Anthony Scaramucci tells David Frum to use ‘Mexican suppositories’ in off-the-rails Maher segment
David Frum vs. Anthony Scaramucci (Photo: Screen capture)
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The bizarre fight between Anthony Scaramucci and David Frum during Friday’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” spilled into the post-show web segment “Overtime,” where the two continued to battle it out.
In a discussion about the Republican Party, Maher noted that when the GOP isn’t in power, they refuse to allow the government to spend a dime. “As soon as you’re in, it’s ‘write the check,'” he said.
Frum argued that it’s telling of those leaders who claim to have principles but then are so easy to compromise them. Scaramucci made an off-handed comment back and Frum schooled in: “what you accept is who you are.”
“You could use an anger management class,” Scaramucci said, going after Frum personally again.”Don’t let your anger cloud your judgment.”
“Don’t let your anger cloud your judgment, but don’t let your ambitions cloud your judgment either,” Frum said in a sage tone.
“The Mooch” then launched into an even more personal attack, telling Frum to check out “some of those Mexican suppositories.” he went on to call Frum a “mean guy,” but Frum completely misunderstood what he said.
“I’m not a weed guy, no,” he responded.
Scaramucci referred to himself at one point as Michael Corleone, which Maher agreed with.
“You are like Michael Corleone! He doesn’t raise his voice. He’s a quiet killer,” Maher said.
“Well, I’m like Tina Turner,” Donna Brazile cut in. “I’m a private dancer, baby, but I don’t dance for that kinda money.”
Watch the clip below:
Watch: Bill Maher catches Trumpster Anthony Scaramucci in a blatant lie
Bill Maher holds back Anthony Scaramucci as he and David Frum battle (Photos: RealTime/Twitter)
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In what can only be described as a strange interview, “Real Time” host Bill Maher caught former aide to President some rich asshole, Anthony Scaramucci, in a blatant lie. It then devolved into a snark-fight between “The Mooch” and ex-Bush speechwriter David Frum.
First, Scaramucci said that the birther joke Maher made years ago that got him sued by the rich asshole was funny. The conversation then quickly devolved into a battle between the host and Scaramucci about the state of the economy and who was to blame for stagnating wages and the death of the American Dream. It then spiraled into the beginning of a fight over the rich asshole winning the election thanks, in part, to Russia.
Scaramucci tried to have it both ways, saying that he both believed the 17 intelligence agencies and their assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election. However, he also said that he doesn’t believe the rich asshole won because of Russian intervention.
Maher seemed confused and asked exactly who was Russia working for — because it seemed the bots, fake news sites and thousands spent in unlawful Facebook ads were all in support of the rich asshole.
That’s when David Frum got annoyed.
“One of the things that we’re very concerned about,” Frum began. “And you make some important points about what’s happening to the economy. But we’re concerned about what’s happening to our institutions and government. So, I have a question. Before you went into government, where you served as communications director, you received an enormous offer from a Chinese group for the purchase of your company for $90 million, before you went in. After you came out, the purchasers lost interest. How am I to understand that.”
Scaramucci said that what Frum was alleging wasn’t true and that the government agencies wouldn’t approve the sale and that’s why it wouldn’t go through. Any assumption of impropriety on his part was inaccurate. He called Frum’s question “BS” and told Maher that he doesn’t like to curse so he only used the two letters.
Maher called out that claim as completely false.
“You don’t curse? You curse to reporters! You’re the one who said that Steve Bannon sucks his own c*ck!” Maher exclaimed.
“No, no, no,” Scaramucci replied.
“So you didn’t say that?” Maher asked.
Scaramucci corrected Maher, saying that he absolutely said it but he didn’t think Bannon is “anatomically incapable of doing that.”
The conversation then switched to a fight about the economy that prompted Maher to cover his eyes in frustration. It ultimately returned to the fight over Russia’s interference with the election, which “The Mooch” maintained had no part in the rich asshole’s win in 2016.
“As a Republican — I’ve spent more time in a Republican administration than you,” Frum cut in as the audience hooped to his smackdown. “As a Republican, does it not–”
“David is coming across as angry tonight,” Scaramucci replied.
“I am angry! Of course I am! Does it not stick in your craw that Vladimir Putin wanted to help your guy so much?” Frum asked.
Scaramucci tried to bring up Wikileaks but Frum interjected again.
“Don’t you ask the question: why didn’t my guy win the Putin Primary?” Frum asked.
“Your level of anger and sanctimony is not coming across well,” was Scramucci’s only response.
The conversation then spiraled into another fight between the two with Frum demanding answers and comments while Scramucci attacked his appearance on television and presence on air.
Watch the fight below:
‘The Republicans are doing Putin’s job’: Maher panel utterly destroys the GOP’s ‘bullshit’ Nunes memo
David Frum and Donna Brazile with Bill Maher (Photo: Real Time Twitter)
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Bill Maher’s political panel couldn’t help but focus on what they called the absurdity of Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) memo released Friday.
“When you look at this memo, what you see is this really is the C-Team,” David Frum joked. “America is entitled, at this point, to expect high quality artisanal obstruction of justice. And it’s getting this mass-produced junk.”
Former Democratic Party chair Donna Brazile said that she asked Maher’s staff to print the memo for her and called it “all bulls*t.”
Frum said that the memo is nothing more than a stone thrown in the pond to distract “for Hannity to hold up to declare the rich asshole is innocent.
Brazile noted the Republicans are “doing [Vladimir] Putin’s job.”
Maher said that he hoped that some of the non-partisan investigators to shut down the criminality to no avail.
“There is a fine line between being an enemy of the ‘Deep State’ and just an enemy of the state,” Maher said. He noted he was shocked that he would be defending the FBI and other intelligence.
“We’ve been looking for an adult for a long time,” she continued. “We’re the adults!”
Frum said that the GOP is complicit but that they’re being dragged along like hostages” as the rich asshole is functioning “in sheer self protection.”
Watch below:
Watch: Bill Maher mocks Nunes memo as a glorified ‘Facebook post’ that makes you hit ‘unfriend’
Bill Maher (Photo: Real Time Twitter)
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Comedian Bill Maher was quick to ridicule the Republican Party and their latest release of Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) memo.
He began the monologue talking about Groundhog Day, blaming ICE for dragging someone brown from the ground. But the most important “rat” Maher said he wanted to talk about was Nunes.
He remarked that the GOP tried to claim this document was some sort of intelligence document. Except, they wrote it.
“They uncovered it in their printer,” he said. “It’s not an intelligence document it’s a Facebook post you scan before you click unfriend.”
Maher said that the State of the Union was nothing more than a joke.
“I’m not going to say the president doesn’t read, but it’s obvious he doesn’t get a lot of practice at it,” Maher said of the president, who he called “Fat Nixon.” He noted it sounded a lot like the rich asshole was trying to read an eye exam. “At one point Stormy Daniels pretended to come just to make him stop,”
He mentioned the sad people in the gallery who have dealt with horrible tragedies, including the family who lost a child to the MS-13 gang, family members of the Las Vegas shooting and Melania the rich asshole.
Watch Maher’s full opener below:
Maddow: Carter Page knew about Nunes memo ‘months in advance’ during ‘nutty’ MSNBC interview last year
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow (left) and former the rich asshole campaign aide Carter Page (right). Images via screengrab.
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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Friday uncovered an intriguing subtext to the House Intelligence Committee’s controversial memo released earlier in the day — that it may reveal a GOP scheme to turn former senior the rich asshole campaign aide Carter Page’s surveillance warrants into a plan to exonerate the president.
The memo, Maddow argues, fleshes out the timeline of Page’s warrants that were granted by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — which would mean that when he appeared in a “nutty” interview with her coworker Chris Hayes in late October 2017, he was likely still under surveillance.
“All of Carter Paige’s interviews are a little nutty,” she conceded, “but he said this one now very intriguing thing, not really about his own case or about some rich asshole, but about House Republicans.”
“I think when the truth comes out, when Speaker Raul Ryan says the FISA warrant or the details about the dodgy dossier and what happened and all the documents surround that is gonna be released, that’s what I’m excited about,” Page said in the October 30 interview. “I think the truth will set a lot of people free.”
“Because of the way he talks and behaves in interviews, everything Carter Page says seems fuzzy,” Maddow admitted. “But what he just said there actually is what happened — and he knew about it months in advance.”
Though it “just sounded like another crazy thing that Carter Page said,” Maddow noted that his strange comment about Ryan and FISA warrants now seem oddly prescient.
“Months ago, there was a plan in the works that Carter Page knew about that involved Paul Ryan that they would try to use this warrant against Carter Page to make a public case to try to turn that warrant somehow into some sort of public information that presumably would be used to turn the Russia investigation into a scandal,” she concluded.
Watch below:
Two primary sources cited in Nunes memo question its credibility
Yahoo News chief investigative reporter Michael Isikoff and Mother Jones capitol bureau chief David Corn, composite image.
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Two of the primary sources cited in the controversial memo crafted by Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) explained on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that the manner in which their work was cited caused them further distrust.
“I was as surprised as anybody to see my story cited in the memo as having been extensively cited to the FISA court,” Yahoo News chief investigative reporter Michael Isikoff admitted.
“Everything in the story that I broke in Yahoo News in September of 2016 was information that was already known to the FBI,” Isikoff noted. “So it is a little baffling as to why they would have needed to cite my story to the FISA court.”
“I have to say it’s a rather dubious honor to be part of a stunt this way,” said David Corn, the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones.
“Like my friend and co-author, Mike, I was surprised to see me in there because they’re just citing public information,” Corn continued.
Isikoff and Corn are the co-authors of the upcoming book Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of some rich asshole.
“When you look at one thing I know well here and I see them exaggerate it, it makes me wonder about everything else,” Corn noted. “It’s an impossible document to work with if you’re trying to get to the truth of any of this.”
“He is saying that his primary interaction with the same set of facts makes him come to the collusion that this is not a straight telling, it’s exaggerated in places. What is your view?” Melber asked Isikoff.
“That is patently obvious. It is clearly a sketchy account of what went into that FISA application,” Isikoff replied.
Nunes Tells Fox He Knows There Were ‘Abuses’ In Court Documents He Hasn’t Even Seen (VIDEO)
For the last week, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has been pushing the lie that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is full of treasonous criminals looking to undermine and take down the rich asshole Administration. In order to push this narrative into the general public’s psyche, Nunes has been pushing for the release of a memo that the entire intelligence community has been saying they have, quote, “grave concerns” about releasing when it comes to national security. Nonetheless, Nunes and his GOP House colleagues voted to release it anyway, and of course the rich asshole signed off on it.
Well, it seems that Nunes knows not what he speaks of. The memo turned out to be a total dud, and there was no criminal activity alleged therein. Of course, that didn’t stop Nunes from going on
the rich asshole’s state-run propaganda network Fox News and selling that line of bullshit anyway. He babbled to Fox’s Bret Bair:
“I have an obligation to the American people when we see FISA abuseThese are secret courts that exist to target foreigners to catch terrorists and the American citizens that are represented before this court have to be protected. The only place that can protect them is the U.S. Congress when abuses occur.”
There’s just one problem, though: It seems that Nunes has never so much as laid eyes on the documents in question, so there’s no way in hell he even knows what he is talking about. The lying Congressman was forced to admit as much on live television as well:
“The agreement we made with the Department of Justice was to create a reading room and allow one member and two investigators to review the documents. I thought the best person on our committee will be the chairman of the Oversight Committee, Trey Gowdy, because he had a long career as a federal prosecutor. They would come back with their notes and brief the rest of the committee members.”
This whole bizarre episode proves one thing: The the rich asshole Administration and the GOP Congress are incapable of governing. Combine this rank ignorance and incompetence with their insatiable thirst for power – even at the expense of the health of the republic – and we have a very dangerous problem on our hands America. The bottom line is this: The wrong people are in power. Get to the polls in November and vote these bums out before it’s too late.
Watch this insanity below:
Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Devin Nunes tells Fox News he ‘saw abuses’ in surveillance applications he never actually read
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA). Image via screengrab.
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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Friday told Fox News that he “didn’t want to have to” release his controversial memo based on “abuses” he alleges he gleaned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court applications. Later in the segment, however, he admitted that he himself never read the FISA documents.
“I have an obligation to the American people when we see FISA abuse,” Nunes told Fox News host Bret Baier. “These are secret courts that exist to target foreigners to catch terrorists and the American citizens that are represented before this court have to be protected. The only place that can protect them is the U.S. Congress when abuses occur.”
When the host asked him if he’d read the FISA renewal application, however, he admitted that he hadn’t.
“The agreement we made with the Department of Justice was to create a reading room and allow one member and two investigators to review the documents,” he said. “I thought the best person on our committee will be the chairman of the Oversight Committee, Trey Gowdy, because he had a long career as a federal prosecutor. They would come back with their notes and brief the rest of the committee members.”
Watch below, via Fox News:
White House official says there’s been no discussions about firing Rod Rosenstein
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testifies about the Justice Department's budget before a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
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A White House official said on Friday that there has been no discussions or considerations about firing Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
President some rich asshole had appeared to raise that possibility earlier on Friday when asked whether he retained confidence in Rosenstein in the fallout over a Republican memo about the ongoing Russia probe. “You figure that one out,” the rich asshole had replied.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
No45 sycophant Hannity: Manafort, Flynn charges 'need to be dropped'
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 02/02/18 10:12 PM EST
Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday called for the criminal charges against former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn to be dropped.
Hannity's comments came hours after Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a controversial memo alleging that FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials misused their authority to obtain a surveillance warrant on a former the rich asshole campaign adviser.
"If we as a country, if we care about the Constitution, if we believe in civil liberties, if we believe in those protections, then the special counsel must be disbanded immediately," Hannity said on his show.
"And by the way – nobody else will say this – all charges against Paul Manafort and Gen. Michael Flynn need to be dropped," he added. "It's that simple."
Hannity's argument seized on the allegation in the GOP memo that FBI officials used a dossier of unverified allegations about President the rich asshole's ties to Russia as a key piece of evidence in obtaining the surveillance order from a clandestine court.
That dossier, which was commissioned by the private research firm Fusion GPS and compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, was funded by Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Still, the memo also undercut a long-held assertion by conservatives that the counterintelligence probe into the the rich asshole campaign was based entirely on the dossier. According to the memo, the probe was opened based on "information" on another the rich asshole campaign aide, George Papadopoulos.
The memo's release was contentious, with Republicans arguing that revealing the information was necessary to shed light on abuses by FBI and DOJ officials. Democrats, on the other hand, argued that the memo omitted key facts that would have put the information in the proper context.
Democrats have also accused Republicans of seeking to undermine and discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Moscow.
Manafort was indicted in October as a result of Mueller's investigation. He is facing multiple charges, including tax evasion, money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. in the month before the rich asshole took office. He has acknowledged that he is cooperating with Mueller's investigation.
By Alex Thompson Feb 2, 2018
#ReleaseTheMemo finally happened.
But despite all the hype, Washington’s pretty much exactly where it was 24 hours ago: locked in bitterly partisan trench warfare. If anything, the release of the memo Friday, over protests from the FBI and the Department of Justice, just seemed to turn up the political animus to 11 and harden everyone’s pre-existing position.
Democrats see a president attempting to obstruct an investigation. Some Republicans including the president are even more convinced of a deep state conspiracy undermining the rich asshole administration. Other Republicans are embarrassed by their colleagues and wish everyone would just focus on selling tax reform. And the intelligence community is frustrated at being disparaged and made into a scapegoat by the president they serve.
The only clear change is that everyone is just a little angrier than before.
Like Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, for instance. Never afraid to issue an extreme statement, he accused James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, and Rod Rosenstein of “treason,” expanding on the rich asshole’s tweet from Friday morning claiming that “the top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans.”
Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida seemingly found every TV camera available to claim that the entire Trump-Russia narrative had been undone. And Rep. Devin Nunes of California, who wrote the memo, said “the committee has discovered serious violations of the public trust, and the American people have a right to know when officials in crucial institutions are abusing their authority for political purposes.”
Other Trump allies, like Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, nodded in agreement, calling the FBI and the Justice Department’s conduct “completely unacceptable.”
But not all Republicans shared their vindication. House Speaker Paul Ryan has been making a habit of saying something completely different from the president while taking pains not to criticise him by name. The speaker told reporters Friday that it was "critical" that the memo not be used "to impugn the integrity of the justice system and FBI, which continue to serve the American people with honor."
He added that he thought the memo raised “legitimate” concerns about violating Page’s civil rights, but stopped at that.
Few Republicans in the Senate rose up to defend their colleagues in the lower chamber. Frequent Trump critic Sen. John McCain of Arizona went as far to say that memo controversy had only aided American enemies. "Our nation’s elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan sideshows," he said in a statement. "If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him.”
And those are just some of the disagreements among Republicans.
Democrats attacked House Republicans for sowing doubt in the justice system over a memo they considered “juvenile” and a “laughable hack job,” as Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois and Sen. Ron Wyden put it, respectively.
All of this anger and mistrust comes with another possible government shutdown around the corner and while Congress is in the midst of tense negotiations over the fate of the million-plus undocumented immigrants brought here as children. The memo controversy may not sink those negotiations, but it certainly won’t help.
The memo is a mere 3-and-a-half page document, which argues that the intelligence community did not fully disclose to the FISA court that some of the evidence against Page had been collected by a former intelligence operative being paid by the DNC and Hillary Clinton.
But most intel experts shrugged at its revelations, saying there was no smoking gun. Former FBI Director James Comey took to Twitter to criticize all the pain caused by a memo that he said was ultimately unconvincing.
That’s it? Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what? DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.
And Trump’s appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray sent an email to all bureau employees Friday evening telling them, “I stand with you.” He continued with a rebuke of partisan attackers, saying “talking is cheap; the work you do is what will endure.”
Democrats, for their part, reacted with their familiar mix of outrage at the turn of events and resignation at their inability to do much to prevent them.
Ten of the leading Democrats in Washington then banded together to write a letter sternly warning that Trump better not use the memo to justify firing people involved with the Russia investigation, such as special counsel Robert Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
“We write to inform you that we would consider such an unwarranted action as an attempt to obstruct justice in the Russia investigation,” they wrote.
But it’s not clear what effect that will have on Trump.
Asked if he still has confidence in Rosenstein and if the memo would make it more likely for him to fire the deputy attorney general, Trump responded: “You figure that one out.”
Cover image: U.S. President Donald Trump, flanked by Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, holds a meeting at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Centre in Sterling, Virginia, U.S. February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Devin Nunes promised a fireworks show — but he couldn't even deliver a spark.
MSNBC’s Ari Melber nailed House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes on Friday after he appeared on Fox News to discuss his failed memo stunt, calling Nunes’ appearance “the saddest, most tired, most … blasé victory lap I’ve seen in the history of modern televised politics.”
Melber’s comments came just hours after Nunes released his overhyped “memo,” which he and his Republican allies paraded to the public as a Watergate-sized scandal — only to be embarrassed when it turned out to be a complete flop.
Not only was the memo devoid of any actual evidence of wrongdoing, but it is a political mess for the GOP, and it played into the hands of everyone who suspects the rich asshole and his allies may be committing obstruction of justice.
One person however, seems in complete denial about how big a mistake the Nunes memo was: Nunes.
Following the memo’s release, Nunes appeared on Fox News to play up his self-declared accomplishment, even walking viewers through the minutiae of how he managed to pull it off.
“The agreement that we made with the Department of Justice was to create a reading room and allow one member and two investigators to go over and review the documents,” Nunes explained.
He continued, dryly laying out the procedural details — and completely skipping over the content of the memo.
Melber was completely unimpressed by this display, and had a few choice, withering words after watching Nunes’ appearance on Fox.
“I’m going to talk to you for a second about what that interview clip looked like,” said Melber, “because if that is the televised victory lap for Devin Nunes, that might be the saddest, most tired, most kind of just blasé victory lap I’ve seen in the history of modern televised politics.”
Though Nunes may not realize it, or may simply be unwilling to admit it, the tide is beginning to turn against him on Capitol Hill. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, who spent months staunchly defending Nunes despite accusations he was unethically coordinating with the White House on the Russia investigation, admitted that he did not support Nunes’ decision to block a memo from ranking Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff rebutting his claims.
He is not faring well in his California district, where he has been too scared to hold a town hall and recently came under fire from his hometown newspaper. Even before this controversy, the most recent poll put him up by only single digits, underperforming his district’s partisan lean.
And now, the bad publicity from his flagrant abuse of the House Intelligence Committee may make things even worse for him.
Nunes should enjoy his time in the limelight, because one way or another, it will come to an end soon.
By Taylor Dolven Feb 2, 2018
The long-awaited memo, written by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and released by the White House Friday, is more interesting for what it leaves out than for what it contains.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) created the four-page memo outlining some previously classified information about how the FBI obtained a warrant to surveil former the rich asshole campaign advisor Carter Page. The FBI’s use of a controversial dossier funded by the rich asshole’s political components in their 2016 application to surveil Page proves the special counsel’s investigation into the rich asshole’s ties to Russia is tainted with liberal bias, Republicans say.
But there is a lot the memo is missing.
The memo doesn’t mention that the FBI was surveilling Page starting in 2014 before the controversial dossier even existed. In 2013, the FBI overheard a Russian spy tell another Russian spy that Page wanted to work with them. Page became the subject of a surveillance warrant starting in 2014, according to CNN. The memo leaves out any context about FBI surveillance of Page prior to 2016, two years later.
The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans - something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!
Read more: Former spies warn the Nunes memo would be a “train wreck” for intelligence sharing worldwide
The memo does not say which Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges approved the FBI’s request to surveil Page, essential figures in the alleged conspiracy. If the point of the memo is to unveil anti-Trump bias taking place in the federal intelligence community, why not name the judges?
“Alleging a concerted conspiracy by the FBI/DOJ in obtaining the Page FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] necessarily implicates the judge who approved it, and suggests they are incompetent (at best) or corrupt (at worst),” former FBI agent Asha Rangappa wrote for Just Security.
The memo also leaves out a complete list of the other evidence that the FISA court judges have relied on since 2016 when making decisions to grant the FBI permission to continue surveilling Page outside of the dossier. Judges are supposed to only grant extensions to surveillance requests if the surveillance is yielding useful information in the investigation. The memo does not include all of the useful information that led to at least four renewals.
Most importantly, the memo does not include primary sources. Republicans cite two main sources: the Department of Justice application to a FISA judge to surveil Page in October 2016, and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017. The memo only includes the Republicans’ characterization of these documents.
Then there’s Nunes’s own history of trying to undermine Mueller’s investigation.
In March of last year Nunes held an impromptu news conference claiming he had evidence that federal intelligence agencies had illegally spied on the Trump campaign, after White House aides provided him with classified intelligence documents. In April Nunes recused himself from the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into collusion between Trump and Russia due to an ethics complaint about his public disclosure of classified information. He blamed “leftwing activist groups” for the situation. Republicans and Democrats who reviewed the intel documents Nunes had said there was nothing to them.
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee opposed the Republicans’ decision to release the memo to the public. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking member on the committee, said called it a mischaracterization of classified documents.
"It fails to provide vital context and information contained in DOJ's FISA application and renewals, and ignores why and how the FBI initiated, and the special counsel has continued, its counterintelligence investigation into Russia's election interference and links to the Trump campaign," he said.
Schiff and the other Democrats on the committee accuse Nunes of cherry-picking facts to build a case that the FBI and DOJ abused their power in surveilling Page. They’ve prepared a memo of their own that they say includes a lot of those facts that the Republican memo is missing. Republicans on the committee voted to deny the Democratic memo from being released.
Cover: Devin Nunes (R-CA), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, walks away from a meeting with House GOP members, on Capitol Hill January 30, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Hannity summarized the Nunes memo for his 4 million viewers. Every word is a lie.
An alternative universe.
Fox News host Sean Hannity has been in regular contact with President the rich asshole, encouraging him to release the Nunes memo, according to a report by the Daily Beast. On Friday afternoon, the rich asshole followed Hannity’s advice and made the memo public.
On Friday night, Hannity gave his 4 million viewers a summary of the memos findings. Nearly every word is a lie.
“It proves that the entire basis for the Russia investigation was based on lies that were bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton”
The memo actually explicitly states the opposite. According to the memo, the FBI counterintelligence investigation into the rich asshole campaign’s connection was based on information the FBI received about George Papadapolous in July 2016. This had nothing to do with the Steele Dossier, which was paid for in part by Clinton. Rather, Papadapolous bragged about his connections with Russian operatives, who had promised him dirt on Hillary Clinton, to an Australian diplomat, who reported it to the FBI.
Further, the memo does not “prove” that everything in the Steele dossier is a lie. It does not even assert that without proof. The memo does not weigh in on the truth of the claims in the Steele dossier. Rather, it simply states it was included in submission to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking surveillance of Carter Page, a former adviser to the rich asshole campaign.
“The Mueller investigation does need to be shut down.”
The memo does not discuss the Mueller investigation at all. It does say that Rod Rosenstein, the rich asshole’s handpicked Deputy Attorney General, who is currently overseeing Mueller’s investigation, approved one of the applications to extend surveillance of Carter Page. But it does not establish that there was anything inappropriate about that approval.
Even Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee and a vocal supporter of President the rich asshole, made this clear.
While this memo raises serious concerns with the FISA process, I have been and remain confident in the overwhelming majority of the men and women serving at the FBI and DOJ.
“The people responsible… many need to go to jail”
The memo does not allege that there was any illegal activity by any member of the FBI or Justice Department. It does not say that the surveillance warrant on Carter Page lacked probable cause.
After a lengthy fact-challenged monologue, Hannity provided another summary of the memo. It wasn’t any more accurate.
“The FBI misled and purposely deceived a federal court…”
The memo does not allege that anyone “purposely deceived a federal court.” It alleges that there were omissions in the filings, which were likely hundreds of pages long. It does not say that those omissions were purposeful nor that they misled the court in any way.
“…while using an unverified, completely phony, opposition research, bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton…”
Again, the memo notably does not discuss the underlying veracity of the Steele dossier. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democratic member on the House Intelligence Committee, said today that only a small part of the Steele dossier was presented to the court and much of that information had already been corroborated at the time of the initial submission.
“…to spy on an opposition campaign during a presidential election…”
The surveillance of Carter Page began in October. Page’s tenure with the campaign ended in September.
“…all to help one candidate out — all to mislead the American people.”
The surveillance of Carter Page was not made public during the campaign and, therefore, did not benefit Hillary Clinton. The American people did not know anything about it on election day.
The FBI did not even disclose the existence of the counterintelligence investigation of the rich asshole campaign, even while it disclosed extensive details about the FBI investigation into Clinton’s email server.
The GOP's entire anti-FBI conspiracy theory just fell apart, thanks to the GOP's own memo.
The GOP’s wildly overhyped intelligence memo, which was designed to undercut the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller, not only turned out to be a dud — it backfired so spectacularly that it ended up undermining the GOP’s already flimsy case against the Russia probe.
Just a few hours after its public release, the memo already represents a stunning failure on the part of some rich asshole and his Republican allies. If this erratic blueprint was supposed to act as a defensive mechanism to protect the rich asshole from his burgeoning political and legal woes, the White House needs to find a Plan B.
Fast.
The story the White House and its radical congressional allies wanted to tell with the memo went something like this: Under President Barack Obama, the FBI became politicized and its leaders set out to destroy the rich asshole’s 2016 campaign by using partisan intelligence to spy on the rich asshole adviser Carter Page.
That’s the gotcha storyline the memo tries to lay out.
Yet even though the memo is just four pages long and short on specifics, those four pages are packed with so many obvious contradictions that instead of setting the narrative, the memo demolishes the GOP’s narrative.
Specifically, Republicans claim the so-called Steele dossier was central to the FBI’s surveillance of Page, and that it was the dossier that triggered the FBI to start investigating the rich asshole campaign. Furthermore, because the dossier was funded in part by Democrats, the GOP alleges that the FBI had an anti-the rich asshole bias when it went to a FISA court in 2016 and asked a judge to renew the surveillance warrant already in place on Page.
From there, desperate Republicans tried to argue that because Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was involved in the FISA request, that meant he was unfit for the job, which meant the rich asshole could remove him, which meant the White House would be able to install a new person inside the Department of Justice to oversee Mueller’s investigation — replacing Rosenstein as the top DOJ official in charge of the Russia probe.
Not only does all of that represent an astonishingly convoluted strategy, but Republicans couldn’t even pull off the first part, which was to use the memo to implicate the FBI.
First, a comprehensive FISA request would never rely solely on a single document like the dossier, which was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. Second, Friday’s Republican memo specifically acknowledges that the triggering event for the FBI’s Russia investigation in 2016 wasn’t the dossier, but the suspicious activities of a different the rich asshole adviser — George Papadopoulos.
As former CIA analyst Ned Price said on Friday afternoon, “Democrats should be showering gifts on Devin Nunes for this memo because it disproves one of the key talking points: Namely that the Steele dossier was the predicate to launch the investigation into some rich asshole in the first place.”
We’ve actually known since last summer that Papadopoulos’ actions caught the FBI’s attention and ultimately led the bureau to start a counterintelligence investigation looking at the rich asshole campaign’s ties to Russia. However, the rich asshole and his Republican allies have tried their best to suppress this fact because it doesn’t fit into their narrative.
But now, thanks to the GOP’s wayward memo, the spotlight is now shining on the one key detail that Republicans wanted to keep in the dark.
Republican Jim Jordan humiliated when CNN panel calls BS on his blatant lying about FBI’s McCabe
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), CNN host John Berman and Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) (Photo: Screen capture)
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Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) didn’t fare well in a CNN interview with stand-in host John Berman and Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT).
Jordan tried to quote Rep. Devin Nunes’s (R-CA) memo, which cites former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe claiming the Christopher Steele dossier was the only source of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant issued for senior the rich asshole campaign aide Carter Page.
“That’s not what he said,” Himes recalled. “I heard him.”
The GOP seems to be lying about the testimony McCabe gave because it can’t be fact-checked. According to Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) the testimony is still considered classified. However Democrats that were present, including Speier and Himes are both saying that McCabe did not say what Nunes is quoting.
Jordan claimed that McCabe confirmed that the Steele dossier was wrong.
“He was referring to part of the dossier. He never said all of the dossier wasn’t verified,” Berman commented.
Jordan maintained that McCabe said exactly that under oath.
“He referred to part of the dossier,” Berman said. “And I think we all know what part they were referring to. He told people behind closed doors unless he told you.”
Berman went on to emphasize that the Nunes memo only said that the Steele dossier was only “minimally” corroborated. Jordan tried to claim that the fact that the dossier mentioned Russia and Carter Page were the only correct things and the rest of the dossier was a lie.
“They got the fact that Russia meddled,” Berman noted. “McCabe testified before the committee that no surveillance warrant would have been sought without information there. Did Andy McCabe say there would have been no warrant without the dossier?”
Jordan tried to claim “everyone knows the dossier was the basis for getting the warrant.”
Berman corrected him that the Nunes memo itself says the “warrant would have been sought without the Steele dossier information. Sought information there…So, when you say ‘dossier information,’ the implication there is that it was corroborated.”
Jordan refused to cede his point and that’s when Berman brought in Himes. It devolved into a two-part interview of chaos from there.
Watch Part 1:
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 02/02/18 06:43 PM EST
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) revealed Friday that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee would examine other agencies, including the State Department, after releasing a controversial memo alleging surveillance abuses.
Speaking on Fox News just hours after Republicans on the committee released a memo alleging surveillance abuses by the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ), Nunes said the panel was moving to "phase two" of its investigation.
"We are in the middle of what I call phase two of our investigation, which involves other departments, specifically the State Department and some of the involvement that they had in this," Nunes said.
"That investigation is ongoing and we continue work towards finding answers and asking the right questions to try to get to the bottom of what exactly the State Department was up to in terms of this Russia investigation."
Nunes was asked whether his panel would be releasing additional memos as part of their probe after the White House declassified information to allow Nunes to release a memo alleging that senior FBI and DOJ officials abused their powers to spy on members of President the rich asshole’s campaign.
It’s unclear what role, if any, the State Department played in the law enforcement investigation into whether members of the rich asshole campaign collaborated with Russia amid Moscow's efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election.
The decision to release the Nunes memo regarding the FBI and DOJ was highly controversial. Republicans on the Intelligence panel argued that it was necessary, because it shed light on the origins of the Russia investigation, as well as potential abuses of power by federal law enforcement officials.
Democrats and the FBI, however, voiced concerns about the memo’s accuracy, contending that Republicans omitted key facts that would have placed the information in the proper context.
The push to release the memo was largely driven by Nunes, who has been accused by Democrats of trying to undermine and discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling in order to protect the rich asshole.
Updated: 7:25 p.m.
"The U.S. government can’t keep a secret"
Former spies warn the Nunes memo would be a “train wreck” for intelligence sharing worldwide
The raging battle over the secret Republican-drafted memo claiming political bias at the FBI and Department of Justice will likely have a chilling effect on foreign allies’ willingness to share sensitive intelligence with the U.S., intelligence experts and former FBI and CIA officials told VICE News.
Against the advice of the FBI and the Department of Justice, President some rich asshole approved the release of the Republican-drafted memo Friday, capping weeks of hysteria that’s convulsed Capitol Hill and captivated conservative media. In a rare public appeal, the FBI has warned it has “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
But the impact of the rich asshole’s decision could be immediate, potentially hurting efforts to coordinate with allies to thwart Russian interference in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections, intelligence and law enforcement professionals said.
“I wouldn’t trust the United States with secrets at this point,” said Alex Finley, a former officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations who served in West Africa and Europe. The memo fight, she said, is “just another example of how the U.S. government can’t keep a secret.”
Trump’s decision brings with it a litany of fresh questions about how to counter any misinformation contained in the memo without releasing even more detailed and sensitive intelligence, said Julian Sanchez, an expert on national security and surveillance at the Cato Institute think tank.
Regardless of what comes next, former FBI and CIA officials told VICE News that damage has already been done.
“The notion that the people who oversee the intelligence community will misuse intelligence is really dangerous,” said John Sipher, a former clandestine CIA officer who spent 27 years in the agency, including a posting in Moscow.
Friendly governments were already nervous about Washington keeping their secrets safe, said Sipher, who retired in 2014.
“Before the Nunes memo, this was a problem. I guarantee that allies are now passing us less than they normally would,” Sipher said.
Other intel experts offered a similar outlook: Foreign intelligence agencies are increasingly likely to see the U.S. as a leaky sieve for sensitive information, they said. And that could have real-world implications in the near future, as even Trump’s own CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, warns that Russia will likely try to disrupt the U.S. 2018 midterm elections.
A “TRAIN WRECK THAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN”
The U.S. has long relied on foreign partners’ intelligence sharing, especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. But now foreign governments have grounds to worry that sensitive information shared with the U.S. could unexpectedly burst into public view in the partisan fight that’s broken out on Capitol Hill, intelligence professionals said.
General Michael Hayden, CIA Director under President George W. Bush, railed against the memo in an interview on NPR as “an injection of hyper partisanship,” adding: “I just fear the great damage that will be done to institutions including oversight committees in the Congress, including the presidency and of course, obviously, the FBI.”
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has rattled America’s allies by publicizing secret information. In May, Trump revealed details of an ISIS terrorist plot to Russian officials in a White House meeting, information that was later reported to have been supplied by Israel. Trump’s disclosure raised concerns that the information could be passed on to Russia’s ally, Iran — Israel’s top regional adversary.
But the memo drafted by the staff of Republican Congressman Devin Nunes may be the most publicized example to date. Nunes has said the memo contains explosive information. The document reportedly claims the FBI misused its power to begin surveillance of Carter Page, a former foreign policy advisor to Trump’s campaign. Democrats, however, dismiss the memo as a political ploy to discredit the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether the Trump team colluded with Russia. CNN reported Thursday that Trump has been telling friends that he sees the memo as a way to undermine the Russia investigation.
“The train wreck that’s about to happen through the politicization of intelligence is going to scare off U.S. partners’ willingness to share intelligence with the United States,” said Ryan Goodman, former special counsel to the Pentagon and founding co-editor-in-chief of the national security forum Just Security. “I think they’d have to think twice, to put it mildly.”
Robert Deitz, a senior advisor to General Michael Hayden when he led the CIA under Bush, said releasing the memo may have a negative impact on both foreign and domestic audiences.
“My concern about this memo is that it’s the pointy edge of the spear as a means of undermine two very important institutions in this country: the FBI and the intelligence community,” Deitz said. “Depending upon what it reveals, this may make our foreign partners reluctant to deal with us. And that is extraordinarily damaging.”
Milan Patel, former chief technology officer for the FBI’s cyber division, said the FBI’s statement on the memo was indicative of how much damage its release could do.
"The reality is that the FBI would not be taking this stance if they didn’t think it was serious," Patel told VICE News. "You’re undermining their ability to conduct investigations using sensitive methods."
One specific intelligence operation that could be hurt: collaboration over monitoring Russia’s use of social media to influence foreign elections.
The sheer volume of activity on social media platforms makes it difficult for anyone, including governments or the companies themselves, to effectively police those platforms, experts have said.
“In this Russia probe, we likely have partners around the world sharing Twitter handles, Facebook accounts, IP addresses, domains,” Patel said. “We want our partners to share that type of data with us, to help us figure out what the Russians are doing in real time. If that information’s not shared with us, or arrives late, it could jeopardize our ability to investigate the threat and respond quickly.”
A RIPPLE EFFECT ON INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS
Foreign operatives have already provided significant pieces of intelligence into the current Russia investigation.
Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier, took his findings to the FBI out of fear that then-candidate Trump “was being blackmailed,” according to the Senate testimony of the man who hired him, Glenn Simpson of the political intelligence company Fusion GPS.
The Dutch government revealed to the U.S. that its own domestic intelligence agency, AVID, had monitored the Russian hacking group Cozy Bear as they penetrated the computers of the Democratic National Committee ahead of the 2016 campaign, according to recent Dutch press reports. The agency even tapped into a security camera and captured the faces of the individual hackers as they showed up to work.
After spending a night getting wasted in an upscale London wine bar with Australia’s High Commissioner to Britain, Alexander Downer, a young foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos, revealed that Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Two months later, Australian officials shared that information with their U.S. counterparts.
That exchange may have had an impact on U.S.-Australian relations — and even been one of the factors behind Trump’s notoriously hostile phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shortly after Trump took office. Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald has reported “annoyance and frustration” among the country’s officials over the public exposure of Downer’s role.
Robert Anderson, a former national security executive with the FBI who spent 20 years inside the bureau, said the true damage of the memo fight remains to be seen, but that it would likely be felt across all the U.S. intelligence agencies that rely on foreign collaboration.
“Will it lead to any potential compromise of information that they provided to the FBI, or jeopardizing sources or methods that other partners have?” he said. The partisan feuding “could lead to potential loss of intelligence, or partner-sharing intelligence, not just with the FBI, but a myriad of other intelligence organizations.”
Cover: Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Capitol Hill. January 30, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Cover: Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Capitol Hill. January 30, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Here’s what’s in the GOP’s FBI memo the rich asshole just released
The infamous memo that has consumed Washington for the past two weeks has finally been released.
The four-page memo is a partisan document written by California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes and pushed by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee. The previously classified memo outlines some, but perhaps not all, details of how the Department of Justice secured a warrant to surveil former the rich asshole campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016. Page, however, had been under watch by counterintelligence officials since at least 2013 for his contact with a Russian spy who tried to recruit him as a source.
To secure the warrant, the DOJ used information from a salacious dossier, which was funded by political opponents of the rich asshole, including the Clinton campaign. Nunes, head of the House Intelligence Committee, created the memo based on classified documents subpoenaed from the DOJ to expose what he calls anti-the rich asshole bias within the intelligence community.
The declassified copy contains some new evidence of the dossier's use, although not much. Here are the main points:
· The memo claims that the dossier was an “essential” part of the surveillance application.
· The memo claims that Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified to the House Intelligence Committee that the FBI would not have gone to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISA court, which grants these types of warrants, without the dossier. There's no quote of his testimony though.
· The memo also says that the FBI and the Justice Department did not disclose to the FISA court that the dossier had been paid for by the rich asshole’s political opponents, including Hillary Clinton.
· The initial surveillance application for Page cited a Yahoo News article with information about Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow, when he may have met with the CEO of Russia's leading oil company who's also a longtime associate to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The memo claims that rather than corroborating the dossier, the Yahoo story was actually a product of a leak from Christopher Steele, a former spy who created the dossier and was meeting with journalists. It's unclear, however, what evidence Nunes has.
· In 2016, Steele told Deputy Attorney General Brad Ohr that he was "desperate" for the rich asshole not to be elected.
· The Department of Justice and the FBI sought and received authorization for electronic surveillance of Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
· The FISA court renewed its surveillance authorization for Page three times.
· Current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who’s overseeing special counsel Bob Mueller’s Russia investigation, applied for permission to continue surveillance of Page at least once.
· The memo also confirms that information about George Papadopoulos — who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October about his communications with Russian officials — spurred the FBI to open a counterintelligence investigation into Russian ties to the rich asshole advisors in July of 2016. That information was first reported by the New York Times.
In a statement after the memo's release, Page said the "unprecedented abuse of process represents a giant, historic leap in the repair of America’s democracy."
JUST IN: Carter Page statement following release of controversial GOP memo: “The brave and assiduous oversight by Congressional leaders in discovering this unprecedented abuse of process represents a giant, historic leap in the repair of America’s democracy."
Former FBI Director James Comey, however, shrugged off the memo's contents.
That’s it? Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what? DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.
The FBI and Department of Justice had said the memo leaves out key facts. “We have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy,” the FBI said in a statement on Wednesday. Former spies also say that by revealing U.S. intelligence operations, the document risks harming key intelligence-sharing operations with other countries.
Republicans on the committee voted unanimously to release the memo to the public Monday; the White House had five days to consider whether to release it. Immediately after Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday, a hot mic caught him saying that he would “100 percent” release it. At that point, Trump hadn’t even read the document, White House officials later told the Washington Post.
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, however, said the memo contains information cherry-picked to mislead the public. California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the committee, even accused Nunes of altering the memo before sending it to the White House. Nunes said the changes were only minor.
Still, Trump followed through on his promise. Here’s the memo, in full:
Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar has some incredibly twisted notions about law and order.
With the long-anticipated release of House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes’ memo on purported FBI abuses, the overwhelming consensus is that it is a complete bust.
Even House Speaker Paul Ryan appears to have given up on getting any political mileage from it, with his admission that the Democratic memo refuting Nunes should be released too.
But one GOP House member has a decidedly different take on things.
“The full-throated adoption of this illegal misconduct and abuse of FISA by James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein is not just criminal but constitutes treason,” said Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona in a statement Friday.
Gosar concluded that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should pursue “criminal prosecution against these traitors to our nation.”
Leaving aside the fact that the memo barely even mentions Rod Rosenstein or Sally Yates, not once is there any indication anyone actually did anything unethical, let alone illegal. To claim that major current and former Justice Department and FBI officials should be prosecuted for treason over the Nunes memo, a crime that is punishable by death, is incredibly inappropriate, especially coming from a member of Congress.
But Gosar clearly has a warped sense of what constitutes the rule of law. Earlier this week, he made headlines for demanding the arrest of immigrants attending the State of the Union address as guests of several Democratic lawmakers.
Last year, Gosar also drew attention for claiming the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville that ended in the murder of a woman was a “false flag” attack by an “Obama sympathizer.”
The fact that a sitting congressman has this degree of authoritarian hostility toward other human beings, and is this detached from any semblance of objective fact, should be terrifying. But mostly, it’s just pathetic.
House intel Dem charges GOP with lying about the key facts behind their ‘DOJ abuses’ claim
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe pictured on September 21, 2016 (FBI PHOTO)
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A Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee on Friday claimed central argument of a controversial memo pushed by Republicans on her committee is based on a lie.
“‘Deputy Director [Andrew] McCabe testified before the committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] without the Steele dossier information,'” host Erin Burnett read from the memo, which was released earlier on Friday.
“You were there — is that what he said?” the host asked the congresswoman.
“I was there,” Speier confirmed. “No, it is not what he said.”
When pressed, the congresswoman admitted she couldn’t share what the then-deputy director said when asked about the Fusion GPS dossier because the information remains classified.
“But it was not — those were not the words,” Speier concluded. “That was not what he said. That was not the intention what he said of what he said when he was asked that question.”
Watch below, via CNN:
Sean Hannity had a bad day after the GOP's supposedly bombshell memo he had spent so much typing hyping turned out to be an embarrassing dud.
Sean Hannity, arguably the most pro-the rich asshole host on Fox News, vented his frustration about the Republican Party’s embarrassing memo release by fuming at former FBI Director James Comey.
After the memo authored by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was released, the entire world was quickly able to see that the partisan smear document was far less potent than Republicans, and Hannity, said it was. Rather than vindicating the right wing’s attacks on the FBI, the memo showed that the ongoing investigation of the rich asshole and Russia is on firm ground.
From his perch at Fox News, Hannity has poured a lot of his value into the memo and was obviously upset that Republicans and the propagandists at Fox were instant laughingstocks.
Comey also took a turn pointing out the absurdity of all the hype prior to the memo’s release. “That’s it?” he tweeted.
This seemed to enrage Hannity, who quickly reacted to defend his friends on Capitol Hill and the president he has backed to the hilt.
“Jim, You have the right to remain silent,” Hannity tweeted. “I suggest you exercise that right….”
It was unclear whether Hannity was telling Comey to shut up, or if he is planning to take the next step and perform a citizen’s arrest.
Hannity’s unhinged and apparent threat was yet another instance of a Fox News unleashing and encouraging rage at a public figure, which can have very serious consequences.
White House correspondent April Ryan recently revealed that she has been getting death threats after Fox criticized her for simply asking the rich asshole questions.
In 2010, after listening to former Fox host Glenn Beck’s wild conspiracy theories about the liberal Tides Foundation, Byron Williams drove to San Francisco to shoot up the organization’s headquarters and spark a political revolution. His planned attack was foiled when California Highway Patrol officers pulled him over for drunk driving on his way to his killing spree.
Disgraced former Fox host Bill O’Reilly devoted more than two dozen episodes, between 2005 and 2009, to attacking Dr. George Tiller, who performed abortions, referring to him as “Dr. Tiller the Baby Killer.” Tiller was assassinated in his church by the supposedly “pro-life” murderer, Scott Roeder.
Unfortunately, despite his love of dishonesty and absurd conspiracy theories, Hannity is not merely a radio/TV host. In addition to inspiring rage in his listeners, he has the ear of the rich asshole.
The Daily Beast recently reported that “the rich asshole has been in regular contact with Hannity over the phone in recent weeks,” and Hannity has been the one pushing for the release of the smear memo.
In addition to phone chats between the two men, the rich asshole is of course a devotee of Fox News, the network he watches during hours-long daily sessions his staffers have deemed “executive time.”
The disastrous release of the memo is a major embarrassment to both men. Hannity led his telephone friend astray, and the world is laughing at both of them.
Somehow in Hannity’s mind, his own screw-up is James Comey’s fault. So much for personal responsibility.
THE RICH ASSHOLE JUST DECLARED WAR ON HIS OWN APPOINTEES AT THE FBI AND DOJ
By David Gilbert Feb 2, 2018
some rich asshole escalated his unprecedented war on federal law enforcement Friday, accusing leaders at the FBI and his own Justice Department of helping his political opponents.
Posting on Twitter, the rich asshole said "top leadership" in both agencies — Republicans he mostly appointed — of having “politicized the sacred investigative process” in favor of Democrats.
the rich asshole’s attack comes as Washington boils over the release of a controversial memo that alleges wrongdoing on the part of the FBI while surveilling a member of the rich asshole campaign.
The post is likely to further alienate FBI chief Christopher Wray, the man the rich asshole appointed last year to replace James Comey.
White House aides were worried Thursday the memo’s release could prompt Wray to resign, according to sources speaking to CNN.
The FBI this week made a rare public statement on the memo, saying it had “grave concerns” about the accuracy of the document.
Comey Thursday defended the agency he once led for speaking up, wishing “more of our leaders would.”
Since his May firing, Comey has more than hinted at contempt for his former boss; political watchers Thursday saw “weasels and liars” as a thinly veiled swipe at Trump.
The president’s latest FBI broadside is in tune with Republican lawmakers pushing for the release of the memo.
House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes, who penned the four-page document, has urged the president to release it, part of a campaign to undermine the FBI’s credibility and ultimately that of Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election meddling.
President Donald Trump walks away from Marine One after returning to the White House, on February 1, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Five takeaways from the Nunes surveillance memo
BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 02/02/18 05:47 PM EST
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a controversial memo on Friday alleging that senior officials at the FBI and Department of Justice abused their powers to spy on members of President the rich asshole’s campaign.
The release of the memo, which was put together by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and declassified by the White House, came despite the fierce objections of Democrats, the FBI and the Justice Department, who described the documents as misleading and a partisan attempt to discredit the various Russia probes.
Here are five takeaways from the memo, which has consumed Washington and sparked a political war between the rich asshole allies and the nation’s premier law enforcement agencies.
Both sides think the memo gives them political ammunition
There is perhaps no better illustration of the deeply polarized political atmosphere than the reactions to the memo’s release.
For those on the right, the memo confirms every suspicion they have had about the U.S. government spying on the rich asshole campaign and political bias that they say has reached the top levels of the DOJ and FBI.
They say the memo proves that the FBI obtained questionable intelligence from partisan sources and shielded their methods from a surveillance court to investigate a candidate and campaign they were eager to see fail.
The memo makes the case that the FBI and DOJ did not inform a surveillance court that Democrats had funded an anti-the rich asshole dossier that was used, in part, to obtain a secret surveillance warrant in October 2016 for former the rich asshole campaign adviser Carter Page.
The memo goes on to allege that Christopher Steele, the British spy who compiled the dossier, did so out of animus against the rich asshole and that the FBI had not sufficiently vetted his claims when it obtained warrants to spy on Page.
Democrats are firing back, saying that the memo is full of cherry-picked data points and “misleading allegations” aimed at discrediting special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the rich asshole’s campaign.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the application for a warrant to spy on Page was the product of scores of independent investigators and that the Nunes memo “fails to provide vital context and information about that process.”
Furthermore, Schiff argued that the FBI had plenty of reasons to be suspicious of Page, regardless of what was in the dossier. He said it would have been a dereliction of duty not to pursue leads into whether Page had improper contacts with Moscow.
The release of the memo, which was put together by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and declassified by the White House, came despite the fierce objections of Democrats, the FBI and the Justice Department, who described the documents as misleading and a partisan attempt to discredit the various Russia probes.
Here are five takeaways from the memo, which has consumed Washington and sparked a political war between the rich asshole allies and the nation’s premier law enforcement agencies.
Both sides think the memo gives them political ammunition
There is perhaps no better illustration of the deeply polarized political atmosphere than the reactions to the memo’s release.
For those on the right, the memo confirms every suspicion they have had about the U.S. government spying on the rich asshole campaign and political bias that they say has reached the top levels of the DOJ and FBI.
They say the memo proves that the FBI obtained questionable intelligence from partisan sources and shielded their methods from a surveillance court to investigate a candidate and campaign they were eager to see fail.
The memo makes the case that the FBI and DOJ did not inform a surveillance court that Democrats had funded an anti-the rich asshole dossier that was used, in part, to obtain a secret surveillance warrant in October 2016 for former the rich asshole campaign adviser Carter Page.
The memo goes on to allege that Christopher Steele, the British spy who compiled the dossier, did so out of animus against the rich asshole and that the FBI had not sufficiently vetted his claims when it obtained warrants to spy on Page.
Democrats are firing back, saying that the memo is full of cherry-picked data points and “misleading allegations” aimed at discrediting special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the rich asshole’s campaign.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the application for a warrant to spy on Page was the product of scores of independent investigators and that the Nunes memo “fails to provide vital context and information about that process.”
Furthermore, Schiff argued that the FBI had plenty of reasons to be suspicious of Page, regardless of what was in the dossier. He said it would have been a dereliction of duty not to pursue leads into whether Page had improper contacts with Moscow.
To obtain a FISA warrant, Justice Department lawyers must show probable cause that the target of the surveillance is acting as an agent of a foreign power.
Page had come under FBI scrutiny in 2013, when a Russian believed to have links to Russian intelligence mentioned him, according to The Washington Post.
The FBI’s Russia investigation started with Papadopoulos
the rich asshole’s allies have long alleged that the Russia probe is politically motivated because it began with the Steele dossier, which was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
The Nunes memo states that the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation started in July of 2016 and was based on information the FBI had gathered about George Papadopoulos, a former adviser to the rich asshole’s campaign. Papadopoulos has since pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI and is cooperating with Mueller.
The New York Times has previously reported that Papadapoulos bragged to an Australian diplomat that the Russians had damaging information on Clinton before the hack of the DNC became public and emails were released on the internet. The Australian government tipped off the FBI to what Papadapoulos had said, according to the Times.
The FBI’s Russia investigation started with Papadopoulos
the rich asshole’s allies have long alleged that the Russia probe is politically motivated because it began with the Steele dossier, which was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
The Nunes memo states that the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation started in July of 2016 and was based on information the FBI had gathered about George Papadopoulos, a former adviser to the rich asshole’s campaign. Papadopoulos has since pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI and is cooperating with Mueller.
The New York Times has previously reported that Papadapoulos bragged to an Australian diplomat that the Russians had damaging information on Clinton before the hack of the DNC became public and emails were released on the internet. The Australian government tipped off the FBI to what Papadapoulos had said, according to the Times.
Still, according to Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, Steele first reached out to the FBI in July 2016 to alert them of his findings. That was around the same time that the FBI's Russia investigation began.
The origin of the counterintelligence probe does not impact the central claim of the Nunes memo, which is that the FBI and DOJ were not upfront with a surveillance court about how they obtained the intelligence used to justify spying on Page.
But it confirms that the FBI was working with more than what was in the Steele dossier, as Democrats have said their own counter-memo will prove. And it’s an indication that Papadopoulos could be a central figure in Mueller’s probe going forward.
The controversy around FBI agent Peter Strzok is only going to grow
The Nunes memo says Peter Strzok — the FBI agent that Republicans have accused of harboring-the rich asshole bias — was responsible for launching the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into whether the rich asshole campaign officials coordinated with Russia.
That revelation is sure to infuriate Republicans and lead to further accusations of political bias at the FBI.
Strzok has been at the center of controversy ever since text messages surfaced between him and FBI lawyer Lisa Page — the two were having an affair — in which they made disparaging remarks about the rich asshole and other political figures.
Strzok interviewed the rich asshole’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who later plead guilty to lying to the FBI and is now cooperating with Mueller.
He was also a central figure in the investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material. Citing Strzok’s texts with Page, Republicans have argued that the FBI gave Clinton a pass and never intended to charge or seriously investigate her.
Strzok had a hand in the memo clearing Clinton of criminal conduct, but also wrote the draft of a letter reopening the Clinton email case just a week before the election. Many Democrats blame Clinton’s loss on that letter, which was sent to Congress by then-FBI Director James Comey.
Still, Strzok’s text messages with Page have created a massive headache for the FBI and have given ammunition to those seeking to question whether he conducted impartial investigations into the rich asshole and Clinton.
Strzok and Page were both on Mueller’s special counsel probe but were reassigned last year.
Memo claims that media was used to push the rich asshole-Russia narrative
Republicans have long accused the media of uncritically accepting Democratic talking points in an effort to push the idea that the rich asshole campaign colluded with Russia.
The Nunes memo claims that Steele, the British spy, planted several stories on the rich asshole campaign and Russia while the FBI was paying him. Those same stories were subsequently used by law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant on Page.
The memo claims that in British court filings, Steele admitted to talking to a Yahoo! News reporter for a bombshell 2016 story about Page traveling to Moscow to meet with Russian officials. That same story was cited in the FBI’s application to a surveillance court to spy on Page, according to the s memo.
Furthermore, the memo alleges that Steele broke FBI protocol by telling the liberal news outlet Mother Jones that he was working for the bureau.
The memo says that Steele was ultimately cut loose by the FBI for lying about his contacts with the media. Two Republican senators have referred Steele to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation over that episode.
The memo names names
Steele is the primary GOP target in the memo, which seeks to cast him as a partisan who compiled the dossier because he was hell-bent on keeping the rich asshole from getting elected.
But the memo also calls out a host of senior FBI and DOJ officials that Republicans have accused of bias.
Comey signed-off on three applications to spy on Page, and the memo alleges that he hid key facts from the surveillance court in that process.
FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who has since been forced out of his post, signed one surveillance application. Republicans have sought to highlight donations McCabe’s wife received for a political campaign from a Clinton ally as evidence of bias. A DOJ inspector general report, which has not been released publicly, is said to raise questions about McCabe’s handling of the Clinton investigation.
Signors of the Page surveillance applications at the DOJ include former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who was fired for refusing to defend the rich asshole’s controversial Muslim ban, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.
the rich asshole on Friday signaled he does not have confidence in Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller’s probe because attorney general Jeff Sessions has stepped aside.
Former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr is another key figure in the memo.
Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that was behind the Steele dossier. The memo states that Ohr provided Steele’s opposition research to the FBI.
When the FBI interviewed Ohr about his relationship with Steele, he stated that the British spy was “desperate that some rich asshole not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” according to the memo.
But it confirms that the FBI was working with more than what was in the Steele dossier, as Democrats have said their own counter-memo will prove. And it’s an indication that Papadopoulos could be a central figure in Mueller’s probe going forward.
The controversy around FBI agent Peter Strzok is only going to grow
The Nunes memo says Peter Strzok — the FBI agent that Republicans have accused of harboring-the rich asshole bias — was responsible for launching the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into whether the rich asshole campaign officials coordinated with Russia.
That revelation is sure to infuriate Republicans and lead to further accusations of political bias at the FBI.
Strzok has been at the center of controversy ever since text messages surfaced between him and FBI lawyer Lisa Page — the two were having an affair — in which they made disparaging remarks about the rich asshole and other political figures.
Strzok interviewed the rich asshole’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who later plead guilty to lying to the FBI and is now cooperating with Mueller.
He was also a central figure in the investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material. Citing Strzok’s texts with Page, Republicans have argued that the FBI gave Clinton a pass and never intended to charge or seriously investigate her.
Strzok had a hand in the memo clearing Clinton of criminal conduct, but also wrote the draft of a letter reopening the Clinton email case just a week before the election. Many Democrats blame Clinton’s loss on that letter, which was sent to Congress by then-FBI Director James Comey.
Still, Strzok’s text messages with Page have created a massive headache for the FBI and have given ammunition to those seeking to question whether he conducted impartial investigations into the rich asshole and Clinton.
Strzok and Page were both on Mueller’s special counsel probe but were reassigned last year.
Memo claims that media was used to push the rich asshole-Russia narrative
Republicans have long accused the media of uncritically accepting Democratic talking points in an effort to push the idea that the rich asshole campaign colluded with Russia.
The Nunes memo claims that Steele, the British spy, planted several stories on the rich asshole campaign and Russia while the FBI was paying him. Those same stories were subsequently used by law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant on Page.
The memo claims that in British court filings, Steele admitted to talking to a Yahoo! News reporter for a bombshell 2016 story about Page traveling to Moscow to meet with Russian officials. That same story was cited in the FBI’s application to a surveillance court to spy on Page, according to the s memo.
Furthermore, the memo alleges that Steele broke FBI protocol by telling the liberal news outlet Mother Jones that he was working for the bureau.
The memo says that Steele was ultimately cut loose by the FBI for lying about his contacts with the media. Two Republican senators have referred Steele to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation over that episode.
The memo names names
Steele is the primary GOP target in the memo, which seeks to cast him as a partisan who compiled the dossier because he was hell-bent on keeping the rich asshole from getting elected.
But the memo also calls out a host of senior FBI and DOJ officials that Republicans have accused of bias.
Comey signed-off on three applications to spy on Page, and the memo alleges that he hid key facts from the surveillance court in that process.
FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who has since been forced out of his post, signed one surveillance application. Republicans have sought to highlight donations McCabe’s wife received for a political campaign from a Clinton ally as evidence of bias. A DOJ inspector general report, which has not been released publicly, is said to raise questions about McCabe’s handling of the Clinton investigation.
Signors of the Page surveillance applications at the DOJ include former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who was fired for refusing to defend the rich asshole’s controversial Muslim ban, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.
the rich asshole on Friday signaled he does not have confidence in Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller’s probe because attorney general Jeff Sessions has stepped aside.
Former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr is another key figure in the memo.
Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that was behind the Steele dossier. The memo states that Ohr provided Steele’s opposition research to the FBI.
When the FBI interviewed Ohr about his relationship with Steele, he stated that the British spy was “desperate that some rich asshole not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” according to the memo.
Updated at 7:06 p.m.
the rich asshole teases he might be ‘inclined’ to permit release of Democratic memo after his review: White House
U.S. President some rich asshole gestures as he walks on South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., before his departure to the Customs and Border Protection National Targeting Center, February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
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President some rich asshole “would be inclined” to permit the release of a memo written by Democrats that rebuts a Republican document alleging anti-the rich asshole bias at the FBI, if it passes a security and legal review, a White House spokesman told CNN on Friday.
“I think the president would be inclined to release the Democratic memo should it come to us and should it be reviewed and gone through the same process and if national security and legal equities review it and say it doesn’t challenge sources and methods, the information in it” is accurate, White House spokesman Raj Shah told the network.
(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Eric Beech)
The smoking gun that was supposed to end the rich asshole's investigation nightmares turns out to be a total dud.
After hyping the release of a secret GOP report that seeks to dishonestly smear the FBI as a bombshell revelation that was “worse than Watergate,” Republicans were left scrambling on Friday to explain what the big deal was after the White House signed off on the controversial report’s release.
By making the dubious, four-page report public, Republicans delivered on a weeks-long marketing campaign, concocted by House Republicans and Fox News, to gin up to hysterical levels the idea that the Republican-run FBI was somehow out to get some rich asshole and that the party’s oppo research memo would both demolish the bureau and severely undercut special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
It’s all been an obvious attempt to shield the rich asshole politically, who was hoping the memo would give him the cover to further purge top justice officials.
Instead, outside of the rich asshole right-wing media bubble, the GOP report produced shrugs, along with plenty of mocking from commentators who belittled the idea that the hothouse Republican production had come anywhere near delivering on its fantastic promises.
Rather than having to aggressively debunk the memo — it kind of did that by itself — the report’s utterly slightly nature meant the document instantly morphed into a punch line.
Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government ethics, quit last July in protest of the the rich asshole administration’s refusal to comply with basic ethical guidelines, saying, “They are committed to protecting the principle that public service is a public trust, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles above private gain.”
On Friday, he took a much lighter tone:
Reporters are also mocking the GOP, both for releasing the memo to Fox News and other right-wing media outlets first, in the hopes of shaping a more favorable narrative, and for the utter dud the memo turned out to be:
Late on Thursday, word began to leak out among some White House advisers who had read the report and thought the feeble contents in no way matched the wild partisan hype that had surrounded the memo.
Weeks ago, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) said to Fox News of the memo, “You think about, ‘is this happening in America or is this the KGB?’ That’s how alarming it is.”
Added the always-reckless Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), “I think that this will not end just with firings. I believe there are people who will go to jail.”
Last week, the GOP claim that the FBI had carved out a rogue “secret society” to plot the rich asshole’s demise imploded to great comical effect.
This week, the GOP memo follows suit.
The Republicans who are not impressed with the Nunes memo
Conservatives can't come to a consensus.
Republicans on Capitol Hill and beyond struggled to come to a consensus on Friday following the release of a controversial House Intelligence memo, which they claimed showed corruption at the highest levels of the Justice Department.
While many argued that the details in the memo are explosive and troubling, others insisted that the contents are relatively harmless and do not undermine the ongoing Russia investigation.
The newly declassified memo highlights a surveillance warrant Justice Department officials requested for former the rich asshole campaign adviser Carter Page in October 2016. The memo asserts that this warrant was based on information from a dossier compiled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, which was partially funded by the DNC during the 2016 election. Republicans have claimed the Justice Department failed to disclose the DNC’s involvement in the dossier when requesting the warrant for Page.
Some conservatives responded with predictable outrage about the memo’s contents.
“This is beyond shocking,” Federalist co-founder Sean Davis tweeted. “It is so much worse than what anyone who has followed this story expected.”
Congressional Republicans were similarly incensed, tweeting angrily throughout the afternoon.
Not only did the Memo lay bare a systemic pattern of abuse within the FBI & DOJ, it confirmed my worst fear: America’s free & fair elections were being threatened from within. Our own DOJ worked to tip the scales of justice in order to benefit one political candidate. #MemoDay
American's have every right to read #memo. It brings to light serious questions about politicization of our top legal institutions. We're nation of laws not men & this memo exposes dangerous threats to law & order. There must be #justice & #accountability. bit.ly/2GDEeN4
Several high-profile conservatives, including Gateway Pundit correspondent Lucian Wintrich, suggested that the memo proved the basis for the Justice Department’s investigation into possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Russian officials was faulty.
However, many high-ranking Republicans seemed to disagree.
“While this memo raises serious concerns with the FISA process, I have been and remain confident in the overwhelming majority of the men and women serving at the FBI and DOJ,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, stated. “As I have said repeatedly, I also remain 100 percent confident in Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The contents of this memo do not – in any way – discredit his investigation.”
While this memo raises serious concerns with the FISA process, I have been and remain confident in the overwhelming majority of the men and women serving at the FBI and DOJ.
New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur (R) echoed Gowdy’s comments.
“Allegations in memo are serious, but must not be used to impugn the FBI or discredit the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller,” he tweeted. “Anytime we talk about abuse of govt, Americans need to know, but we must not allow this memo to become a distraction from work we need to do.”
The memo largely relies on incomplete facts, many of which were misconstrued or omitted entirely. As Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D) noted, “almost every House member who voted in favor of this memo’s release” had not read “the underlying documents on which it was based.”
“They simply do not support its conclusions,” he tweeted.
Additionally, as the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler pointed out, Page had already left the campaign by the time the Justice Department requested the warrant in October, something the memo authors failed to mention. As the Wall Street Journal confirmed this week, Page had also been on the FBI’s radar years prior to the election, due to his connections to Russian actors.
Outside of Capitol Hill, some prominent conservatives acknowledged that the memo hardly disproved the necessity of a special counsel investigation into Russian meddling, despite its claims of partisan bias.
“There’s disturbing evidence of law enforcement bias & sloppiness. But hard to see how this derails Mueller investigation, particularly as it confirms that FBI investigation began w/Papadapolous before FISA application targeting Page,” tweeted Stephen Hayes, editor-in-chief of the conservative Weekly Standard.
Quick initial thought: There's disturbing evidence of law enforcement bias & sloppiness. But hard to see how this derails Mueller investigation, particularly as it confirms that FBI investigation began w/Papadapolous before FISA application targeting Page. #MemoDay
While Republicans have been quick to latch onto the idea that the memo is proof of abject corruption at the highest levels of the FBI and Justice Department, it actually appears to prove what many Democrats and some Republicans have said all along — that the Russia investigation did not stem from the Steele dossier.
“The authors of the GOP memo would like the country to believe that the investigation began with Christopher Steele and the dossier, and if they can just discredit Mr. Steele, they can make the whole investigation go away, regardless of the Russians’ interference in our election or the role of the rich asshole campaign in that interference,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said in a lengthy statement on Friday. “This ignores the convenient fact that the investigation did not begin with, or arise from Christopher Steele or the dossier.”
New @DevinNunes statement upon release of The Memo: pic.twitter.com/RIMmSrv23w
As many have pointed out, the memo instead clearly highlights the fact that DOJ officials kicked off their investigation based on information they uncovered on former the rich asshole campaign staffer George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian individuals in July last year.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired last spring by President the rich asshole after reportedly refusing to drop the bureau’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn (Flynn also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December), weighed in on the memo controversy this week, tweeting an unimpressed, “That’s it?”
“Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what?” he wrote. “DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs.”
Even leaker Edward Snowden is slamming Devin Nunes for reckless handling of classified info
Ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden during NBC News interview on May 27, 2014. [NBC News]
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Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden slammed House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) for having a lesser “standard of care” in releasing his controversial memo than the whistleblower used in releasing documents to Wikileaks,” The Daily Beast reported Friday.
Project on Government Oversight lawyer Jake Laperruque tweeted how Rep. Nunes called Snowden a “traitor” for his 2013 leaks.
Devin Nunes has called @Snowden a "traitor" but let's compare how release of classified materials from Snowden compared to what Nunes and HPSCI are doing now...
Jake Laperruque
Journalists disclosing Snowden documents like @bartongellman would interact with the Intelligence Communtiy prior to publication
They certainly didn't oblige all their requests, but they made good-faith effort to hear concerns on why IC thought some stuff sholdn't be public
But Nunes and HPSCI have heard repeated requests by DOJ and the FBI that the material in the memo contains sensitive classified information that would be damaging to release.
Is this true? We don't know. But HPSCI refused to even take a briefing from Dir Wray to hear concerns.
Snowden agreed.
#TBT: I required the journalists who broke the 2013 domestic spying stories (as a condition of access) to talk with gov in advance of publication as an extraordinary precaution to prevent any risk of harm. Turns out our standard of care was higher than the actual Intel committee. twitter.com/JakeLaperruque…
February 2, 2018
Zachary Fryer-Biggs
Posted with permission from Newsweek
The memo released Friday by the House Intelligence Committee makes many claims about the FBI's surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page—and suggests that federal law enforcement authorities are tainted by partisanship.
"Our findings," the Republican members of the committee argue in the memo, "represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes...related to the (surveillance) process."
Here is a fact-check about the memo and its claims about the FBI's warrant request under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act:
Claim: The FBI should have told a judge about information “favorable” to Page when requesting a warrant, such as the Democratic National Committee's connection to the funding for the Steele Dossier.
Background
The DNC provided funding to continue the investigation run by Fusion GPS into President Donald Trump and his ties to Russia, but the investigation was originally funded by conservative outlet the Washington Free Beacon during the Republican primaries as an attempt to gain some opposition research to undermine Trump.
Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, to investigate connections between Trump and Russia, and Steele included some of the raw intelligence he gathered in the now infamous Steele Dossier that included claims about Page meeting Russian officials in Moscow. Those claims have been subsequently corroborated, and Page has admitted having those meetings.
There is no legal obligation for the FBI to provide evidence that could argue against their own warrant request. Instead several layers of Justice Department officials have to approve the request based on corroborated claims.
Assessment
However the Steele Dossier was funded, it wouldn’t matter because any assertions from the dossier used in the warrant request would have to have been backed up elsewhere, according to Justice Department rules.
Claim: Steele was suspended as an informant to the FBI for leaking to the press
Background
Steele stopped working with the FBI in October, 2016, according to testimony from Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson. Simpson told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Steele had stopped working with the FBI because he was concerned about leaks to the press, particularly after an October 31 story published by the New York Times claimed that the FBI had not found a link between Russia and the Trump campaign.
“I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn’t know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn’t really understand what was going on,” Simpson testified.
Assessment
The memo’s claims could be true, that Steele was in fact rejected as an informant, but at least one person directly involved with his relationship with the FBI said that it was actually Steele who cut off ties.
Claim: Steele was the source behind the September 23, 2016 Yahoo story that talked about Page’s trip to Moscow, a critical part of the evidence used for a warrant against Page.
Background
Part of the memo’s claims about Steele and his relationship to the FBI stem from assertions that Steele was leaking information about the investigation to the press. Steele did talk to several outlets, including a lengthy interview with Mother Jones. In court filing Fusion GPS acknowledged having spoken to several other outlets, including Yahoo. There’s no proof that Steele was the person who spoke to Yahoo, but it is likely given his discussion with other outlets.
Assessment
We don’t know how critical the Yahoo article was to the warrant request, since the request itself is classified and, unlike the partisan memo, has not been released. Regardless of what was in the Yahoo article Justice Department policy would have required that officials verify the claims before including the information in a FISA warrant request.
Claim: Steele was paid $160,000 by the DNC for the dossier.
Background
Steele was hired by Fusion GPS to continue the investigation started by the Washington Free Beacon. Fusion GPS paid Steele about $168,000 for his work, according to a report by Reuters.
Assessment
Steele wasn’t hired by any political organization, and Simpson testified that the source of funding for the investigation wasn’t a part of his discussion with Steele. But it is true that at least some of the money that Fusion GPS got for its investigation came from the DNC, which would have been passed along to Steele. The implication from the claim in the memo is that Steele was a DNC patsy because he was being paid by them, but that implication is never proven.
Claim: Bias from FBI agent Peter Strzok shaped the warrant application against Page.
Background
FBI agent Pete Strzok got caught trading text messages critical of Donald Trump with fellow FBI official Lisa Page (who is not related to Carter Page). Strzok had been involved with the Russia investigation, but was removed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller before news of the texts became public.
The memo claims that the investigation into Trump was triggered by information from another Trump foreign policy aid, George Papadopoulos, and that since Strzok was involved in opening the case because of that information, the entire case is tainted.
Assessment
The investigation into Page was reportedly started because of comments Papadopoulos made in a London bar. Plus, evidence presented in the application for the Page warrant would have been otherwise validated by several layers of Justice Department officials—meaning that Strzok’s alleged bias would have had to have infected several other people.
Strzok’s criticisms of Trump also do not prove that he would be incapable of running an investigation, and given the other information required to obtain a warrant, would not be the deciding factor in whether Page was surveilled.
In addition, the full body of text exchanges between Strzok and his lover Page reveal that most communications were just idle office chatter, the Wall Street Journal reported.
"Texts critical of Mr. Trump represent a fraction of the roughly 7,000 messages, which stretch across 384 pages and show no evidence of a conspiracy against Mr. Trump," the newspaper reported.
Other Claims
Many of the other claims made in the memo can’t be verified because they specifically address what was in the Page surveillance warrant, which remains classified. Several other claims, such as that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told congressional investigators that the warrant would not have been approved without the Steele dossier, also can’t be validated because they refer to closed interviews whose transcripts haven’t been made public.
That’s the basis of the Democrats primary complaint about the memo, that it relies on classified or otherwise non-public information, cherry-picking details that can’t be verified.
The House Intelligence Committee approved the release of the Republican memo, but it blocked the release of the Democrat’s response, which was written by people with access to the underlying warrants and testimony and reportedly would debunk some of the claims in the Republican memo.
Fmr. RNC Head Is FED UP With His Own Party’s Propaganda: ‘The Onion Is Mad’ At Them
some rich asshole has turned the Republican Party into something its mainstream, sane members – what is left of them anyway – do not even recognize. GOP Congresspeople are peddling propaganda like they are the rich asshole’s own Josef Goebbels instead of being the Constitutional check on him that they are supposed to be, and they are constantly imperiling the republic with their sycophantic quest for ever more governmental power. Well, there is one Republican who is sick of it all: Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
After the GOP released the misleading, lying memo alleging criminal activity taking place inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation in order to take down the rich asshole, Steele took to Twitter and blasted the release of such trash to the already confused and divided American public:
The folks at @TheOnion after reading the #NunesMemo have sent a cease and desist order to the House Intelligence Committee for stealing their material.
Yes, you read that right. The former RNC Chair just compared official material put out by members of the House of Representatives of his own party of being nothing more than satire. It has gotten that bad folks. Further, Steele is right. These people are using this pack of lies to give cover to the rich asshole at the expense of our democratic republic. This is how autocracies start – when government officials sow lies, confusion, and division in the public psyche for their own gain until we can no longer agree on even basic facts anymore. the rich asshole supporters will take the memo as gospel, while the people who hate the rich asshole will take it as nothing more than proof that the rich asshole and his entire administration are nothing but a pack of criminals who should be tossed out of the White House and into prison posthaste (full disclosure: I am in the latter camp).
In short, it’s going to take more Republicans like Michael Steel standing up and saying that this is wrong, before it is too late. And it has to be Republicans with something to lose, not the ones who have retired to become talking heads on left-leaning MSNBC.
The future of the nation might depend upon it.
GOP Lawmaker Calls For Treason Charges Against Top Officials Over Memo Which He Must Not Have Read
Republican Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) needs to read the GOP/Nunes memo again because it’s a nothingburger. Still, he’s losing his sh-t over it and saying the details in the memo “constitutes treason.” Gosar goes on to say he will co-author a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions for “criminal prosecution against these traitors to our nation,” and specifically points to former FBI Director James Comey, former United States Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General for the Department of Justice Rod Rosenstein. That’s quite a list.
Rosenstein and McCabe, for the record, were both appointed by some rich asshole. Four separate FISA court judges looked at all the evidence and decided that Carter Page’s activities were suspicious and they approved the warrants, so maybe Gosar wants to lock up the judges, too. And if anyone needed to be under surveillance, it’s Carter Page. He had been under surveillance since 2013 and the rich asshole picked him as a foreign policy adviser.
We’re fairly certain that Sessions will not prosecute the aforementioned individuals since he took time out of his day to praise Rod Rosenstein after some rich asshole attacked him.
The House Intelligence Committee memo spearheaded by Nunes alleges that the Steele dossier on the rich asshole’s ties to Russia “formed an essential part” of the warrant obtained in October 2016 for surveillance on Carter Page. What the memo did reveal was that it was really George Papadopolous who triggered an investigation.
1/3 Nunes memo alleges former FBI deputy director McCabe told House Intel Committee that "no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC" -- FISA court -- "without the Steele dossier information."
Page’s Russian contacts and a trip he took to Moscow during the campaign are what prompted investigators to wiretap him in October 2016 and that that was a month after Page had left the rich asshole campaign.
Republicans are defending Carter Page, who has business dealings in Russia and he’s very pro-Putin. Let that sink in for a moment. Following the release of the memo, Trey Gowdy sent out tweets to praise the FBI, DOJ, and special counsel Robert Mueller. Gowdy is the only Republican who has seen the intelligence that supports the investigation. He also announced last week that he’s retiring from Congress.
Anti-Hillary Crusader Trey Gowdy Just Turned On the rich asshole In A HUGE Way
It’s probably a good thing that GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy is exiting stage extreme-Right after this term in office, because he just lost a shitload of support from the Stupid Part of America.
“It is important for the American public to know if the dossier was paid for by another candidate, used in court pleadings, vetted before it was used, vetted after it was used, and whether all relevant facts were shared with the tribunal approving of the FISA application,” Gowdy tweeted.
This discussion could have, as it has all over the place, gone “full Hannity.” Gowdy could have done exactly what the rich asshole wanted to screamed from the rooftops that the memo — written by Republicans and edited by Republicans before an unapproved version was sent to the White House, which made redactions — discredits the criminal investigation into some rich asshole and his campaign. In fact, 2017 and prior Trey Gowdy would have salivated at the opportunity. But 2018 Trey Gowdy (the one who is quitting after this year) instead says that “While this memo raises serious concerns with the FISA process, I have been and remain confident in the overwhelming majority of the men and women serving at the FBI and DOJ” and that the memo does not “in any way” discredit him or his investigation:
While this memo raises serious concerns with the FISA process, I have been and remain confident in the overwhelming majority of the men and women serving at the FBI and DOJ.
To most of us, this is a surprisingly sensible stance from a terrible human being. But to conservatives, the fucking world is ending, man:
The filth runs deeper than anyone could have imagined especially for a non politician like Trump who had no idea about the depth of it.
So will there be an investigation into #DNC / Media / Steel(British Agent) collusion? Seems to me they colluded, although unsuccessfully, to destroy an opposing candidate and ensure their own victory.
Help me understand. Mueller investigation began because of “Russia collusion”. It appears the only collusion was started by @HillaryClinton How can you still support a rogue investigation by a man that clearly is anti-the rich asshole?— Lisa Craig (@lisac64) February 2, 2018
I’m sorry Mr. Gowdy but I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH YOU IT PROVES MUELLER INVESTIGATION WAS ALL BASEED ON LIES AND BULL
It discredits the bases for his investigation. Trump/Russia collusion is a fictional narrative, brought on by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Carried out by high ranking members of the FBI and DOJ to subvert our democracy during a Presidential election.
The secret: Because his mandate was to i cetigate any Russian involcment with the Trump campaign AND (most important) any other related Russian interference (uranium 1). This means Mueller is taking down Hillary and the deep state and he likely absolved Trump a year ago.
I’m not sure how you can say that w/ a straight face? They used a bogus dossier to obtain a FISA warrant, without alerting the judge that said dossier was paid for by a political opponent & that the author had biases against Trump.
The Mueller investigation is null & void.
So the whole basis to investigate was b ullshit, and you trust him?...What is wrong with you.
You sir have more faith than I do in mr. Muller - he is on a witch hunt and will not stop until he fabricates something and uses the court of public opinion to undermine a duly elected president
How can the Mueller investigation continue considering they used “fruit from the poisoned tree” to start the whole special prosecutor.
While many on Twitter are announcing that Gowdy has “found a conscience” and “has redeemed himself,” it’s important to remember that this is the same guy who launched politically-motivated investigation after politically-motivated investigation into Hillary Clinton and spent $150,000 of taxpayer money to settle a veteran-discrimination and retaliation claim with a former staffer.
Trey Gowdy is terrible. That even he is admitting that the rich asshole and friends served us up a gigantic Nothingburger™ says everything.
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