The FBI and CIA Failed Coup Against Trump Unravels by Publius Tacitus

Based on the memo released today by the House Intelligence Committee (read it here), current and former members of the FBI and the Department of Justice who signed off on applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court will likely face contempt of court charges. Who? James Comey, Andy McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rob Rosenstein. The effectively lied to a Federal judge. That is not only stupid but illegal.

Here are the critical points from the Nunes memo that you should commit to memory.:

• The Steele Dossier played a critical role in obtaining approval from the FISA court to carry out surveillance of Carter Page according to former FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe.
• Christopher Steele was getting paid by the DNC and the FBI for the same information.
• No one at either the FBI nor the DOJ disclosed to the court that the Steele dossier was paid for by an opposition political campaign.
• The first FISA warrant was obtained on 21 October 2016 based on a story written by Michael Isikoff for Yahoo News based on information he received directly from Christopher Steele--THE FBI DID NOT DISCLOSE IN THE FISA APPLICATION THAT STEELE WAS THE ORIGINAL SOURCE OF THE INFORMATION.
• Christopher Steele was a long standing FBI "source" but was terminated as a source after telling Mother Jones reporter David Corn that he had a relationship with the FBI.
• The FBI signers of the FISA applications/renewals were James Comey and Andy McCabe.
• The DOJ signers of the FISA applications/renewals were Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein 
• Even after Steele was terminated by the FBI, he remained in contact with Deputy Attorney General Bruce Our, whose wife worked for FUSION GPS and was involved with the Steele dossier. 

If you go back and read carefully what Isikoff reported in September 2016 it appears that the CIA and the DNI (as well as the FBI) are implicated in spreading the disinformation about Trump and Russia. Isikoff wrote: 

 

U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials — including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the issue. . . .

But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian’s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News.

Who were the "intelligence officials" briefing the select members of the House and Senate? That will be one of the next shoes to drop. We are likely to learn in the coming days that John Brennan and Jim Clapper were also trying to help the FBI build a fallacious case against Trump.

The rats will start scrambling in earnest for the lifeboats. The Trump coup has failed. 

Comments

[turcopolier]

All

What is missing in this "Raft of the Medusa" scene is the complicity of the unholy duo (Brennan and Clapper) and perhaps others in the IC. IMO they went to the British GCHQ seeking additional material to be provided for use against Trump. Such material would be foreign intelligence even if it had once been in US files and would not require any sort of warrant for use as propaganda. pl

[SmoothieX12]

IMO they went to the British GCHQ seeking additional material to be provided for use against Trump. Such material would be foreign intelligence even if it had once been in US files and would not require any sort of warrant for use as propaganda.

Thank you. Helps to grasp better this whole insanity.

[Jack]

Brennan and Comey's tweets yesterday decrying the memo implies a larger battle ahead. The Dems were claiming that releasing the memo was an attack on law enforcement and US national security. Today they claim the memo is a nothingburger. Which is it?

I am no lawyer, but how do these apparent violations of the law get handled?

What happens next? Does Rosenstein resign? Will the underlying documents like the FISA application and McCabe's testimony get released as the pressure builds in the dueling partisan narratives?

[jsn]

So far it seems to me this is all rhetoric. The memo is an interpretation of facts so far not in evidence, at least to the public. Expect the Democrats memo, no doubt soon to be published, to arrive at a totally different interpretation of the same facts, still not in evidence.

I find myself in rare agreement with Pat Buchanan here: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/a-never-trump-press-in-near-panic-fbi-memo-trump-republicans/

All the underlying evidence needs to be released. I wonder if this is the reason Sessions recused himself: had he been involved to date it would be very hard for him to drop the hammer at Justice. I'm interested to see his next move.

[SmoothieX12]

Will the underlying documents like the FISA application

That could be one hell of an entertainment since will bring into the spot light this whole Steele "Dossier" which wouldn't pass the smell test in Intelligence Services of Zamunda or Zimbabwe, yet it was accepted no problem as a viable "intelligence" in the US. One has to really scratch the head here. It just defies imagination.

[Fredw]

Is there something about this to distinguish criminal acts from the general sleaziness that pervades all human intelligence activity? I still find this a reasonable summary:

"But let’s assume that its core factual assertions — the FBI heavily relied on the Steele Dossier, and that it didn’t mention his funding sources in the FISA warrant — are true. So what?

The FBI relies on sources with axes to grind all the time. People typically don’t go to the authorities with damaging information about people they like. The key questions in an application like this isn’t whether the source liked the target; it’s whether the specific claims they’re making are credible.

The memo doesn’t do make that case."

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/2/16965086/nunes-memo-dud-release

[Rocketrepreneur]

Tacitus,

Color me politely skeptical for a few reasons:

1- If Nunes really believes that the FBI is lying on FISA warrant applications, and has known so for at least a month at this point, why did he just ramrod through legislation that extended and expanded Section 702 warrantless wiretapping powers just two weeks ago? If he was really worried that the FBI was lying on warrant applications, wouldn't that imply even more that they couldn't be trusted with warrantless spying on US citizens? AIUI, during the hearings on amendments to that bill, that would've tried adding extra protections against abuse (which he successfully squashed), he argued that there was no evidence of abuse of the process, and that such safeguards were not necessary. Basically at the exact same time that he was writing a memo claiming such abuses...

2- The memo doesn't say anything one way or another about if the specific claims that were material to this actual FISA warrant were independently vetted or not. It implies, but doesn't state, which leaves me suspicious. If the FBI saw some claims about Carter Page in the dossier, but then were able to independently vet those claims, why does the original source matter? Nunes is trying to make it sound like (without explicitly saying) that the only evidence was the dossier and the Yahoo news article. But the fact that he wasn't more explicit makes me suspicious. Remember, in addition to the accused people in this post, a FISC judge also had to sign off on this application, knowing that it was investigating someone very politically sensitive. Do you really think that the judge is that dumb, or is he also complicit? Or more likely, is there additional evidence that was in the warrant that Nunes conveniently didn't mention in his memo because he knew it would be really hard for that evidence to be declassified?

I'm a libertarian. I didn't vote for Hillary and am glad she's not in office. But everything about this memo seems fishy.

~Jon

~Jon

[Publius Tacitus]

Rocketrepreneur
What pisses me off about people like you is that you put on pretense of being thoughtful but did not take a damn minute to even read the memo. The very first sentence under the section titled, Investigation Update, states very clearly that this was NOT UNDER TITLE 7.
So the point is clear, the 702 that Devin fought for had nothing to do with this section.
You must be a damn troll. The facts reported in the memo speak for themselves. It was ANDY MCCABE you stated EXPLICITLY that the FISA request was based largely on the dossier. So, are you a troll or just saddled with a terrible learning and reading disorder?

[SmoothieX12]

The FBI relies on sources with axes to grind all the time.

Any intelligence service relies on that, not every intelligence service, however, continues to act on a completely made up kindergarten level "intelligence" (allegedly by FBI "trusted" source--boy, talk about professionalism), thus inspiring another open-ended investigation around no less the figure of POTUS and his Administration. What makes it also interesting is the fact of alleged "Russian interference" and massive campaign built around this completely false allegation. Those are the issues beyond any purely legal framework--this was a direct sabotage of Trump's Administration and that is where this is all going. I am sure there are very many good lawyers around Trump and Nunes, who, obviously wasn't acting just out of goodness of his heart (albeit this too).

[b]

The fact that the FBI and Democrats have fought for a month that the Memo should not be released makes it clear that they fear something in it.

The FISA application on Page comes AFTER he resigned from the Trump campaign. But that does not mean that he was no longer on internal campaign mailing lists etc.
What did the snooping under the FISA warrant pick up? How much was related to the Trump campaign. Who received this FISA output?

@Pat - The question to me is still who came up with the whole idea of commissioning Steele to write up "Russian dirt"? Clapper? Brennan? One of their British friends?

GPS Fusion had earlier collected opposition research dirt on Trump but only after the Dems started paying for it did they hire Steele. Who came up with this idea?

[jonst]

The Col wrote: ". IMO they went to the British GCHQ seeking additional material to be provided for use against Trump". Well, that's fine....but I wonder whether it was arrogance, incompetence, or both that allowed the UK intel/info to get 'contaminated' by having the Dem Party put their big foot down, pay for said evidence, and undermine the validity and trustworthiness of the evidence? Couldn't someone have figured out that it would not be helpful to the FISA court, or subsequent public disclosure to merge the two 'paymasters'? IC/Dem Leadership/Law Firm? That seems to me like a huge screw up.

What also catches--my attention--anyway, is; is there anything so earth shaking in this memo that necessitated all the 'sky is falling' rhetoric regards publishing the memo? Unless one is dirty that is.

[Matthew]

Col: "Raft of the Medusa." Wonderful image!

[Dr. Puck]

PT wrote: "The Steele Dossier played a critical role in obtaining approval from the FISA court to carry out surveillance of Carter Page according to former FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe."

Why do you suppose Nunes didn't choose to verify and etch this claim with the stronger evidence likely contained in the underlying FISA rationales and complete picture of the FISA application attached to this memo? Oh, wait. . .

Is there anything in this memo not revealed here on SST recently?

[Fredw]

This is getting way too ad hominem for me. "...the FISA request was based largely on the dossier." Given that this was a request for an additional extension of an earlier FISA order, I have to think that the FBI had other reasons to worry about Mr. Page's activities. "largely" does not have the same meaning as "entirely".

[walrus]

there is no duelling partisan narrative. this is at best contempt of court and at worst, treason

[Dr. Puck]

Yup. nothingburger as far as new info goes.

Wouldn't the underlying documents have been released if they supported the memo?

Would love to see the McCabe testimony transcript.

[Frank]

The question seems to be ' Ties with whom do the Brits value more, the elected executive, or those with the Borg'?

[aleksandar]

"Do you really think that the judge is that dumb, or is he also complicit?"
Yes, and when that happened nobody would have bet a dime about Trump election.
So it was also safe for his career.

[Clueless Joe]

"The fact that the FBI and Democrats have fought for a month that the Memo should not be released makes it clear that they fear something in it.
Who received this FISA output?"

It would be bad if some of the results were directly shipped to the Hillary Clinton campaign HQ. Not that they'd be that foolish to do such an illegal thing, mind you. No chance it could ever happen.

[aleksandar]

Largely is not entirely, black is not completely white, tyranny is freedom and so.
The fact is that you're a true believer in russiangate and even with hard proof under your nose, you will find a way to go on believing in it.

[Fredw]

"The question to me is still who came up with the whole idea of commissioning Steele to write up "Russian dirt"? Clapper? Brennan? One of their British friends?"

As I recall it was McCain - or someone who worked for him. The original commission was from a Republican.

[SmoothieX12]

"largely" does not have the same meaning as "entirely".

The distinction becomes crucial when one is offered to eat entirely good 100% beef stew or, has an option of eating one which is largely s beef stew with some minor addition of excrement. You argument is a 180 degrees inverse of my example. Actions based on a "largely" false information get people killed and that is precisely what happened in a larger sense. Do we have a record of this happening before? Let me remind you--Iraq "intelligence" which was largely a bogus. But in this case the shadow of a much larger entity is towering in the background and this is Russia and all events starting from 2014 which changed the geopolitical dynamics are directly connected to what is transpiring right now. Yes, I have an angle.

[DianaLC]

Yes, that is what is happening in politics: "dueling narratives." It's a lot of work for citizens who jut want to live their lives to figure out which of the narratives match reality.

The problem is that most citizens aren't writing fiction in their minds every day. We're just trying to live in the real world and get by, knowing we won't get out of our own stories alive but trying to make that story one that reflects our honest characters.

I'm so saddened by all of this, and I'm not happy that now I get to hear the opposition narrative of that from the Democrats. Shepard Smith, FOX's obvious Democratic talking head is doing that as I type.

Where is our Sergeant Friday asking for "just the facts, ma'am?

[Fredw]

I stand corrected. the original commission that kicked off the Fusion GPS research came from The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website. Their presidential preferences are not clear.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/us/politics/trump-dossier-paul-singer.html

[Fred]

So what did Sally Yates tell her boss Loretta Lynch and what did she tell Barack?