Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, apparently disregarding Justice Department warnings that their actions would be “extraordinarily reckless,” v**ed Monday evening to release a contentious secret memorandum said to accuse the department and the F.B.I. of misusing their authority to obtain a secret surveillance order on a former Trump campaign associate.

New York Times just reported.... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/us/politics/release-the-memo-v**e-house-intelligence-republicans.html

BTW, CNN is having a melt down!!!

PLT Sarge Loc: Alabama

The American People have the right to know the contents of this memo. This isn't about Left or Right. This is about Our Constitution and one branch or two branches, conspiring to destroy a duly elected President. WE THE PEOPLE have the right to know how the people that we entrust with our security have abused that trust for personal gain. This goes to the core, the heart of everything we True Patriots believe in. I hope and pray that President Trump agrees to release the memo to the public. Because he owes it not only to us but also this country. T***sparency, something we haven't had in a very long time.

Mike Easterday

No more funds for the Federal Bureau of I***ts!

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Just came across. The memo has now been read by over 197 Republicans and only a dozen Democrats bothered. Wonder why?

wolffy

The Dems just said that they are going to release their own memo!

samtheyank

This reminds me when I was a kid about the time my Mom caught my Sister and I in a pickle. We couldn’t wait to rat each other out. I guess one of us was hoping to get the lesser end of the punishment. My sister won out by being sent to her room. I got the spanking from Mom and when Dad got home, I got yelled at and then I got the belt. Sis got a verbal reprimand from Pop in terms of how disappointed he was is his little girl.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | January 25, 2018 | Comments

I’ve been mostly trying to ignore the latest attempts by hard-line Republicans to discredit the FBI as a way to save the Trump Presidency, because as much play as it gets on Fox News, Breitbart, and on social media, much of it is driven by Russian bots and conspiracy theorists. We’re ten months away from the midterms, and the Russians and Wikileaks are up to their same tricks: They’re running disinformation campaigns in cahoots with hard-line Republicans in an effort to further destabilize our democracy and generate fear and suspicion of the FBI.

Congressman Devin Nunes from California — who apparently feels very comfortable in his California district — is doing much of Donald Trump’s dirty work here. Nunes, recall, was temporarily removed from the House Intelligence Committee while he was being investigated by the Ethics Committee for disclosing classified information to the Trump White House. The GOP-led Ethics Committee cleared him of those charges while Republican Trey Gowdy was on the House Ethics Committee (filling in for Jason Chaffetz, who mysteriously resigned). After Nunes was cleared, Gowdy also resigned from the House Ethics Committee to focus his energy on the House Intelligence Committee, where he and Nunes are clearly working together to discredit the FBI. But hey! That’s just a coincidence, right?

Nunes and his staff have written a memo that the House Intelligence Committee has seen. Last week, Russian bots and Wikileaks amplified #ReleasetheMemo on Twitter, and while that memo has yet to be released, it probably will at some point. The Republicans on the Intelligence Committee say that it’s deeply damaging to the credibility of the FBI, while Democrats assert that it’s a lot of Republican talking points based on classified intelligence that puts that FBI’s actions in context. However, the public would not see the classified intelligence; they’d only be aware of the FBI’s actions without the context. That’s by design for the GOP.

“The point was they didn’t care what was in the underlying documents,” Senator Adam Schiff told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “They wanted to make a political statement and feed the beast on Fox News.”

We don’t know exactly what’s in the memo, but it’s about FISA warrants that the FBI sought in order to investigate the Trump campaign in 2016. Those warrants were obtained by the FBI because there was enough evidence to suggest collusion. The GOP hardliners are trying to obscure that by suggesting that the FBI had an anti-Trump agenda. That is all the more absurd because 1) the FBI is a conservative leaning organization and it always has been, and 2) if the FBI was trying to swing the e******n to Hillary Clinton, they did a really lousy f*cking job of it, didn’t they?

Trump’s Justice Department, in fact, has warned Nunes and the House Intelligence Committee against releasing the memo:

“We believe it would be extraordinarily reckless for the Committee to disclose such information publicly without giving the Department and the FBI the opportunity to review the memorandum and to advise the HPSCI of the risk of harm to national security and to ongoing investigations that could come from public release,” Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, wrote Wednesday to Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Again, this is all a disinformation campaign. Ultimately, it probably plays better for the GOP not to release the memo. Releasing the memo would give Democrats, the DOJ, and the FBI the opportunity to rebut the allegations. Just having these allegations floating around in the ether, however, is probably far more damaging to the FBI because everyone — and mostly Trump supporters — will assume the worst. It’s ultimately all a ploy to discredit Bob Mueller’s investigation, because the Republicans are clearly terrified of what Bob Mueller has on Trump and others in the Administration.

There is another theory — which went up in smoke yesterday — that’s been floating around for a few days, too. A lot of Republicans — led by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — have been promoting this idea of a “secret society” within the FBI. Johnson claimed that there was a “group” of FBI agents “that was holding secret meetings off-site.” Trey Gowdy weighed in on CNN, adding: “Here are two bureau agents talking about a secret society … right after they were talking about how depressed they were that Donald T***p w*n.” These Republicans are suggesting that the “secret society” was engaged in an effort to o*******w the President.

Turns out, however, that the entire idea of this “secret society” comes from a lone text between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI agents who were having an affair. It is one text with a throwaway reference that is clearly meant to be a joke:

“Are you even going to give out your calendars? Seems kind of depressing. Maybe it should just be the first meeting of the secret society,” Lisa Page wrote to Peter Strzok.

That’s it. There were no references to a “secret society” in any texts before or after that one.

But of course, we all know that if the FBI was forming a secret society they’d call it a “secret society” and talk about it in text exchanges, right? Just because the Trump campaign is that dumb doesn’t mean that the FBI is.

Anyway, that one text forms the entire basis of another GOP conspiracy theory that traveled far and wide on social media in the last few days. Does it matter at this point if it’s a joke? Not really. The damage is done. The people who want to believe that there is a secret society designed to o*******w Trump will continue believing that, regardless of the facts. This is where we are now.

And what about the 50,000 texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok that Donald Trump claims went missing because, as he alleged, they contained damaging information? The FBI says that it was due to a glitch on their phone software, a glitch that Republicans had a hard time believing until Trump’s Department of Justice confirmed yesterday that, in fact, a glitch prevented phones from saving texts for five months.

Does it matter? No. Again, facts are bullsh*t. The Republicans have changed the past. Wasn’t it Orson Welles who said “Who controls the past controls the future”? (Sorry, X-Files joke). The Republicans are trying to Mandela Effect the nation, and Trump supporters, at least, are readily buying into it.
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Footnote: I'm all for full disclosure, not just selected parts of the 'memo' that fall short of telling the full context of the story behind it.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

In the next day or two, expect some activist judge to grant an injunction preventing this from being made public. You think you'll be looking at this memo in the next few days? I seriously doubt it. All we see here is the opening salvo in the first skirmish of the first battle to 'drain the swamp'. This is going to take a while, quite a while.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Seriously, More Russian BS. They aren't trying to discredit the FBI. They are trying to dig out a couple of rouge agents that couldn't leave their politics at the door. The Republicans in the Intel. Committee v**ed to release their memo and the Democrat version of the memo. The Democrats on the committee all v**ed not to release the memo. Why is that? This shouldn't be a partisan issue, but of course it is. Obama used many of our institutions to go after political enemies and many of the institutions and people are still in place. There is so much there, there I can't believe anyone has faith in the upper echelon of the FBI. By the way two FBI agents read the memo.

Jakebrake Loc: Broomfield, CO

Reading this article by the NYSlime I noticed it reeks of Trump disdain when it repeatedly refers to him as Mr., not President Trump. This is typical from this rag, and I'll wager they used President and not Mr. when writing about the halfrican.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

I agree, "This shouldn't be a partisan issue, but of course it is." That became the norm long ago.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

I'm betting it's more than just a couple. And it's way more than just the FBI. No, what we're seeing here is just the 'tip of the iceberg' that is the 'deep state', and we're going to see a lot of less than honest government employees heading for the exits before long, from more than just the FBI. They got complacent, that made them sloppy. They're not covering their tracks very well and as the evidence mounts, more and more will be implicated in one of the biggest s******n / treason scandals in the history of the world.

I really think it's coming...

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

Jake,

It is getting harder to find a news outlet that is not dominated by the Democrat's point of view. I wish there was just one source who can remain unbiased. Even Fox, the remaining large news source, seem to be "fighting" for their side. I suspect that this will not end, even after our President is exonerated of wrong doing. The news will find something he is doing wrong, perhaps they will move on to him passing gas.... they already publicize what he eats, so why not. It will give those who are "not my president" something to point toward.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

They won't let you forget that he had two scoops of ice cream. Yep, that's really a thing!

https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/trump-time-magazine-ice-cream/index.html

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

Breaking news..... Trump takes two scoops of ice cream with his chocolate cream pie! Tar and feather him.... Oh my goodness,
thank you Larry for the link.... Now I know, our President likes ice cream better than eating KFC hidden away from prying eyes in desk drawers.