"CHUCK TODD:
Well, that's an important revelation at this point. Let me ask you this. Does intelligence exist that can definitively answer the following question, whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?
JAMES CLAPPER:
We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, "our," that's N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report.
CHUCK TODD:
I understand that. But does it exist?
JAMES CLAPPER:
Not to my knowledge.
CHUCK TODD:
If it existed, it would have been in this report?
JAMES CLAPPER:
This could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government." Meet the Press 5 March 2017
——————
You all probably know that I am not a big fan of the perjured former Director of National Intelligence, but this is interesting. Earlier in this interview Clapper says that there was no FISA court approval of a warrant to intercept Trump campaign communications. This contradicts other rumor/reporting that there were two attempts last year to obtain such a warrant. The first of these failed and the second was supposedly approved. Remember! A FISA court warrant IS NOT a warrant in a criminal investigation. A FISA court warrant is a permission to intercept communications in a suspected espionage or terrorism case. It is a vacuum cleaner that seeks information useful to intelligence analysis without regard to the admissibility of such information in a federal court.
In this quoted section of the MTP interview Clapper, who always seeks to cover his hindquarters, throws the Left's case for Russian/Trumpian collusion in the election "under the bus." pl
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-03-05-17-n729271
I thought it was interesting watching the Borg nod sagely and stroke their chin as known perjurer Clapper talked.
Sir,
Nice! Though, indeed, one must wonder how Clapper arrived at his de facto exoneration of Trump w/o the “wire taps” (SIGINT). Trump will now proclaim that Clapper fully “exonerated” him. My conclusion, stupid hysterical lefties attempting a coup of lawfully elected POTUS w/ stupid Russia phobia claims. Obama and Clinton +other assorted Borg behind it. Went SIGINT fishing Trump in Nixon Watergate like fashion (just as Trump has stated)hoping to find dirt and came up w/ nothing. Hysterical lefties, perennially and pathologically doomed to never realizing when the jig is up, continue misinformed paranoid “resistance” at places like “Daily Kos” and even on MSM outlets and are all about to be made to look even stupider by Trump, who just keeps on winning. As Trump proves himself to not even remotely resemble “Hitler” and as America becomes greater, moderate Democrats will have had enough of their crazy kin and will move into the Trumpist Republican camp. Even some MSM will tire of always being wrong about Trump and over the next six months will become increasingly circumspect in Trump related reporting. The Democrats self-destruction will be complete.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html?_r=0
Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MATTHEW ROSENBERG, ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO. JAN. 19, 2017
…The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him. As president, Mr. Trump will oversee those agencies and have the authority to redirect or stop at least some of these efforts.
The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit. The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said. One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House…
Michael Hayden speculates on the reason for Trump’s unsupported Tweets of Saturday morning:
“Let me go very, very dark on you,” Hayden intoned. “The President of the United States put his own reputation, the reputation of his predecessor, and the reputation of his nation at risk to get at least a draw out of the next 24 hours of news.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/let-me-go-very-very-dark-on-you-michael-hayden-speculates-about-trump-wiretapping-claims/
Also, any material not having anything to do with the warrant request, like campaign stuff, must be destroyed immediately. As I understand it the first FISA request was refused as it had Trump’s name listed. This was following an earlier request through normal courts which was also denied for lack of probable cause. If a second FISA request was submitted then the affidavit must be perjured as there is no imminent threat to the US which is what the basis of the FISA court is supposed to be used for. Assuming it is thru that the 1st FISA was rejected than that was only the 12th time in the history of the court a request was denied. That is saying something very significant about how the 1st FISA warrant request smelled. IMHO there is some meat here and there is some very high probability that something very irregular occurred and it very likely was originated by Lynch meaning Obama must have known about it. If the Sessions material which was leaked (and should have been destroyed) came from this FISA approved warrant then it is very likely a scandal which makes Watergate pale in comparison. We just might see the first ex-President go to prison along with some of his cronies. My advice to Trump, if he is listening at all, is to get Trey Gaudy appointed as a special investigator. Then we just might begin to unravel some of this very bizarre conspiracy. Icing on the cake would be simultaneous arrests for the pedophilia ring in DC rumored to be imminent. If any of this is true it means the death of the Democratic party.
Thanks for these comments in your post! I was an informal adviser to Mary Lawton, Esq. who acted as the FISA court before there was a FISA. She was at DoJ/OLC and had long recognized that a FISA was needed as did I. Often labeled part of the so-called CHURCH REFORMS in reality the need was a long recognized one in DoJ.
But because almost nobody has a grip on classification standards and issues and policy no one person in or out of government can say with certainty that any given reality is true or false. First, we should be told who briefed the President on security issues, including document security, personnel security, and COMSEC! Under 28 U.S. C. section 385, (285?) the President if he believed what he tweeted had a statutory duty to not tweet and refer the matter to DoJ/FBI for action.
The President clearly does not understand his statutory duty? IMO the tweet was correct and information on the Trump campaign and its participants was collected but never analyzed by at least some of the 17 members of the IC.
As always could be wrong!
IMO General Clapper has no idea if there was “collusion” between the Trump Campaign and the Russian leadership and those in Russian government circles and is not qualified to make that assessment now or formerly!
Would Clapper know about a wiretap warrant that might be part of an FBI criminal investigation?
Also, Clapper said, “there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign.” There was reported surveillance of Russians however, and that is how Flynn got popped.
Fortunately, the President can pick up the phone, or be driven over to make the request in person, and, ask Comey and Kelly to produce the FISA warrants and any other related materials.
I suspect he will do this afternoon and fire a cruise missile into the deep state by dinnertime.
William Binney has recently stated that the surveillance was most likely done through the NSA and without any warrant at all. So perhaps Clapper was actually telling the truth.
Soooooo…….what’s this bidnezz about Comey begging DOJ to pull Comey’s arse out of the fire and dis the POTUS’s contention that Trump Towers was tapped?
Why doesn’t POTUS Trump tell Comey to sit his Director behind down and shut the heck up (since Comey’s BOSS IS the POTUS)?
Why didn’t Trump replace Comey to begin with? Like with a ‘real’ FBI Agent as Director, not a political hack like Comey?
Col Lang,
I have read this site for many years and I have always been fascinated with your take on things even when I don’t agree with you politically. In this particular instance I am with you 100% about Clapper. I do, however, take exception to your notion about the “Left”. IMO, there is no “Left” in the US. There is a collection of neoliberal Corporate Stooges masquerading as “progressives” and “liberals”, but they do not constitute the left by any classical interpretation of the left. So I post in defense of the real Left and plead with you to not refer to the current crop of self-serving charlatans found in both the media and government as the “Left”.
WRC,
“the President if he believed what he tweeted had a statutory duty to not tweet and refer the matter to DoJ/FBI for action.”
Really? That sounds like a get out of jail free card for those who are subverting the constitutionally elected president. Perhaps what would please many would be a “Committee on the Conduct of the Executive Branch of Government” much like the committee that Lincoln and Johnson had to suffer with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress_Joint_Committee_on_the_Conduct_of_the_War
Please forgive my naivete and/or ignorance but … Does the President not have the authority and means to discover if the FISA court issued such a warrant and which, if any, lines were surveiled?
I have (had to) spend the last year by and large in hospitals after having been run over by a car last january. In terms of harm I have been rather lucky in that misfortune and recovered rather well so far. Thank God.
I will spend some of my recovered time reading this blog again. A happy March to everybody.
confusedponderer
We are so happy to have you back with us. We feared that you were gone for good. pl
Hope you will soon have a full recovery. I have missed your posts!
Jill
The president certainly has that authority. pl
Cvillereader
I am told that Clapper and Brennan avoided relying on a FISA warrant by going to the British equivalent of NSA (GCHQ) and suggesting that they search their records for information that could be used against Trump and company. The British could collect against this target as a “foreign intelligence operation” without an American warrant and the information could be passed back to the conspirators where it could be spread across the US government ensuring that there would be leaks. pl
Edward Amame
Maybe not. pl
As I recall, Clapper opposed Trump prior to the election. But now he is making a statement that supports Trump’s position.
Why?
The same is true of Mukasey on ABC This Week on Sunday.
Have these men changed sides?
Trump has replaced many of his foreign policy team with Russia hawks.
Could that be a factor?
Happy to see you posting again! and glad you are ok.
plantman
IMO Clapper is the self-serving opportunist he always was and he is now afraid that Trump may push investigation and prosecution to the point that his own well being may be threatened for his conspiratorial actions. pl
CP
Happy to read that you are back. Take care of yourself .
CP
Glad to see you’re back. Sorry to read about your misfortune and happy that you are recuperating well.
Now his answer makes sense, clearly some very carefully crafted responses being made. Hope Trump doesn’t spend too long chasing the false FISA trail, an angry phone call to 10 Downing Street should yield the information he is looking for. With Brexit we can’t say no.
Only really seen Peter Oborne make any sort of story out of Trump and the Steele dossier. I assume Giraldi is right to tie in the resignation of the GCHQ boss with this.
All
This whole thing about the Russian “subversion” is getting curioser and curioser by the day. First, the big brouhaha about the hacking during the election, then all this accusations by innuendo about Trump as the Kremlin candidate that took out Flynn and compromised Sessions.
Now we have perjurer Clapper saying there was no evidence nor any wiretaps. And we also have Comey saying DoJ needs to absolve the FBI.
In all this, Trump is tweeting away some serious accusations of malfeasance by our IC and the previous Obama administration. It would seem as POTUS he could really shed some serious light and/or go after the fifth column really hard. Is that something that is in the works? Would he pass on taking them out?
Anyone have any calculated speculations on what is really going on behind the scenes? I just can’t figure this out, although my gut tells me there’s some serious sh*t happening.
Good to see you back!
confusedponderer,
Be well. I look forward to your return and thought-provoking comments
As sfhand mentioned earlier, this is not the “Left”, but the Borg in action.
I’ve never understood the reason for demonizing the Russians, other than that the US needs an enemy, and Russia is better than Islam, as more serious, and justifying more expenditure.
Everyone knows Mr. Clapper has lied under oath and in front of the US congress, so one can imagine it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to lie in a TV show. But, IMO what is more interesting is what was the urgency for the Borgistas to parade him Mr. Clapper and Mr. Comey director of FBI in front of their controlled media denying the allegations, after the seating president complained that he was wire tapped by previous administrations. IMO, Mr Clapper and Mr Comey are not credible sources of truth.
laguerre and Lefty
On reflection I think you are right. This is not the Left in action. It is the Borg as well as the AIPAC crew who do not share Bibi’s appreciation of Trump. OTOH, there is a Left in American politics and some of it is unhappy with the Borgist onslaught against Trump. pl
confused ponderer
I am very happy to see you are back. I wish you a full recovery.
Yogadoggy,
Trump is unconcerned with his predecessor’s reputation and the nation’s isn’t going to be damaged telling the citizens of the Republic what they already suspected – the mass surveillance state – of which Hayden was a part.
Donald Trump’s gambit on 4 March 2017 by expressing distaste of alleged wiretapping and surveillance of communications in, out, and around Trump Tower — and of him and associates and others — did manage to flush out responses in the form of non-denial denials from both former president Obama and former Director of National Intelligence Clapper. Obama of course did not make a statement himself, but it went through a spokesperson. The distasteful, and disgraceful, game is on of semantics and secret and classified legal opinion memos interpreting laws and executive orders (as in executive order 12333), and perhaps creating new definitions of words.
Likely to be involved in this situation in some fashion is the recent “Procedures for the Availability or Dissemination of Raw Signals Intelligence by the National Security Agency Under Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 (Raw Sigint Availability Procedures)”. It was signed by James Clapper on 15 December 2016 and by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch on 3 January 2017–
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3283349/Raw-12333-surveillance-sharing-guidelines.pdf
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3283349-Raw-12333-surveillance-sharing-guidelines.html
Notice that the beginning of the introduction of the new procedures says–
“Section 2.3 of Executive Order (E.O.) 12333 allows an Intelligence Community (IC) element (IC element) to disseminate information to other appropriate IC elements `for purposes of allowing the recipient element to determine whether the information is relevant to its responsibilities and can be retained by it.’ ”
In addition to the document’s sly refusal to name the “Intelligence Community elements” involved, that first sentence lets us know that even though the new procedures are directed at the NSA, the executive order 12333 claims to permit sharing by any IC element with another IC element.
The more people with whom information is “shared”, the greater the obvious probability is that it can be leaked, used in the diabolical “parallel construction” process, used for blackmail, etc.
Do not let anyone con you into thinking that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant is the only way that an “IC element” would claim that it can “legally” acquire and collect the content and contact chaining data of the communications of Trump, et. al. (and you!), and look at it and listen to it. I do not endorse such so-called legal methods, but one must not wear rose-colored glasses.
The plot thickens. Last week the NY Times stated that Obama was so concerned about Trump’s destroying intelligence that the disseminated it to safe spots. If GCHQ has the goods on Trump, how could he possibly destroy it?
So far, the dots do not connect…somebody is BSing us.
Col, you are correct, in my opinion. A part of the left is unhappy. And a part of the left is unhappy with that part. If you have time, take a look at this:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/03/vanity-fair-acts-as-democratic-party-enforcer-against-greenwald-nc-others-train-wreck-ensues.html
Very good to hear from you, CP. Welcome back!
Have you a link for the Oborne story. He is one of the last british journalists with any integrity left.
Gott sei dank, CP. We have sorely missed your lucid posts, and have wondered what had become of you.
Healing from such a trauma requires time. I myself had major, life-saving abdominal surgery in mid-November, and although I am restless under my constraints, I know that full recovery will take a lot longer. Give yourself leave to be at least partially hors de combat for however long it takes to mend. A close brush with death can also wound the psyche, and that must also be taken into account.
JJ
It is likely that if the story re paedophilia has any legs, it encompasses not just the Demonrats, but also the Repugs too. I have long suspected that the only reason that politicians act as they do, against the public interest, is because they are either bribed, or blackmailed. I suspect that many are groomed for their roles in public life, as their pecadilloes are already known and therefore they are easy meat for blackmail, that is if they aren’t already bought.
Welcome back! I’ve missed you and I know others have as well. Best wishes for a full recovery.
Colonel,
Yes, as a person sympathetic to social democratic solutions under appropriate circumstances, and reviling the NeoLiberalism referenced by sfhand, I would loosely associate myself with the Left (or whatever remains of it…).
And I am adamantly opposed to the violation of the Constitutional order to be seen in this soft putsch against the Office of the President. I wish to see the Constitution defended, not trashed by these Straussian NeoConservatives, and their AIPAC co-conspirators.
I may oppose selected policies and initiatives of the Trump administration while not finding it defensible to undermine the Constitutional role of the Chief Magistrate.
During the primaries I voted for Senator Sanders, and then, after the shambling travesty of the Democrat primary came to its ignominious conclusion, and after Hillary had scandalized much of the citizenry by referring to them as “Deplorables”, I voted for Mr. Trump in the general election. In my home state of New Jersey, my vote essentially meant nothing insofar as determining my state’s votes in the Electoral College, but I could not stomach the thought of merely sitting by and not voting at all, much less voting for that horrid individual and her coven of NeoCons and NeoLibs.
JJ
I am pleased that you are still alive and and am sorry to hear of the car accident.
I hope that you have a good recovery.
“And we also have Comey saying DoJ needs to absolve the FBI.
Well, he says that the DoJ should “reject the accusation,” but when did public contradiction of the President enter the job description of the Director of the FBI?
And I agree with you that this is more serious than the buffoonery that it is mostly being treated as.
Laguerre,
You are probably correct about who is actually pulling the levers behind the curtain, but make no mistake that the Left in America is offering up much popular support. They hate Trump and salivate at the thought of him being deposed.
There really cannot be a coup d’état w/o sufficient popular support. If the leftist crowd were behind Trump, they combined w/ the people that voted for Trump would be a popular force of most discouraging proportions to the Borg.
robt willman, and all,
Here are comments drawn from a thread at today’s Links section at Naked Capitalism by the poster going under the handle of Katniss Everdeen that I believe supplement your points:
Katniss Everdeen
March 6, 2017 at 11:48 am
Well, eventually the DNC and FBI do get it together, and at the end of April, seven months after the original contact, the committee’s network tech installs proper monitoring software. As a result, they find not one but two penetrations and that a remote user has administrator privileges. In other words, they hadn’t just been hacked, they had been completely owned.
So CrowdStrike, a private security firm comes in, says yeah, looks like the Russians, and finally gets rid of them in the middle of June. To do so they have to nuke the entire network and all the computers, i.e., takes it all off line and replace or reinstall everything.
——
There is in science a principle known as Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Massive document leaks are typically the work of lone wolf insiders, like Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers, Chelsea Manning with the State Department cables, and Edward Snowden with the NSA files.
[This initial italicized section is drawn from one of the Links at NC (worth the read in full in my estimation) – http://hatueysashes.blogspot.ca/2017/03/the-russian-election-hack-bullshit.html ]
Two other things happened shortly after CrowdStrike’s “revelation” of Russian involvement in mid-June–the clinton / lynch tarmac meeting at the end of June, and Seth Rich’s murder on July 10. This in addition to the two requests for fisa warrants, in which lynch’s justice department would have been involved, in June and July.
As the nyt helpfully explained in January, ”In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections,” and as it has recently reminded us, the obama administration spread all the Russian goo it found around in an attempt to “preserve” the “intelligence” for the record.
And, in a oldie but goodie, here is a reminder about the concept of “parallel construction”:
The government is “laundering” information gained through mass surveillance through other agencies, with an agreement that the agencies will “recreate” the evidence in a “parallel construction” … so they don’t have to admit that the evidence came from unconstitutional spying.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Reply ↓
Katniss Everdeen
March 6, 2017 at 11:54 am
Links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html?_r=0
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-06/top-nsa-whistleblower-intelligence-agencies-did-spy-trump
[End quote from poster Katniss Everdeen]
And I would like to append a trenchant post, also from Naked Capitalism, but in this instance from one of the lead bloggers at the site, Lambert Strether. It lays out what this assault on the Constitutional order by the Clintonites really means:
Finally, I said that I’d highlight a change in the Constitutional Order that would take place if the Clinton loyalists succeed in their goal. Here is article 101 of the Chilean Constitution under Pinochet:
The Armed Forces[,] dependent on the Ministry responsible for the National Defense[,] are constituted solely and exclusively by the Army, Navy and Air Force. [They] exist for the defense of the country and are essential for national security and guarantee the institutional order of the Republic.
The Clinton loyalists are doing what Pinochet did. They are making intelligence agencies the guarantors of “the institutional order of the Republic.” From now on, if they manage to set a precedent, every Presidential candidate will have to be vetted before the electoral college by intelligence agencies.. That is the system they will have set up. I don’t think Hamilton would think much of it. And there’s a word for that. It starts with an “F.”
The entire blog post may be found here:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/federalist-68-the-electoral-college-and-faithless-electors.html#intelligence
I hope that this adds to the discussion, and that that final, appended quote indicates that which I feel is currently at stake.
JJ
Colonel Lang,
I can’t remember the last time (or a single time) AIPAC broke with Likud, much less undermined them. (Frankly, I was under the impression that AIPAC essentially was Likud.) If AIPAC’s hand is at play here, I would think that “Bibi’s appreciation” of Trump is more ambivalent behind closed doors.
What I can’t understand is the intense interest in Trump’s contacts with Russia dating back to a periof of time when it looked like he would lose badly. Perhaps the initial impulse wasn’t to obtain damaging info on Trump, but to monitor what the Russians might be saying to Trump and his campaign associates. Obama has always been primarily interested in his own legacy, rather than Hillary’s successful presidential run. Do the Russians have damaging information about the Obama Administration that Obama was concerned could be used by Trump to discredit him? Events in Ukraine, Libya and Syria come to mind.
With respect to Trump’s tweet, a commenter on another blog said that people with business empires similar to Trump’s (especially those involved in gambling), usually have IT infrastructure that has been hardened against cyber intrusions. He speculated that what Trump was implying was that Trump Tower was physically bugged. It seems likely that Trump would have sophisticated security measures in place at Trump Tower, and might have some means of assessing whether they had been compromised.
The idea that the information that has been disseminated to the press came from a foreign intelligence service makes a lot of sense. The noise about the FISA warrants has served as a smoke screen for what most likely actually happened. My understanding though is that information that wouldn’t be admissible in a court, is often laundered through a parallel FISA investigation. That may account for recent reports about multiple FISA applications.
Absolutely Correct sfhand,
Additionally, I would say that both Bill & Hillary Clinton are responsible for this subordination of the real Left to their own self-serving purposes.
I believe the two of them have done more harm to the country and to the Left than any other individuals.
CP
Glad you are back. WRC also. This brightened my day. Looking forward to your posts.
Colonel,
If this is true, then those within the GCHQ that are party and parcel to this violated the Official Secrets Act, correct?
Good to see you back! Glad to read your posts. My wife once had a yoga instructor from Munich who began each class with a firm “relaxen sie!”. :~)
CP,
wonderful, I am joining the chorus of people who missed you. The remainder of the recovery will be done by the “vis curativa naturae” – At first I thought that someone took your pseudonym, or other conspiracy theories floated briefly in my mind. Very happy that you are back.
confusedponderer,
Welcome back. Hope you enjoy some of the eulogies we wrote for you a while back.
Glad to have you back CP! Your words have been missed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdf5EXo6I68
Wishing you a speedy recovery!
Please take good care of yourself. Enjoy every day!
Welcome back confusedponderer.
Do you think the world is now a safer place now than when you left us, or are they both equally as insane and dangerous?
J
I’d presume that when and if this was being done, the British Government was solidly backing Hillary and therefore GCHQ were under their direct orders and no Official Secrets Act was broken.
Trump was and is causing enormous splits and difficulties within the Britsh Deep State. Perhaps one of the reasons Theresa May was so keen to visit Trump was to smoothe over precisely this problem. As it is, the British Deep State is completely split between those who put the traditional British Alliance with the US top of our agenda, and those traditional Russophobes who put our hatred of Russia top of the agenda.
This split is completely ignored by our MSM, but behind the flimsy painted stage sets I would calaculate Richard III-style pandemonium is going on.
Pass the Pork Scratchings.
Very, very pleased you are back. I hoped you would be some day.
Hmm, interesting. I wondered what Wolcott is doing, a day or two ago. OK the alt-left. Why not?
mirror image distortion: the same loathing of Clinton, rejection of “identity politics,” and itch for a reckoning.
Well yes, the room full of mirrors once again. “Identity politics” is a quintessential demand on the left? Really?
Jesus! Parallel Construction process.??? You don’t seriously trust me to wrap my head around that. But, hmm, OK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
I am in an ambulant Reha facility now, for rehabilitation.
I will have to wait till next january for a complete assessment if I fully recovered from my injuries. That means I will stay at the ambulant Reha for a while. So far things look good.
I am happy to have had a good surgery team working on me after the accident. They have been doing an excellent job in treating the injuries and checking on me.
Not necessarily IMO!
agree!
The only review of the FISA court decisions is SCOTUS, not the President.
THANKS AND SORRY CP IN RECOVERY WISHING HIM THE BEST!
YES! YES! YES!
THANKS FOR THIS COMMENT AND INFO!
A TERRIFIC COMMENT FULL OF INSIGHTS IMO!
SEE MY COMMENT ON MARCH 7, OPEN THREAD!
If Main Justice does not excuse the FBI and Comey fro treating the President’s tweet as a formal referral to DoJ of an alleged FELONY the Comey and the FBI must investigate. IMO of course.
This Russia nonsense is the height of hypocrisy:
*The USG supposedly intercepts the communications of the Russian Embassy/Ambassador. The problem?
*Russia is charged with interfering in our elections/political process. We never do this to another country?
*US officials at various levels regularly meet with foreign diplomats, to include the Russians. American citizens more generally are not barred from doing so. So what is the problem with the Trump team doing so?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4323848/Questions-credibility-Trump-spy-claim-originator.html
Interesting. Are all these reports of a FISA warrant based solely on the claims of Louise Mensch, whom in all seriousness I believe to have mental health issues and to be delusional. Of course we do know Trump people were in some way surveilled but it is important establish the reality of what happened and if Mensch is the source of the claims of a FISA warrant then I believe we can safely say this is nonsense.