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 election 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 Trump won.” These Republicans are suggesting that the “secret society” was engaged in an effort to overthrow 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 overthrow 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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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.

Yeah, that's my understanding. But, I ran across this article recently...

Signs point to imminent Mueller blockbuster

Views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

By Brent Budowsky, opinion contributor — 01/25/18

The scorched-earth attacks against the FBI by a growing number of House and Senate Republicans demonstrate a high degree of fear that special counsel Robert Mueller will make blockbuster moves in the coming days and weeks that will define the fate of ongoing investigations of the Russian attack against America.

In recent days, there have been an unusually high number of revelations and disclosures, with rapid-fire speed, of upcoming meetings between Trump and Trump associates with Mueller and his special counsel team.

Most likely, these revelations are coming from Trump associates who will be questioned by Mueller, or their attorneys, which is within their right whether or not this move is legally or politically wise.

The news that the special counsel and Trump’s attorneys are negotiating the terms of Mueller’s questioning of Trump, which appears poised to occur within three weeks if terms are agreed upon, suggests that some potentially decisive moves by Mueller are likely to happen in February and potentially could begin this month.

The prospect of Trump’s testimony under oath will be a precipitating event for either a climactic moment for the investigation or a true constitutional crisis if Trump refuses to agree to terms, and Mueller moves to subpoena Trump to testify before the grand jury.

I have long warned readers that there is a strong chance that Trump will never voluntarily agree to testify under oath, no matter what he says. What Trump said to reporters on Wednesday, that he yearns to testify under oath, was totally meaningless because he also said his testimony is contingent upon the advice he receives from his lawyers.

Trump already knows the private advice his lawyers have offered, so when he adds that qualifier to his stated desire to testify, the odds are high that this testimony does not happen and all hell breaks loose legally and politically if and when Trump formally says no to Mueller.

Behind the scenes throughout official Washington, there is a bracing for the storm that could soon engulf the investigation.

This is the context for the extreme, often irrational and in some cases ludicrous frenzied attacks against the FBI that are coming from a growing number of Republican members of the House and Senate and their hardcore allies in the media.

Most of these attacks against the FBI are so preposterous that they will not be itemized here, except to suggest that these attacks against the FBI are horrendously wrong and create huge political danger for Republicans.

These growing GOP attacks against the FBI are politically self-destructive and legally disastrous, because they suggest to reasonable people that they have no confidence that Trump and other Trump associates will be cleared by investigators.

Finally, America has now entered a very dangerous zone. If Trump ultimately intends to fire Mueller, grant preemptive pardons to those who have not yet been charged or grant pardons to those who have already been charged, those actions will be triggered by the imminent fact that Trump will either soon testify before Mueller under oath or refuse to testify.

This would set off a constitutional crisis and a huge political backlash against Trump and Republicans who defend him by attacking the FBI.

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 election 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 Trump won.” These Republicans are suggesting that the “secret society” was engaged in an effort to overthrow 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 overthrow 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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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.

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 voted to release their memo and the Democrat version of the memo. The Democrats on the committee all voted 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.