#ReleasetheMemo

For your friend’s beliefs to be true, not only do the members of the FBI investigation have to be corrupt, the members of the DOJ overseeing the Wood’s procedures have to be corrupt, and basically the Republican appointed judges that are ruling on the FISA warrants have to be corrupt.

This FISA warrant under discussion about Page was first opened in October 2016. It has been renewed multiple times by different judges. That means they have had to show good, actionable intelligence is being received from the surveillance. Nunes’ contention is that the Steele dossier is the basis for getting the warrant and the whole reason for the investigation. It is not. Page has been known to counterintelligence folks since 2013 when he was previously caught up in the FBI cracking down on a Russian spy ring in New York City. The whole investigation as reported by the memo was started in part due to Papadapulous being a moronic drunk and blabbing to the Australian diplomat in London about the Russians having dirt on Clinton. There almost certainly is a bunch of other stuff to go along with that being used to support to the case. The only parts of the dossier apparently used were the bits about Carter Page, and supposedly though we might never know they had other evidence to corroborate those bits. There was plenty of reason to think they should monitor Page.

Nunes and the Republicans are counting on the fact that the FBI and intelligence community can lay out all the facts without burning sources and methods, so they can try to create the narrative they want to fit their agenda. Luckily Nunes is a complete dumbass and couldn’t do a competent job of it.

Edit: Just to clarify, the FISA judges are selected by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, so John Roberts at the current time.

But we do, right? It’s the one Buzzfeed, et. al. released last January, that had been floating around Washington long before. Or am I missing something?

We were discussing the difficulty of talking with people like SlyFrog’s conservative friend at another forum, and here is my take cross-posted:

“The only real way to come to grips with otherwise intelligent people being full-throated Trump/Breitbart/Limbaugh followers is to realize that we are not dealing with a regular political movement, or a regular religious movement or a regular cultural/racial movement but rather a cult. A cult where the doctrine is political in nature rather than theological. Whenever you deal with a Trump supporter, think of them as very angry Jehovah’s Witnesses or less smooth Scientologists. That will help you get your mind around it.”

No you are not missing anything. It has been public for a year.

So you mean I should say no thanks and slam the door shut? :)

I would be careful with this line of reasoning also. The FISA courts are kind of famous for approving nearly all warrant applications.

They are famous for it because of the process the FBI and DOJ go through before ever bringing a warrant application before them. They won’t let an application they think might fail go anywhere near the court.

Edit: I’d also almost agree with former FBI agent Asha Rangappa that the Dems should just leave it at this and not release their memo. Nunes did such a shit job, there really isn’t a need for their memo.

With family and friends who have fallen under its sway, I like to think of them as horses (noble steeds!) with blinders, who will only turn with the rest of the herd. It’s a slightly nicer perspective for me, but in the end it’s the same result except it’s more of a gentle shutting of the door instead of a slam.

Agreed. She made sense, although political considerations may still make “fighting back” an important thing.

Yes, I think what I would do is defer to the wishes of Wray. If he is okay with it going out, then proceed.

I’m not as sure of that as you, though I do believe with the political ramifications any warrants associated with Trump and the campaign may well have gotten a bit more TLC.

JThanks. I have been ignoring this stuff for the longest time, and am now trying to get up to speed. I really like this guy. He’s always been a good conservative as far as i’m concerned, but in the last few years feels like he’s gone off the deep end.

However, he’s not stupid and presents what purports to be evidence as to why Hillary is corrupt, Obama’s was evil, why they are getting a free pass while Trump is being targeted, etc.

I want to be able to talk with him gently about these things to perhaps give him a separate view point, but can only do that with more facts and clarity. I need to make absolutely sure I’m not responding with the leftish equivalent of Fox News. Info like the dossier is helpful - I did not know it had been released.

Just to clarify, you’re talking about Devin Nunes here? The California representative? That Devin Nunes?

It doesn’t really matter what Steele’s motives were anyway. Typically these investigations get started because of something like a drunk and angry ex-wife calling up the FBI in the middle of the night. If we ignore all the witnesses who don’t have purely patriotic motives, we might as well just give up on counterintelligence.

Big picture:

https://mobile.twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/960194008319488002

No, the conservative friend I’ve been talking about. Unlike most “friends” mentioned on the Internet, he’s a real person, and not just a way to describe something that’s happening to me by pretending it’s a different person. :-)

What does the source of the funding of the aggregation of the documents a FISA court reviews have to do with anything? Has this ever been argued before? Should the court care who assembled the paperwork the FBI is bringing to them? It’s the purview of the FBI to check sources and verify the veracity of documentation.

The court can’t dig into the weeds of every piece of evidence presented to them, that’s the requesting agency’s job. I don’t get why this is a big deal at all. Their case is either true or not.

Smells like desperation.

Its the end-game of partisan politics. Everything is now based on which “team” you are on. Everyone who claims to not be, is lying and secretly hiding how biased and unfair they are acting. No agency, no tradition, no policy, no evidence, no fact can be trusted to not be infected with partisan behavior. Anyone who is actually non-partisan is considered despicable because they don’t even care enough about their team to cheat.

So many facepalms.

Haha ok, was wondering if I finally found someone on the Nunes bandwagon!

There is no reason to believe that this is the case.