Enjoy President Trump, Courtesy of The Kremlin

[Animavore]

[pErvinalia]

I wonder if Hu Whatshisface from ABC Australia created that? He's been doing these for years on Australian politicians. He's really talented.

[pErvinalia]

Reports this morning that the reason for the investigations into Trump et all and Russia was from a tip off by Australian conservative former long term foreign minister, Alexander Downer, who is now Australia's High Commissioner to London.

[L'Emmerdeur]

That's what The New York Times is reporting. Story below from Vox, because NYT has a monthly article limit leading to a paywall.

'Report: Trump aide’s drunken night kicked off Russia investigation'

A former Trump aide’s drunk bragging to an Australian diplomat may have kicked off the entire Russia investigation, according to a new report in The New York Times.

On Saturday, the paper reported that George Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, told Australian diplomat Alexander Downer that Russia had political dirt on Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, after a night of heavy drinking in May 2016. Less than a month earlier, he had been told that Russia had emails that would embarrass the former Secretary of State. That information came courtesy of Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor with contacts in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who, in April 2016, told Papadopoulos he’d learned the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.”

When leaked Democratic emails began appearing online in July, apparently timed to the Democratic national convention, Australian officials passed on the information about Papadopoulos to the United States, according to the Times, citing four current and former American and foreign officials. Australia is one of the United States’ closest intelligence allies.

...

Trump and many of his allies have alleged that it was the now-infamous Steele dossier, a document filled with lurid allegations about Trump’s links to Russia, that drew the FBI’s interest. The Times’ reporting convincingly disputes that account.

The Times notes that it is unclear whether Papadopoulos shared the information with anyone else in the campaign, though it seems a little unlikely he’d share it in conversation at a bar and not with anyone in the campaign for which he worked.

If it's accurate, the 'corrupt politicized FBI used made-up dossier from Russian sources to start a witch-hunt' narrative has completely fallen apart. No evidence that the FBI is politicized, certainly none indicating that it favors the Democratic party. Several parts of the 'dossier' have been corroborated. The dossier apparently had nothing to do with the FBI initiating the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. That won't stop Fox News and other disingenuous/dishonest sources from continuing to push the false narrative though.

[Brian Peacock]

It doesn't matter if the 'corrupt politicized FBI used made-up dossier from Russian sources to start a witch-hunt' narrative is true, it just has to comfort the willing.

[L'Emmerdeur]

We didn't hear about this investigation during the run-up to the election, though, while the investigation into Clinton's emails was a prominent story, as pointed out earlier this month.

The main problem with this pseudo-scandal [Strzok-Page text messages] is that nobody has ever previously expected FBI agents not to privately express political viewpoints. Indeed, to prosecute liberal bias at agencies that lean rightward and kept the Republican nominee’s very serious investigation private while publicizing the trivial investigation into the Democratic nominee is perverse in the extreme.

There turns out to be another flaw in the “scandal.” The main agent in question also wrote text messages criticizing Democrats, reports Del Quentin Wilber. His messages included calling Chelsea Clinton “self-entitled,” and mocking Eric Holder. He wrote, “I’m worried about what happens if HRC is elected.” Of course, we don’t know the context of that any more than we know it for the other texts. If the administration had leaked these texts instead or in addition, the narrative would have been completely different.

The scandal is that the Department of Justice selectively leaked private texts from its agents in order to placate the White House’s desire to discredit the special counsel. And the news media let itself get suckered.

[JimC]

The Oz diplomat in question was a former foreign minister, with a penchant for fishnet stockings...

[Forty Two]

If there is one thing you can believe nowadays, it's media reports about the "Trump Russia" affair....

[pErvinalia]

Damn, more fake news eh? Better head to Breitbart to get the real news.

[Brian Peacock]

If we can't trust the MSM where else can we get our news? Facebook? Twitter? AOL?

[pErvinalia]

Alex Jones, obviously.

[Tero]

Fraud (on top of Wisconsin ID law)

New York Magazine is now reporting that Robert Mueller is looking into the Republican National Committee to see if they provided this voter data to the Russians.

Mueller’s team is trying to determine if members of the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee, who worked together on the digital arm of Trump’s campaign, provided assistance to Russian trolls attempting to influence voters. It’s the latest scare for Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who managed the digital campaign and has already come under scrutiny by the special counsel for his foreign contacts

Mueller’s move appears to concern the disproportionate targeting of swing districts by Russian trolls during the presidential campaign. CNN reported in October that ads placed by Russia-linked Facebook accounts targeted Michigan and Wisconsin in particular, with many “geared at swaying public opinion in the most heavily contested battlegrounds.”

This is the first major indication that Mueller is in fact investigating if Trump and his Republican minions did work with the Russian government to rig the outcome of the 2016 election, particularly in two states that were mathematically impossible for Trump to win.

http://www.bluedotdaily.com/mueller-mak ... ign=buffer

[Forty Two]

If we can't trust the MSM where else can we get our news? Facebook? Twitter? AOL?

It's not all-or-nothing. You can trust what the journalist writing the story can back up with solid evidence. You can't trust mere assertions, or stories based entirely on the word of one person who is unnamed and whose background and reason for needing anonymity is undisclosed.

I certainly trust what can be provided and verified.

[Brian Peacock]

...

I certainly trust what can be provided and verified.

To the publications satisfaction or to yours?

[pErvinalia]

I'm just watching JFK again on the tele. I believe in the deep state now.