All Things Trump

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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Forty Two » Wed May 23, 2018 9:56 pm

Also "planted" is not misleading. It's a secret informant put there by the FBI. A plant. That doesn't imply that it's unjustified. It might be justified. We don't know. Law enforcement and the Department of Justice should be open about what justified the actions. It's simple. Why should we be defending secrecy in the basis for getting a warrant, or planting an informant, or whatever.

What about when the FBI puts informants in Mosques, for example? Do we just say "oh, well, they're supposed have a good reason to do so, so there is no question of the legitimacy of it, unless we can (somehow) already have evidence that there was a nefarious purpose?" (Toobin's argument in the above video). Dershowitz is saying that the traditional civil libertarian position on this kind of activity is that there needs to be disclosure. So disclose. Then we'll know.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: All Things Trump

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Wed May 23, 2018 10:54 pm

The person in question was never part of the Trump campaign; he was asked to speak to officials in the campaign, and did so. If somebody is asked by the FBI to speak to employees of my company and does so, I would be lying if I said, 'That person was implanted into my company.'

Trump has created a false narrative: 'FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president.' Others repeating this false narrative doesn't make it accurate or truthful.

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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Forty Two » Wed May 23, 2018 10:59 pm

8 Signs Pointing to Counterintelligence Operation Against Trump
http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/ ... nst-trumps
It may be true that President Trump illegally conspired with Russia and was so good at covering it up he’s managed to outwit our best intel and media minds who've searched for irrefutable evidence for two years. (We still await special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings.)

But there’s a growing appearance of alleged wrongdoing equally as insidious, if not more so, because it implies widespread misuse of America’s intelligence and law enforcement apparatus.
Code name

The operation reportedly had at least one code name that was leaked to The New York Times: “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Wiretap fever

Secret surveillance was conducted on no fewer than seven Trump associates: chief strategist Stephen Bannon; lawyer Michael Cohen; national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner; campaign chairman Paul Manafort; and campaign foreign policy advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

The FBI reportedly applied for a secret warrant in June 2016 to monitor Manafort, Page, Papadopoulos and Flynn. If true, it means the FBI targeted Flynn six months before his much-debated conversation with Russia’s ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.

The FBI applied four times to wiretap Page after he became a Trump campaign adviser starting in July 2016. Page’s office is connected to Trump Tower and he reports having spent “many hours in Trump Tower.”

CNN reported that Manafort was wiretapped before and after the election “including during a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Trump.” Manafort reportedly has a residence in Trump Tower.

Electronic surveillance was used to listen in on three Trump transition officials in Trump Tower — Flynn, Bannon and Kushner — as they met in an official capacity with the United Arab Emirates’ crown prince.

The FBI also reportedly wiretapped Flynn’s phone conversation with Kislyak on Dec. 31, 2016, as part of “routine surveillance” of Kislyak.

NBC recently reported that Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, was wiretapped. NBC later corrected the story, saying Cohen was the subject of a “pen register” used to monitor phone numbers and, possibly, internet communications.

National security letters

Another controversial tool reportedly used by the FBI to obtain phone records and other documents in the investigation were national security letters, which bypass judicial approval.

Improper use of such letters has been an ongoing theme at the FBI. Reviews by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General found widespread misuse under Mueller — who was then FBI director — and said officials failed to report instances of abuses as required.

Unmasking

“Unmasking” — identifying protected names of Americans captured by government surveillance — was frequently deployed by at least four top Obama officials who have subsequently spoken out against President Trump: James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence; Samantha Power, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Susan Rice, former national security adviser; Sally Yates, former deputy attorney general.

Names of Americans caught communicating with monitored foreign targets must be “masked,” or hidden within government agencies, so the names cannot be misused or shared.

However, it’s been revealed that Power made near-daily unmasking requests in 2016.

Prior to that revelation, Clapper claimed ignorance. When asked if he knew of unmasking requests by any ambassador, including Power, he testified: “I don't know. Maybe it's ringing a vague bell but I'm not — I could not answer with any confidence.”

Rice admitted to asking for unmasked names of U.S. citizens in intelligence reports after initially claiming no knowledge of any such thing.

Clapper also admitted to requesting the unmasking of “Mr. Trump, his associates or any members of Congress.” Clapper and Yates admitted they also personally reviewed unmasked documents and shared unmasked material with other officials.

Changing the rules

On Dec. 15, 2016 — the same day the government listened in on Trump officials at Trump Tower — Rice reportedly unmasked the names of Bannon, Kushner and Flynn. And Clapper made a new rule allowing the National Security Agency to widely disseminate surveillance material within the government without the normal privacy protections.

Media strategy

Former CIA Director John Brennan and Clapper, two of the most integral intel officials in this ongoing controversy, have joined national news organizations where they have regular opportunities to shape the news narrative — including on the very issues under investigation.

Clapper reportedly secretly leaked salacious political opposition research against Trump to CNN in fall 2017 and later was hired as a CNN political analyst. In February, Brennan was hired as a paid analyst for MSNBC.

Leaks

There’s been a steady and apparently orchestrated campaign of leaks — some true, some false, but nearly all of them damaging to President Trump’s interests.

A few of the notable leaks include word that Flynn was wiretapped, the anti-Trump “Steele dossier” of political opposition research, then-FBI Director James Comey briefing Trump on it, private Comey conversations with Trump, Comey’s memos recording those conversations and criticizing Trump, the subpoena of Trump’s personal bank records (which proved false) and Flynn planning to testify against Trump (which also proved to be false).

Friends, informants and snoops

The FBI reportedly used one-time CIA operative Stefan Halper in 2016 as an informant to spy on Trump officials.

Another player is Comey friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor, who leaked Comey’s memos against Trump to The New York Times after Comey was fired. We later learned that Richman actually worked for the FBI under a status called “Special Government Employee.”

The FBI used former reporter Glenn Simpson, his political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele to compile allegations against Trump, largely from Russian sources, which were distributed to the press and used as part of wiretap applications.

These eight features of a counterintelligence operation are only the pieces we know. It can be assumed there’s much we don’t yet know. And it may help explain why there’s so much material that the Department of Justice hasn’t easily handed over to congressional investigators.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: All Things Trump

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Wed May 23, 2018 11:06 pm

BBC News getting into the 'FAKE NEWS!' business:

'Trump lawyer "paid by Ukraine" to arrange White House talks'
Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, received a secret payment of at least $400,000 (£300,000) to fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump, according to sources in Kiev close to those involved.

The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine's leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Mr Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law.

Mr Cohen denies the allegation.

The meeting at the White House was last June. Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country's anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

...

[Michael] Avenatti said that Suspicious Activity Reports filed by Mr Cohen's bank to the US Treasury showed he had received money from "Ukrainian interests".

As well as Mr Cohen, the two Ukrainians said to have opened the backchannel for their president also denied the story.

The senior intelligence official in Kiev said Mr Cohen had been helped by Felix Sater, a convicted former mobster who was once Trump's business partner. Mr Sater's lawyer, too, denied the allegations.

The Ukrainian president's office initially refused to comment but, asked by a local journalist to respond, a statement was issued calling the story a "blatant lie, slander and fake".

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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Brian Peacock » Wed May 23, 2018 11:10 pm

Forty Two wrote:
Wed May 23, 2018 9:42 pm
Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed May 23, 2018 7:24 pm
"Planted" s entirely misleading here, and the entire point relies on that misapprehension. But I guess you'll accept the point that this presumed evidence is not being made available to Congress?
I do accept that, but Trump would like it released. It's his opponents that are saying it's improper to disclose. And that's the problem. It should be made available to Congress, but the DOJ is resisting it. Trump could declassify it, but his opponents are waiting for him to do that so they can claim that he is acting inappropriately in that regard (probably treasonously, if you as, them).

I'd grant that asking if there was an overtly political motive for starting the investigation is a legitimate question. However, asking the DOJ to look into that after publicly declaring to the World that the Obama administration planted a spy in the Trump campaign, with all the unavoidable connotations which blow in on such a claim, is a different matter entirely. Citing that claim as justification for the president's team to gain access to the material of an ongoing investigation into the activities of (at the very least) people associated with his campaign via the back door is, as I said before, highly dubious, suspicious even, a misuse of presidential privilege. Proceeding from one's conclusion, and then seeking to collect supporting material for it later, not only logically flawed but in this case it is ethically compromising as well. I'd also grant that there's nothing unusual in asking or having access to the alleged evidence when charges are being made against one - this is basic stuff, as you said. But (ha! you could see that coming eh?) one could not reasonably expect to have access to the material gathered during an ongoing investigation. The reasons for this are obvious: if your or I were being investigated for some serious wrong doing--whether we'd done it or not--it would be unrealistic of us to expect to be kept informed about the state of the investigation, about what material it might have gathered, what kind of material that might be, from who or what sources it had been gathered, what direction the investigation was taking or what conclusions it might be arriving at, etc. It would also be highly irregular, and indeed judicially improper, for investigators to furnish us with such information. That could be construed as collusion to pervert the course of justice. Sure, if and when charges were brought against us then of course we should have full access to the material on which those charges are based, and we should and must have every opportunity to scrutinise and challenge the evidence in our defence. But we cannot put the cart before the horse, at it were. Now, unfortunately, in seeking to play the investigation out in public Trump himself seems to have done more than almost anyone else to undermine this 'basic stuff', some pretty basic principles and operating priorities here. He may be in the unique position of having the constitutional power to order those investigating him to be investigated, but to use the privileges of office and the machinery of the state to do so makes a mockery of the principle of investigatory and judicial independence.
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Hermit » Wed May 23, 2018 11:28 pm

Animavore wrote:
Mon May 21, 2018 5:54 pm
This is an actual page from Trump's official White House.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/nee ... als-ms-13/
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Wed May 23, 2018 11:36 pm

A rather telling timeline documenting how Bullshit Mountain (aka Fox News) and associated MAGA-media created the false 'Obama planted a spy into the Trump campaign!' narrative:

'Spygate: How Right-Wing Media Creates a Conspiracy Theory Out of Thin Air'
The plot goes like this: During the summer of 2016, on the clandestine orders of then-president Obama, the FBI and CIA hatched an ambitious plan to topple the Trump campaign from the inside. In a scandal of unprecedented scope, Democratic politicians commandeered American counterintelligence resources to spy on their primary political opponent and boost Hillary Clinton's chances at winning the election. The Russia investigation that has dominated headlines for nearly two years is, in fact, a desperate smokescreen conjured up by terrified Deep State actors to conceal evidence of their own wrongdoing, and to frame the president for heinous crimes he didn't commit.

On May 8, The Washington Post reported on the White House's decision to back the Justice Department's withholding of information from House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, on the grounds that disclosure would expose the identity of "a U.S. citizen who has provided information to the FBI and CIA." The authors added, though, that the individual had been a source of information used by the special counsel's office—and that it was unclear whether Trump knew this "key fact" when his administration chose to side with law enforcement.

It didn't take long for him to find out. Almost immediately, the right-wing-media ecosystem began laundering and repackaging this news item, weaving its constituent elements together with Trumpian talking points until a full-blown conspiracy theory worthy of the president's tweets emerged on the other side. This metamorphosis is what would happen if a word cloud sourced from a Trump rally were used in a giant game of telephone—but one in which the gibberish end result were then broadcast as news to hundreds of millions of recipients.
All the usual blithering pillocks (Hannity, Limbaugh, Ingraham, Carlson, Fox and Friends, Giuliani, etc.) make an appearance in what follows, with of course Il Douche himself inanely tweeting the weaponized bullshit.

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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Tero » Thu May 24, 2018 12:30 am

It's not "treason" for Russia to have dirt on Hillary Clinton, for someone to know about it, and for someone to be glad about it. What the fuck is Broccoli Rob talking about here?
It went well beyond that. Hacking into emails, FB etc bots, which reached over 100 million Americans with their propaganda. Trump never put a stop to any of it, his staff was allowed to act on all possible leads and dirt, took money hand over fist from ANYONE.

People are going to jail for acts under Trump business and in his campaign. US is unaware (more than half claim they never heard of crime) of any of these criminals.
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Seabass » Thu May 24, 2018 6:58 am

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." —Voltaire
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Animavore » Thu May 24, 2018 2:11 pm

North Korea summit cancelled. :lol:
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Svartalf » Thu May 24, 2018 2:24 pm

just as lil kim destroyued his nuclear sites in front of the foreign press, or so he claims...
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Animavore » Thu May 24, 2018 3:34 pm

Facist President can't help being facist.
President Trump praised the NFL's decision to mandate that players either stand for the national anthem or stay in the locker room in a TV interview that aired Thursday.

And he questioned whether players who choose not to stand "proudly" should be in the country at all.

"Well, I think that's good," Trump said in an interview with Fox News. "I don't think people should be staying in locker rooms, but still I think it's good. You have to stand, proudly, for the national anthem or you shouldn't be playing, you shouldn't be there, maybe you shouldn't be in the country."



https://www.npr.org/2018/05/24/61397696 ... t=20180524
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by pErvinalia » Thu May 24, 2018 3:40 pm

Animavore wrote:
Thu May 24, 2018 2:11 pm
North Korea summit cancelled. :lol:
It's all the Dems fault.
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Brian Peacock » Thu May 24, 2018 3:41 pm

Trump trolls and baits lil' Kim then pulls out of talks when Kim responds. Is this kind of blatantly dysfunctional, passive-agressive politics what people mean when they talk about the new normal?
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Re: All Things Trump

Post by Brian Peacock » Thu May 24, 2018 4:11 pm

Trump's says that if he's forced to nuke North Korea Japan and South Korea are going to pay for it.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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