@snoopydawg

so many weasel words, unattributed anonymous sources.

Dems seize on Times bombshell to push allegations of Trump obstruction

Democrats are seizing on a bombshell New York Times report as further evidence that President Trump may have sought to obstruct justice in investigations of his campaign and administration.

The Times reported Tuesday that the president asked then-acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker late last year to put U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in charge of the investigation into Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen pleaded guilty last year to bank fraud, tax fraud and making payments to silence women alleging that they had affairs with Trump.

Berman, an ally of Trump who donated to his 2016 campaign, had recused himself from the case, and Whitaker did not act on Trump's request, according to the report — which Trump has denied.
....
Other Democrats described a pattern of actions they deemed inappropriate.

“I think if you just follow the number of incidences and evidence that has been presented involving the president and the Russia investigation and the investigation in the Southern District in New York and others, I think it clearly shows a pattern that the president has tried to use his influence and/or relationship to really interfere with the investigation,” said Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.).

It shouldn't matter what people think about Trump's actions if they can't prove it or if Mueller can't. I'd love to see Trump tossed out of the WH as much as anyone, but not because something that has been made up like this Russian farce. There is plenty of things that he has done that goes against our laws so go after him for them.

“Under oath to the House Judiciary Committee, then-acting Attorney General Whitaker stated that ‘at no time has the White House asked for nor have I provided any promises or commitments concerning the special counsel’s investigation or any other investigation,’ ” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. “Mr. Whitaker stands by his testimony.”

Maybe since Brennan and others have lied to congress and have gotten away with it, taking an oath to tell the truth doesn't mean as much anymore.

“Under oath to the House Judiciary Committee, then-acting Attorney General Whitaker stated that ‘at no time has the White House asked for nor have I provided any promises or commitments concerning the special counsel’s investigation or any other investigation,’ ” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. “Mr. Whitaker stands by his testimony.”

Besides, how many times has he been accused of putting his thumb on the investigation only to have seen that he didn't?

@Pricknick

Despite appeals from Amenesty Internation, Obamacorp continued torture at Gitmo and black holes like Bagram, including torture of Chelsea Manning, a US citizen and a member of the volunteer army and forced feeding of Muslim prisoners. (And after torturing Manning, Obama commuted her sentence. WTF? But never let up on pressuring the Brits re: Assange, who committed no crime at all. WTF?)

Obama also increased serial drone murders exponentially. Like Bushco, he even continued imprisonment of a number of prisoners who had been exonerated by our own investigations. Too dangerous to release after the horrible way we treated them, I guess. Oh, and I'm pretty sure attempting regime change in other sovereign nations violates international law, too.

Whodda thunk good ole hopey changey alleged Constitutional Law professor would have outdone Bushco?

BTW, when you get some free time, check out the Bill of Rights and see how many of its protections are limited to US citizens. Remember, no one was a US citizen until after ratification of the Constitution in 1789. And all of them were either immigrants to this continent or descended from immigrants of recent memory.

Except, of course, for members of First Nations, who, according to the genome project, immigrated to this continent over 50,000 years ago from RUSSIA!!11!1!. At lease, at least according to the genome project. (Fortunately, for them, they did a lot less meddling with the environment than the undocumented European immigrants who came here 50 or more millennia later.)

Any6way, in light of colonial history, it's perfectly understandable that the protections of the Bill of Rights are not limited to US citizens. Somehow, the alleged Constitutional Law Professor (actually a lecturer on civil rights), Holder and others seem to have missed that bit as much as Bushco did.

doesn't mean it will stop.
Where the fuck were these people when obummer basically gave war criminals a pass?
"We have to look forward" was an admission that the status quo would continue.
Now that prick hangs with war mongers like branson.
And I should vote dim? Spare me the gut wrenching laughter.

@Centaurea

The walls are closing in. It's the beginning of the end.

From that twitter by "David Rothkopf", whoever he is:

no American in our history has betrayed the country as egregiously or damagingly as Trump

Oh, please.

(Where's that "eyeroll" smiley when you need it?)

@aliasalias

The concurrent investigation by the nation's leading experts in these matters has continued unabated using REAL evidence. It's all there.

Not to be missed if you ever want to hold a fact-based conversation about the Russia Hoax that was perpetuated upon this nation. Elizabeth Vos is a gifted fact-based investigative journalist, and produces nothing like the cray-cray delusions that Marcy spews over at Emptywheel (a perfect name for that blog). The silencing of Assange has been all about preventing him from testifying
and putting to lie the entire Mueller boondoggle.

Russiagate In Flames: No Evidence Of Collusion, New Findings Challenge DNC Hack Narrative

In the last few weeks, we have witnessed two pillars of the Russiagate narrative continue to disintegrate and erode. First, we heard that a bipartisan inquiry by the Senate Intelligence Committee admitted that they have yet to find evidence indicating that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia in the run-up to the 2016 US Presidential election. Secondly, new light was shed on the process by which the DNC Emails published by WikiLeaks may have been sourced, thanks to two reports: one authored by former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney and former CIA analyst Larry Johnson, with the other work penned by Disobedient Media’s Adam Carter.

Of course, this does not entail that the establishment-backed media will stop promoting the neo-McCarthyist insanity that has held legacy press audiences captive for the last two and a half years.

No Evidence For Trump-Russia Collusion

A recent report from NBC related an admission from both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicating that they have discovered no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion to date. NBC’s report reads in part:

“The Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the 2016 election has uncovered no direct evidence of the Trump campaign conspiring with Russia, Democrats and Republicans on the committee told NBC News. But different parties’ investigators in the probe, which is winding down, disagree over the implications of a pattern of contacts between Trump associates and Russians.”

Let’s review that again: the only thing the Democrats and Republicans disagree on is the significance of an alleged “Pattern of contacts between Trump associates and Russians.”

Note: the “pattern” here does not specify that the “Russians” in question were associated in any sense with the Russian government. One should not have to stress the significance of differentiating between a nationality versus affiliation with the Kremlin. Meanwhile, the characterization of “Trump associates” is entirely vague.

To conclude from such sentiments that anyone who so much as has “contacts” with “Russians” (again, not the same thing as contacts with proxies or employees of the Russian state) must be working at the behest of Putin would represent an intense strain of xenophobia, if not outright racism....

One does not have to rely on the statements of the Senate Intelligence Committee to understand that no shred of evidence of Trump-Russia collusion has yet been shown to the public. Last month, The Nation’s Aaron Mate wrote:

“Not a single Trump official has been accused of colluding with the Russian government or even of committing any crimes during the 2016 campaign. As The New York Times recently noted, “no public evidence has emerged showing that [Trump’s] campaign conspired with Russia.”....

As this author opined last year: “Standing on the shoulders of this methodical evidence, it seems at this point that no amount of contrary evidence, exposure or implosion will ultimately kill the undead Russiagate monster. If that were possible, the Thing would have been put irrevocably into the ground over a year ago. Or six months ago. Or a few weeks ago.”

Russian Hacking Narrative Implodes

The Russian hacking aspect of the scandal was also severely discredited in recent days, in the wake of two new reports. One article was authored by Disobedient Media’s Adam Carter, with a separate piece published by Bill Binney and Larry Johnson. Binney is a former NSA Technical Director; Johnson an ex-CIA analyst. Both are active members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

The two articles discussed revelations arising from studies of the DNC Emails released by WikiLeaks in 2016. We remind our readers that, while Adam Carter, Disobedient Media, The Forensicator, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Stephen McIntyre, and others have regularly reported regarding documents published by the Guccifer 2.0 persona, the latest pieces focus instead on the DNC Emails as published days before the DNC convention.

Though this writer will not attempt to present every aspect or technical detail contained in the articles, we will endeavor to make our readers aware of the essential points which Carter, Binney, and Johnson have raised.

Carter’s work suggests that the DNC Emails were originally accessed via a USB thumb drive or similar device, concluding: “The evidence strongly suggests that the first three batches of DNC emails were transferred via a USB storage device at some stage between acquisition and then subsequently being published by WikiLeaks.” As noted by Carter, such a scenario aligns with allegations made by former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, who claimed that he was the recipient of the files via an intermediary rather than the original source.

(Read more at the source)

The article by Binney and Johnson also discusses the relevance of indications that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks were likely accessed via a storage device, rather than leaked. They state in part:

“An examination of the Wikileaks DNC files do not support the claim that the emails were obtained via spearphishing. Instead, the evidence clearly shows that the emails posted on the Wikileaks site were copied onto an electronic media, such as a CD-ROM or thumb-drive before they were posted at Wikileaks… We believe that Special Counsel Robert Mueller faces major embarrassment if he decides to pursue the indictment he filed–which accuses 12 Russian GRU military personnel and an entity identified as, Guccifer 2.0, for the DNC hack—because the available forensic evidence indicates the emails were copied onto a storage device.”

Binney and Johnson conclude: “Taken together, these disparate data points combine to paint a picture that exonerates alleged Russian hackers and implicates persons within our law enforcement and IC taking part in a campaign of misinformation, deceit and incompetence. It is not a pretty picture.”

The Real Cost Of Russiagate

Though Russiagate may be summed up as a never-ending theatrical performance designed to hold attention rather than prove itself, that does not mean that the saga has had no tangible effects in the real world. Regardless of what one makes of the legitimacy of Russiagate or any one of its sub-narratives, we can all agree that it has wreaked havoc directly and indirectly on many fronts.

(Read more at the source)

When asked about the real-world implications of Russiagate thus far, Ray McGovern – who, as we remind our readers, is a former CIA analyst with decades of experience during the Cold War period – expressed deep concern, saying:

“I worry about what conclusions President Putin may draw from attempts to demonize him and to make Russia a pariah. Inflammatory rhetoric can be prelude to war. Worse still, the temperament and hubris of President Trump’s advisers are a far cry from the sage, sober advice Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, for example, gave President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Shattered, at this point, is any residual hope Putin may have harbored that Trump would be able to improve ties with Russia. Trump is not his own man. Putin, thus, must prepare for the worst. This is the most serious damage from the Russia-gate narrative so far.”

In terms of the larger political picture, Russiagate has been endlessly hyped to deflect from public outrage that rightfully erupted in response to overt election interference by the Democratic Party in the 2016 primary season. It has been used in an attempt to mask the failure of the Democrats and specifically Hillary Clinton as a Presidential candidate....

As long as the legacy press continues to use Russiagate to gaslight the public from focusing on ongoing domestic election interference, it remains imperative to point out that Russiagate, to date, has no basis whatsoever in fact. For that reason, Disobedient Media will continue to report on the subject as it develops.

For my part, this investigation has led to dreadful discoveries concerning the involvement of CrowdStrike and Imran Awan in the real crime that will never come to light in our lifetimes.

yet no interview with Julian Assange happens during this great 'investigation? Lawyers for Julian Assange offered an interview for Mueller (at the embassy) and considering that most of the 'collusion investigation' allegations involve Julian Assange and Wikileaks you'd think that would be'interview' #1.
At least a Skype video should be quick and easy once Assange arranged his lawyers presence for it.
No questions to ask or just the kind only asked/answered in the kangaroo 'Special Federal 'State Secrets Central' Court where your expected shot at justice is dead on arrival under the WW1 era espionage law?
I think the latter.

However Russophobe deluxe Rep.Schiff was open to questioning Julian Assange but only in person here in the US and with Julian in cuffs.

@mimi
You were hiding them under your bed.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyuuZ1DzYS8]

mentioning Russia, Russians, Rooskies or other weasel words relating to Russia for six days, I send some bucks to JtC.

The Russian under my bed gets restless and kicks my behind from under the mattress and I can't take it any longer.