"That this DOJ investigation of Schiff and Swalwell was baseless or abusive may turn out to be correct: time will tell."
How is it not only conceivable but almost certain that Schiff leaked classified information to the media -- repeatedly -- for the sole purpose of undermining Donald Trump and his administration? That the wholly inept a…
"That this DOJ investigation of Schiff and Swalwell was baseless or abusive may turn out to be correct: time will tell."
How is it not only conceivable but almost certain that Schiff leaked classified information to the media -- repeatedly -- for the sole purpose of undermining Donald Trump and his administration? That the wholly inept and Democrat-infested DoJ never actually looked hard enough to uncover anything is the more likely story here.
If the DOJ investigation did not also include staffers then it missed the very obvious real culprits. That would not be surprising if done intentionally.
Two NSC staffers were overheard at the very first NSC briefing of the Trump administration discussing between themselves how they had to "get rid of" him.
One, Eric Ciaramella, would go on to be the Ukraine call whistleblower. The other, Sean Misko, left the NSC and went to work as a staffer in Adam Schiff's office.
You can actually see Misko in the Impeachment 1.0 hearings. I expect he was also seated behind Schiff during the secret hearings in the SCIF. He's definitely the guy whose communication records I'd want to see.
Interestingly, before taking a job in government, Ciaramella worked as a researcher for the Brookings Institution, where he became very close with one Fiona Hill. She went on to work alongside Ciaramella in the NSC, and become a star witness against Trump in Impeachment 1.0.
Even MORE interestingly, the two were fairly close with British ex-spy Christopher Steele, acting as go-betweens between him and the US government.
And perhaps even MORE, more interestingly, Hill and Ciaramella were very chummy back in the day (2007-2010) with then-fellow Brookings researcher... Igor Danchenko, who was the primary sub-source of the information in the Steele Dossier.
And even more interesting still, Danchenko had been the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 on suspicion of him being a Russian spy. The file was closed because Danchenko moved back to Russia in late 2010.
And even MORE interestingly than ALL of the above, Danchenko was never named in the Mueller report. All those fancy Russian indictments over alleged Russian meddling in the election, and yet Mueller declined to name the suspected Russian operative who sourced a ton of salacious and damaging gossip about Trump for Hillary and the DNC during the presidential race.
I guess that just wasn't the kind of Russian meddling he was looking for...
You missed mentioning the Atlantic Council, Ukraine, and Hunter Biden. And from the Atlantic Council we connect to Google and CrowdStrike, the OCCRP and Open Society/George Soros. And lest we fail to acknowledge that the Atlantic Society has its "Digital Forensic Research Lab" where they "help" Facebook restrict content that is "offensive" or "misinformation." And don't forget that Mark Zuckerberg created the "Center for Tech and Civic Life" with $300million of his own money to send Democrat operatives to "help administer" local elections in heavy-Democrat districts in swing states.
I just found the connections between these five people (Misko, Ciaramella, Hill, Steele and Danchenko) to be particularly interesting, because they've been very publicly key players in trying to take down candidate, then president Trump.
I mean, look at it this way. In January of 2017, the FBI discovered who the Dossier's primary sub-source was.
Investigation 101: "okay, let's look through our files and see if we already have anything on this guy."
Does anyone really think no one at the FBI did that?
Mueller kept Danchenko's name out of his report, because all the report was for was to rubber stamp (inasmuch as possible) Crossfire Hurricane.
The CIA email that was doctored to support the final FISA warrant re-up against Carter Page was received by the FBI in AUGUST of 2016, before they applied for the first warrant. If IG Horowitz hadn't made that detail public, does anyone really believe Mueller's report would have included it? Or would they have "missed it"? I mean, it was just one word, after all. And a tiny word at that.
I'm so disgusted by this, it's not even funny. That there are still otherwise sensible people out there who believe Putin wanted Trump to win is astounding to me.
I know, right?! The polls fooled even Putin in 2016. He, OF COURSE, would rather have had Clinton as POTUS, but he didn't want her to be able to claim a "mandate," so he tried to help DJT, who was supposed to be a buffoon.
No. I believe Putin thought (and I believe he was right in this) that Russia would be able to take advantage of a Clinton administration much more than a Trump administration, but the first one was "inevitable" according to everyone. Since his primary interest in ANY Presidential election is conflict and confusion among Americans, Putin's primary concern is creating an outcome that is so close that neither side could claim a mandate, a mandate being more powerful (less able to mess with) on the world stage. He just could not allow Clinton to win in a landslide, so he helped the hapless buffoon, to weaken the next POTUS, Hillary Clinton.
Putin would have ran rings around her hapless administration. Instead, he had to bide his time, and wait for the hapless Biden.
May I edit out my "OF COURSE," to make my statement less of a "threat" to your opposing opinion? (I shouldn't have put it in there in the first place, since I could be wrong.)
Fair point. However these people weren’t leaking real classified info. They were leaking fake and political convenient ones. They would leak something while behind closed doors the exact opposite was true. This was confirmed last year after the russiagate testimonies was finally declassified.
Also no answer on how cnn got the leak about Roger stone swat raid at 3am?
Information classification is a joke in most cases. When dealing with time/place/force structure of incipient military operations, it has a place. The diplomatic bag existed before classification came into vogue, and that seems to be a requirement of statecraft.
Most of the rest is just garbage. Of course, if we keep having endless wars, we keep having endless (over)classification of information. Most people can't even identify the classifying authority for documents, and many are considered classified because of their presence on a classified network, which is wrong on many levels.
The number of people holding clearances is about 1% of the population. I submit that is too many to keep any kind of secret for long. Thank goodness for need to know.
It's why I liked Ric Grenell. His MO leaned toward, "declassify all the things!"
I suspect what was going on with this investigation wasn't trying to determine the source of classified information, but to identify the anonymous sources that were "leaking" false or misleading information to the media.
That first bombshell Russia-gate article in the NY Times that won its authors a Pulitzer? Peter Strzok's margin notes are compelling.
"This paragraph is misleading on its face." Referring to the NYT's description of the FBI's alleged detailed assessment of certain bank records, "we've requested those documents, but have not received them yet." At one point, he says one of the claims is so out in left field, "we do not know, nor can we figure out, where this is coming from." He couldn't even find a way to chalk it up it to the authors misinterpreting or misconstruing accurate information. He was basically just like, "wut?"
Keep in mind, this is Peter "Trump is Evil Incarnate" Strzok, basically saying, "this entire article is filled with misinformation." Allegedly, the anonymous sources for the article were "familiar with" the FBI's investigation into Trump-Russia collusion, yet the lead investigator on that case was baffled by the claims made.
Now picture Schiff and Swalwell doing the media rounds, claiming they had seen evidence of the article's bogus claims in the secret Intel hearings. Of course they'd be the prime suspects.
If Schiff and Swalwell (or their staffers) were the sources, they were not leaking classified information. They were feeding the media misinformation which they could then claim to have seen supporting evidence of in hearings and other documents they never thought would be declassified and released to the public.
"That this DOJ investigation of Schiff and Swalwell was baseless or abusive may turn out to be correct: time will tell."
How is it not only conceivable but almost certain that Schiff leaked classified information to the media -- repeatedly -- for the sole purpose of undermining Donald Trump and his administration? That the wholly inept and Democrat-infested DoJ never actually looked hard enough to uncover anything is the more likely story here.
If the DOJ investigation did not also include staffers then it missed the very obvious real culprits. That would not be surprising if done intentionally.
Two NSC staffers were overheard at the very first NSC briefing of the Trump administration discussing between themselves how they had to "get rid of" him.
One, Eric Ciaramella, would go on to be the Ukraine call whistleblower. The other, Sean Misko, left the NSC and went to work as a staffer in Adam Schiff's office.
You can actually see Misko in the Impeachment 1.0 hearings. I expect he was also seated behind Schiff during the secret hearings in the SCIF. He's definitely the guy whose communication records I'd want to see.
Interestingly, before taking a job in government, Ciaramella worked as a researcher for the Brookings Institution, where he became very close with one Fiona Hill. She went on to work alongside Ciaramella in the NSC, and become a star witness against Trump in Impeachment 1.0.
Even MORE interestingly, the two were fairly close with British ex-spy Christopher Steele, acting as go-betweens between him and the US government.
And perhaps even MORE, more interestingly, Hill and Ciaramella were very chummy back in the day (2007-2010) with then-fellow Brookings researcher... Igor Danchenko, who was the primary sub-source of the information in the Steele Dossier.
And even more interesting still, Danchenko had been the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 on suspicion of him being a Russian spy. The file was closed because Danchenko moved back to Russia in late 2010.
And even MORE interestingly than ALL of the above, Danchenko was never named in the Mueller report. All those fancy Russian indictments over alleged Russian meddling in the election, and yet Mueller declined to name the suspected Russian operative who sourced a ton of salacious and damaging gossip about Trump for Hillary and the DNC during the presidential race.
I guess that just wasn't the kind of Russian meddling he was looking for...
You missed mentioning the Atlantic Council, Ukraine, and Hunter Biden. And from the Atlantic Council we connect to Google and CrowdStrike, the OCCRP and Open Society/George Soros. And lest we fail to acknowledge that the Atlantic Society has its "Digital Forensic Research Lab" where they "help" Facebook restrict content that is "offensive" or "misinformation." And don't forget that Mark Zuckerberg created the "Center for Tech and Civic Life" with $300million of his own money to send Democrat operatives to "help administer" local elections in heavy-Democrat districts in swing states.
Believe me, I know. It's all connected.
I just found the connections between these five people (Misko, Ciaramella, Hill, Steele and Danchenko) to be particularly interesting, because they've been very publicly key players in trying to take down candidate, then president Trump.
I mean, look at it this way. In January of 2017, the FBI discovered who the Dossier's primary sub-source was.
Investigation 101: "okay, let's look through our files and see if we already have anything on this guy."
Does anyone really think no one at the FBI did that?
Mueller kept Danchenko's name out of his report, because all the report was for was to rubber stamp (inasmuch as possible) Crossfire Hurricane.
The CIA email that was doctored to support the final FISA warrant re-up against Carter Page was received by the FBI in AUGUST of 2016, before they applied for the first warrant. If IG Horowitz hadn't made that detail public, does anyone really believe Mueller's report would have included it? Or would they have "missed it"? I mean, it was just one word, after all. And a tiny word at that.
I'm so disgusted by this, it's not even funny. That there are still otherwise sensible people out there who believe Putin wanted Trump to win is astounding to me.
I know how you feel.
I know, right?! The polls fooled even Putin in 2016. He, OF COURSE, would rather have had Clinton as POTUS, but he didn't want her to be able to claim a "mandate," so he tried to help DJT, who was supposed to be a buffoon.
You're kidding re Clinton, I presume?
No. I believe Putin thought (and I believe he was right in this) that Russia would be able to take advantage of a Clinton administration much more than a Trump administration, but the first one was "inevitable" according to everyone. Since his primary interest in ANY Presidential election is conflict and confusion among Americans, Putin's primary concern is creating an outcome that is so close that neither side could claim a mandate, a mandate being more powerful (less able to mess with) on the world stage. He just could not allow Clinton to win in a landslide, so he helped the hapless buffoon, to weaken the next POTUS, Hillary Clinton.
Putin would have ran rings around her hapless administration. Instead, he had to bide his time, and wait for the hapless Biden.
May I edit out my "OF COURSE," to make my statement less of a "threat" to your opposing opinion? (I shouldn't have put it in there in the first place, since I could be wrong.)
There is way too much classified information. I object to the classification of all this info more than I object to leakers.
Fair point. However these people weren’t leaking real classified info. They were leaking fake and political convenient ones. They would leak something while behind closed doors the exact opposite was true. This was confirmed last year after the russiagate testimonies was finally declassified.
Also no answer on how cnn got the leak about Roger stone swat raid at 3am?
Information classification is a joke in most cases. When dealing with time/place/force structure of incipient military operations, it has a place. The diplomatic bag existed before classification came into vogue, and that seems to be a requirement of statecraft.
Most of the rest is just garbage. Of course, if we keep having endless wars, we keep having endless (over)classification of information. Most people can't even identify the classifying authority for documents, and many are considered classified because of their presence on a classified network, which is wrong on many levels.
The number of people holding clearances is about 1% of the population. I submit that is too many to keep any kind of secret for long. Thank goodness for need to know.
It's why I liked Ric Grenell. His MO leaned toward, "declassify all the things!"
I suspect what was going on with this investigation wasn't trying to determine the source of classified information, but to identify the anonymous sources that were "leaking" false or misleading information to the media.
That first bombshell Russia-gate article in the NY Times that won its authors a Pulitzer? Peter Strzok's margin notes are compelling.
"This paragraph is misleading on its face." Referring to the NYT's description of the FBI's alleged detailed assessment of certain bank records, "we've requested those documents, but have not received them yet." At one point, he says one of the claims is so out in left field, "we do not know, nor can we figure out, where this is coming from." He couldn't even find a way to chalk it up it to the authors misinterpreting or misconstruing accurate information. He was basically just like, "wut?"
Keep in mind, this is Peter "Trump is Evil Incarnate" Strzok, basically saying, "this entire article is filled with misinformation." Allegedly, the anonymous sources for the article were "familiar with" the FBI's investigation into Trump-Russia collusion, yet the lead investigator on that case was baffled by the claims made.
Now picture Schiff and Swalwell doing the media rounds, claiming they had seen evidence of the article's bogus claims in the secret Intel hearings. Of course they'd be the prime suspects.
If Schiff and Swalwell (or their staffers) were the sources, they were not leaking classified information. They were feeding the media misinformation which they could then claim to have seen supporting evidence of in hearings and other documents they never thought would be declassified and released to the public.