• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

IG reports have started to leak

Trump

DP Veteran
Joined
May 4, 2019
Messages
5,857
Reaction score
2,333
Location
Laguna Beach
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Conservative
a little cheat cheat to where the leaks land is interesting

FBI official under investigation after allegedly altering document in 2016 Russia probe - CNNPolitics

Keep in mind which FBI officials are now working for the media outlet, CNN, that is providing the leaks; ie. former FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe; the spokesman for James Comey, Josh Campbell; a former FBI agent, Asha Rangappa; or the former FBI chief legal counsel, James Baker. All now work for CNN.

It’s important to note the media source aspect because normally this type of leak would go to the Washington Post or New York Times first; ergo, it likely stems as a personal leak to one of the former allied FBI officials now working for CNN.

Horowitz Leaks Begin – FBI Official Caught Altering FISA Documents, Now Under Criminal Investigation… | The Last Refuge
 
What I want to know is if this was a document related to evidence that went into the FISA warrant, or if it was an internal document about Steele. It just seems out of the blue to be the former, because everyone else interviewed by the IG didn't sense he was suspicious of the FBI doing such a thing.

But, if the former DID happen, then that agent should be under the jail, and Page should sue for abuse of his civil rights.
 
To round it out:

A. So leaking is good again?

B. Look, if someone legit did wrong in a way that, when other people did it, they went to jail.....then the person who did it this time should.




Let's bear in mind that it doesn't change what Trump did.
 
What I want to know is if this was a document related to evidence that went into the FISA warrant, or if it was an internal document about Steele. It just seems out of the blue to be the former, because everyone else interviewed by the IG didn't sense he was suspicious of the FBI doing such a thing.

But, if the former DID happen, then that agent should be under the jail, and Page should sue for abuse of his civil rights.
If Mueller didn't find anything chargeable on Trump & his cabal, do you want to bet this will be some minor procedural issue that will require "retraining"?
 
There is no way that anybody in the FBI did anything improper. This whole, "Trump made up the whole conspiracy" thing has been proved over and over and over to be 100% accurate. People that actually believe there was a conspiracy against Trump have been scientifically proved to be insane and deplorable.

If I had to guess, it would be that Trump, knowing he's about to be impeached, leaked this garbage to the media and paid Barr to back it all up if it comes out.

And Russia because it all comes back to Russia.
 
If Mueller didn't find anything chargeable on Trump & his cabal, do you want to bet this will be some minor procedural issue that will require "retraining"?

Mueller never looked into the FISA or the origins of the investigation into Trump. All he looked at was whether Trump and his campaign conspired with Russia to influence the election.
 
If Mueller didn't find anything chargeable on Trump & his cabal, do you want to bet this will be some minor procedural issue that will require "retraining"?
It's hard to know.

The Steele memo was riddled with fact, friction, and outright fiction. Steele got some stuff about Page going to meet with a Rosneft executive, which I believe went into the FISA warrant. Other rumors about sex tapes of Trump in Russia were very dubious from the beginning, and allegations that Cohen was Prague paying Russian hackers was outright bull****.

Why the FBI chose to use a sketchy source like Steele needs to be answered. But more important is why Page was surveilled multiple times, yet he never even came close to being criminally charged with a thing.

If the warrants to surveil Page were altered, that's deep ****, whether you think Page is shady or not (he is). OTOH, one of the areas of inquiry by Horowitz has been the FBI's history with Steele, and why he was such a trusted source, and I wonder if somebody has lied about that.
 
There is no way that anybody in the FBI did anything improper. This whole, "Trump made up the whole conspiracy" thing has been proved over and over and over to be 100% accurate. People that actually believe there was a conspiracy against Trump have been scientifically proved to be insane and deplorable.

If I had to guess, it would be that Trump, knowing he's about to be impeached, leaked this garbage to the media and paid Barr to back it all up if it comes out.

And Russia because it all comes back to Russia.

:lol: Luther I think we should start making bets who the first jackass is about to be named

Let me be the first. Ifit had to do with changing 302's my bet is on Peter Strzok.
 
If Mueller didn't find anything chargeable on Trump & his cabal, do you want to bet this will be some minor procedural issue that will require "retraining"?

Now I'm confused. He did. "Chargeable" is a black and white issue in this context. Bearing in mind that indictments stand or fall on whether there is probable cause based on the GJ testimony.....

Unchargeable: a federal judge would grant dismiss the charges for lack of probable cause.

Chargeable: the indictment would (probably?) survive a motion to dismiss.

Meanwhile DOJ rules prohibit the seeking of indictment of a sitting president. This also happens to be the most likely constitutional result, at least as far as anyone familiar with constitutional law and history has tried to work out. I don't know if or how many times it has happened before, but Mueller concluded that fairness principles dictated that this meant he also could not pontificate that Trump had even arguably committed a crime. He thought it unfair. He'd be accusing the president of committing a crime, but the DOJ rules that bound him prevented him from seeking indictment, and if someone did it anyway (and actually obtained one before getting fired), the court would almost certainly dismiss the case. So the accusation would hang there, but Trump would have no way to get into court to defend it.*

However, Mueller deemed himself able to clear Trump of charges. In other words, to say that any indictment about the conduct would be dismissed. That's because although this administration has been stupid, they managed not to be hopelessly stupid on this one: they left no explicit evidence of an agreement with Russia to interfere with the election. Lacking any evidence on one element of a criminal offense = no probable cause. You need to at least have your foot in the door on each.

In short, this all means that when Mueller lists 10+ instances of evidence of obstruction and does not clear Trump, it means his opinion is that Trump is at least chargeable even if he can't say that explicitly.

(To think too much about this, someone might note that given what I just said, Mueller should not have laid out any evidence of obstruction. But that would conflict with the appointment letter and the entire purpose of appointing a special counsel, no? What's the point if a special counsel can only legitimately clear a president and if he didn't do that, say nothing?)




way too late edit: I see you started with "IF". I guess I'll just leave what I said there. I took the time to edit, even!

*Many constitutional rights can be waived. I have no idea whether a president could waive the not-yet-articulated but seemingly likely constitutional rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
 
Last edited:
Mueller never looked into the FISA or the origins of the investigation into Trump. All he looked at was whether Trump and his campaign conspired with Russia to influence the election.
I wasn't referring to FISA specifically or to anything specific with Mueller. I was speaking to the general hot mess of the Trump cabal, and how if someone like Mueller found nothing there in all that, I doubt anything substantive will come from this either.
 
:lol: Luther I think we should start making bets who the first jackass is about to be named

Let me be the first. Ifit had to do with changing 302's my bet is on Peter Strzok.

I'm going with McCabe. McCabe is the one that ended up in hot water because he "lacked candor" in a prior investigation. In my experience, when a guy has that kind of judgement he inevitably leaves a trail of examples of that judgement.
 
Now I'm confused. He did. "Chargeable" is a black and white issue in this context. Bearing in mind that indictments stand or fall on whether there is probable cause based on the GJ testimony.....

Unchargeable: a federal judge would grant dismiss the charges for lack of probable cause.

Chargeable: the indictment would (probably?) survive a motion to dismiss.

Meanwhile DOJ rules prohibit the seeking of indictment of a sitting president. This also happens to be the most likely constitutional result, at least as far as anyone familiar with constitutional law and history has tried to work out. I don't know if or how many times it has happened before, but Mueller concluded that fairness principles dictated that this meant he also could not pontificate that Trump had even arguably committed a crime. He thought it unfair. He'd be accusing the president of committing a crime, but the DOJ rules that bound him prevented him from seeking indictment, and if someone did it anyway (and actually obtained one before getting fired), the court would almost certainly dismiss the case. So the accusation would hang there, but Trump would have no way to get into court to defend it.*

However, Mueller deemed himself able to clear Trump of charges. In other words, to say that any indictment about the conduct would be dismissed. That's because although this administration has been stupid, they managed not to be hopelessly stupid on this one: they left no explicit evidence of an agreement with Russia to interfere with the election. Lacking any evidence on one element of a criminal offense = no probable cause. You need to at least have your foot in the door on each.

In short, this all means that when Mueller lists 10+ instances of evidence of obstruction and does not clear Trump, it means his opinion is that Trump is at least chargeable even if he can't say that explicitly.

(To think too much about this, someone might note that given what I just said, Mueller should not have laid out any evidence of obstruction. But that would conflict with the appointment letter and the entire purpose of appointing a special counsel, no? What's the point if a special counsel can only legitimately clear a president and if he didn't do that, say nothing?)






*Many constitutional rights can be waived. I have no idea whether a president could waive the not-yet-articulated but seemingly likely constitutional rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
"Chargeable" in terms of Trump & his immediate family and their ascension to the Oval office.

Yeah there's the 11 possible obstructions that were never pursued. But still, it went nowhere. Which is why I doubt anything substantive will come from this in relation to the Trump investigation. I wouldn't doubt if the leak today involves something ancillary, rather than something substantively germane to starting the investigation.
 
:lol: Luther I think we should start making bets who the first jackass is about to be named

Let me be the first. Ifit had to do with changing 302's my bet is on Peter Strzok.
I'm guessing that has something to do with Steele's relationship with the FBI, AFTER he was found to have been leaking, but I could be wrong.

If I turn out to be correct, then Bruce Orh would be the most likely person.

If the details show that an agent lied on a FISA application, then you have every right to crow about being right, and I'll be first online to call for the agents jailing.
 
:lol: Luther I think we should start making bets who the first jackass is about to be named

Let me be the first. Ifit had to do with changing 302's my bet is on Peter Strzok.


My bet is on his squeeze, Lisa Page. She's gonna be the designated fall-guy for the whole FBI ... at least, that's what I think.
 
I'm guessing that has something to do with Steele's relationship with the FBI, AFTER he was found to have been leaking, but I could be wrong.
If I turn out to be correct, then Bruce Orh would be the most likely person.
If the details show that an agent lied on a FISA application, then you have every right to crow about being right, and I'll be first online to call for the agents jailing.


I don't think Bruce Ohr was/is FBI ...
 
I wasn't referring to FISA specifically or to anything specific with Mueller. I was speaking to the general hot mess of the Trump cabal, and how if someone like Mueller found nothing there in all that, I doubt anything substantive will come from this either.

Robert ‘I don’t do subpoenas cause they take too long’ Mueller was a bump on a log who didn’t even know what was in his own report and wouldn’t say what was or wasn’t chargeable despite its cryptic notation about obstruction and not being able to exonerate the President.
 
Last edited:
If Mueller didn't find anything chargeable on Trump & his cabal, do you want to bet this will be some minor procedural issue that will require "retraining"?


Uh, Mueller put a lot of Trump’s cabal in jail.
 
My bet is on his squeeze, Lisa Page. She's gonna be the designated fall-guy for the whole FBI ... at least, that's what I think.

I think she is the one that sang like a bird and implicated everyone she could before facing jail. I could be wrong now but at this point I don't think so. :lol:
 
"Chargeable" in terms of Trump & his immediate family and their ascension to the Oval office.

Yeah there's the 11 possible obstructions that were never pursued. But still, it went nowhere.
Which is why I doubt anything substantive will come from this in relation to the Trump investigation. I wouldn't doubt if the leak today involves something ancillary, rather than something substantively germane to starting the investigation.

But that's the nub of the point. It couldn't have gone anywhere.

Mueller was faced with either violating what he saw as DOJ's rules by saying "this could be pursued in a federal criminal case", or he could have not said anything about the evidence while violating his duty to report on the investigation. So he aimed for the center line of laying out evidence but not saying what he thought of it. In this context, I really do think the conclusion is inescapable: if he couldn't say Trump could not be charged and was prohibited from saying he could be charged, laying out the evidence and saying nothing is saying that Trump could be charged.

I blame the Democrats for it going nowhere. They completely flubbed their job, which as I saw it was to translate a dense 448 page report into something modern Americans can actually understand.



I don't think they even managed to communicate Mueller's reasons for not recommending prosecution to the bulk of the public. My sense is that a whole lot of Americans said "well, he didn't indict Trump and he didn't say he should be charged, so, nothingburger".
 

It looks like IG report is going to be a big 'nothing burger'....


"....What the report says is still unknown. But some witnesses who have been interviewed by the inspector general say that they expect that the report will likely reveal some missteps, though none that should be interpreted as undermining a legitimate investigation..."

Justice Department watchdog moves to reassure witnesses on Russia investigation report - CNNPolitics
 
I wasn't referring to FISA specifically or to anything specific with Mueller. I was speaking to the general hot mess of the Trump cabal, and how if someone like Mueller found nothing there in all that, I doubt anything substantive will come from this either.

You seem to have a high opinion of Mueller and his investigators.
 
Back
Top Bottom