Russiagate is about to blow up on the Dems

Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 11/21/2019 - 8:30pm

Just as the Ukrainegate impeachment probe starts to yield something solid, the bullsh*t, three year long Russiagate "scandal" is about to blow up in the Dem's faces.

A former FBI lawyer is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN.
The possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.
The finding is expected to be part of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's review of the FBI's effort to obtain warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide. Horowitz will release the report next month.
Horowitz turned over evidence on the allegedly altered document to John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed early this year by Attorney General William Barr to conduct a broad investigation of intelligence gathered for the Russia probe by the CIA and other agencies, including the FBI. The altered document is also at least one focus of Durham's criminal probe.

This is exactly what Trump needed.
It makes the Deep State konspiracy theories look real.

Tags:

russiagate

fbi

Vote

Comments

Submitted by on the cusp on Thu, 11/21/2019 - 8:56pm

I am

both shocked and dismayed.
(a phrase lawyers use with a dead pan face to mock when we saw it coming from miles away.)
Let the Dems deal with it.
And Bernie will do that Senate impeachment vote thing, and I await...

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by snoopydawg on Thu, 11/21/2019 - 10:27pm

The Biden doctrine

The General Prosecutor's seat at the price of $1 billion: Shokin's replacement

Kyiv: The editorial office of Front News International received documents proving the intervention of US officials in the internal affairs of Ukraine, when US Vice President Joe Biden set President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko the condition for a $ 1 billion loan, the replacement of Attorney General Viktor Shokin. The cause of the pressure could be the position of Biden's son in the British company Burisma, which belongs to fugitive Minister of Ecology Nikolai Zlochevsky, against whom the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine led an investigation into the laundering of money. After the replacement of Shokin by Yuri Lutsenko, accusations against Zlochevsky were reduced to tax evasion, and in 2016 cases against him and the company were closed.

Darn Russian interference!

According to the scientific and legal findings of the study, "the statement of US Vice President Joseph Biden on the need to dismiss the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, V.M. Shokin, as a condition for allocating appropriate financial (economic) assistance to Ukraine, can be viewed as putting pressure on the president of Ukraine, and therefore this pressure can be qualified as an act of interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine by a foreign state, which violates one of the principles of international law (The UN Declaration on the inadmissibility of interference in the internal affairs of states, the protection of their independence and sovereignty - Ed.) ".

This is another good article that discusses what happened in Ukraine before and after the Obama coup.

Biden, Obama Officials Stood to Gain From Ukraine Influence

Darn those rascally Russians for interfering with the election. Don't they know that it's only America that can interfere in other countries?

—

There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

Submitted by Alligator Ed on Thu, 11/21/2019 - 11:23pm

Zlochevsky goes to prison

@snoopydawg Sorta resonant with Mr. Smith goes to Washington syllabically.

So the putative head of Burisma is in the slammer courtesy of Wolodymyr Zelensky. And the investigation continues. Allegations from 2 Ukrainian MPs are that Jo ByeDone got hisself $8 M. He wasn't on the Burisma board. Don't worry though, new daddy Hunter got his own cut all the same. But, whoa, we cannot talk about a political opponent's graft and corruption unless it's the Cheeto.

We Amurricans never, never, NEVER interfere with other people's elections, snoopy. I am, as On The Cusp says "shocked and dismayed" that anyone could entertain such an (impure) thought!

The manure is starting to mount higher than ByeDone's remaining IQ. Wonder what he and his scion had going on Romania--but hell, it's not worth my effort to research that issue. All I need to know is that JoJo is a crook.

Fearless prediction:

Firstly, reminding those of my past prediction, that McCain wouldn't last a year after his brain tumor was diagnosed was borne out because the SOB died on National Dog Day before 12 month had elapsed. (My rates remain reasonably cheap and I do horoscopes, too).

Prediction: by election day, JoJo might not recognize his face in a mirror. Actually I don't think his neuronal population is diminishing quite that rapidly.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Thu, 11/21/2019 - 11:40pm

Most of the information about ByeDone's actions

@Alligator Ed

in Ukraine are already known because the media covered it at the time so again I'm wondering why the democrats would risk this coming out? Is it just to make people think that whatever Trump's people find is just CT to deflect how bad this will be for ByeDone and Schiff and everyone else involved in the Ukraine corruption.

I have read that Joe and his son weren't the only ones who redirected the Ukraine money their way. The witnesses being paraded before the country are made out to be saints and patriots when they too are up to their eyebrows in corruption. Is this going on in the other countries we have gotten involved in? How much of the Ecuadorian IMF loan has been filtered into other people's pockets?

Do I need to retell my 4th grade story again? People who are in our government are just in it for themselves. I still think there should be term limits for every level of government and public financed elections to get the money out of it. I'm told that voting is a way for term limits, but how to get the entrenched people out legally?

—

There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 12:20am

This article is interesting

@snoopydawg

I have only skimmed it so far, but I thought this worth noting.

III. Limiting Terms of Office in the Original American States

The great Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto stressed the importance for society of the "circulation of elites," that elites not become entrenched and solidified.17 In the market, elites circulate rapidly and smoothly, in accordance with the most efficient service to meet the desires of consumers. But what of government? In the sphere of government, there is no built-in process for the circulation of elites, and so the natural tendency for the burgeoning, entrenching and rigidifying of bureaucracy tends to prevail.

The Founding Fathers of the American republics — and it is important to stress that thirteen republican polities were founded in the several states years before the possibly misguided leap into the American Constitution — were very much alive to the problem of bureaucracy and of government power. Guided by a blend of libertarian and classical republican thought, they attempted, for the first time in human history, to construct deliberately a new political order in which government power would be decentralized, and be strictly confined to the task of keeping the peace, of insuring domestic tranquility. The program of at least the dominant libertarian-republican wing of the Founding Fathers consisted of ultra-minimal government: guarding the rights of private property, free markets, and free trade; freedom of speech, press, and religion; separation of government from money, banking, and the economy; allowing neither public debt nor public works; having no standing army but rather relying on popular militia in case of foreign invasion; keeping government revenue and expenditures so low as to be nearly invisible; and generally binding down governmental Power with chains of iron, and watching government like a hawk and with vigilance and deep suspicion, lest it resume its natural tendencies and extend Power beyond its strictest bounds.

I got to it from this article.

The Deep State: The Headless Fourth Branch Of Government

Without plan or intent, there has grown up a headless "fourth branch" of the Government, responsible to no one, and impossible of coordination with the general policies and work of the Government as determined by the people through their duly elected representatives.

This is worth reading. Thoughts?

—

There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

Submitted by Azazello on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 8:50am

Here's a Deep State critter: David Petraeus

@snoopydawg
There's a distinction to be made between the National Security State, or the Permanent Government, and the actual Deep State i.e. the banks and corporations in whose interests the Permanent Government operates. So here we have Petraeus, who goes from the US Army to the CIA to hedge fund KKR.
From CNBC: Saudi Arabia is ‘gradually running out of money’ and needs IPO to fund reforms, ex-CIA chief says

Saudi Arabia needs the initial public offering (IPO) of its state oil company to be successful as it needs to attract outside investment and, frankly, it needs the money, the former chief of the CIA David Petraeus told CNBC Thursday.
“It’s a fact that Saudi Arabia is gradually running out of money, they’d be the first to acknowledge that the sovereign wealth fund has been reduced, it’s somewhere below $500 billion now,” Gen. David Petraeus, who is currently chair of the KKR Global Institute, told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble in Abu Dhabi.

#2.1.1 I have only skimmed it so far, but I thought this worth noting. III. Limiting Terms of Office in the Original American States The great Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto stressed the importance for society of the "circulation of elites," that elites not become entrenched and solidified.17 In the market, elites circulate rapidly and smoothly, in accordance with the most efficient service to meet the desires of consumers. But what of government? In the sphere of government, there is no built-in process for the circulation of elites, and so the natural tendency for the burgeoning, entrenching and rigidifying of bureaucracy tends to prevail. The Founding Fathers of the American republics — and it is important to stress that thirteen republican polities were founded in the several states years before the possibly misguided leap into the American Constitution — were very much alive to the problem of bureaucracy and of government power. Guided by a blend of libertarian and classical republican thought, they attempted, for the first time in human history, to construct deliberately a new political order in which government power would be decentralized, and be strictly confined to the task of keeping the peace, of insuring domestic tranquility. The program of at least the dominant libertarian-republican wing of the Founding Fathers consisted of ultra-minimal government: guarding the rights of private property, free markets, and free trade; freedom of speech, press, and religion; separation of government from money, banking, and the economy; allowing neither public debt nor public works; having no standing army but rather relying on popular militia in case of foreign invasion; keeping government revenue and expenditures so low as to be nearly invisible; and generally binding down governmental Power with chains of iron, and watching government like a hawk and with vigilance and deep suspicion, lest it resume its natural tendencies and extend Power beyond its strictest bounds. I got to it from this article. The Deep State: The Headless Fourth Branch Of Government Without plan or intent, there has grown up a headless "fourth branch" of the Government, responsible to no one, and impossible of coordination with the general policies and work of the Government as determined by the people through their duly elected representatives. This is worth reading. Thoughts?

—

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Submitted by entrepreneur on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 9:57am

Maybe. Or maybe they just need more western billionaires and

@Azazello

affluent westerners enmeshed in Saudi interests (the way Burisma needed Hunter Biden) to ensure that the U.S. will continue to cover their asses while they commit international atrocities.

Submitted by wendy davis on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 10:45am

excellent.

@Azazello

i've long posited that there isn't one monolithic deep state, but several, sometimes acting in concert, and sometimes not. not many are overly ideological (heh), but many see who and what should see the flow of money and profits differently.

even wolin's amerika as an inverted totalitarianism' muddies the water a bit, imo, noting that government serves corporations' or close to that. sorry for that awkward sentence; can't think how to repair it.

Submitted by Roy Blakeley on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 10:06am

My contention all along

@snoopydawg was that the impeachment show was trotted out because the Brennan-Clapper cabal realized that Barr and Durham are getting close to uncovering or revealing their role in attempting to rig the 2016 Presidential election and in creating the Russiagate Hoax. Note that this is all being run by Dems with close ties to the intelligence community. The goal is to get rid of Trump and replace him with a pliant Pence or, at the least, discredit Barr and Durham in advance of any indictments. Will it backfire on the Dems? It is hard to say because the msm are clearly on board and most people in this country get a very filtered version of the news. In addition, the msm have taken to simply lying these days. How many times have you seen the video of Biden's verbal diarrhea at the Council on Foreign Relations forum in the msm? How many times have the msm shown creepy Joe sniffing little girls hair while holding them so that they can's squirm away? The msm may be faced with an existential decision soon. Do we report on the indictments of intelligence officials who tried to rig the election for HRC, denigrate them, or give them little or no coverage. If they do the former, they will have to admit that they have been misleading the American people for years. Doing either of the two latter options will make it very hard for members of the msm to believe they are anything but propagandists. My money is on a combination of denigration and underreporting. I think they have already sold their souls.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 12:08pm

I am in a state of shock

@Roy Blakeley

over and over again, every morning when I read the mainstream newspaper reporting only the Democratic side of the impeachment inquiry hearings. Why am I shocked? I guess I see it as exactly what we were told the Soviet press was like 50 years ago. It's as if the press is saying, yes, we're lying, but that's what it takes to get rid of a bad president.

The problem is that what they select to criticize him for is that he's an outsider not doing what CIA approved administrations have done in the past. And they think the American people want a CIA approved administration? That's essentially what they're asserting, that what John Brennan wants is what's good for the country.

As you point out, even the #MeToo movement crumbles when confronted by what Brennan wants. Even support for torch-bearing Nazi armed forces in Ukraine feels good if it's aligned with what Brennan wants. I'm shocked, no matter how many days I see it.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 1:29pm

I'm shocked I tell you

@Linda Wood

I have noticed the same thing. The articles I see on the hearings like to tell me how many things the dem witnesses get right and how many the gop critters statements are pure CT. I just laugh and though about looking up the media's coverage of the watergate hearings. Was the media so blatant in their attempts to push the narrative they want people to believe or did they just report the facts ma'am and only the facts?

—

There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

Submitted by wendy davis on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 4:28pm

i think it's called

@Linda Wood

"Democrat spin". but this is pretty funny altogether: ‘I want a Senate impeachment trial’, Trump says in live TV phone call’, 22 Nov, 2019, RT.com

Calling House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff a “nut job,” Trump added “the one I want to testify most is Shifty Schiff … and what I want to know most is, why did he make up my statement?”

Schiff’s dramatic interpretation before Congress of Trump’s phone call, which the California Democrat later said was a “parody,” is just one bone of contention between him and Trump. Trump has also slammed Schiff for conducting impeachment hearings with second- and third-hand witnesses who have thus far failed to provide concrete evidence that the president arranged a quid-pro-quo deal with Zelensky. Democrats allege that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Kiev reopening a corruption investigation against the family of 2020 candidate Joe Biden.

Trump also said he’d like to hear Hunter Biden, former VP Joe Biden’s son, testify before the Senate. Hunter sat on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma from 2015 to 2019, a position he was unqualified for, and one Trump maintains was gifted to him as part of a corrupt deal between his father and Kiev.

The president also said he wants the mysterious whistleblower to testify, and claimed to know his identity. Trump then berated the Fox hosts when they claimed to not know.

and of course Schiff had said the same thing, even as it became a banning offense to say 'eric chiaramella' on facebook and twitter....

b at MOA had said the big bomb the Ds saw this week (sondland, whose earlier testimony behind cosed doors went one way, then another...) actually was a dud bomb, and he gave this CNN coverage as proof. it made me cross-eyed before i could tally all the he-said, she-saids, myself.

but here's hoping durham's 'origins of russia-gate' investigation grows longer legs each week.

Submitted by lotlizard on Thu, 11/21/2019 - 11:24pm

As a typical person’s bowel-and-sphincter ritual does every day

Ukrainegate impeachment probe starts to yield something solid

Submitted by Alligator Ed on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 12:31am

Elegant

@lotlizard

Submitted by gjohnsit on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 1:09pm

My take

@lotlizard
I think the Dems have clearly made their case for what Trump did was unethical.
I think the public understands that.

BUT exactly what law did Trump violate?
Without a clear answer to that this impeachment is going nowhere.
I think the public understands that too.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 1:51pm

From what I have seen of the hearings,

@gjohnsit

the Democrats have not made a case that Trump did anything unethical or illegal. If you have that impression, my guess is that you are getting it from the media, not the testimony. I say that with total respect for you as a researcher.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 4:51pm

I should try to be

@Linda Wood

more specific, especially given that I know you are thorough and that you act in good faith. You may have watched more of the hearings than I have. From what I have seen, the witnesses presenting the Democratic case have described their beliefs or impressions, but when questioned by the Republicans, they have testified that their sources were at least second-hand or that their beliefs were presumptions based on no direct evidence.

The media, on the other hand, make the claim that those witnesses provided definitive proof of Trumps' guilt of whatever. Maybe you are right that they've only created an impression of his being unethical, but I don't think they've accomplished that. If they are trying to differentiate his dealing with Ukraine from Biden's solely on the basis of Biden now being a candidate for president and therefore untouchable, I don't think that makes Trump look unethical.

The assertion that we never attach conditions when we provide aid has been refuted. I think the CIA whistleblower tried to make a crime out of Trump's phone call to Zelensky but that it has blown up in their faces, just as RussiaGate has.

Submitted by tle on Sat, 11/23/2019 - 5:11pm

I think it already blew up.

I happened to turn on the hearings at almost the exact moment that a Republican was demolishing Sondland. Even as non-Fox cable news was trumpeting that Trump was in big trouble, the Congressman was asking questions that made the whole narrative fall apart. Everything being claimed turned out to be Sondland "presuming".

Side note: I think that's the first time I've been able to tolerate a Republican speaking for that long.

Granted, there's no question in my mind that Trump is guilty of destroying almost every federal agency, has made the obscenely rich even richer, and is guilty of global ecocide, but on this (in my mind) trivial contretemps, I can only conclude that Democrats are fiercely determined to lose.