I'm just wondering why 17 mistakes would be made all in one direction if not for bias? Are you saying that 17 honest mistakes were made all of which happened to further the case to spy on the Trump campaign/administration? Do the text messages not have a role to play here?

I'm just wondering what the motivation of someone would be that would change an e-mail specifically to do a 180 degree flip on what its intention was originally. Can you explain what reason that was done other than bias against Trump?

The key here is the wording of what Horowitz statements: "We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations."

So while Horowitz could not find any documented evidence of extreme bias he left it very open to the Congress to infer that bias was a real impact here. What would that documented evidence look for him to not make this statement? I just don't see how any of you can now say its a stretch to say that bias against Trump existed at the top levels of the FBI. And how would the existence of bias ever be 'irrelevant' in an investigation? We are seeing evidenced being altered and withheld becuase of bias that resulted in a worthless investigation that brought the country to a standstill when the FBI and Mueller knew there was nothing since early 2017.

2) I definitely don't see that in here. This is true only in the same way that "We found WMDs in Iraq" is true, i.e. only if you redefine "spying on the campaign" to be the thing everyone already knows about (the investigations into Flynn, Manafort, PapaJohns, and Page) and which was not problematic (i.e., these were mostly standard investigations that found real crimes, and Page wasn't even on the campaign in the FISA period). The report says:

After the opening of the investigation, we found no evidence that the FBI placed any CHSs or UCEs within the Trump campaign or tasked any CHSs or UCEs to report on the Trump campaign.

The whole purpose of getting the FISA on Paige when THEY KNEW HE WAS A CIA source was to get the records while he was in the Trump campaign. We already know that Manaforts phones were tapped in Trump Tower. The NY Times reported on his wires being tapped in early 2017 as well. The only motivation to frame an innocent man, which is exactly what Paige was the whole time, is to get information on others through incidental collection. The Obama administration was DESPERATE to get any dirt on the Trump campaign because they were nervous hew as going to win and then expose a lot of the abuses that were currently taking place.

In addition, saying that there were no FBI informants placed inside the campaign does not mean that spy operations took place to obtain communications/information on the campaign. Paige is inexorably linked to the idea that the Trump campaign was spied on. Its the only reason he got caught up in this whole mess.

3) I honestly won't be surprised if Barr tries to charge some people with some stuff. Not sure what that proves other than he's kind of a hack. Still waiting on him to bring those Iran-Contra charges.

From reading the executive summary, the IG report essentially boils down to:

they followed the rules for opening and running the investigations, but the rules probably let them do too much without oversight
they later got a warrant without giving all the negative evidence.
they never updated the warrant applications when renewing them

I think a case can easily be made for Kleinsmith. That guy is in deep **** for altering that e-mail. I don't see how he avoids jail time.

The charges will then continue to grow as Durhams report finalizes. Remember, he has much more investigatory powers which includes the other intel agencies and foreign governments. Go look at his travel itinerary. He is smoking out a lot of stuff right now and is getting access to all classified documents as opposed to Horowitz that was restricted to the FBI. And again, the existence of these 17 errors layered with the text messages showing extreme dislike of Trump make it very clear what took place.

I don't see how you can liken this case to run of the mill everyday investigations. Just because a lot of cops are crooked and get away with it doesn't mean that the most high profile case in US history should get the same treatment. If we truly want justice reforms then examples need to be made for people declaring they have an 'insurance policy' withholding exculpatory evidence and altering evidence.

It should make a lot of people wonder past the trivial partisan comments why Barr/Durham vehemently disagreed with the statements make from Horowitz on predication. They have seen a lot more and have spoken to a lot more people.

[thethe]

Media was complicit with the corruption

[Metaphysicist]

I'm just wondering why 17 mistakes would be made all in one direction if not for bias? Are you saying that 17 honest mistakes were made all of which happened to further the case to spy on the Trump campaign/administration

Of course there is bias, but it isn't political. Cops looking to get a warrant are trying to paint the rosiest picture possible. All the omission or exaggerations are gonna be in the direction that makes the warrant more likely. That isn't about politics, it's about how we systematically bias in favor cops/prosecutors and essentially train them to act this way.

Do the text messages not have a role to play here?

The report explicitly says they are not relevant, since it obviously had access to those messages and said they found no political bias effect.

The key here is the wording of what Horowitz statements: "We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations."

So while Horowitz could not find any documented evidence of extreme bias he left it very open to the Congress to infer that bias was a real impact here. What would that documented evidence look for him to not make this statement? I just don't see how any of you can now say its a stretch to say that bias against Trump existed at the top levels of the FBI. And how would the existence of bias ever be 'irrelevant' in an investigation? We are seeing evidenced being altered and withheld becuase of bias that resulted in a worthless investigation that brought the country to a standstill when the FBI and Mueller knew there was nothing since early 2017.

You and Congress are free to infer or believe whatever you want based on things outside of the report, but it is manifestly untrue that Horowitz's statement is verifying the effects of political bias on the investigation, which is what you said above.

"Bias" in terms of not liking Trump is not relevant. "Bias" in terms of acting unfair against Trump, would indeed be relevant. Horowitz says he found none of the latter.

The whole purpose of getting the FISA on Paige when THEY KNEW HE WAS A CIA source was to get the records while he was in the Trump campaign. We already know that Manaforts phones were tapped in Trump Tower. The NY Times reported on his wires being tapped in early 2017 as well. The only motivation to frame an innocent man, which is exactly what Paige was the whole time, is to get information on others through incidental collection. The Obama administration was DESPERATE to get any dirt on the Trump campaign because they were nervous hew as going to win and then expose a lot of the abuses that were currently taking place.

In addition, saying that there were no FBI informants placed inside the campaign does not mean that spy operations took place to obtain communications/information on the campaign. Paige is inexorably linked to the idea that the Trump campaign was spied on. Its the only reason he got caught up in this whole mess.

None of these conclusions are from the Horowitz report, as far as I see. If I'm wrong, I'd be happy to read that section (again, just read the exec. summary). But otherwise, I'm not seeing how this is all "verified" here.

I think a case can easily be made for Kleinsmith. That guy is in deep **** for altering that e-mail. I don't see how he avoids jail time.

Maybe. I don't know enough about it. I am not at all opposed to seeing law enforcement officials held accountable for skirting the rules because they think they know best or are too lazy to do it the right way. I would be annoyed, however, if we only care about this one guy for political reasons, when this is a fairly rampant problem.

Again, even if this happens, Horowitz (who had access to all the "bias" evidence you mentioned) found no evidence that any of this was done for political reasons.

The charges will then continue to grow as Durhams report...

Well, I'll probably read that (or at least the executive summary!) if/when it comes out, but I don't see how that is relevant to the Horowitz report and what it "verifies." Generally, I would caution you to not assume too much about what form the results of an investigation will take before it comes out; see: Mueller, Robert.

I don't see how you can liken this case to run of the mill everyday investigations. Just because a lot of cops are crooked and get away with it doesn't mean that the most high profile case in US history should get the same treatment. If we truly want justice reforms then examples need to be made for people declaring they have an 'insurance policy' withholding exculpatory evidence and altering evidence.

I feel exactly the opposite. Nothing cheapens justice more than making it only available for the most powerful man in the world.

As for "withholding exculpatory evidence," I think you have a naive understanding of what is generally required there. It is not required that cops or prosecutors disclose such evidence, even at trial, unless they personally believe that specific evidence will affect the ultimate outcome of the trial (not just whether such a thing is possilbe). Even then, when they themselves believe the evidence is actually important to the outcome, they only have to tell the defense and the court about it before the end of the trial, not actually give it to them in time to use. The definitely don't have to tell a grand jury about it, much less mention anything about it in a request for a warrant. The FBI rules at issue here are operating at a much higher standard than what is usually required for us normies.

If that sounds unjust to you, then your problem is not with the FBI, it is with the conservative stacking of the Supreme Court since Nixon.

[thethe]

Of course there is bias, but it isn't political. Cops looking to get a warrant are trying to paint the rosiest picture possible. All the omission or exaggerations are gonna be in the direction that makes the warrant more likely. That isn't about politics, it's about how we systematically bias in favor cops/prosecutors and essentially train them to act this way.

This isn't about politics when its the current administration effectively trying to get a warrant on the opposing political party all the while the agents on the case are exchanging clearly biased messages saying that Trump is an imminent threat and THEY WON'T ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN. I know the argument you are trying to make and I'm sure its perfectly accurate on a case by case basis. To ignore that this is a completely different investigation that has MASSIVE political implications is just being intellectually dishonest in my opinion.

The report explicitly says they are not relevant, since it obviously had access to those messages and said they found no political bias effect.

They found no evidenciary basis for bias which is an almost impossible standard to meet and you are well aware of that. However, when real people look at the fact these agents clearly despised Trump and that they made 17 egregious errors that all went against Trump they understand that bias is real here. If you don't want to acknowledge that simple train of logic then that is fine but it is not a stretch in any sense of the word to make the claim that there was extreme bias in the FBI leadership and Muellers team.

You and Congress are free to infer or believe whatever you want based on things outside of the report, but it is manifestly untrue that Horowitz's statement is verifying the effects of political bias on the investigation, which is what you said above.

"Bias" in terms of not liking Trump is not relevant. "Bias" in terms of acting unfair against Trump, would indeed be relevant. Horowitz says he found none of the latter.

Back to the evidenciary standards to prove intent which you know is impossible. Horowitz made two other statements. Explanations for the errors were not satisfactory and that the mistakes were either caused by incompetence or bias. Just because everyone on the left wants to hang their hat on the fact that Horowitz couldn't prove something that is unprovable does not mean it didn't exist. In his testimony Horowitz made it very clear that Bias is still a valid explanation as to what happened. You know this very well and you are doing your best to legalese your way out of admitting that.

None of these conclusions are from the Horowitz report, as far as I see. If I'm wrong, I'd be happy to read that section (again, just read the exec. summary). But otherwise, I'm not seeing how this is all "verified" here.

Let me ask you then, what do you think the purpose of getting a FISA warrant on Paige was considering the FBI knew he wasn't a Russian asset?

Maybe. I don't know enough about it. I am not at all opposed to seeing law enforcement officials held accountable for skirting the rules because they think they know best or are too lazy to do it the right way. I would be annoyed, however, if we only care about this one guy for political reasons, when this is a fairly rampant problem.

Again, even if this happens, Horowitz (who had access to all the "bias" evidence you mentioned) found no evidence that any of this was done for political reasons.

The difference between the FBI doing things like this and a local beat cop in Chicago is a bit different in terms of potential magnitude. I mean, the only thing the FBI was doing was falsely accusing a president of colluding with a foreign power and using their full investigatory powers, after knowing for over a year it was bull****, to spy on the President of the United States. I mean, no big deal right?

I feel exactly the opposite. Nothing cheapens justice more than making it only available for the most powerful man in the world.

As for "withholding exculpatory evidence," I think you have a naive understanding of what is generally required there. It is not required that cops or prosecutors disclose such evidence, even at trial, unless they personally believe that specific evidence will affect the ultimate outcome of the trial (not just whether such a thing is possilbe). Even then, when they themselves believe the evidence is actually important to the outcome, they only have to tell the defense and the court about it before the end of the trial, not actually give it to them in time to use. The definitely don't have to tell a grand jury about it, much less mention anything about it in a request for a warrant. The FBI rules at issue here are operating at a much higher standard than what is usually required for us normies.

If that sounds unjust to you, then your problem is not with the FBI, it is with the conservative stacking of the Supreme Court since Nixon.

My problem is altering evidence in the biggest investigation of this countries history all to push forward a fraudulent investigation. I know, my standards are way too high.

[Metaphysicist]

just being intellectually dishonest in my opinion.

Well, we got there pretty quickly. If this is your starting assumption about everyone who disagrees with you, you aren't gonna win many friends or influence people.

They found no evidenciary basis for bias which is an almost impossible standard to meet and you are well aware of that.

I am? I actually don't understand why that is an impossible standard. But if you think this was impossible, then are you admitting that Horowitz was not verifying this (since that would be impossible apparently?)

However, when real people look at the fact these agents clearly despised Trump and that they made 17 egregious errors that all went against Trump they understand that bias is real here. If you don't want to acknowledge that simple train of logic then that is fine but it is not a stretch in any sense of the word to make the claim that there was extreme bias in the FBI leadership and Muellers team.

What "real people" can see is not relevant what the Horowitz verifies, which is what I thought we were talking about.

Back to the evidenciary standards to prove intent which you know is impossible.

I certainly do not know it impossible to prove intent. What are you basing this on? That is an integral element of most crimes, and we convict plenty of people in this country, or so I hear. What's more, far from Horowitz finding conflicting evidence, which might make it hard to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt in court, he found zero evidence of political malice behind the errors in an investigation, which has no such standard of proof attached.

In his testimony Horowitz made it very clear that Bias is still a valid explanation as to what happened. You know this very well and you are doing your best to legalese your way out of admitting that.

Again with the assumption that I am evil or something. Regardless, him saying it is possible for there to be other evidence outside his report does not in anyway mean his report verifies that theory. The opposite in fact.

The difference between the FBI doing things like this and a local beat cop in Chicago is a bit different in terms of potential magnitude. I mean, the only thing the FBI was doing was falsely accusing a president of colluding with a foreign power and using their full investigatory powers, after knowing for over a year it was bull****, to spy on the President of the United States. I mean, no big deal right?

Very different. The local beat cop can fudge things and throw a guy in prison for his whole life and nobody will ever care. The president on the other hand suffered literally no harm, and if the FBI fudges anything his fans will scream bloody murder about how unfair life is.

[thethe]

Meta, what would evidence of bias look like to you if you have not already been convinced?

[cajunrevenge]

"Russia if you are listening I hope you can find Hillarys missing emails"




"There was no basis for investigating Trump for working with Russia"





Does not compute

[57Brave]

Pompeo not staying or taking meetings at US Embassy during trip to Ukraine.
This experiment of reality TV persoanality is wearing thin
And tiresome

[Metaphysicist]

Meta, what would evidence of bias look like to you if you have not already been convinced?

The report talks repeatedly about there not being any "documentary or testimonial evidence." That would be email, texts, or interviews that suggest the people who were actually making the decisions were doing so due to political animus. A dumb example would be Comey sending an email saying "Ooooh boy, Andy, we better stop Trump from becoming president." Or more likely, and more circumstantially, if there was an interviewee who claimed it was clear a decision maker was acting uncharacteristically or something. Anything like that would be evidence of biased decision making.

And before you say "INSURRRRANCE POOOOOOOLICY," Horowitz already has all that info and more and is thus determining that this does not show what you are claiming:

We discussed the issue of political bias in a prior OIG report, Review of Various Actions in Advance of the 2016 Election, where we described text and instant messages between then Special Counsel to the Deputy Director Lisa Page and then Section Chief Peter Strzok, among others, that included statements of hostility toward then candidate Trump and statements of support for then candidate Hillary Clinton. In this review, we found that, while Lisa Page attended some of the discussions regarding the opening of the investigations, she did not play a role in the decision to open Crossfire Hurricane or the four individual cases. We further found that while Strzok was directly involved in the decisions to open Crossfire Hurricane and the four individual cases, he was not the sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker as to any of those matters. As noted above, then CD AD Priestap, Strzok's supervisor, was the official who ultimately made the decision to open the investigation, and evidence reflected that this decision by Priestap was reached by consensus after multiple days of discussions and meetings that included Strzok and other leadership in CD, the FBI Deputy Director, the FBI General Counsel, and a FBI Deputy General Counsel. We concluded that Priestap's exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision. We similarly found that, while the formal documentation opening each of the four individual investigations was approved by Strzok (as required by the DIOG), the decisions to do so were reached by a consensus among the Crossfire Hurricane agents and analysts who identified individuals associated with the Trump campaign who had recently traveled to Russia or had other alleged ties to Russia. Priestap was involved in these decisions. We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations.

[thethe]

All that says is that they found. O evidence from other agents. And the idea the investigation was appropriately predicated has been disputed and we will see what information Durham has.

The fact of the matter is it's almost iij impossible to prove intent. Motive and physical evidence is what investigators and lawyers typically discuss.

All these retired intelligence leaders just happen to all go on CNN and trash the president. I'm sure they are very neutral.

You and many others can continue to believe this was all on the ultimate and up despite the new ibfkrmatikn is released. I'll be curious to know your thoughts when Durham reveals COA/NSA and officials within the 5 eyes network framing trump campaign officials.

[nsacpi]

looking forward to an IG report on whether the Durham probe was properly predicated and free of political taint

[thethe]

looking forward to an IG report on whether the Durham probe was properly predicated and free of political taint

How could it not be whe that there was such clear evidence of malfeasance? You dont think Trump and Barr have known about this since trump assumed the presidency?

[nsacpi]

Speak English young man.

[thethe]

Speak English young man.

Phone type. Dont care to proofread.

You are a smart individual. I have faith you know exactly what I said.

[cajunrevenge]

Has Durham afforded his targets the same due process rights IMPOTUS claims are being denied to him? Are the targets lawyers allowed to cross examine the witnesses? Are the targets defense lawyers going to be granted the ability to put their input into the report? According to IMPOTUS not giving this to the targets is illegal and according to Moscow Mitch it doesnt matter if they committed a crime if they disagree with the process.




But the Horowitz report was beautiful, perfectly exonerated everyone involved. Everyone says it's perfect. The report came out and Republicans were like "oh no, we cant use this" so they go to the backup plan. The insurance policy. They knew it was a hoax so Horowitz wouldn't find anything so they had to find a plan B. That's where Durham comes in. He is a terrible lawyer, a Trump person, donated to Trumps, said a lot of mean and horrible things about Hillary but you womt report about that because you are fake news. I dont want to go into it but a lot of people think he is corrupt. I wouldn't go that far but if I really think about it I probably would say that.