After reading the memo championed by Democrat Adam Schiff, which was promised to rebut the memo produced by the Republican majority on the House Intel Committee, I was reminded of a Peggy Lee song--Is That All There Is?
Devin Nunes and his team have saved me the effort of pointing out the problems with the Schiff rebuttal. I am presenting that in full. Here is the bottomline--we now know that Christopher Steele was not a "one-time Charlie." He had a longstanding covert relationship as an FBI intelligence asset. The Democrat memo does nothing to dispute that fact.
It also is clear that DOJ and FBI personnel engaged in unprofessional (and possibly illegal) conduct with respect to making representations to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Three key points on this front--1: The so-called Steele dossier was proffered as evidence to the FISC without fully disclosing that Steele was a covert asset being paid for his work and that Democrat political operatives were also paying him; 2: Senior DOJ officials, particularly Bruce Our, were totally comprised yet continued to be involved in the process; and 3: The Democrats insist that Carter Page is a bad guy and deserves to be investigated. Yet, no charges have been filed against him and the allegations leveled in the Steele dossier were dismissed by former FBI Director Comey as "salacious and unverified."
Anyway, here are the main points from the Democrat memo and the Republican response.
THE DEMOCRATS’ MEMO: CHARGE AND RESPONSE
“Christopher Steele’s raw intelligence reporting did not inform the FBI’s decision to initiate its counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016.” (p. 1)
RESPONSE:
As stated in the declassified GOP memo on FISA abuse, information about Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos “triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in the late July 2016 by FBI agent Peter Strzok.” Once underway, the investigation was fueled by Christopher Steele’s dossier, which the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used to get a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Carter Page. DOJ and FBI’s reliance on the DNC and Clinton campaign funded dossier in court filings, not the overall investigation, is the focus of the GOP memo.
CHARGE:
The Page FISA application “made only narrow use of information from Steele’s sources about Page’s specific activities in 2016.”(p.1)
RESPONSE:
Senators Grassley and Graham’s January 4, 2018, criminal referral of Steele confirms that “the bulk of the application consists of allegations against Page that were disclosed to the FBI by Mr. Steele and are also outlined in the Steele dossier.” Moreover, the Steele dossier was the FBI’s only source for the allegations in the initial application that Page met with particular Russians in July 2016.
CHARGE:
DOJ disclosed to the Court the fact of and reason for Steele’s termination as an FBI source. (p 2)
RESPONSE:
As noted in the GOP memo on FISA abuse, Steele was suspended and then terminated for unauthorized disclosures to the media in October 2016. However, four times DOJ repeated to the FISA Court (FISC) an incorrect assessment that Steele had not been a source for an earlier, September 2016 Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff. In May 2017, before the final renewal application, Steele admitted in a publicly available U.K. court filing to personally briefing numerous U.S. media outlets, including Yahoo News, in September 2016. Moreover, Isikoff has publicly confirmed that Steele was a source for the Isikoff article used in the Page FISA application.
CHARGE:
The overwhelming majority of Committee Members never received DOJ authorization to access the underlying classified information. (p. 2)
RESPONSE:
As part of stonewalling the Committee’s investigation, senior officials at DOJ and the FBI initially limited access to documents responsive to its subpoenas to one member and two staff for both Republicans and Democrats. Chairman Nunes designated Chairman Gowdy, an experienced prosecutor and investigator, to lead the Committee’s review. All Republican members participated in weekly briefings on the results of the Committee’s investigative efforts, and the Committee does not believe there are/or should be current restrictions on the Committee’s access to this important information. Contrary to the Democrat memo’s claims, no restrictions were placed on the authorized dissemination of information in the GOP memo, which the Committee determined should be disclosed consistent with House and Committee rules to all Members of the House, and the American people.
CHARGE:
The information about George Papadopoulos was received against the backdrop of Russia’s aggressive covert campaign to influence our elections, which the FBI was already monitoring. (p. 2)
RESPONSE:
Russia’s aggressive meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, which the GOP memo does not dispute, is a key focus of the Committee’s ongoing Russia investigation.
CHARGE:
DOJ’s FISA warrant application was based on “compelling evidence” and “probable cause” of Page’s pre-campaign activities. (p. 3-4)
RESPONSE:
The Democrat memo fails to explain why, if evidence of Page’s past activities was so compelling, the Steele dossier was used in the FISA application at all, much less formed the “bulk” of the Page FISA application. The Democrat memo also fails to explain why, if DOJ and FBI had “probable cause” that Page was a Russian agent, they waited until shortly after receiving the Steele dossier to seek a warrant. (As noted on page 3 of the Democrat memo, the dossier “reach[ed] the counterintelligence team investigating Russia at FBI headquarters” in “mid-September 2016,” just a few weeks before the initial FISA application.) Additionally, the Democrat memo—like the FISA application itself—paints an incomplete and misleading picture of Page’s past activities and interactions with the FBI. Both omit that, in a secretly taped statement reproduced in a 2015 federal court filing, a Russian intelligence officer called Page “an idiot.” This omission could mislead the reader regarding the Russians’ assessment of Page’s capabilities and utility, and it is troubling that DOJ failed to provide to a secret court material information from a public court filing. By participating in voluntary interviews with FBI,
Page cooperated with the successful prosecution of the Russian intelligence officer who called him “an idiot” and two of his colleagues.
CHARGE:
A “specific sub-section” of the Page FISA application refers to Steele’s reporting on Page and his alleged coordination with Russian officials. (p. 4)
RESPONSE:
As confirmed by Senators Grassley and Graham’s criminal referral of Steele, the dossier formed “a significant portion” of the Carter Page FISA application.
CHARGE:
DOJ provided additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele’s reporting. (p. 4)
RESPONSE:
At the time of the initial application, all of the Steele dossier’s specific claims about Page—including that he met with Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin in Moscow in July 2016—were uncorroborated by any independent source, and they remain unconfirmed.
CHARGE:
DOJ provided the Court with “more than sufficient information to understand the political context of Steele’s research.”(p. 5)
RESPONSE:
As clearly stated in the GOP memo, none of the Page FISA applications “disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts.” Instead, the FISA application relies on a convoluted statement buried in a footnote. This is clearly an attempt to avoid informing the Court, in a straightforward manner that the DNC and Clinton campaign paid for the dossier. (Taking a cue from DOJ and FBI, the Democrat memo omits any reference to the DNC or Clinton campaign.) Moreover, the footnote obscures, rather than clarifies Steele’s political motivation and what DOJ and FBI officials actually knew about the dossier’s political origins. The footnote “speculates” on the “likely” motivation of “U.S. Person”—Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson—while intimating that “Source #1”—Steele—was unaware “as to the motivation behind the research.” In fact, as disclosed in the GOP memo and confirmed by the Graham-Grassley referral, Steele was motivated by a “desperate” desire to keep Donald Trump from becoming President.
CHARGE:
DOJ explained the FBI’s reasonable basis for finding Steele credible. (p. 6)
RESPONSE:
FBI’s reliance on Steele’s credibility was badly misplaced. Steele violated FBI’s trust by making unauthorized disclosures to the media in October 2016, resulting in his termination as an FBI source. Moreover, as explained in Senators Graham and Grassley’s declassified criminal referral of Steele, he “told the FBI he had not shared the Carter Page dossier information beyond his client [Glenn Simpson] and FBI,” and DOJ “repeated that claim to the FISC” four times. In reality, in September 2016—before the initial FISA application—Steele had personally shared dossier information with: Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News, which published a September 2016 article on Page using Steele’s information (as now publicly confirmed by Isikoff); At least four other U.S. media outlets (confirmed in Steele’s May 2017 U.K. court filing, which was made before but not disclosed in the June 2017 FISA renewal); Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, whose wife was employed by Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump (as described in the GOP memo); A senior State Department official, Jonathan Winer (publicly confirmed by Winer in a Washington Post op-ed); and Perkins Coie, the law firm for DNC and the Clinton campaign (as described in the GOP memo). Finally, notwithstanding FBI’s confidence in Steele, at the time of the initial FISA application the agency had virtually no visibility into the credibility of Steele’s sub-sources and sub-sub-sources who originated the dossier’s allegations.
CHARGE:
The GOP memo does not cite evidence that Steele disclosed to Yahoo News details includedin the FISA warrant. (p. 6)
RESPONSE:
As noted in the Democrat memo, both the initial FISA application and the Steele dossier include the allegation from Steele that Carter Page met with two specific Russians, Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin, in July 2016. A September 2016 article by Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News contains the exact same allegation, attributed to a “well placed Western intelligence source.” Steele has admitted to meeting with Yahoo News in September 2016, and Isikoff has publicly confirmed that Steele was a source for the article.
CHARGE:
DOJ never paid Steele for the “dossier.” (p. 6)
RESPONSE:
As clearly stated in the GOP memo, FBI authorized payment to Steele for the dossier information before he was terminated as an FBI source for making unauthorized disclosures to the media. This financial motivation was not disclosed to the Court.
CHARGE:
The GOP memo’s reference to Bruce Ohr is misleading. (p. 7)
RESPONSE:
Steele’s desperation to keep Donald Trump from becoming President—described in the GOP memo and confirmed by the Graham-Grassley referral—was known to senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr before the initial FISA application, and known to FBI before any of the renewals. (The summary of Ohr’s first interview with FBI about Steele is dated November 22, 2016.) Remarkably, neither Steele’s bias, nor Ohr’s relationship with Steele or the FBI, nor the fact that Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS on its DNC and Clinton campaign funded Trump research, was disclosed to the Court in any of the FISA applications.
CHARGE:
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s text messages are irrelevant to the FISA application (p. 7).
RESPONSE:
Strzok opened the counterintelligence investigation of which the Carter Page FISA application was a part. Additionally, both Strzok and Lisa Page were members of the team conducting the investigation, which page 3 of the Democrat memo itself describes as “so closely held.” Especially given the small size of the team, the apparent bias of the investigators displayed in Strzok-Page text messages is highly relevant to an analysis of the investigation, including the controversial decision to seek a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
Following Admiral Roger's closing the FSA mega-file to the FBI, it looks as though Christopher Steele’s real role was laundering information stateside which had been obtained through continued Inquiries of the NSA mega-file by our Ambassador to the UN. *** Fusion GPS immediately hired FBI manager Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, and Christopher Steele. Bruce Ohr passed his illegally obtained information to Nellie, she to Steele, who then relayed the material back to Fusion / FBI as coming from his "Russian contacts."
And here 44 may have made a mistake in authorizing the spread his Daily Briefing to 30+ agencies and individuals — again as a work-around of the Roger’s information ban. This places 44’s fingerprints on the work-around.
You may recall the incident of the wrong Michael Cohen traveling to Prague to meet with Russians — when the future 45’s personal lawyer was having a family celebration / baseball game stateside? The error was generated by the NSA mega-file. Steele’s "Russian contacts" dutifully corroborated Cohen’s visit with them in Prague — how could they not, since they exist only in Steele’s mind. In short, the Steele "Russians contacts” are proved to be fictions and if fictions then there was no Russian collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia.
*** Our UN Ambassador claims she was not generating hundreds of NSA Inquiries per week and we can believe her. The NSA Inquiries were coming from the FBI via her State Department “support” in DC.
Posted by: RC | 25 February 2018 at 01:32 PM
"the bulk of the application consists of allegations against Page that were disclosed to the FBI by Mr. Steele and are also outlined in the Steele dossier.”
So we have disagreement on this point. The GOP says it was all based upon Steele, the Democrats say it wasn't. Until we get to see the warrant application this will just have to be a matter of belief.
Also, any comment upon why, I hope I remember this correctly, they chose to apply for the FISA warrant after Page was no longer active on the campaign? If the purpose of spying on Page was to harm Trump, why didn't they apply for the warrant while he was still an active advisor? Was Page ever that important in the campaign? I certainly don't remember him from the campaign, but that may be a function of my memory.
Steve
Posted by: steve | 25 February 2018 at 01:36 PM
Steve,
Page was a campaign nobody. Never had a meeting with Trump. Never briefed Trump. That's what is one of the bizarre aspects of this.
Posted by: Publius Tacitus | 25 February 2018 at 02:28 PM
The entire case against the FBI rests on the idea that they cannot seek a warrant using biased evidence. That is both contrary to practice and illogical. They would not be able to get a warrant based off of tips, confessions or interrogations.
Posted by: Boronx | 25 February 2018 at 03:03 PM
Navy Academy graduate Carter Page has never betrayed America in any way. However he functioned in Naval Intelligence during his five-year navy career and between 2013 and May of 2016 he assisted the FBI in the locking up and trial of a real Russian spy.
Following the trial, in June of 2016 Page volunteered to the Tump campaign, which we now know was really the Don and a group of less than ten flying between rallies. Page did not attend the one meeting of his focus group before it was disbanded -- he was vacationing in Hawaii.
As noted in my comment above, Admiral Rogers' closing of the NSA mega-file to the FBI required work-arounds to continue NSA mega-file mining. So-o-o-o, 4 months after the conclusion of the Russian spy case, Carter Page is presented to the FISC court by the FBI as an Article 1, 100% proven Russian Spy. Article 1 permits the FBI to not only monitor conversations between Page and Americans, but also the conversations of these Americans with others. So with FISC Court approval the entire Trump campaign, the business associates and dealings of Trump during the past 30 years were opened to FBI scrutiny of the NSA mega-file -- Admiral Rogers be dammed.
A lesson to be leaned from this history is that a long spoon will not protect you supping with the FBI. Incidental information gleaned about you in the course of nailing a Russian spy, can and will be recycled into a synthetic case against you as a vicious foreign spy. Of course, Page had no idea that he was the subject of a spy referral and that the secret FISC court had accepted the FBI's lies. As a consequence any email / phone call / lunch with him opened the recipient and his / her many contacts to the same intrusive FBI surveillance.
In various TV interviews, Carter Page comes across as a wide-eyed and curiously bemused altar boy. But then again, he graduated from a Catholic High School.
Posted by: RC | 25 February 2018 at 03:12 PM
RC,
Admiral Rogers and NSA mega-file are not mentioned in the Nunes memo or the Schiff rebutal. 44 did this and 45 did that? congrats, you type like someone who wants to deflect the conversation from the facts or a Russian bot.
Posted by: Fred | 25 February 2018 at 06:32 PM
You say:
"The entire case against the FBI rests on the idea that they cannot seek a warrant using biased evidence."
I don't agree.
It is not the "biased evidence" itself which is the problem. It is the failure to disclose the bias, i.e., the failure to give the court the full picture, the suppression of an important part of the story. What did the prosecutors know that they failed to reveal to the judge from whom they were seeking a warrant? Was it significant? That is the question.
Posted by: outthere | 25 February 2018 at 08:44 PM
Fred,
The whole Memo discussion above concerns the FBI's data manipulations to cast Carter Page as a spy worthy of an Article 1 warrant by the FISC. As I explained above, once Admiral Rogers closed the FBI's access to the NSA mega-file, the Bureau developed several work-arounds to explain how the FBI had data from the mega-file that they were mining through our Ambassador to the UN.
Fusion GPS immediately hired the wife of FBI manager Bruce Ohr, Nellie, and Christopher Steele. Bruce handed material to Nellie, Nellie to Christopher. He repackaged the material claiming it was provided by very personal "Russian contacts" and the FBI then handed that laundered Steele material to the FISC.
This laundering operation was exposed with a mistake concerning Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen was actually attending a family celebration and a ball game here in the US when he supposedly met Steele's "Russian contacts" in Prague. Steele's contacts, who exist only in his mind, dutifully confirmed that the meeting took place in Prague.
I wish I might be a sock-puppet, but too many of my condo neighbors know otherwise. My favorite hobby in retirement is writing films for children, in which white hats succeed and black hats don't.
Posted by: RC | 25 February 2018 at 09:50 PM
Bill Binney, on Jimmy Dore show, said that FISA warrant enabled "two hop" surveillance. If so, then Carter Page FISA warrant does much, much more than surveille Page himself- it permits surveillance of most of the Trump campaign.
Posted by: Steve McIntyre | 25 February 2018 at 10:25 PM
Ahhhh, but they cannot legally tell lies to the judge during that process.
Posted by: Tel | 25 February 2018 at 10:40 PM
Hi Fred,
In some ways, being a sock-puppet and napping, in a bureau drawer (?), between soliloquies would be rather peaceful. Alas, too many of my condo neighbors know me to be otherwise !
Do check out sites such as The Conservative Treehouse and you will discover that Admiral Rogers' closing the NSA mega-file to the FBI led to Nellie Ohr's & Christopher Steele's information laundering operation. Other sites yet will introduce you to FISC Chief Judge Rosemary Collyer's 99-page rebuke of the FBI for their defalcations.
At a minimum, you won't be surprised when a plethora of FBI / DOJ / State Department employees are found guilty and sent to prison.
Posted by: RC | 25 February 2018 at 11:19 PM
My "dog that didn't bark" question about Carter Page - if Carter Page was such a known danger, why didn't the FBI warn the Trump Campaign against letting him become involved in the campaign?
Posted by: Enrico Malatesta | 26 February 2018 at 12:06 AM
A cogent critique of the Schiff memo and how it doesn't aid the Democrats.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/schiff-memo-russia-investigation-harms-democrats-more-than-helps-them/
There's a reason why Nunes, Goodlatte and Grassley are focused on the Clinton commissioned Fusion GPS dossier, Christopher Steele and the FISA Title 1 warrant on Carter Page. It is the simplest path to the conspiracy at the Obama administration.
Posted by: blue peacock | 26 February 2018 at 03:53 AM
My, street sense, and experience as a lawyer tells me that--"tips, confessions.." from informants is true Steve. But the bar for going after a drug dealer, or fence, or kiddie porn type, is supposed--one assumes-- to be a hell of a lot lower than going after the nominee for President of a major political party.
Posted by: jonst | 26 February 2018 at 09:35 AM
PT says: "Page was a campaign nobody. Never had a meeting with Trump. Never briefed Trump. That's what is one of the bizarre aspects of this."
So, if Page was a nobody, then why would the FBI bother to get a FISA warrant to spy on him?
This must be key to understanding what was going on.
What Bill Binney says has to be seriously considered, that is, that the spying on Page is just the tip of the iceberg.
(Steve McIntyre --Bill Binney... said that FISA warrant enabled "two hop" surveillance (which) permits surveillance of most of the Trump campaign.)
What other agencies were involved??
Is that a reasonable inquiry?
Posted by: plantman | 26 February 2018 at 10:41 AM
The Steele Dossier never looked better and it is proved that 1) it's nature was revealed to the FISA court, and 2) that Carter Page had been under investigation long before it existed. Case closed.
Posted by: Leaky Ranger | 26 February 2018 at 10:52 AM
Welcome to the criminal defense world. Everyday, hundreds of warrants based on the statements of criminals, paid informers, bitter ex-girlfriends, lying cops, and even non-existent "confidential informants" are issued. With all but the most blatant provably false affidavits, questionable searches are upheld by judges.
At this point I'm just waiting for Mueller's final indictments and the report. The facts will be there, or they won't.
If they are, try arguing a Motion to Suppress Evidence in the impeachment trial. That'll get you far . . .
Posted by: Green Zone Café | 26 February 2018 at 11:11 AM
The dog that didn't bark - if the Schiff Memo were so powerful, such a slam dunk, every MSM outlet in the western world would be trumpeting it to the skies and talking about nothing but.
They seem to be barely able to acknowledge the existence of the Memo.
Posted by: Sid Finster | 26 February 2018 at 11:14 AM
RC,
It really does help if, when you make claims, you link to the source so that others can evaluate them.
In the case of the claims you are making, the source is clearly a post two days ago by ‘sundance’ on the ‘Conservative Treehouse’ site entitled ‘Tying All The Loose Threads Together – DOJ, FBI, DoS, White House: “Operation Latitude”…’
(See https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/24/tying-all-the-loose-threads-together-doj-fbi-dos-white-house-operation-latitude/ .)
As it happens, I think the suggestion that Steele’s role may have been, in very substantial measure, to give the impression that material from other source was the product of a high-quality ‘humint’ investigation merits being taken extremely seriously.
However, to repeat claims by ‘sundance’, while not taking the – rather minimal – amount of trouble required to provide the link which allows others to evaluate them, simply puts people’s backs up and makes them less likely to take what you are suggesting seriously.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 26 February 2018 at 11:28 AM
PT,
In the words of Emily Dickinson, I'm nobody. So., I come here to test my reaction when I read what the Democrats wrote--though it was hard to get any continuity while reading because of all the big black lines--I was completely underwhelmed. I hate it when someone claims that what he/she is going to say will be something that will change my entire Weltanschauung and it turns out to be a nothing burger, in today's parance.
So thank you for confirming my opinion of the memo and thanks to others who have commented and who have way more experience and knowledge about how our Swam works (or doesn't work?).
My first reaction before I even tried to read the memo was correct. My first instinct was to judge on the basis of personality, which I know is not often logical. I felt that nothing put out under Schiff's authority could change my mind about the point Nunes made when he put out his mamo. Schiff's defence sounded so, pardon the pun, shifty and did nothing to really counter the main point Nunes made when he released his memo.
Schiff's memo was basically a vendetta against persons. Page and Papadopolis (sp?) are obviously the unpopular kids in the minds of the "mean girl" Democrats because they had links to Trump, the real threat to the popular girl Democrats. All we have to do is hear their names and we should automatically decide that if we want to be popular, we should malign them also so as to malign Trump and gain our entrance into the popular group in the cafeteria.
Posted by: DianaLC | 26 February 2018 at 01:55 PM
blue peacock,
Thanks for that link.
Funnily enough the question raised in your excerpt is exactly what I've been thinking since reading a post by TTG about Carter Page being an important FBI informant and state witness to the prosecution of Russian espionage.
If the FBI believed Page had become a Russian spy it would have been easy due to their prior relationship with him to interview him and if he lied, to prosecute him for the process crime of perjury. That is such a slam dunk that the fact they didn't do that makes it seem there's something fishy there.
And they never verified Steele's allegation that Page met with Sechin and Divyekin which would have been easy to do and now it seems was pure fabrication. Instead the FBI and DOJ lied and misrepresented to FISC to get a surveillance warrant on Page. This seems rather fishy. I speculate they did that to gain incidental collection on members of the Trump campaign.
I note that Page hasn't been charged by the DOJ for any crime. I agree with you that the investigation of the "conspiracy" is moving along well despite the roadblocks by the DOJ. Goodlatte who has seen the FISA application has now requested all the DOJ testimony from FISC. In a recent interview Rep. Ratcliffe who has also seen the FISA application made an interesting point that since in a FISC proceeding the accused has no ability to challenge the prosecution's claims, the prosecution has an affirmative obligation under FISA to present all the evidence, which the DOJ did not do but instead knowingly mislead the court.
It looks like we're heading towards another special counsel to investigate law enforcement and the IC regarding both the Trump and Clinton counter-intelligence investigations as well as the IC and media propaganda efforts to build hysteria around the meme of collusion of the Trump campaign with the Russian government. That investigation could lead all the way into the Obama White House.
Posted by: Jack | 26 February 2018 at 02:00 PM
Your answer deserves F.
See post No 14: "...the FBI also interviewed Page multiple times about his Russian intelligence contacts.” Apparently, these interviews stretch back to 2013. The memo also lets slip that there was at least one more interview with Page in March 2016, before the counterintelligence investigation began. We must assume that Page was a truthful informant since his information was used in a prosecution against Russian spies and Page himself has never been accused of lying to the FBI."
The case is not closed – it is closing on the high-placed violators of the US Constitution --as well as on their lack of professionalism, sheer incompetence and promiscuous opportunism
Instead of working hard to protect national security, the FBI/CIA/DOJ' senior-idiots (accustomed to comfort and hefty checks) have been politicking and meddling in the electoral process. Meanwhile, the foreign nationals were left free to surf congressional computers – for years! (See Awan affair) and the “natives” like Clinton et al have been making a lot of money by getting huge bribes from Russians and Saudis (see Uranium One, involving Mueller for all other people).
There is another big Q: To what extend both the FBI and the CIA have been infiltrated by Israel-firsters that are loyal to Zion, and how extensive is the damage inflicted by the “duals” on the US.
Posted by: Anna | 26 February 2018 at 02:56 PM
Thank you David -- will do so in the future.
Posted by: RC | 26 February 2018 at 03:30 PM
Sorry PT but I had to post this link.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156367146340312&set=a.10150636718210312.445364.619270311&type=3&theater
Posted by: Walrus | 26 February 2018 at 03:39 PM
Some commentators here seem not to know this simple fact:
prosecutors in USA have enormous power.
They can make mountains of molehills.
And their most powerful weapon is the law of conspiracy.
Here is an explanation by an experienced attorney:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/26/thirteen-russians-a-defense-lawyer-decodes-the-mueller-indictments/
Posted by: outthere | 26 February 2018 at 04:30 PM