Evidence suggests a massive scandal is brewing at the FBI

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

1 minute ago, Bill & Katya said:

So the FBI thought Steele was unreliable, thought he was highly biased, but then still included his suspect work in a FISA application along with media reports that were also highly suspect?  If alll the other information presented to the FISA court was so compelling, why did they even include the Steele documents?

Because they were trying to throw an election 

 

Look over there  its Russians 

[bcking 3,157]

1 hour ago, Bill & Katya said:

So the FBI thought Steele was unreliable, thought he was highly biased, but then still included his suspect work in a FISA application along with media reports that were also highly suspect?  If alll the other information presented to the FISA court was so compelling, why did they even include the Steele documents?

My problem with this section of the memo was that they are vague on specific dates. They provide some specific days, but then other pieces of information are down to just the month. That makes the timeline difficult.

 

He was terminated after his article with Mother Jones on October 30th

The memo states that  the FBI did not know of his relationships and that he was talking to news outlets about his information - It says "they found out later, and he was terminated". 

 

So how unreliable and highly biased did they actually know him to be at the time of the application is unclear. Yes they knew he was working for Fusion GPS and they knew they were getting funding from Democrats. Your source of funding is a POTENTIAL for bias, but doesn't actually mean you are biased. Drug companies found research on their drugs. That doesn't mean that the investigating physicians/scientists are all horribly tainted. Of course you need to disclose that funding support, but again that doesn't automatically mean your information/research is fake.

 

Neither one of us can come close to answering your second question because the memo doesn't actually talk in detail about what was in the FISA court application. It focuses solely on the memo.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

38 minutes ago, bcking said:

My problem with this section of the memo was that they are vague on specific dates. They provide some specific days, but then other pieces of information are down to just the month. That makes the timeline difficult.

 

He was terminated after his article with Mother Jones on October 30th

The memo states that  the FBI did not know of his relationships and that he was talking to news outlets about his information - It says "they found out later, and he was terminated". 

 

So how unreliable and highly biased did they actually know him to be at the time of the application is unclear. Yes they knew he was working for Fusion GPS and they knew they were getting funding from Democrats. Your source of funding is a POTENTIAL for bias, but doesn't actually mean you are biased. Drug companies found research on their drugs. That doesn't mean that the investigating physicians/scientists are all horribly tainted. Of course you need to disclose that funding support, but again that doesn't automatically mean your information/research is fake.

 

Neither one of us can come close to answering your second question because the memo doesn't actually talk in detail about what was in the FISA court application. It focuses solely on the memo.

Kind of a very long stretch to try to compare funding of research and bias  and the FBI spying on citizens running a presidential campaign.

[bcking 3,157]

35 minutes ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

Kind of a very long stretch to try to compare funding of research and bias  and the FBI spying on citizens running a presidential campaign.

That was only one of my points, but I would say it is still valid. Funding for information, whether it is "classified intelligence" or "biomedical research" doesn't automatically make the information false/flawed if the funding is from a biased source. A prostitute might call 911 after seeing her pimp shoot someone. Clearly she would be a "biased" witness, with a reliability issue. That doesn't mean her entire testimony as evidence is thrown out.

 

In this case for me the more compelling evidence that the information was biased was in the evidence specifically about Steele's own biases. He could have been a consummate professional regardless of the biases of his employer, but that doesn't seem to be the case based on some of the other evidence in the memo. 

 

My primary point was just about the timing of events. The memo states clearly that he mislead the FBI and at least for a time they weren't aware of his media contacts. It says that they had a meeting "In October" in Washington so they should have known, but they conveniently leave out the date in October. It is unclear what they were aware of in regards to his biases at the time of their application. They surely knew the baises of his funder, but as I said I wouldn't automatically disqualify all information just because it is funded by a biased source. You still can consider it, and try to corroborate it with other sources. Once they found out, they "let him go" which seems like the appropriate decision.

 

 

Edited February 5, 2018 by bcking

[Dashinka 24,786]

1 hour ago, bcking said:

My problem with this section of the memo was that they are vague on specific dates. They provide some specific days, but then other pieces of information are down to just the month. That makes the timeline difficult.

 

He was terminated after his article with Mother Jones on October 30th

The memo states that  the FBI did not know of his relationships and that he was talking to news outlets about his information - It says "they found out later, and he was terminated". 

 

So how unreliable and highly biased did they actually know him to be at the time of the application is unclear. Yes they knew he was working for Fusion GPS and they knew they were getting funding from Democrats. Your source of funding is a POTENTIAL for bias, but doesn't actually mean you are biased. Drug companies found research on their drugs. That doesn't mean that the investigating physicians/scientists are all horribly tainted. Of course you need to disclose that funding support, but again that doesn't automatically mean your information/research is fake.

 

Neither one of us can come close to answering your second question because the memo doesn't actually talk in detail about what was in the FISA court application. It focuses solely on the memo.

Didn’t really answer my questions though.  I heard an interview Nunes gave today which implied a lot more information that could not be put in the memo that shows the FBI was abusing FISA for what appears to be political reasons.  Like I asked earlier, but also was not answered, can you really give a Democratic administration the benefit of the doubt given how low they will stoop to maintain power?  There was a book written soon after the election that implied the entire Russian narrative was cooked up by the losing side.  Was Russian intelligence trying to influence the election, I think the answer to that question is pretty obvious, but was there foreign collusion, well, so far, it just appears evidence to show this from one side.  

 

Regardless, more evidence that Washington has become a cesspool.

[bcking 3,157]

22 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Didn’t really answer my questions though.  I heard an interview Nunes gave today which implied a lot more information that could not be put in the memo that shows the FBI was abusing FISA for what appears to be political reasons.  Like I asked earlier, but also was not answered, can you really give a Democratic administration the benefit of the doubt given how low they will stoop to maintain power?  There was a book written soon after the election that implied the entire Russian narrative was cooked up by the losing side.  Was Russian intelligence trying to influence the election, I think the answer to that question is pretty obvious, but was there foreign collusion, well, so far, it just appears evidence to show this from one side.  

 

Regardless, more evidence that Washington has become a cesspool.

Sorry I may have glossed over your question. Your quotes are italicized, this is long winded but I want to clearly answer your questions. NB - If you are reading this, just stop now

 

1. "So the FBI thought Steele was unreliable, thought he was highly biased, but then still included his suspect work in a FISA application along with media reports that were also highly suspect?"  

 

I can't tell from the memo WHEN the FBI identified Steele as unreliable. They knew that his funding was from a biased source, but as I've already argued I wouldn't consider that to automatically mean the investigator is biased. It creates a risk of that for sure, but it shouldn't be automatically assumed. The memo says they shared a meeting in Washington in October, but when? Was it before the application or after? They then (in the part I quoted) say that Steele mislead them and they only found out later that he was giving information to media. At that point, they "fired" him essentially. So the timeline is a little murky to me. Yes they know now, but the memo doesn't make it very clear how much they knew at the time of the application (regarding Steele's personal biases, not the bias of the firm funding him)

 

2. "If all the other information presented to the FISA court was so compelling, why did they even include the Steele documents?"

 

Neither of us can answer that. We have no idea. Perhaps the Steele documents corroborated other evidence, or vice versa? If you have a source at risk of bias (the Steele dossier), but you have a second source that independently provides the same information, that would improve the reliability of the information. Is that what they had? We don't know. The memo doesn't detail all of the evidence used in the application.

 

3. "Can you really give a Democratic administration the benefit of the doubt given how low they will stoop to maintain power?"

 

While I realize this whole discussion is calling into question how "non-partisan" the FBI really is, I wouldn't automatically associate the FBI with the "Democratic administration" or the "Republican administration". So the question in this case isn't really whether we can give a "Democratic administration" the benefit of the doubt, as much as we can give "The FBI" the benefit of the doubt (just talking about the contents of the memo). Based on the kind of work the FBI does, I would say we should give them the benefit of the doubt. They don't really "gain" anything by keeping one administration or the other. They can typically all keep their jobs if they are doing it well during transitions. I just don't really see what the FBI's motive would be in this case. Sure they all may personally really dislike Trump, but their job is to investigate without letting their personal biases impact their decisions. Just like cops. They make a career out of this. You may think a guy is obviously guilty of murder, and you may hate him because he's gotten away with it in the past...but you still need to conduct the investigation properly.

 

I still haven't seen an answer regarding standard operating procedure for a FISA application. What is typically included, and how much information is typically given to the judge? Do they get all the details about the sources? In their line of work, it could go either way. They may need to protect certain sources even from the application (every time you use the source's identity you risk exposing them), so it may not be standard practice. If it isn't standard practice to go into detail about the source, then they didn't really deviate from that in this case (Assuming, as I discussed for Question 1, that the timeline suggests they didn't know Steele was strongly biased personally at the time). If all they knew was that his funding source was biased, I wouldn't automatically say that needs to be made clear to the judge. People investigate issues with biased funding sources all the time.

 

4. "Was Russian intelligence trying to influence the election, I think the answer to that question is pretty obvious, but was there foreign collusion, well, so far, it just appears evidence to show this from one side."

 

You didn't use a question mark but it was written like a question so I'll address it. The investigation obviously is still ongoing so we don't have the details and I'm going to be a bit speculative here, though I usually try not to be. I don't think Trump is going to be found guilty of anything. I don't think he was involved. I do think that members of his "team" did indeed collude with foreign nationals (and likely some were representatives of the Russian government). Likely in a similar way to the Steele dossier. They were reaching out for "dirt" that they could use against their opponent. I think most likely both sides will be, on some level, guilty of that. Probably on both sides without the "top dog" (Trump/Clinton) being guilty of anything personally (plausible deniability, at a minimum...or real deniability I don't know). 

 

Now with that out of the way - I personally (and this is just my opinion, and it has nothing to do with the law) see a bigger issue with collusion that involves a foreign government than collusion that involves a single foreign individual. I realize there is no legal backing for that, it is just personal preference. Steele wasn't acting in the interest of his nation, or as a representative of some foreign government trying to push the election. Was he trying to push the election for personal reasons? Perhaps. But one foreign guy getting involved, in my mind, is better than representatives of a foreign government. Especially one that is frequently at odds with our country. Again this is just my opinion.

Edited February 5, 2018 by bcking

[JimandChristy 1,689]

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/devin-nunes-admits-memo-cherry-picked-information-prove-anti-trump-bias-fbi/

 

Poof, there goes Trump's "vindication". Nunes is a clown, he also said Trump had never met Papadopoulos.

[JimandChristy 1,689]

Additionally the House committee unanimously vote to release the rebuttal memo. Will Donnie not dare to sign off on it? 

[bcking 3,157]

From the politico article that the rawstory references - https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/05/fbi-footnote-carter-page-warrant-390795

 

“Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior and FBI officials,” the memo alleged.

But in an appearance on "Fox & Friends," Nunes was asked about reports over the weekend that the FBI application did refer to a political entity connected to the dossier. It is unclear precisely what language the application might have used.

Nunes conceded that a "footnote" to that effect was included in the application, while faulting the bureau for failing to provide more specifics.

"A footnote saying something may be political is a far cry from letting the American people know that the Democrats and the Hillary campaign paid for dirt that the FBI then used to get a warrant on an American citizen to spy on another campaign," Nunes said on "Fox & Friends."

 

 

Of course its a far cry. The application for a warrant was NEVER about letting the American people know anything. It was a classified process. Why is he comparing the warrant to his memo? Very different things.

 

The memo's strength crumbles quite a bit with this detail. It fits even more with my initial impression. They will likely following "standard procedure" for a warrant application. They provided some details about the potential for bias, but didn't completely throw out evidence just because of those links. That's the responsible thing to do when you are investigating a situation like this. You don't jump to conclusions. Seems like they acted even more appropriately than I originally thought.

[smilesammich 10,727]

14 hours ago, bcking said:

 

Of course its a far cry. The application for a warrant was NEVER about letting the American people know anything. It was a classified process. Why is he comparing the warrant to his memo? Very different things.

 

The memo's strength crumbles quite a bit with this detail. It fits even more with my initial impression. They will likely following "standard procedure" for a warrant application. They provided some details about the potential for bias, but didn't completely throw out evidence just because of those links. That's the responsible thing to do when you are investigating a situation like this. You don't jump to conclusions. Seems like they acted even more appropriately than I originally thought.

Nunes: Fine, the FBI Didn’t Lie, But Its Font Was Too Small

[bcking 3,157]

1 minute ago, smilesammich said:

Nunes: Fine, the FBI Didn’t Lie, But Its Font Was Too Small

I saw that article this morning.

 

Sort or undermines the entire memo when one of their primary points was a complete lie. Not even just bending the truth. The memo says the application made no reference. It didn't say it made only a small reference, or didn't reference it enough. It said there was none.

 

That was a lie, 100%

[smilesammich 10,727]

2 minutes ago, bcking said:

I saw that article this morning.

 

Sort or undermines the entire memo when one of their primary points was a complete lie. Not even just bending the truth. The memo says the application made no reference. It didn't say it made only a small reference, or didn't reference it enough. It said there was none.

 

That was a lie, 100%

sure does make one wonder, why lie? why this desperate attempt to inject a false narrative to protect the president from .. uh.. something he swears scouts honor he's not guilty of?

[bcking 3,157]

11 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

sure does make one wonder, why lie? why this desperate attempt to inject a false narrative to protect the president from .. uh.. something he swears scouts honor he's not guilty of?

I don't think it's protective as much as it's just wanting to discredit other people and other investigations by proxy.

 

I don't think the Page warrant did anything to support an investigation against Trump specifically. I don't think the FBI was targeting Trump with that warrant. 

[smilesammich 10,727]

Just now, bcking said:

I don't think it's protective as much as it's just wanting to discredit other people and other investigations by proxy.

 

I don't think the Page warrant did anything to support an investigation against Trump specifically. I don't think the FBI was targeting Trump with that warrant. 

i wouldn't be surprised it trump was behind the memo, honestly. we'll see if he signs off on the democratic response.

agreed, i don't either. i think the fbi was watching someone with russian contact..as they do.

[Dashinka 24,786]

15 hours ago, JimandChristy said:

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/devin-nunes-admits-memo-cherry-picked-information-prove-anti-trump-bias-fbi/

 

Poof, there goes Trump's "vindication". Nunes is a clown, he also said Trump had never met Papadopoulos.

And Obama said there were 57 states.  What is your point?

20 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

i wouldn't be surprised it trump was behind the memo, honestly. we'll see if he signs off on the democratic response.

agreed, i don't either. i think the fbi was watching someone with russian contact..as they do.

Why wouldn't he sign off on it?