GOP plotting to read secret memo on House floor without declassifying it to limit FBI rebuttal: report
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan of Wisconsin speaking at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
MSNBC’s Pete Williams reported on Thursday that House Republicans could read a controversial classified memo on the House floor without declassifying it to prevent the FBI, which has opposed the disclosure, from giving a full-throated rebuttal.
“If the president puts it out, declassifies it, that might loosen the reigns on the FBI a little bit,” Williams explained. “But if the House puts it out, that doesn’t declassify it.”
“The House rules say they can disclose publicly any information that’s been classified,” he continued. “That doesn’t declassify it technically. It just makes it public. Only the executive branch can declassify. So, the FBI’s hands would be tied in terms of how they can respond.”
According to NBC News correspondent Mike Memoli, the most likely scenario involves reading the memo on the floor of the House, where legislators are protected from prosecution if they spill government secrets.
“The House has to be in session,” he pointed out. “And they would either read the full memo, it’s four pages long, from the floor of the House or they would read it into the Congressional Record. And the reason you would do that is because it’s a crime to disclose classified information.”
“But there is the debate clause in the House which gives member immunity from breaking laws if they do it from the House floor,” Memoli remarked.
If Republicans go through with the plan, they would have to first consult with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to decide which classified information should be redacted.
Democrats claim that Republicans created the memo to smear the FBI for extending surveillance on former the rich asshole campaign staffer Carter Page, who has admitted having contacts with Russians during the campaign.
For its part, the FBI has called the memo “misleading” and has said that it’s prepared to respond if and when Republicans make it public.
Watch the video below from MSNBC.
the rich asshole buries white nationalist talking point in his word salad about immigration
"Some people call it Dreamers -- it's not Dreamers, don't fall into that trap."
During a speech at a congressional Republican retreat on Thursday, President the rich asshole called back to the signature line from his State of the Union speech — the idea that “Americans are dreamers too.”
The president often struggles to coherently discuss policy details, and made an especially large mess during his attempt to talk about immigration on Thursday.
“I’ve been hearing about DACA for so many years,” the rich asshole said in what seemed to be an ad-libbed aside. “Some people call it Dreamers — it’s not Dreamers, don’t fall into that trap. It’s just much different than Dreamers. As I said the other night, we have dreamers too. We have dreamers in this country too. We can’t forget our dreamers, I have a lot of dreamers here.”
“Dreamers” refers broadly to the 1.8 million undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children. “DACA recipients” are Dreamers who are legally protected from deportation under the DACA program, of which there are about 800,000.
Even though they’re in the country through no fault of their own, the legal status of DACA recipients was thrown into turmoil by the rich asshole last fall when he announced he was phasing out DACA and preventing current recipients from applying for an extension after March 5. The White House has threatened to deport undocumented immigrants who lose their DACA protections if no immigration deal is reached by that date.
It’s unclear whether the rich asshole understands these distinctions. But it is clear he’s falling back on his new “Americans are dreamers too” talking point — one quickly embraced by an array of prominent white nationalists as an online rallying cry.
the rich asshole’s immigration proposal would provide Dreamers with a pathway to citizenship, while strictly curtailing other pathways for legal immigration that currently benefit people from mostly non-white countries.
During his speech on Thursday, the rich asshole sounded a dire note about the prospect of a deal being reached before March 5. “We will either have something that is fair and equitable and good, or we are going to have nothing at all,” he said.
‘Be prepared to walk out’: Ex-FBI agents say Chris Wray must be ready to resign over Nunes memo
FBI director Chris Wray (Screenshot)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Former FBI agents say that current FBI Director Christopher Wray needs to be ready to resign if Congressional Republicans go through with releasing a controversial memo written by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) over his objections.
Talking with the Daily Beast’s Spencer Ackerman, the agents say that Wray’s credibility as an independent FBI director hangs in the balance if the White House defies his wishes and releases the Nunes memo, which the FBI itself has warned is misleading.
“Given the climate and the recent activities, going as far back as Director Comey’s departure, Wray definitely must be prepared to resign,” retired FBI agent Erroll Southers tells Ackerman.
Southers also adds that he is shocked that attacks by Republicans on the FBI have gotten this far.
“I never thought I’d see the FBI deemed the enemy of the state by anyone, let alone people in this country,” he says.
Former FBI counterterrorism special agent Ali Soufan, meanwhile, said that while he didn’t think Wray needed to resign, the director must at least be ready to “publicly discredit this cherry-picked, fake memo and expose Nunes.” And then if the rich asshole fires Wray because of this, then people within the FBI who take their jobs seriously will need to all resign in protest.
“People in Washington should be prepared for a Saturday Night Massacre,” Soufan says. “Many honorable men and women should be prepared to resign, to walk out over this.”
Ignoring facts, the rich asshole claims he’s created an ‘unthinkable’ amount of jobs since his election
It was actually the worst year for job creation since 2011.
At the Congressional Republican Retreat in West Virginia Thursday, President the rich asshole bragged about the number of jobs he had created since his election in November 2016.
“Since the election, we have created 2.4 million jobs — that’s unthinkable,” he said.
The comment mirrored the rich asshole’s remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.
“After years stagnation the nights is once again experiencing strong economic growth. The stock market is smashing one record after another, and has added more than $7 trillion in new wealth since my election,” the rich asshole said then. “Since my election we’ve created 2.4 million jobs and that number is going up very, very substantially […] The world is witnessing the resurgence of a strong and prosperous America.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 2.06 million jobs were created since the rich asshole took office. That makes it the worst year for job creation since 2011, when the economy was recovering from the Great Recession under President George W. Bush.
The anemic job numbers are an indicator that the recent GOP tax bill and the rich asshole’s decision to gut regulations haven’t created as many jobs as he anticipated. The tax bill, which the rich asshole signed in December, slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 percent, something which Republicans claim will benefit workers and increase hiring.
Additionally, the rich asshole’s decision to tout the 2.4 million figure ignores the fact that he is taking credit for the final two months of the Obama presidency — an economy the rich asshole had no hand in creating.
the rich asshole spent the remainder of Thursday’s speech praising the Republican Party for its “legislative successes.” The president specifically singled out Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for his work passing the tax bill and his dedication to the White House. In one particularly unusual moment, the rich asshole claimed that Hatch had told him he was a better president than both Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
“He said once, I am the single greatest president in his lifetime. He’s young, so that’s not saying much, but he also said I was the greatest president in history of our country,” the rich asshole claimed proudly. “I said, does that include Lincoln? He said, ‘yes.’ I love this guy.”
the rich asshole Jr. Mocked To Oblivion After ‘Democracy Dies In Dankness’ Blunder (TWEETS)
The world is still laughing at the rich asshole administration for printing out all those State of the “Uniom” tickets, but the neanderthalic dunces on the Right just keep the hits coming.
This latest and perhaps best typo in recent history comes from some rich asshole Jr., who managed to make perhaps the most hilarious typo known to modern man or horse.
While attempting to attack the Washington Post, he managed to kill his momentum by typing “democracy dies in dankness.” He also confused “byline” and “tagline.”
Naturally, this was a lot of fun for everyone who is not some rich asshole Jr.:
It's not a byline, it's a tagline. (You were going to get a dictionary, remember?) And it's your friends, the Republicans, who are blocking the minority rebuttal.
I just don’t understand why Trump is so mad at the FBI? Must have something to do with dankness.
someone NEEDS to make a weed strain called “democracy dies in dankness” twitter.com/donaldjtrumpjr…
@GenePark I want the @washingtonpost to publish tomorrow with every story under the byline of "Democracy Dies in Dankness"
I trust you can make this happen. Let's see if it sells.
If democracy dies in dankness, Portland would be totalitarian by now. twitter.com/donaldjtrumpjr…
The memo in question was written by Republicans, altered by Republicans, and redacted by the White House. In addition, the FBI has expressed “grave concerns” about its accuracy. Republicans also refuse to release the Democratic memo — all of that seems pretty dank…err, dark.
the rich asshole: ‘I love’ Orrin Hatch because he said I am a better president than Lincoln and Washington
President some rich asshole campaigns for Roy Moore in Pensacola, FL (Screen capture)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
President some rich asshole on Thursday boasted that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) called him a better president than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
During his talk with Republicans at their retreat in West Virginia, the rich asshole told a story about how Hatch had complimented the rich asshole by telling him he was the best president of his lifetime.
the rich asshole then says he asked Hatch if he was a better president than people who were born before Hatch’s lifetime, such as Washington and Lincoln.
“He said, ‘yes,'” the rich asshole explained. “I said, ‘I love this guy.'”
A spokesperson for Hatch clarified the president’s remarks to say that the senator only told him that he “could be” the greatest president ever, not that he was.
Watch the video below
FBI Director Wray ‘prepared to issue a rebuttal’ to Nunes memo: Former Bush Homeland Security Adviser
FBI Director Christopher Wray and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
National security analyst Fran Townsend, the former Homeland Security Adviser to George W. Bush, on Thursday told CBS “This Morning” that some rich asshole’s FBI Director Christopher Wray is “prepared to issue a rebuttal” to Rep. Devin Nunes’ anti-FBI memo should the White House follow through with releasing it.
Townsend explained the FBI is “concerned about sources and methods,” noting officials fear in order to “rebut the contents of the Nunes memo” they would have to reveal sensitive information.
“The Nunes memo is an advocacy piece, not a fact piece,” Townsend said.
“Director Wray is prepared to rebut—if the White House decides to release the Nunes memo—Director Wray is prepared to issue a rebuttal,” the national security analyst added.
Townsend noted the extensive process required for the FBI to obtain a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“I ran this unit in the Justice Department that got the FISA warrants,” Townsend said. “No FISA warrant relies on a single piece of evidence, so if the allegation from Chairman Nunes is that they relied solely on the Steele dossier, that’s not possible.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” she added.
Watch below, via CBS:
Associated Press By ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press 02-01-2018
WASHINGTON — President some rich asshole says the ratings for his first State of the Union address this week are "the highest number in history," but that is not true.
Nielsen reports that about 45.6 million tuned in to watch the rich asshole Tuesday night. That's below viewership for President Barack Obama's first State of the Union, which was about 48 million, and the rich asshole's own joint address to Congress last year.
It also trails the 46.8 million viewers who tuned into President Bill Clinton's first State of the Union speech, and the 51.7 million who watched President George W. Bush's 2002 address.
the rich asshole falsely argued last year that his inauguration was the most well-attended one ever.
Even the rich asshole knows he's lost control of the immigration debate.
some rich asshole apparently believes Democrats are beating him and fellow Republicans in the public debate over immigration.
Despite his public declarations that he has “great love” for the young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, known as DREAMers, and has called for a “bill of love” to protect them, behind closed doors, it’s another story.
At a White House meeting with Democrats, he “urged them not to use the word DREAMers in public,” The New York Times reports.
The term comes from the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which was first introduced in the Senate in 2001 and has been reintroduced several times but has failed to become law.
During his first State of the Union address — which had far fewer viewers than President Barack Obama’s, despite the rich asshole’s lies — he tried to co-opt the term in a screed against protection for DREAMers and other immigrants.
“Americans are dreamers too,” he said. It was his only use of the word during an address in which he repeatedly invoked the criminal gang MS-13 in the context of immigration, even though studies have shown immigrant populations are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
It is a distorted portrayal of immigrants that has been promoted in right-wing media like Fox News for years.
the rich asshole constantly smeared immigrants throughout his short political career. He launched his campaign by comparing Mexicans to rapists and called for a ban on Muslim travel to the United States.
Since then, Republicans have become increasingly intolerant toward immigrants, in their rhetoric and policies. Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner even went so far as to block legislation from a vote, even though it had majority support and had passed the Senate.
After that debacle, the rich asshole went on to win the Republican Party’s nomination with a strident anti-immigrant message and a promise to build the nonsensical border wall.
Now that he and his party are in full control of the federal government, they have decided to stick with their unpopular position and are now lashing out at language that conveys the humanity behind immigrants seeking relief.
The majority of Americans want the rich asshole and his GOP to find a solution for DREAMers. But the rich asshole isn’t willing to help them — at least, not unless he can extort $25 billion from taxpayers to build his border all and another $5 billion for the kinds of draconian “security measures” Republicans want.
The arguments against immigrants and portrayals of them as a horde of criminal gang members isn’t working, though. No wonder the rich asshole is begging Democrats to stop accurately portraying these young Americans accurately — as people who simply dream of being able to stay in the only home they’ve ever known.
"Under your leadership, dangerous partisanship among many House Republicans seems to have taken precedent over the oath we all take to protect our nation."
The two highest-ranking Democratic officials in America are calling on Speaker Paul Ryan to rein in his party’s out-of-control smear campaign and attacks on law enforcement.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent letters to Ryan, asking him to remove Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) from his position as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
Nunes created a highly dubious memo, attacking the FBI in an attempt to undermine its credibility in the investigation of Russia’s election interference and connections to the rich asshole campaign.
The FBI warned against release of the memo because its omissions, conspiracy theories, and half-truths could endanger law enforcement and threaten national security.
With Republicans and the White House ignoring those warnings, the FBI took the rare step of releasing a public statement expressing its “grave concerns” about the memo.
In her letter to Ryan, Pelosi called the alteration of the memo “dangerous” and noted that Nunes “has disgraced the House Intelligence Committee” and “abused his position to launch a highly unethical and dangerous cover-up campaign for the White House.”
House Republicans have engaged in a “pattern of obstruction and cover-up,” designed to hide the rich asshole-Russia scandal, she added. Those actions represent “a threat to our intelligence and our national security.”
In his letter, Schumer told Ryan, “Quite simply, under your leadership, dangerous partisanship among many House Republicans seems to have taken precedent over the oath we all take to protect our nation.”
Ryan has enabled his caucus’ behavior, refusing to criticize their rhetoric and even giving tacit approval of the campaign to smear and purge the FBI, saying he wanted to “cleanse the organization.”
Now he is being publicly called out for letting things get out of control and endangering those serving on the front lines of the battle against crime and terrorism.
Ryan has already pledged his loyalty to the rich asshole, and apparently has no problem with throwing the FBI under the bus to help out his legislative ally.
House Republican gives the rich asshole the green light to fire Rosenstein, cripple the Mueller investigation
"If the president fired Rosenstein, I would support that."
On Thursday morning, CNN reported that President the rich asshole is looking for ways to “discredit the Russia investigation,” with an eye toward perhaps firing the DOJ official overseeing it — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The news about the rich asshole’s displeasure with the deputy AG comes on the heels of reports that the rich asshole tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller last June, just weeks after he fired then-FBI Director Comey, who at the time was overseeing the bureau’s Russia investigation — like Rosenstein is now.
If the rich asshole fired Rosenstein, he would be able to appoint a new deputy AG who could fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller and therefore bring the FBI’s Russia investigation to a close. Short of firing, Rosenstein’s replacement could sharply limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation and prevent his final report from being released publicly.
The only entity that could prevent the rich asshole from getting away with it is Congress, which ultimately has the power to impeach him.
So it’s significant that on Tuesday, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) went on CNN and said he would have no qualms if the rich asshole decided to remove Rosenstein.
At first, Comer — a member of the House Oversight Committee — tried to dodge the question. He began his response by saying, “well, what you have to understand is, the American people wanted an outsider, they wanted someone who had no experience in politics.”
But pressed to answer the question, Comer ultimately said he’d support whatever decision the rich asshole makes.
“Well, the president has the ability to fire his at-will employees, so if the president fired Rosenstein, I would support that,” Comer said. “I think that there are a lot of people in American — especially in my district of Kentucky — that are disappointed int he attorney general and Rosenstein, and you know, if there is something there with Russia, then let’s get it out… this whole Russia investigation has been a big distraction.”
While Comer at least acknowledged that the question of Rosenstein’s future needs to be viewed in the broader context of the rich asshole’s unhappiness about the Russia investigation, other Republicans are playing dumb about it.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, for instance, seems to think that the rich asshole’s concerns about Rosenstein are unrelated to the Russia investigation. Asked whether he supports the release of a Republican memo that criticizes the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation on Tuesday, Ryan said, “This is a completely separate matter from Bob Mueller’s investigation, and his investigation should be allowed to take its course.”
But Ryan apparently isn’t on the same page with the rich asshole. Nor is he in agreement with Comer, who thinks that the rich asshole, as president, has the authority to kneecap the Russia investigation if he so chooses.
the rich asshole suggests GOP memo will undermine the Russia investigation, days after Paul Ryan says otherwise
The president has reportedly been telling friends the memo proves the FBI probe has no merit.
Just two days after House Speaker Paul Ryan publicly insisted that the GOP memo alleging surveillance abuses at the Justice Department was completely unrelated to the ongoing Russia investigation, a report emerged suggesting President the rich asshole believes otherwise.
According to CNN, several sources familiar with White House discussions say the rich asshole has been telling friends the controversial memo will “expose bias within the [FBI’s] top ranks and make it easier for him to argue the Russia investigations are prejudiced against him.”
The report comes on the heels of Ryan’s comments to the press on Tuesday, during which he supported the House Intelligence Committee’s decision to release the memo to the public, against the intelligence community’s wishes.
“This is a completely separate matter from Bob Mueller’s investigation,” Ryan said, referring to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the investigation into possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Russian officials. “His investigation should be allowed to take its course.”
Privately, however, the rich asshole has taken a much different route. According to CNN’s sources, the rich asshole was “upset” on Wednesday after the FBI issued a statement citing concerns over the memo’s potential declassification. The bureau argued that it had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” the rich asshole, by contrast, wanted the memo made public.
The memo reportedly focuses on a spring 2017 surveillance warrant request for then-the rich asshole campaign adviser Carter Page. The request was made by the Justice Department, which was operating under Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who took office in April. Republicans argue that the memo proves the Justice Department overstepped its bounds in requesting such a warrant because it did so using faulty information collected by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, who was retained by research firm Fusion GPS, which had been hired by the DNC to do opposition research during the election. Fusion GPS had previously also agreed to do work for the conservative Washington Free Beacon during the GOP primary.
Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson has repeatedly claimed that the decision to launch the Russia investigation was not based on his firm’s research. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal also reported that Page was on the Justice Department’s radar for years prior to his work on the rich asshole campaign. Counterintelligence officials were reportedly concerned about his ties to several Russian groups and individuals, and as The New York Times reported on Sunday, “saw reason to believe that [Page] was acting as a Russian agent.” That suspicion was reportedly the basis for the Justice Department’s surveillance request.
However, as one source told CNN on Thursday, the president is “so frustrated with the Russia investigation” that he’s seeking “any opportunity to build a case for [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein’s firing,” including using the GOP memo to try and prove Rosenstein “failed to scrutinize the information initially used to request the warrant and therefore didn’t do his due diligence.” Discussions on the topic are reportedly “ongoing” at the White House, the source said.
It’s hardly the first time the president has attempted to interfere in Special Counsel Mueller’s ongoing Russia investigation, which began handing out its first indictments last fall and has been gaining momentum since then.
Late last year, White House lawyer Ty Cobb and the president’s personal counsel, Jay Sekulow, lobbied for Congress to appoint a second special counsel to investigate Mueller and his team, which they claimed was biased against the president. Their arguments hinged on a series of texts between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who had worked on Mueller’s team. The texts were sent during the campaign in 2016 and were largely critical of then-candidate the rich asshole. Strzok was dismissed from the investigation last summer after the texts came to light. Page had already completed her work on the probe by then.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that Strzok had co-written a draft of the controversial letter former FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress weeks prior to the 2016 election, re-opening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Democrats have charged that the letter effectively turned the tide against Clinton at the last second, leading to her November 8 loss to the rich asshole.
the rich asshole also previously mulled the idea of firing Rosenstein altogether. In June 2017, the rich asshole had reportedly become frustrated with the special counsel’s momentum and considered dismissing Rosenstein, who had appointed Mueller special counsel, as deputy attorney general. In the end, the rich asshole changed course and turned his sights on Mueller himself, but backed off after White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to leave.
Michael Wolff kicked off ‘Morning Joe’ for smearing Nikki Haley, then pretending it didn’t happen
You don't have to have Wolff on your television show.
Michael Wolff, embraced by the #resistance for his questionably-sourced book Fire and Fury, which documented the tumultuous first year of the rich asshole administration, has proved yet again that he’s actually just as craven as the man at the center of his “reporting.”
On Thursday morning, Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski tossed Wolff off her MSNBC show after he denied having pushed rumors that President the rich asshole is having an affair with UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, a lie he has shamelessly pushed in the wake of his book release. Wolff first insinuated as much on Real Time with Bill Maher last month. In an interview with Maher, Wolff said the rich asshole was having an affair right now, but that he didn’t have enough information about it to put it in his book.
“You just have to read between the lines,” Wolff said. “Now that I’ve told you, when you hit that paragraph, you’ll say bingo.”
And, as Megan Garber outlined in The Atlantic Thursday morning, America’s private eyes began searching for that paragraph and decided: He was talking about Haley. He had to be.
Haley was forced to publicly deny the speculation, but Wolff couldn’t let it go. On Wednesday, he told TheSkimm that Haley had “embraced” the rumor. And then, one day later on Morning Joe, Wolff denied ever having propagated the lie at all.
“I didn’t go after her,” Wolff said, when he was asked about having pushed the rumors about the affair, “and secondly, what I certainly … meant was I found it puzzling that she would deny something she was not accused of.”
Asked if he regretted having inferred Haley was having an affair, Wolff denied ever having done so — despite having done so — saying, “I didn’t infer anything about Nikki Haley. What I inferred was that … many of the people around the president believe he is still involved with various women.”
Brzezinski wasn’t having it.
“I’m going to go as far as to say you might be having a fun time playing a little game dancing around this, but you’re slurring a woman. It’s disgraceful,” Brzezinski said.
Wolff continued to protest his innocence, saying, “[Haley] has been accused of nothing. She has decided to deny what she’s not been accused of. Certainly I didn’t accuse her of this.”
Brzezinski asked if he was kidding, adding, “You’re on the set of ‘Morning Joe,’ we don’t BS here,” which is not true, but mostly beside the point, and then she kicked him off as he stammered.
“If you don’t get it, if you don’t get what we’re talking about, I’m sorry, this is awkward, you’re here on the set with us, but we’re done,” she said. “Michael Wolff, thank you, we’re gonna go to break now.”
Wolff, charmer that he is, decided to take to Twitter, claiming he was forced to say what he said by Brzezinski and then she kicked him off anyway.
“My bad,” Wolff tweeted, “the President is right about Mika.”
the rich asshole has used his platform to say a number of nasty things about Bzezinski, calling her “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and saying she was “bleeding badly from a face-lift” in a series of tweets last June.
Wolff went on like this for a while, continuing to argue that Haley is denying an affair she was never accused of, even though she was definitely accused of it.
Also, can someone tell Wolff how to thread his tweets?
Wolff also claimed that Brzezinski and her co-host and husband Joe Scarborough are eager gossips and began retweeting people defending him.
Brzezinski didn’t have much to say following the ordeal. Her only comments so far have come on Twitter, where she retweeted CBS News correspondent Bianna Golodryga saying “personally attacking fellow journalists is not ok,” and complimenting Brzezinski as “fair and respected,” adding, “Thank you.”
Thank you. twitter.com/biannagolodryg…
The important thing, beyond the juicy drama of early morning MSNBC talk news, is that it’s an important reminder that Wolff has a lot in common with the president he writes about: flexible ethics and an insatiable desire for attention.
There are materially bad things happening in the world, and some people who are engaged in revealing the bad things the rich asshole and those around him are doing are mostly interested for their own gain. Wolff is one of those people, and him and others like him have outsized influence in the public sphere. His book revealed some new information but when the media spotlight began to fade, he was more than willing to engage in rumor and innuendo. This cheap, tawdry, wild-eyed approach reinforces the smears the rich asshole levels daily against the news media, who are mostly obsessed with accuracy and toiling in obscurity.
You don’t have to listen to him or have him on your television show.
The sketchy past of the man at the center of the Republicans’ memo obsession
Carter Page, an unlikely choice for American hero.
The infamous Republican House Intelligence Committee memo, which alleges abuses by the FBI in its investigation of the rich asshole campaign, is expected to be released very soon.
To regular viewers of Hannity, this is the most monumental event since the moon landing. The rest of America, meanwhile, may be wondering what this is all about. It really comes down to one question: Was an obscure the rich asshole adviser named Carter Page a legitimate subject of FBI surveillance, or was he targeted improperly?
For many, Americans the answer to this question is: I don’t really care. For everyone else, please read on.
The memo seeks to discredit Mueller by linking his investigation to the Steele dossier
According to reports, surveillance on Page was approved twice — once in 2016, and again in the spring of last year with the involvement of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is now overseeing the Mueller investigation. Surveillance is authorized by making a submission to a special court, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court.
Though the memo has yet to be released, its core argument, according to multiple reports, is that the FBI authorized this surveillance based on the Steele dossier, a document prepared by a former British spy. The dossier was paid for, in part, through an attorney who was hired by the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
Steele is an experienced and respected intelligence operative; his research lays out a number of shocking allegations about the connections between members of the rich asshole campaign, including Carter Page, and Russian operatives.
But the connection to the Clinton campaign makes the dossier completely illegitimate, in the eyes of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) and his allies. Anything connected to the dossier, including the entire investigation into the the rich asshole campaign — which ultimately was turned over to special council Robert Mueller — is the fruit of a poisonous tree.
“It’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counterintelligence investigation during an American political campaign,” Nunes said on Wednesday.
The aim of the memo was confirmed by CNN, which reported on Thursday morning that the rich asshole believes “the highly controversial Republican memo alleging the FBI abused its surveillance tools could help discredit the Russia investigation.”
What is (likely) not in the memo about Carter Page
Was the Steele dossier the sole basis to justify the surveillance? Based on what we know about Page, this is very unlikely. Page “has been known to U.S. counterintelligence officials dating back to at least 2013, nearly three years before he joined the the rich asshole campaign.”
In 2013, Page met repeatedly with Victor Podobnyy, who was posing as “a junior attaché at the Russian consulate.” In 2015, Podobnyy was charged with “posing as a U.N. attaché under diplomatic cover while trying to recruit Mr. Page as a Russian intelligence source.” Eventually, Pododnyy was granted diplomatic immunity and left the country. Page, described in the criminal complaint as “Male-1,” has confirmed his relationship with Podobnyy and admitted that he provided him with documents.
After Page joined the the rich asshole campaign, he continued his interactions with Russian officials, including two trips to Moscow. On his trips, he had contact with the deputy prime minister of Russia and a senior official at a state-run oil company. He delivered a speech to a Russian audience that was highly critical of U.S. foreign policy. Upon his return, he emailed the rich asshole campaign officials, eager to tell them about “incredible insights and outreach I’ve received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the presidential administration here.”
Page left the campaign in September due to rising concerns about his ongoing connections to Russia.
The memo may make it seem like the Steele memo was the primary or sole basis for surveillance of Page, but the reality is almost certainly far more complicated.
Who would have to be involved in the Carter Page conspiracy
According to reports, the application to the FISA court laid out evidence that “Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow.”
The application has to be approved by a federal judge. Although almost all of these applications are approved, there is a high evidentiary standard that must be met, particularly for U.S. persons.
Furthermore, the FBI released a statement yesterday saying the memo is incomplete and inaccurate.
The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI. We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process.With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.
Remember, the rich asshole fired the old FBI director, James Comey, and handpicked Christopher Wray to lead the agency. Wray is not part of an anti-the rich asshole conspiracy.
Any supposed political conspiracy to railroad Carter Page would need to involve not only the FBI and the Deputy Attorney General, who was appointed by the rich asshole, but also a federal judge sworn to uphold the Constitution.
The press walked right into Devin Nunes’s trap
Somehow, Nunes transformed the most ordinary political tactic into a circus.
It is literally the most banal story in Washington: A Republican congressman wrote a memo defending the Republican president.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), a close ally of some rich asshole, served on the the rich asshole transition team and has consistently attempted to thwart investigations into the the rich asshole campaign’s connections to Russia. Last year, he labeled the prospect of an independent investigation into the rich asshole’s Russian ties a “witch hunt.” After the rich asshole National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign after misleading senior White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, Nunes claimed that Flynn “was doing this country a favor, and he should be thanked for it.”
Now, Nunes has prepared a memo that — SURPRISE! — seeks to discredit a Justice Department investigation into a former the rich asshole adviser’s ties to Russia.
The sun rises in the east. Water is wet. Fire is hot. Everyone dies. Devin Nunes is defending the rich asshole against a Russia investigation.
Yet, somehow, this memo has become the centerpiece of a major Washington drama. On Tuesday alone, the memo was mentioned on 5 different Fox News shows, 11 different CNN shows, and 14 different MSNBC shows. In a single half-hour of CNN programming, between 6 and 6:30 p.m. eastern time, four different guests and two different hosts all mentioned the memo. CNN’s anti-oracular political analyst Chris Cillizza published a piece entitled “Why the Nunes memo is a very big deal.”
The source of all this drama is that Nunes has managed to turn an extraordinarily routine event — a political ally of the president putting out a brief document defending that president — into a grand mystery. The memo is classified! Will House Republicans release it? But it’s classified!
By holding out the promise of secret information — and by getting his allies in the conservative media world to loudly demand the memo’s release — Nunes transformed the most ordinary political tactic into a circus.
We already have a pretty good idea what the memo says, based on news reports. In the fall of 2016, Justice Department officials sought a warrant from the FISA court targeting Carter Page, a the rich asshole campaign adviser that met with Russian officials earlier that year. Nunes claims that DOJ’s warrant application relied on information obtained by a former British intelligence agent in a now-infamous dossier (for a refresher, just google the words “pee tape“). The primary thrust of Nunes’ argument appears to be that the warrant application was somehow flawed, and the FISA court somehow deceived, because DOJ didn’t sufficiently convey that some of the work on the dossier was funded by Democrats.
Meanwhile, experts across the political spectrum have warned the public against taking Nunes’ memo seriously, including a former acting CIA director under President George W. Bush.
The warrant application reportedly drew on other intelligence reports beyond this one dossier, so even if the dossier itself is completely unreliable, DOJ’s claims were corroborated by other evidence.
So, to summarize: We have a political memo defending the president, prepared by a political ally of the president who has a record of offering dubious defenses of the president. Although it hasn’t yet been released publicly, the broad strokes of the memo’s argument are already known, and a bipartisan array of experts have dismissed this argument.
News outlets typically don’t breathlessly cover press releases issued by a congressional office. Yet, somehow, 30 different cable news shows felt the drama surrounding this memo is one of the most important stories in the nation. After the #ButHerEmails debacle, they should know better by now.
Ex-Bush ethics lawyer: It looks like Devin Nunes is ‘getting money from the Russians’
Congressman Devin Nunes (Screenshot)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Richard Painter, who served as an ethics lawyer for President George H.W. Bush, suggested on Thursday that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) may be “getting money from the Russians” because the congressman has taken a number of actions designed to derail the investigation into Russia’s interference in U.S. elections.
During an MSNBC panel discussion, Painter said that a White House plan to release a Nunes-connected memo smearing the FBI is “undermining our national security.”
“There’s classified information in this memo,” Painter explained. “And the only person who is going to benefit from it being released is Vladimir Putin. He’s going to find out more about our sources and how we knew that various associates of some rich asshole were collaborating with the Russians.”
“President the rich asshole’s own Justice Department has said that the memo is misleading,” he continued. “His own FBI, including his own FBI Director, urged that it not be released. This is an abuse of our intelligence apparatus.”
“President the rich asshole won’t mind if Vladimir Putin wins as long as he wins,” host Stephanie Ruhle observed.
Painter reminded the panel that Nunes had a key role in creating the memo.
“Why is Congressman Nunes behaving this way?” Painter asked. “What’s he getting out of it? Is he getting money from the Russians? I don’t know.”
“I don’t think he’s acting as a stooge for the rich asshole,” Painter later added. “He’s acting as a stooge for Putin. Because Putin is the only person that’s benefiting from all of this. We are destroying our intelligence apparatus for the sake of partisan politics.”
Watch the video below from MSNBC.
‘Bumbling idiot’ the rich asshole Jr roasted after ‘democracy dies in dankness’ typo spoils attack on Washington Post
some rich asshole, Jr. speaking with supporters of his father, some rich asshole, at a campaign rally at the Sun Devil Fitness Center at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
some rich asshole Jr. on Thursday called out the Washington Post over the release of Devin Nunes’ anti-FBI memo, arguing the press doesn’t want the controversial 4-page letter released because “it will be tough for them to sell their ‘democracy dies in dankness’ byline.”
“Apparently the press only likes their information ‘leaked’ from unverified sources rather than released openly from congress…” the rich asshole Jr. wrote on Twitter. “I think it will be tough for them to sell their ‘democracy dies in dankness’ byline with this kind of logic.”
the rich asshole Jr.’s tweet attempted to single out the Post, which last year changed its tagline—not its byline—to “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” The eldest the rich asshole son’s apparent lack of knowledge about what constitutes a byline, coupled with the “best typo of our time” tickled the internet on Tuesday.
Read below:
— "dankness"
— That isn't what "byline" means twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr…
History books, movies, newspapers will memorialize these traitors FOREVER.
Oh, and Don Jr. has a problem with democracy in DANKNESS.
They are bumbling idiots.
Go get them. twitter.com/markwarner/sta…
Apparently the press only likes their information "leaked" from unverified sources rather than released openly from congress... I think it will be tough for them to sell their "democracy dies in dankness" byline with this kind of logic. twitter.com/mitchellreport…
Terrifying implications of the coordinated attack to discredit this investigation aside, ‘dankness’ might be my favorite spelling error ever. twitter.com/donaldjtrumpjr…
Apparently the press only likes their information "leaked" from unverified sources rather than released openly from congress... I think it will be tough for them to sell their "democracy dies in dankness" byline with this kind of logic. twitter.com/mitchellreport…
Ah, you think dankness is your ally?
You merely adopted the dank.
I was born in it, molded by it. twitter.com/GenePark/statu…
"Democracy dies in dankness" is my next stoner rock album twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr…
"Dankness" is an interesting autocorrect DTJ has on his phone twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr…
The thing is democracy is probably no match for dankness twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr…
Apparently the press only likes their information "leaked" from unverified sources rather than released openly from congress... I think it will be tough for them to sell their "democracy dies in dankness" byline with this kind of logic. twitter.com/mitchellreport…
Have never heard "Democracy dies in dankness" before. twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr…
"Democracy Dies In Dankness" is the name of my new mixtape
I just don’t understand why Trump is so mad at the FBI? Must have something to do with dankness. pic.twitter.com/sISYZbrUvv
Apparently the press only likes their information "leaked" from unverified sources rather than released openly from congress... I think it will be tough for them to sell their "democracy dies in dankness" byline with this kind of logic. twitter.com/mitchellreport…
"Democracy dies in dankness," that's gotta be a Swamp reference, lol twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr…
No comments:
Post a Comment