Republicans End House Russia Probe Over Democrats’ Objections

[Dashinka 24,769]

Apparently the Dems on the committee want to dig further to uncover their side’s collusion with the Russians.

 

Republicans who control the House Intelligence Committee ended an investigation into the 2016 presidential election over intense objections from Democrats, saying they found no evidence of collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives.

 

 

The committee’s GOP leaders announced their decision on Monday, adding that they plan to release a report soon on their findings. The probe -- originally intended to be bipartisan -- is ending even though an inquiry by Special Counsel Robert Mueller remains underway and at least four people connected to the president’s campaign are facing criminal charges.

 

 

A draft summary of what the Republicans say will ultimately be a final report agrees with assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia conducted cyberattacks on American political institutions and sought to sow discord through social media, but not with their conclusion that the campaign was carried out to help Trump.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-12/republicans-ending-house-russia-probe-over-democrats-objections

[eieio 1,594]

I am not surprised at all that they found no collusion. Same will happen with Bueller's witch hunt.

[Dashinka 24,769]

58 minutes ago, eieio said:

I am not surprised at all that they found no collusion. Same will happen with Bueller's witch hunt.

Actually, they did find collusion, but since it wasn’t the Trump campaign, the Dems want to keep their narrative alive.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

33 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Actually, they did find collusion, but since it wasn’t the Trump campaign, the Dems want to keep their narrative alive.

They found collusion with the Democrats and Russia? And because if that they are closing at down without tackling the core issue: Russian  interference in the US elections?

 

 

 

 

[Dashinka 24,769]

33 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

They found collusion with the Democrats and Russia? And because if that they are closing at down without tackling the core issue: Russian  interference in the US elections?

 

 

 

 

What is there to tackle?  Elections are run locally, so getting the information out regarding potential interference is all they really can do.  Or are you suggesting the feds take over all election activities?

 

I know you choose to ignore the Hillary campaign colluding with the Russians and other foreign agents, but that is still all they found.

[JimandChristy 1,689]

Not surprised, the Republicans on the house committee didn't even subpoena financial records of anyone on the Trump campaign. Once the Senate and Mueller reports are out this report will be laughed at.

[Dashinka 24,769]

43 minutes ago, JimandChristy said:

Not surprised, the Republicans on the house committee didn't even subpoena financial records of anyone on the Trump campaign. Once the Senate and Mueller reports are out this report will be laughed at.

Wishful thinking?  I see this is cycling back to Trump's taxes.

 

Sigh.

[bcking 3,157]

Based on the last "report" they released, it is pretty obvious that the committee was operating purely on party lines and therefore wasn't able to do its job.

 

It really should have just been disbanded completely, with no "results" released. Their "findings" are essentially meaningless since they weren't able to operate in an unbiased objective way. 

Edited March 13, 2018 by bcking

[Dashinka 24,769]

48 minutes ago, bcking said:

Based on the last "report" they released, it is pretty obvious that the committee was operating purely on party lines and therefore wasn't able to do its job.

 

It really should have just been disbanded completely, with no "results" released. Their "findings" are essentially meaningless since they weren't able to operate in an unbiased objective way. 

I don't disagree, but how do we know it wasn't the other side that was mired in political bias?

[bcking 3,157]

30 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

I don't disagree, but how do we know it wasn't the other side that was mired in political bias?

To a certain extent I'm sure both were. Hence the "competing memos". The initial Republican memo was clearly written in a biased way. We've already looked at it here on these forums and I believe I already listed many of my issues with it. The had clear intentions while writing it and included information and omitted information to fulfill their intentions. I'm not saying the Democrats aren't also culpable, but unfortunately in this situation since the Republicans released their memo first and the Democrats provided additional information to show their inconsistencies the perception is the Republicans were more biased (since the Democrats had the benefit of coming second and "setting the record straight", so to speak). 

 

That is why I said it should have just ended without any conclusions being made public. They clearly couldn't do their job. This is why we have "independent counsels" since members of Congress have become pawns/tools of the Executive Branch whenever their party is "in power" (which I don't believe was ever the intention when our government was split into three components. They are supposed to be checks/balances on each other). 

Edited March 13, 2018 by bcking

[Dashinka 24,769]

21 minutes ago, bcking said:

To a certain extent I'm sure both were. Hence the "competing memos". The initial Republican memo was clearly written in a biased way. We've already looked at it here on these forums and I believe I already listed many of my issues with it. The had clear intentions while writing it and included information and omitted information to fulfill their intentions. I'm not saying the Democrats aren't also culpable, but unfortunately in this situation since the Republicans released their memo first and the Democrats provided additional information to show their inconsistencies the perception is the Republicans were more biased (since the Democrats had the benefit of coming second and "setting the record straight", so to speak). 

 

That is why I said it should have just ended without any conclusions being made public. They clearly couldn't do their job. This is why we have "independent counsels" since members of Congress have become pawns/tools of the Executive Branch whenever their party is "in power" (which I don't believe was ever the intention when our government was split into three components. They are supposed to be checks/balances on each other). 

How do we know the "independent counsels" and their staff don't have political biases that affect their work?  Look at Mueller, he had a clear conflict of interest regarding his reported close friendship with Comey whose firing lead to hi appointment.  We keep hearing how impeccable his credentials are, but someone that has such a CoI should have immediately refused the job, instead he took hit then staffed his group with a bunch of Hillary Clinton supporters.  All this does is show how much of a swamp Washington really is, and congress, nor any of the departments seem to be immune to the politics even though they are supposed to be unbiased. 

 

Regardless, like the House report, when Mueller, or the Senate comes out with their reports, we have the ask the same questions regarding their biases.  In my opinion, the RNC memo did show clear malfeasance from the DOJ and FBI in how they appear to be handling political investigations.  Due to it folks from the swamp resigned which they should have done long ago.  Sure the Dems came out with theirs later to try and spin the potential impact to the last administrations legacy, but it didn't refute the first memo at all in what really happened. 

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

1 hour ago, Bill & Katya said:

I don't disagree, but how do we know it wasn't the other side that was mired in political bias?

Common Sense?

[Dashinka 24,769]

1 minute ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

Common Sense?

Common sense?  That is a laugh.  We are talking about Washington.

[bcking 3,157]

8 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

How do we know the "independent counsels" and their staff don't have political biases that affect their work?  Look at Mueller, he had a clear conflict of interest regarding his reported close friendship with Comey whose firing lead to hi appointment.  We keep hearing how impeccable his credentials are, but someone that has such a CoI should have immediately refused the job, instead he took hit then staffed his group with a bunch of Hillary Clinton supporters.  All this does is show how much of a swamp Washington really is, and congress, nor any of the departments seem to be immune to the politics even though they are supposed to be unbiased. 

 

Regardless, like the House report, when Mueller, or the Senate comes out with their reports, we have the ask the same questions regarding their biases.  In my opinion, the RNC memo did show clear malfeasance from the DOJ and FBI in how they appear to be handling political investigations.  Due to it folks from the swamp resigned which they should have done long ago.  Sure the Dems came out with theirs later to try and spin the potential impact to the last administrations legacy, but it didn't refute the first memo at all in what really happened. 

Obviously everyone is at risk of bias, even if they picked a random person on the street there would be a risk of bias. However, forming a committee of elected officials who are beholden to their political party creates an unnecessary additional factor for bias. These are people who have made their careers out of being biased (politicians). The future careers are potentially on the line and you are asking them to investigate members of their own party, many of whom have more power and influence than the members on the committee. I would say the same thing if this was a House committee with Democrats investigating Clinton, or Clinton (Man), or Obama. Unfortunately Congress is no longer an independent branch of government, as it was intended to be.

 

People like Mueller, on the other hand, have built careers around being unbiased. Does he have friendships? Of course he does, but his career and experience is in roles that are traditionally unbiased. Yes I realize the FBI of late has been questioned, but Mueller was the longest serving since Hoover, and had bipartisan support then and even when he was first announced as the lead of this investigation. Is he perfect? No of course not. You could argue he even has risks of being biased towards finding innocence. He is a Republican, was appointed by a Republican and served a prior Republican President. So he has biases that pull in both directions. His credentials, in my view, give him the benefit of the doubt that he can conduct the investigation in a fair way, minimizing his biases and the baises of others involved. 

 

Of course when his report is released everyone will have to judge his methodology and findings on their own. We can address that when the day comes. For now though, the memo from the Republicans on the House committee showed fairly clearly to me that they were willing to omit key pieces of information to further their agenda. That's not what I'm looking for from a committee like this. Their conclusions are fairly meaningless at this point, at least to me. 

Edited March 13, 2018 by bcking