(Editorial Comment)
The indictment concerning the Russian information ops campaign should not be the end of Mueller's enquiries and the announced public results of his efforts. For example:
1. Did Trump and/or his associates conspire with Russia or Russians to rig the 2016 US election?
2. How did the DNC and Podesta e-mails end up in the pages of Wikileaks?
3. What is the provenance and funding of the Steele dossier? Was there criminality involved in production and promotion of this paper whether at the DNC, the Clinton Campaign, GPS Fusion or among various officials of DoJ or the FBI?
4. Was there an actual "insurance policy" sought by officials of the FBI and DoJ as a plot to conspiratorially thwart Trump's election or subsequently his ability to govern?
5. Was there an actual conspiracy among the leaders of the IC and FBI to block Trump's election by selective media placement of claims about him? Brennan's recent appointment as a "contributor" at CNN is interesting in that regard.
6. Did the aforesaid leaders of the IC obtain from British intelligence material held by them that was then used against Trump?
Mueller has made a good start with the St. Petersburg 13. He needs to clear up the rest or these "loose ends" will remain forever in the realm of urban myth and partisan propaganda. pl
Pat,
While I’m personally pretty skeptical of the “Deep State” conspiracy theories, I think it would be good and fair game for Mueller to investigate those properly. I doubt anyone who believed in those conspiracies would be convinced if Mueller didn’t find evidence of wrongdoing, but it’s still worth having him do what he can to get to what really happened.
~Jon
I agree with your list regarding Mueller’s investigation and the results to be published, I doubt very much he will move on from the first item in your list. May be h may find some convoluted case of collusion in the first item I am pretty certain he will not look into the rest of the five items. My 2 cents.
Sir;
I agree about the needed actions, but who is sufficiently “pure of heart” to be trusted with this work? Finding an unbiased observer here is like the Greek philosopher Diogenes with his lamp searching for an honest man. Failing that, who is the ‘least objectionable’ investigator?
ambrit et al
Consider it to be a rhetorical challenge for Mueller. pl
Colonel, happy Saturday from the golden state.
I agree and hope Muller does all these other investigations you are asking and listed above, after all he was hired to do an unbiased investigation in interests of us all. But unfortunately, IMO he is not going to swim in an upstream battle against the Borg’ intention. IMO either the Borg will be fine and satisfied with a judgment against the no shows proving Clinton lost due to Russian meddling in US elections, or, they will continue to witch hunt anybody and everybody they can grab that is close to President, until they unseat him.
Sir
I agree with you that the questions you posed should be answered.
An interesting point in all this high stakes drama is that a federal judge has ordered Mueller to hand over all related documents to Flynn. If there is exculpatory evidence then Flynn could withdraw his plea and Mueller censured.
I did read the indictment of the Russians and to my non-lawyer eyes, it read more like a political document rather than a criminal indictment. Mueller provided both sides reinforcement of their talking points. Hillary and the Democrats can confirm she lost the election due to a bunch of Russian trolls who spent a few million dollars and upended her billion dollar campaign war chest. Trump gets to confirm that there was no collusion. The charges seem very silly to me. And if ever there is a trial with these defendants challenging the prosecution I can see how they can win. But of course no one would pay any attention to the trial as the indictment is the desired endpoint that the media and the Democrats want. In comparison to the foreign money and influence operations of the zionists, the Saudis and of course many British politicians and their media during the last election, the operation by these Russians charged was more nonsensical. It would be absurd on the face of it that a bunch of Russian trolls could influence the election in any meaningful way.
With respect to the potential conspiracy at the FBI, DOJ, and the IC, can Mueller really investigate his own colleagues and personal friends? I think he is a card carrying member of the Borg elite.
I agree on all these points. Yet your ideas seem like daydreams, phantasies fashioned out of a hope that is not based in reality.
The OIG is investigating some of this and there is a report due out in March I believe.
Indeed the entire mess needs daylight.
Going along the lines of the Manafort indictment, Mueller ought to determine whether any of this illegal lobbying, money laundering, bank fraud, tax evasion, etc., extends into Congress, and/or whether Trump or his campaign people knew anything about what Manafort was doing.
All very good questions and one more either related to, or subsumed within #s 3 and 6 is whether Steele/MI6 are “targetable” for having meddled in the 2016 election.
Rosenstein unaccountably failed to mention yesterday Mueller’s having landed a really, really big fish on February 2, the unwitting colluder and witless Ricard Pinedo (age 28), a small town scammer who operates a fake ID business out of Santa Paula, CA, a 80% Hispanic farm worker town in boondocks California. Pinedo plead guilty to one count of identify fraud and had, apparently, profited to the extent of some $10,000 or so from the sale of identify and banking information on-line with only a minimal amount sourced from any of the 13 defendants in the indictments. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-richard-pinedo-mueller-investigation-20180216-story.html. The MSM, apparently, like Mr. Mueller has decided not to make a big deal out of the Pinedo indictment for reasons which remain the subject of speculation.
I agree that the list should be investigated – especially the DNC “hack” hoax as that involves screwing with the investigation of a Federal crime and has counterintelligence implications and could lead to lots of indictments.
However, as someone else pointed out in the last thread, Mueller’s only remit was to find evidence of Russian government “meddling” in the election and/or “collusion” with Trump and the Trump campaign – which he has not found yet and is highly unlikely to find. The 13 indictments are a joke in that regard.
We need a separate, really non-partisan investigation for the rest of the list. I think it would be possible to find competent investigators outside of the more politicized agencies who could be vetted for any political bias before being assigned. Investigation is investigation – you just need a place to start and a list of people to talk to. Facts then shake out.
If Mueller does not look sufficiently into the “rolling Soft-Coup” aspects of all this, let us hope that the Congress and the Administration together can force into existence a Special Counsel with all of the powers and staff and funding that Mueller currently has/ will have. . . . to look into the “rolling Soft-Coup” aspects of all this.
If such a counsel would look into the “letting Clinton off the e-mail hook” aspects of all this and esPECially into the “who shot Seth Rich” and “e-mails . . . hacked or leaked?” aspects of all this, so much the better.
as long as Mueller is investigating Question 1 everything is fine, if he starts to investigate questions 2-7 then i think democrats might remember Mueller service for George w bush, and might start thinking about impeaching mueller
I agree with all the questions. The issue of Russian meddling is a no-brainer–of course Russians meddle, just like Israelis, Saudis, Turks and maybe even the US’ own intelligence agencies. Proving the meddling and material impact (no harm, no case?) will be more challenging.
IMO Russian meddling’s damage to democracy pales in comparison to the damage done by Democrats’ and Republicans’ mutual recriminations, the spread of fake news by both sides, and the descent of the media into sensationalist fear-mongering backed by few facts.
If Mueller has the guts to impartially expose the truth, then our democracy has a chance of surviving the frontal attack on the idea of an informed public that has long been considered a fundamental pillar of a democratic society.
Colonel,
A full-throated effort to get Donald Trump to resign is ongoing. No meetings in a Rosslyn parking lot are needed. An impartial investigation is required if there is ever to be trust in Constitutional government again. The world is turning really weird. I swear that I heard on the radio Donald Trump say: “I love, love, love the military”. To this old drafted, ex-Spec 5, I remember thinking that is nuts. But, a search of Google, Bing and Duckduckgo and I can’t find in written down anywhere. Either a Borg/Mogul PyschOp has seized the airways or I am mucking things up.
James Woolsey on whether the US interferes in other countries elections:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpWai3kZ-gM&t=277s
“Only for a very good cause and in the interests of democracy”. But Russians interfering in our elections is totally unacceptable. I don’t see how war with Russia is anything other than inevitable.
“I don’t see how war with Russia is anything other than inevitable.”
If they (the spoiled brats of Deep State) could, they would have started the war already. It seems that they have some informed people around, who have explained the happy warriors (for other peoples’ expense) that, in our times, initiation of a war with a nuclear power is suicidal.
James T
I have known Woolsey for a long time including when Clinton made him DCI. Supercilious, arrogant, hyper-aggressive, ignorant of any military reality. He is an arch-neocon of the worst sort and always was. He was a Henry Jackson staffer. pl
Colonel,
I sure hope that they close their dog and pony show sooner rather than later. I’m just one among many of my felow Americans who are mad as hell at the Fumbling Bumbling Idiots and DOJ, the blood of those poor kids in Florida is all over the FBI/DOJ’s hands. Their behavior is inexcusable!
https://nypost.com/2018/02/16/fbi-failed-to-investigate-tip-on-school-shooter-last-month/
Not only that, but it seems that State could care less about U.S. National Security, they prevented the FBI from following through with arrests on Chinese MSS agents. IMO White House nomination of the inept State’s Thornton needs to be withdrawn.
Also, it seems that the FBI is more concerned about tweets than protecting our nation’s children
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/this-short-seller-pressed-tweet-then-the-fbi-showed-up
Why isn’t Mueller going after Soros, after all Soros has stated that America’s destruction would be the culmination of his life’s work.
It appears that Mr. Mueller is following a true and tried method by going for the low hanging fruit first and squeeze it to get enough juice to go further up the tree and the bigger fruits. Nobody knows the extent of Mr. Mueller’s knowledge, but it appears to be rather deep and wide.
I suspect we have only seen a small portion of what will ensue with much more to come. In the meantime, a lot of speculation will thrive. I do not know whether this investigation will eventually impact Donald Trump. Somehow, he may be undone by women first.
Anna, thank you for your comments on this thread. They (and those of some others) reassured me that I wasn’t a nutjob wandering about in a room full of sane people. As for many of those others who have commented here, I would submit the following.
Relax! This whole Mueller business is just part of the games that your politicians play with each other. There’s no danger of the Russians taking over your country. In fact, such games are played all the time all over the world – except that its mostly Americans playing them in other countries. They’re treated there as a part of life; people shake their heads, and go on with their pursuits.
Of course, if you really need to worry, there’s plenty to worry about. Normally, while your politicians playact on their Kabuki stage, the country is run by the establishment – what our host terms the Borg. And, everybody’s (relatively) happy.
It’s rare for a President to be elected who’s not approved by the Borg. Unfortunately, this happened (after quite a long time) in 2016. So, we now have the Borg trying to undermine a President who’s not inclined to toe its line. This kind of internecine conflict is bad for the country.
What makes it worse is the fact that in recent years US intelligence agencies have acquired vast powers through technical developments. They have also been permitted, sometimes even encouraged, to step outside their prescribed boundaries. In addition, they have started using some of their overseas tactics at home.
All this is cause for real worry.
Mueller is moving at flank speed:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-russia-investigation-is-moving-really-freaking-fast/
This is a detour that is nevertheless related to the national security: https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/02/14/a-breathe-of-fresh-air-in-saudi-arabia/comment-page-1/#comment-703774
“There is now rumored to be a split in the IDF and MOSSAD senior and retired members who also now realize that Israel’s part in 911 is now generally known in various other nations including America in their high military commands. They realize that these entities now want serious revenge and will get it one way or another.”
— If this is a valid analysis then we should expect a greater bleeding of information and more questions for the big shots (past and present) at the CIA and FBI.
From what I gathered, the US interfered in the Russian elections while Hillary was SOS and that the DNC hack is supposedly Putin’s response to Hillary. And this was done not to prevent her from being president, but rather to embarrass her, a tit-for-tat. Furthermore, the only tangible effect any Russian operation may possibly have had on the Trump campaign that I’m aware of was a proposed pledge against signing an arms deal with the Ukrainians. That pledge was ultimately not included on Trump’s platform at the RNC convention and Trump has since signed a bill into law to supply arms to the Ukrainians.
With that said, after more than a year-long investigation, Mueller doesn’t have anything other than a few squeeze toys (like Manafort) and 13 Russians at large in St.Petersburg. There’s nothing proving what I stated above and from the looks of things, there never will be.
Now I can believe the Russians hacked the DNC and then leaked the emails, even if no hard evidence is ever produced. It’s a reasonable conclusion, although I’m just as inclined to believe the DNC had someone along the lines of Bradly Manning or Reality Winner leak the emails. The Democrats have no problem attracting that kind of crowd into their ranks. But what I can’t accept is that Trump–who wants America First and to Make America Great Again, who railed against what he feared would be a rigged election–had actually rigged the election and is a traitor. It’s Birtherism all over again, except this time it’s being treated seriously. Birtherism, lest anyone forgets, supposed that Obama should have been disqualified as president because he was born in Kenya. In this case, however, we are being made to believe Trump colluded with the Russians and therefore his election should be nullified. It’s pure political gamesmanship by those loyal to Obama and Hillary, and by those simply opposed to Trump. It’s entirely without fact and has done more harm to American democracy than anything the Russians could have done. And to a certain degree, Trump deserves it for having played into the Birtherism nonsense himself, but not to this degree.
On a final and somewhat separate note, even if the Russians had exposed how Hillary Clinton pressed her thumbs against the scales to tip the primaries in her favor, wouldn’t that mean the Russians did what the Americans always claim to do when they meddle in foreign elections, that is to say “help democracy out”? If this is what the Russians did in the end, should we share in the outrage of the Trotskyites among us as they, the proverbial pot, call the kettle black?
Col. Lang
I would suggest one more question for Mueller to investigate:
Which other foreign citizens and foreign governments interfered in the election?
Surely it can’t just be the Russian trolls. What about all those European leaders who pitched for Hillary & to a much less extent Trump and that was then disseminated widely and of course “unwittingly” by the US media? Are they to be charged too? Should Nigel Farage be charged for campaigning for Trump? What about Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London who got into a public spat with Trump? Should AIPAC be charged?
Should the Brits charge Obama for interfering in their Brexit referendum?
I first met Jim when he was college senior, helped him get a job at State Dept. He was bright, trim, perceptive. Last time I saw him was at my wedding. I do not comprehend what he has become today.
They have been doing analogous things to others and now that there is even a whiff of some one else doing likewise to them fills them with righteous indignation.
“Shocked! I am shocked that there is gambling taking place here.”
Isuppose soon to be followed by: “Round up the usual suspects.”
outthere
I suppose you mean Woolsey. He is an ugly piece of work. pl
Nothing will come of the other points that need investigation. The indictment of the thirteen Russians is a replacement/soother for the now discredited golden showers scam. Several pieces in the ‘indictment’ were pure propaganda. Just on a skim through, the placard holder on 29th May and the clown sending out emails to tell everyone he was deleting emails that were evidence. A narrative for the reality TV watchers.
b’s piece on the shady Russian company running a clickbait operation starts to bring it together. A foundation stone, somewhat the right shape is required. The shady clickbait operation fits. They become the new foundation stone for Russian meddling. The fiction writers then step in to create the narrative around this foundation.
Woolsey is in bed with the Neocon Deep State, he said he was part of the “Presbyterian wing of JINSA” who Colonel Lang has talked about here, the most influential Zionist-Jewish lobby together with AIPAC.
I wish we had an upvote feature here–I’d give a hundred! Excellent comment.
Many years ago i worked with a well thought of junior civil servant called jeremy heywood. Very smart, very smug, but not really exceptional to my mind. He did well for himself.
A decade or so ago i asked a friend of mine from college why he did so well. My friend told me “he was Francis Maud’s ‘cup bearer'”.
This is generally how people get ahead in public service. Always was and always will be. Im sure Thomas Cromwell was a great comfort to Cardinal Wolsey
Alright, so Trump is innocent after all. Now, when do we get a proper investigation of Hellary?
“but who is sufficiently “pure of heart” to be trusted with this work?”
I nominate Judge Emmett Sullivan as a true independent counsel. He’s had the stones to stand up to prosecutorial misconduct by Mueller’s henchman, Andrew Weissman, and is someone that would be trusted by people suspicious of Mueller’s too close ties with Comey and (under-publicized relative to Colin Powell) false statements to promote Iraq war.
That is interesting (post #23). Here is another excerpt from the same author (Preston James PhD) in his article describing Russia’s treaty with a group of extraterrestrials in the Syrian War (R+7 I guess):
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/10/14/putins-wild-card-in-syria/
seamus padraig
what is an “upvote feature?” pl
I clicked on that site you linked to, to be confronted by advertisements for articles I’ve recently been pricing on the internet. Not advertisements any American would have any interest in since the brands aren’t sold in America. So these are targeted advertisements. Other random advertisements that get past ad-blocker show I’m profiled accurately as well.
Old news, of course. We’ve known for decades, since the dawn of the Internet, that it’s as secure as announcing anything one does on a megaphone in the Town Square. We’ve also known that any organisation that has the money and the expertise can mess with our computers. The only thing that stops that is that it’s not usually worth the fuss.
We also know that what’s out on the web is often put there by people who are paid to do so. That’s just a further extension of the phone banks political parties set up before an election.
And most of us only have half an hour or so to skim the news so we’re fair game for any nonsense that’s put out. Fair game indeed – I often meet undergraduates on demanding courses, even on politics or history or the humanities, whose knowledge of current events, and therefore any worthwhile evaluation of them, is nil. So for most people. That nonsense that’s put out shapes their politics and that in turn shapes politics for all of us.
The doomsters say that the consequent divorce between reality and what now passes for acceptable or orthodox political thought will eventually run us off the rails. They might be right. We still have a lot of fat on us, and a not yet exhausted hoard of inherited political stability in our favour, but downhill is downhill however far the bottom. It’s only a day or so ago I was listening to a report on some work done by a Northern University. Many children aren’t getting fed properly during the holidays. The parents are either having trouble with welfare or are both working flat out on minimum wage jobs. Often they go without in order to afford food for the children, but that food is inadequate or inadequately prepared. Therefore the Local Councils are funding meals for the children weekends or holidays.
My prosperous German friends say that’s sentimental rubbish “I could live perfectly well on Hartz IV if I had to,” they say of similar problems in their own country, “They just can’t organise themselves properly.” Oh yes? But there’s a hell of a lot of “They” around these days. And more joining them, while my prosperous German friends, and my prosperous English friends, devote themselves to the issues that really matter. Gender politics, identity politics, or manning the Baltic so those sinister Russians don’t get any ideas about coming our way.
When you see the greater part of a country – cronies, politicians, the intelligentsia, the bulk of the middle class and a fair few of what used to be called the working class – marching in lockstep to such fantasies, and see those fantasies perpetually reinforced by the self-confirmatory mechanisms of the media and the internet, then it’s difficult to conclude that the doomsters could ever be wrong.
Meanwhile the show goes on. As you say, “Mueller is moving at flank speed..” Are we really expected, after all these decades, to take seriously anything to do with internet manipulation, or what is told us about internet manipulation? Surely that degree of credulity is a symptom of the fix we’re in. It points to no way out of it.
“Tall Whites”?
Those must be the Northeastern Orientals – the Han people – who wear white clothing.
I clicked on that site you linked to, to be confronted by advertisements for articles I’ve recently been pricing on the internet. Not advertisements any American would have any interest in since the brands aren’t sold in America. So these are targeted advertisements. Other random advertisements that get past ad-blocker show I’m profiled accurately as well.
Old news, of course. We’ve known for decades, since the dawn of the Internet, that it’s as secure as announcing anything one does on a megaphone in the Town Square. We’ve also known that any organisation that has the money and the expertise can mess with our computers. The only thing that stops that is that it’s not usually worth the fuss.
We also know that what’s out on the web is often put there by people who are paid to do so. That’s just a further extension of the phone banks political parties set up before an election.
And most of us only have half an hour or so to skim the news so we’re fair game for any nonsense that’s put out. Fair game indeed – I often meet undergraduates on demanding courses, even on politics or history or the humanities, whose knowledge of current events, and therefore any worthwhile evaluation of them, is nil. So for most people. That nonsense that’s put out shapes their politics and that in turn shapes politics for all of us.
The doomsters say that the consequent divorce between reality and what now passes for acceptable or orthodox political thought will eventually run us off the rails. They might be right. We still have a lot of fat on us, and a not yet exhausted hoard of inherited political stability in our favour, but downhill is downhill however far the bottom. It’s only a day or so ago I was listening to a report on some work done by a Northern University. Many children aren’t getting fed properly during the holidays. The parents are either having trouble with welfare or are both working flat out on minimum wage jobs. Often they go without in order to afford food for the children, but that food is inadequate or inadequately prepared. Therefore the Local Councils are funding meals for the children weekends or holidays.
My prosperous German friends say that’s sentimental rubbish “I could live perfectly well on Hartz IV if I had to,” they say of similar problems in their own country, “They just can’t organise themselves properly.” Oh yes? But there’s a hell of a lot of “They” around these days. And more joining them, while my prosperous German friends, and my prosperous English friends, devote themselves to the issues that really matter. Gender politics, identity politics, or manning the Baltic so those sinister Russians don’t get any ideas about coming our way.
When you see the greater part of a country – cronies, politicians, the intelligentsia, the bulk of the middle class and a fair few of what used to be called the working class – marching in lockstep to such fantasies, and see those fantasies perpetually reinforced by the self-confirmatory mechanisms of the media and the internet, then it’s difficult to conclude that the doomsters could ever be wrong.
Meanwhile the show goes on. As you say, “Mueller is moving at flank speed..” Are we really expected, after all these decades, to take seriously anything to do with internet manipulation, or what is told us about internet manipulation? Surely that degree of credulity is a symptom of the fix we’re in. It points to no way out of it.
The Awan family had been surfing the congressional computers for years before being caught. Where was the expansive and very expensive national security apparatus during all these years? Who at the FBI has ordered the FBI agents to back off from the investigation of Clinton’s server when it was found that the server was compromised? Where is a reinvestigation of Dm. Alperovitch instant “discoveries” of “Russian meddling” on the server? And how come that the death of the DNC staffer Seth Rich has been of no interest for the DNC?
It is impossible for any sane person to equalize the consequences of Awan affair and the FBI inactivity re Clinton server with the discovered trolling — on social media! –by the 13 trolls.
“Investigators contend that Imran Awan and his family members made unauthorized access to House servers thousands of times and funneled massive amounts of data off the network shortly before the 2016 presidential election. The Awans could potentially read the data of one in five House Democrats.” http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/29/what-did-dems-know-about-dossier-their-handling-of-imran-awan-affair-is-instructive/
Thank you for correction.
I see Mueller as just a figurehead, look at the team he has assembled, and Weismann in particular. They won’t get past the first item, and they shouldn’t because Mueller and Rosenstein have clear conflicts of interest.
Trump isn’t far off from being politically strong enough to wind this up himself anyway.
Qs: “to rig…et al” ? Reads, don’t get pissed, like a spilt milk listing. The modern election and trade influence horses have been out of the barn since at least WW1/League of Nations/Smoot-Hawley. Some countries/firms are better at the game than others. Some hit/punch above their weight some become punch drunk. Standings in the World Interest League are pretty much a normal function of trades, GM sacking, buy-outs, and fixes. What else is new? Meow meow meow. Punt.
Anna, FB Ali
I feel your pain. Whenever colleagues discuss the topic it is a tangle of BS so deep that it renders me silent. There is simply too much crap to sort though.
Yet, I will opine that the people who are fighting Trump from within our government may include people who simply believe him unfit, a man of low character, a shameless liar, and possibly compromised by another country. Of course the Borg hate him, but then again Borgian status is not clearly defined in many individuals. In many ways I think even Trump can be viewed as at least partially assimilated. Certainly many of his self-selected key staff are.
FWIW, I do not want him impeached, not just yet anyway. I would have the Syrian situation resolved first. I judge Pence an empty suit, softest of putty for the Borg.
Please see this
http://chasfreeman.net/this-too-shall-pass/
Colonel – “upvote” = a reader-selectable thumbs up/thumbs down on each comment, which also counts cumulative votes. A feature of mostly media comment sections.
Thanks for hosting a useful discussion . Thanks for spending time moderating . This is the internet’s best use deciphering the bs propagated by the father of all lies thru his many minions.
Colonel,
I’m sorry. I double posted above.
In England we’d investigate carefully such points as are listed in your article. There’d be an enquiry set up, headed by a Judge of known impartiality and ability. The terms of reference would be set. Several years and millions of pounds later the Judge would deliver a scrupulously accurate report telling us all we already knew and nothing that we didn’t. And whoever set the terms of reference would congratulate him or herself on a job well done.
In spite of my pessimistic post above I think the various American investigators might very well do better. And if they don’t I look forward to you and your Committee eventually getting to the bottom of those six points you list. Thank you for what you are doing.
EO
As I said to someone else , consider the piece to be an exhortation born of despair. pl
Col. Lang: “Mueller has made a good start with the St. Petersburg 13. He needs to clear up the rest or these “loose ends” will remain forever in the realm of urban myth and partisan propaganda. pl ”
What if Mueller decides his mission is not to ensure “loose ends” are tidied up but instead to achieve closure with as little damage as possible to the Democratic Party and its embedded supporters in the swamp?
“B’s take on the indictment is that all Mueller has found is a commercial troll farm business. If that is true, then net funds flows should demonstrate a profit accruing to its Russian owner, while a disinformation purpose should in my opinion show the reverse.
If the indictment does point to an evaluation of the group as a “nothingburger” then maybe Mueller is not interested in getting to the bottom of anything. I guess all we can do is wait and see.
walrus
Do you think I do not know that? I thought you understood me better. pl
” I do not comprehend what he has become today.”
Lie down with dogs get fleas…..he’s been sleeping with Israelis for the $$$$ his whole career. If he were to be imprisoned for treason I wouldn’t object.
Yeah, and after reading the indictment I noticed how the FBI was silent on that matter despite that fact that financial fraud occupied all of ‘Count 2’ of a two count charge. Given how detailed the investigation must have been to come up with a list of stolen identities and bank accounts, I find it impossible to believe that the FBI doesn’t have an idea of how much money was sent back to St. Petersburg.
My bet is on commercial troll farm but hey, never pass up an opportunity to start a war. The Democrats are calling this Pearl Harbor and the Republicans are saying, ‘Trump isn’t the enemy, the real enemy is the Russian regime’. Let’s kill some more in Syria, they won’t dare shoot back.
Alexander Mercouris points out something he’s missed all along…that not only is the Steele dossier full of crap, but it ignores actual events that did occur during its compilation, indicating that Steele’s “high level Russian contacts” were actually pretty ignorant and possibly non-existent.
Here’s how Mueller’s latest indictment further discredits the Trump Dossier
Trump Dossier alleges collusion between Trump Campaign and Russia but fails to report events which actually took place
http://theduran.com/mueller-indictment-discredits-trump-dossier/
This quote brings out an important point:
Nor does the Trump Dossier anywhere claim that “Russia wished to ‘sow discord’ in the US election by backing leftwing as well as rightwing groups”.
He’s right. That charge is dredged up by people like TTG who couldn’t prove any real connection between Russia and the Trump campaign and then decided to widen the charge by grabbing onto nonsense like the Internet Research Agency and US government charges against RT, Sputnik, and other legitimate Russian media that they were trying to “undermine American democracy” – without, of course, the slightest bit of evidence.
This was also the ploy of the ICA released by the politicized analysts of three politicized intelligence agencies – assume the intentions and purposes of Russian media and tack that on to the DNC hacking hoax. Which is why everyone who read the ICA went, “huh?”
In psychology this is called “projection” – projecting your own psychological issues onto someone else and interpreting their behavior as akin to your own.
Mercouris references a blog post bu John Helmer back in January, 2017, which discusses the Steele Dossier in some detail. I recommend everyone read it, it’s extremely enlightening about how “accurate” the dossier is – as opposed to TTG’s notion that “everything except the bed incident has mostly panned out.”
When Going To Bed With Dogs Is News, Getting Up With Fleas Is a Scoop – Here’s The One About trump’s Bed, Putin’s Bed
http://johnhelmer.net/when-going-to-bed-with-dogs-is-news-getting-up-with-fleas-is-a-scoop-heres-the-one-about-trumps-bed-putins-bed/
One important point is that the Steele Dossier claims it was the FSB -not the GRU – that conducted cyberops against the Clinton campaign:
Quote:
The Steele memo No. 095 of July 2016 even admits there were “Trump moles” and “agents/facilitators within the Democratic Party structure itself” who leaked internal Clinton campaign emails. The Trump team, it is also reported, provided the Russians with the information that was their highest priority – “the activities of [Russian] business oligarchs and their families’ activities and assets in the US.” Memo no. 097 of July 30 repeats that “Putin’s priority requirement had been for intelligence on the activities, business and otherwise, in the US of leading Russian oligarchs and their families.”
End Quote
So even the Steele Dossier admits that DNC insiders were leaking data. Furthermore, that “Putin’s highest priority” was NOT “defeating Clinton” or “sewing discord” but in (alleged) fact that of gaining info on Russian oligarchs activities in the US. That kind of priority for Putin I can understand, given his fights with oligarchs over the years.
A devastating analysis of American media: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-17/media-stopped-reporting-russia-collusion-story-because-they-helped-create-it
“Indeed, it looks like Steele and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson may have persuaded a number of major foreign policy and national security writers in Washington and New York that Trump and his team were in league with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those journalists include New Yorker editor David Remnick, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, former New Republic editor Franklin Foer, and Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum.”
— Looks like a united Jewish front against Russia. What’s wrong with these people?
“According to Goldberg, “Trump’s understanding of America’s role in the world aligns with Russia’s geostrategic interests.” Here Goldberg rang the same bells as Applebaum—the Trump campaign “watered down” the RNC’s platform on Ukraine; the GOP nominee “questioned whether the U.S., under his leadership, would keep its [NATO] commitments,” including Article 5. Thus, Goldberg concluded: “Donald Trump, should he be elected president, would bring an end to the postwar international order.”
— Right. And the rise of neo-Nazism in Ukraine (courtesy the ziocons’ coup in Kiev in 2014) is totally in the interests of the “postwar international order.”
“Since everyone took Clinton’s victory for granted, journalists assumed extravagant claims alleging an American presidential candidate’s illicit ties to an adversarial power would fade just as the fireworks punctuating Hillary’s acceptance speech would vanish in the cool November evening. And the sooner the stories were forgotten the better, since they frankly sounded kooky, conspiratorial, as if the heirs to the Algonquin round table sported tin-foil hats while tossing back martinis and trading saucy limericks. Yes, the Trump-Russia collusion media campaign really was delusional and deranged; it really was a conspiracy theory. … When the reckoning comes, Russiagate is likely to be seen not as a symptom of the collapse of the American press, but as one of the causes for it.”
— And here is a rhetorical question by the paper’s author, “Half the country wants to know why the press won’t cover the growing scandal now implicating the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice, and threatening to reach the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and perhaps even the Obama White House.”
Interview with Kevin Shipp, a former counterintelligence officer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flSYmWkp6Qk
We forget that this is all being investigated by IG Horowitz, ably supported by Nunes, Grassley and Goodlatte. We have to wait for his report, which will supposedly be released in March.
3. If there is no Mr. Steele then there is no ‘Steele Dossier’ as such.
6. The Brits deal surely and methodically with the US at the level of NATO, Nuke agreements, Intel sharing, and combined operations. They could deal equally as well with either Trump or Clinton and would have had no compulsion to risk, in terms of unpredictable outcomes of any manipulation on their part, these existing top shelf relationships for no gain in terms of a preferred POTUS. I would suggest they stayed far far away from any participation in this saga.
It would have fit the “Open Thread”, but I am too late to post there. Alas, since it also adresses Russiagate I’m not entirely wrong here.
So, today I read in the news that Trump has commented on the FBI performance and the Florida school shooting, and, while at it, also at Russiagate.
Summed up, Trump said that the reason why the FBI didn’t get the shooter before his crazy, brutal deed was that they
spentwasted too much time on that wicked Russiagate investigation, implying that it wasRussiaPutin (the wicked villain) who made that shooting possible by his election influence.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/18/donald-trump-fbi-russia-inquiry-florida-shooting
“Donald Trump faced criticism on Sunday for his attack on the FBI for missing the “many signals” about the Florida school shooter, saying the agency was spending “too much time” trying to prove Russian collusion.
…
The US president’s attempt to use the shooting to make a political point about the FBI’s Russia inquiries into the Trump campaign drew swift criticism, including from John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, who told CNN it was an “absurd statement”.”
Absurd? Aaah yesssss, wellllll it IS quite absurd, and the criticism appears to me rather justified.
Sooooo, who is to blame for the shooting mess?
The shooter? The shooters crazyness or sheer idiocy? The guns and/or gun laws? Nope. Guns are just tools? And nutty crazyness and/or sheer idiocy are just another tool in the hands of a wicked KGB villain like Putin?
Oh, and, en passant, whatever the FBI will tell about Russiagate – they are clearly overtasked and ill led atm, as their failure at the shooting proves.
confusedponderer
Judicial Watch has proposed the abolition of the FBI and its replacement by by an expanded investigative arm of the US Marshal Service. The FBI is a mature bureaucracy and as such has become self-centered and self-serving. Radical change is a good idea. pl
JW
“The Brits” is a meaningless phrase in this context. Here we are dealing with the individual motives and prejudices of individuals, not “the Brits.” pl
Pat,
I see your point, and given the considerable powers given to the FBI a reform may be neccesary. But that issue is for folks who know better about US law than I do.
My point is more general: It did struck me as absurd to accuse Russia being practically responsible to cause school shootings and/or division in the US. IIrc there was already plenty division in the US during Bush Jr. And very likely that wasn’t Putin’s work.
What I think is that, embarassment aside, with his silly comment Trump had a purpose, and that was to do, as I choose to call it, ‘a preemptive strike‘, aiming to make the following points:
(and all the accusations are partisan bias)
Putinthe Russiagate invenstigation swamped the FBI (an institution with, according to Wiki, 36.000 employees?) and kept them from stopping the school shooter?I don’t think the goal is to unseat Trump so much as to neuter him and render him compliant. In the, the Deep State is proceeding admirably.
So tell us how he Mueller is going to get Russians to flip when he can’t even get extradition.
He isn’t.
But the point of the indictment is political, not legal. The indictment is intended to keep the heat off the special counsel, to prevent Trump from any rapprochement with Russia, and to provide an excuse for further crackdown on domestic dissent.
I suspect those indictments lay the ground work for further ones against Americans who interacted with them. This adventure is far from over.
Interesting, although nothing I haven’t heard before. I haven’t followed all this pedophilia stuff at all since some of it seems a bit off the wall. I guess we’ll see whether anything comes of it.
richardstevenhack
“Pedophilia?” pl
lars
Is this assertion of suspicion more than TDS? pl
A lot of the anti-Clinton camp are deep into claims of widespread pedophilia on the part of the Clinton crowd as well as other government officials worldwide.
I have no idea about it, haven’t followed any of that stuff. I’ve seen nothing come of it other than the prosecution of Huma Abedin’s husband and Jeffrey Epstein. So until I see criminal charges and prosecutions I couldn’t care less.
People’s sexual peccadilloes don’t interest me – I have enough of my own. 🙂
You have referred to ‘British intelligence’ so I’ve replied with a generic descriptor.
However I’d agree that no actor (or commentator) may be fully aware of who another party actually is in terms of identity or control and it would be useful to deconstruct events down to the level of individuals.
This would apply less to the more tightly bound British, and more so to the US context, where currently the function of Government appears to have devolved to a competition between numerous stakeholders seeking to further their interests. One could never apply the description ‘the Americans’ as it would immediately raise the question of ‘which ones ?’ This situation cannot really continue as we need you in one piece.
They’d interest you if you were a parent in Moldova. Or Belgium.
I fully agree that what’s on the internet on allegations of misconduct is worthless. But we have senior police officers here saying explicitly that a past Prime Minister would be investigated were he alive today. With the unstated rider that maybe he should have been investigated then.
I’m also uneasily aware that for years one dismissed out of hand the lurid allegations made by the BNP about paedophilia rings in our Northern cities. Then they turned out to be true and on a quite unsuspected scale. There’s no doubt that there our social workers and our police let us down badly. Or did we let them down? The pressure on those social workers and police officers to look the other way was very strong, and that timid conformism is down to us more than to them.
On the other hand we’re also aware, as Donald Trump intimated recently, that these days the mere suspicion of misconduct is sufficient to ruin lives unfairly. “What happened to the Rule of Law?” cuts both ways.
I suspect that in both England and the States the Police and Criminal Justice system is still inherently sound. We’re not living in Moldova or Belgium so we can still trust our Courts and investigators to cope with that difficult balance. With the inevitable mistakes either way, that’s true.
I may be being naive here, and I do accept that the Rule of Law is pretty shaky when it comes to much to do with politics, but I don’t think I am. And let’s face it – if the Rule of Law were to become shaky in this area too we’d be in deep trouble. We’d be like those parents in Moldova – powerless.
What is unacceptable – and I think this may be behind your comment – is seeing allegations of misconduct being used as political ammunition, particularly in today’s frenetic political climate. Amplified by the media and internet echo chamber, that messes up both our Justice system and our politics.
Have you noticed a glaring problem facing American citizens (and the very foundations of western civilization), which Mr. Mueller’s indictment of trolls has created? Here is a paper by the honorable Philip Giraldi addressing this problem: “Will every critic of our government policies soon be indictable?” http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/russiagate-suddenly-becomes-bigger/
“One major media outlet is already suggesting that there could be consequences for American citizens who wittingly or unwittingly helped the Russians, identified in the indictment as “persons known and unknown.” A former federal prosecutor put it another way, saying “While they went to great pains to say they are not indicting any Americans today, if I was an American and I did cooperate with Russians I would be extremely frightened…”
— With the “Indictment of Trolls,” the secret services apparatus is creating the foundations for a positive answer to a Q, “Will every critic of our government policies soon be indictable?”
Anna,
(reply to comment 71),
I think this is the longer range goal and long-game game plan behind these indictments. The Democratic Party in particular is the main visible political force and organization supporting the systematic outlawing of free-thought expression first on the internet and then everywhere else. Party Democrats and DemParty-aligned public intellectuals are the main group of people advancing the Putin Diddit narrative in order to try preparing the public to accept and support the Intellectual Lockdown State.
If any Republican officeholders truly and sincerely wish to prevent the New DemParty Lockdown State from emerging, they will have to find a way to force a special counsel into existence to examine every aspect of the collusion between the Intelligence Community Leadership heads and the Clintobamacrat Party to meddle in America’s election of 2016.
Naked Capitalism is running a rising number of items spotlighting the emerging pattern of DemParty/ Establishment power-figure collusion towards lockdowning the various “free speech areas”.
Anna,
“The State is everything, Man, nothing” would be the ideology. The MSM and the public teachers of the Republic are now busy using school children in Florida to push the left’s anti-second amendment agenda. The long march through the institutions of those ideologically opposed to individual liberty is nearing completion.
different clue, Anna,
Yesterday’s Jimmy Dore Show highlights the problem of the progressive vs mainstream Dems on the Russiagate issue (~32 min)…
FBI Russian Indictments Used To Silence The Left https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnPAxdII5PU
For anyone who is not aware of Jimmy Dore he is an old school FDR Dem type/progressive who supported Bernie, who left the Democratic party after the election. He thinks Russiagate is stupid and so do his progressive guests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Dore
For the reader who might be baffled by the reference to “Moldova” and to “Belgium,” I recommend two YouTube videos: ZANDVOORT INTERNATIONAL PEDOPHILE SCANDAL COVERUP and MARK DUTROUX, THE MONSTER OF BELGIUM, as an introduction.
La Werkgroep Morkhoven is a foundation working against international organized pedophilia.
Interestingly, another organization, La Fondation Princess de Croy, was shut down, I am not sure how, perhaps by way of counterattacking litigation. It’s scary as hell.
A good connection to the background is ‘the Zandvoort childporn case’ and ‘the Zandvoort CD ROM.’
In Moldova a lot of the children are Romany. The parents are down with it. Over the border from Germany in Czech Republic (Cheb) you can rent a room and the boy is included in the deal. In Moldova, chemical castration is now mandatory for a male convicted of pedophilia. It is said to knock out a good part of the old testosterone. It works. Like Socrates and the hemlock?
International pedophile networks are all linked on the deep web. A lot of this briefly surfaced because of the Madeleine McCann disappearance at Praia da luz in the Algarve, Portugal.
One suspect was from the Costa Blanca, a Swiss named Urs Hans von Aesch. His life shows the international aspects of pedophilia.