The right wing pundits are going berserk over some surveillance memo…does anyone have any idea what they are going nuts about? They are being extremely vague as far as I can tell…
I am guessing the Republicans are outraged that the surveillance memo does not feature the name ‘Clinton’ anywhere.
They’re doing whatever they can to discredit the investigation. I’m sure this is just more of that.
maybe, the fact that they want it public tells me it doesn’t read well… though the reference to secret policy that most of the HIC has not been read into could have a lot of implications that most are not aware of. Though the fact they want it public must mean it does not sound good on at least on a superficial capacity.
Personally, Id love the FBI and a analyst to declassify the whole thing and explain it completely. Then if it turns out to be non starter that was intentionally misunderstood and releasing it was harmful to the public good as they are claiming… let the republicans own actions of crying wolf shoot themselves in the foot. On the other hand if merit that partisan views are effecting action and policy within the FBI…that is an issue…and should be purged and protected against…
So… let me get this straight. FISA has been around for 40 years, and has been significantly beefed up since 2001. The American left has been complaining for decades that it gives too much power to intelligence agencies, and that they’ve been overstepping the bounds of what intelligence agencies in a democracy should do, since FISA almost never denies any request. We feared it could be used as a weapon against political activists. In fact, we knew it was being used that way. Republicans said no! It is a vital tool to defend our freedom against terrorists! We must be allowed to surveil anyone anywhere at anytime with no oversight!
Now they think that it might have been used against a Republican, so after 40 years of championing FISA they want to burn it all down. I assume this falls under the Republican “you know what we meant” law that says that only leftists and brown people are the legitimate targets of surveillance.
From the report in The Hill, it’s pretty clear that this is a publicity stunt engineered by Nunes and his cohorts on the HIC. The “memo” in question is a report prepared by Nunes (who himself is likely to be vulnerable to obstruction of justice charges given how closely he has cooperated with the White House in attempting to steer the course of the various investigations). The text in the memo is likely to be a rehash of existing Republican talking points, so of course it won’t “read well”. I’m sure it contains classified information pretty much solely so it can’t be released, in order to increase interest in it and the breathless descriptions of Nunes’ Trump-apologist collaborators.
It’s a bunch of gibberish from Devin Nunes, the ethically compromised and hopelessly idiotic GOP chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/954363342562480129
Why won’t they release the memo???
What are they trying to hide???
Mueller has to go!!!
Drain the swamp!!!
Lock … somebody … up!!!
Which is all you need to know to understand immediately that this is just another bullshit distraction tactic by the GOP to undermine the Mueller investigation.
Ok, this sounds right…do you have any source that Nunes actually prepared it? If Nunes created a report he wants to release… that clearly suggests a possible puppet show…
From the Hill article:
Also:
Ok on rereading I’m not sure what I thought…lol except need coffee
The reality is though, these same people have the power to make it public.
But they haven’t yet.
The vague suggestion of a memo containing stuff is likely more powerful than the memo itself… which likely contains nothing important. Basically Nunes making a bunch of unsubstantiated claims.
Sometimes, the wanting is better than the having.
Sorry, couldn’t resist posting one of my favorite moments in television.
https://twitter.com/SecureDemocracy/status/954423456371748866
It’s essentially a construct of the FSB, and Devin Nunes (who is owned by the FSB).
Heh, I was thinking of that scene when I typed it.
I didn’t know a lot about Nunes so I did some looking up on him. He lead the investigation into the Benghazi attack, and found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or any other Obama administration official. That interesting to me for some reason.
He does certainly seems to have a burr in his bonnet about the Russian investigation though…
Nunes was part of Trump’s transition team, and he’s way dirty with all this stuff.
Following up on Timex’s post, here’s The Hill on the hashtag:
Russian Twitter accounts pushing for release of ‘shocking’ surveillance memo
#ReleaseTheMemo is the top trending hashtag among Twitter accounts believed to be operated by Kremlin-linked groups, according to Hamilton 68, a website which tracks Russian propaganda online.
Hamilton 68 is spearheaded by Clint Watts, an expert on foreign actors using American social media. Watts has testified before Congress multiple times on the matter.
The #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag has increased by 286,700 percent over the past two days and is being used 100 times more than any other hashtag by accounts Hamilton 68 is tracking.
Of course slogans have been around forever (Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!) but the rise of the hashtag is the purest distillation of the principle that repeating a short, easy-to-remember phrase is more persuasive than actual argument.
Sadly, I don’t think law enforcement professionals will still care once they realize it benefits them (assuming the present situation is prolonged for long enough).