Why This FISA Memo Tantrum By Democrats Doesn't Matter
Well, this is the Battle of the Bulge for the FBI, Department of Justice, and congressional Democrats over the memo war. This is the last gamble—and it’ll fail. For starters, President Trump said the FISA memo, which alleges abuses akin to that of the KGB regarding government surveillance, is going to be released. FBI Director Christopher Ray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made a last ditch effort on Monday, meeting with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to plead their case. It failed. Wray even read the memo last Sunday, with two senior FBI officials saying it contained no factual inaccuracies. Now, Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) are going haywire over what they describe as last-minute alterations to the memo. Pelosi has demanded Nunes be stripped of his House Intelligence Committee chairmanship.
There’s just one problem: They requested it, so did the FBI. They were grammatical changes—nothing more. For Democrats, it amounted to a two-word change. This isn’t document shredding in the back offices at midnight. This isn’t some surreptitious plot.
The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel touched upon the fact that this memo meltdown by the Left is irrelevant since the president has already decided to declassify the memo and can release as much or as little as he sees fit. House Republicans on the committee could have re-written the whole memo and it still wouldn't have mattered.
“This is no longer a House project, Schiff knows this,” Strassel tweeted. “They [FBI, DOJ] are now campaigning against WH in the media and with statements is pretty outrageous,” she added. Circling back to her op-ed: Operation Sabotage The Memo. The Boyd letter refers to the one Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd sent to Rep. Nunes (R-CA), warning him releasing this memo would be reckless and possible harm national security:
The bigger, swampier game here is to rally media pressure, and to mau-mau Mr. Nunes into giving the department a veto over the memo’s release. Ask Sen. Chuck Grassley how that goes. Mr. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, recently sent a referral to the department for a criminal probe into dossier author Christopher Steele. He then in good faith asked the department its views on an unclassified portion of that referral that he wants to make public. The department invented a classified reason to block public release, and has refused to budge for weeks.
The Boyd letter is also a first step toward a bigger prize: President Trump. Under House rules, a majority of the Intelligence Committee can vote to declassify the memo. Mr. Trump then has up to five days to object to its release. If he doesn’t object, the memo goes public. If he does, a majority of the House would have to vote to override him.
The shrieks of reckless harm and national security are designed to pressure Mr. Trump to object. And wait for it: In coming days the Justice Department’s protectors will gin up a separate, desperate claim that Mr. Trump will somehow be “interfering” in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe unless he objects to the release.
Oh, and you know what else is odd. The FBI statement yesterday condemning the release of the memo omitted the national security dangers.
Even some anti-Trump writers weighed in, noting that whatever the reason--it's not "tenable" to keep the position that this information should remain hidden from the public:
Be sure to read Guy’s analysis as well. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2018/02/01/wsj-columnist-explains-why-this-memo-tampering-tantrum-by-democrats-doesnt-matter-n2443119
From what I've been hearing on the news it seems that the whole memo thing revolves around when the FBI decided to get a FISA warrant to investigate Carter Page. According to the sources involved that decision came before Page was a part of the Trump Campaign, what the memo is showing is the reinstatement of that FISA warrant when Page became part of the Trump organization. It would seem that Page had meetings with Russian Intelligence before becoming part of the Trump Campaign and, it was and, is questionable whether he became an "asset" for the Russians. Manafort, Gates and, Flynn are known to be foreign agents, what else they are remains to be seen. Page is very sketchy right now and, for some reason the administration and, Republicans seem to want to keep him safe they want to use this memo as a means to discredit anything that might come out of an investigation of Page.
Also, it seems very strange that this all came up just as Mueller is getting ready to interview Hope Hicks. It is said that Trump and, Hicks have a "father/daughter" relationship with each other, Hicks wants to protect him and, he wants to protect her, which isn't a bad thing, as long as you aren't trying to discredit a legitimate investigation by discrediting your own DOJ and, FBI appointees.
I agree with some of what you state, but I think you've left out an important part: The Dossier. From what I've read, the FBI used the Dossier as evidence in front of the FISA court to obtain the warrants, when they KNEW the dossier was faulty, AND did not tell the FISA court that the dossier was funded by the Clinton Campaign and the DNC.
Couple mistakes in your statement.
The dossier was used as collaborating evidence along with many other things submitted. The dossier was not submitted on its own. With all the checks and balances for FISA warrants, none are based on a single piece of evidence.
Again, incorrect. While 100% of the dossier has NOT been verified, there are a number of items in it that have been, and it is more than likely that some of the additional evidence presented for the warrant corroborated parts of the dossier and vice versa. There is also the fact that while the dossier has not been 100% verified, NONE OF IT HAS BEEN DISPROVED. Before they can claim it is false, they have to show proof to its being incorrect, or at least throw doubt towards it by showing wrong parts, no one has been able to do that yet.
First, what difference does that make? Steele was a well known and respected former intelligence agent for MI6, he was not American therefore at least 1 step away from politics and just operating as an employee for Fusion, and finally the original cost for the dossier was paid for by the Washington Free Beacon right-wing (far far rightwing) newspaper, when Trump became the nominee the WFB no longer was interested and Fusion shopped it around.
From all we have seen, this investigation smacks of not being honest or legitimate, and it's not his appointees that might need to be discredited, but Obama's.
Hyperbolize much. The release of this nothingburger will be little more than another embarrassment for republicans. More grounds for obstruction of justice, and hopefully we will soon be rid of the criminal in the WH.
Don't need FISA anymore. We got Trump.
Putin/Trump 2020. End of story.
I was told by Pelosi and schiff that publishing the FISA memo would destroy the country.
It's a miracle we are still here today.
My thought also.....Yesterd ay it was 'the world will end if it's realeased'....today it's 'a Nothingburger'.........
Methinks someone needs to stop acting out.....specifically Schiff and Pelosi.....
trump should sue the DOJ and FBI for violating his 4th amendment rights
that would stir the pot up a bit
It does not matter because it is just a made up opinion from a very partisan right wing stooge and is completely meaningless. It proves nothing. It reveals nothing. It indicts nothing or no one. It shows no conspiracy of any kind, form or person or agency against any person. It affects no investigation. It vindicates or convicts no person. It is as useless as an old "Dear Abby" column or a homework piece written by a very bad 2nd year pre-law student. In short, it's garbage.
So that's what the "left wing memo" amounts to??
And yet FBI, DOJ and Democratic Part members spent days, expending lots of energy telling us that revealing this memo would kill people, disrupt our national security - would literally send shockwaves through the nation - and suggesting that any citizen that simply asked questions and demanded the truth from our public servants is somehow a puppet of the Kremlin.
Since when did the liberals stop caring about civil liberties? When did they stop demanding accountability from their public servants?
I'll tell you when. The liberal sheeple stopped caring when their political party officials told them to stop caring. "Nothing to see here. Move along".
The very same people that lauded Snowden as a hero for exposing government corruption have suddenly gone silent because goobers like Pelosi, Schumer and Schiff told them to STFU.
No. They didn't. But we understand why you'd have to make that very exaggerated claim since the memo was supposed to show all sorts of bad FBI behavior and was a complete dud. That doesn't mean it still couldn't have revealed things to our enemies that don't mean anything to you.
I guess it was when we realized that republicans were agents of Vlad the Putin and never have been patriots (except maybe for Russia).
Yes they did sparky - and suggested that anyone asking questions - anyone that demanded answers and wanted to hold the FBI, the CIA and the DOJ accountable was a Russian puppet.
Why do you insist on butting into conversations when you clearly have no interest in being knowledgeable about the subject? Why do you post stuff so easily proven to be BS? I'd post links to prove my point - but 1) We both know you're already aware of the facts, 2) You wouldn't bother to read the proof because you know what has been said and 3) You wouldn't admit to the truth no matter what.
If I was putting my credibility on the line based on what the liberal goobers congressmen said about the memo - I'd be asking them "How do you know what's in it if you haven't read it"....but then I actually care about the facts.
Funny how the goober minions canonized Snowden because he took a stand against government corruption.....but now no longer care about it - in fact are whining that this information shouldn't be made available. Suddenly goobers don't care about civil rights, constitutional law.....
The truth is that when one wants to carry water for the DNC one must first surrender one's moral standards, one's ethics, one's credibility - one must embrace Hypocrisy.
More and more I suspect that we are arguing with paid Russian bots here on NT. They continue to deny the most obvious evidence that's presented to them. Even many on the republican side of the aisle see the Nunez memo for the lame partisan propaganda it so obviously is.
They aren't Russian bots, they're gun totin,' inbred, hillbilly redneck trash. The only thing they know about life outside their swamp is that they 'hates libruls.' It's not their fault either; their hillbilly sister/mamas dropped them on their heads too many times when they were babies. Damn moonshine!
That would have been my second guess. Do you suppose that these low IQ mouth breathing rednecks know that they have been taken in by and are now actually working for those red menacing commies that they used to hate so much? This is the height of Ironic.
that is because liberalism is a mental disorder
(putin made me say that
Trump has the Republican party attacking law enforcement and siding with the Russians! Incredible...
Republicans are not attacking law enforcement. They are attacking the leadership of the FBI and DOJ and SPECIFICALLY NAMED agents for their corruption. IF there were attacks on law enforcement, there would be a move to limit the powers to all law enforcement agencies or constant reviews of whether they are racist in their actions, like what Obama had Holder do several times.
And if the far right wing releases the intelligence behind the idiotic memo, they are traitors. That's why they want dems to do it. Just another far right wing game. Just another far right wing ploy. Just another far right wing lie because that's all the far right wing has left. Far right wing fascists have to lie and pretend day is night and night is day because lies are all they have. How sad for them.
This old white man never saw Obama or Holder as racists. But I sure do see many on NT that way.
And here I thought that hate of the 'other' was a far right wing trait.
there ya go thinking again... LOL
I have no hate for the mentally challenged.
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for me this information is not new. I have been watching the left for over 50yrs so I do not need science to tell me what I already know.
I do believe it is time we find a cure. until then, we have mental health professionals, work programs, and such.
liberalism is mostly a information virus which tends to attack our young but it also tends to burn out over the years. at the moment nothing cures liberalism like time itself.
it is interesting how liberals feel they have no control over their lives and always want to control others. while conservatives feel they do have control over their lives do not give a flip about what others do as long as they leave us the fuk alone.
liberals are controlled by their emotions and want everything fundamentally changed, so they "feel safe" in the collective.
why do you think liberals need safe spaces? inside they are scared, and convinced they can not make it without the collective
rugged individuals they are not.
meanwhile the rights "safe space" is where ever we may be standing at the time.
Cheers
everyone who supported trump is an inbred redneck? who knew.
but if you say so... I guess it is true...
kind of funny how those 7 million inbred rednecks voted for obama but not hillary huh?
good to know "fat shaming" is now supported by the left
the fish always rots from the head down... nothing new.
everyone gets it... except the left.
when leadership goes bad it is time to cut the head off and replace it.
implying trump slandered the whole of the FBI is simply more liberal BS.
"Judge Andrew Napolitano said Monday Republicans Overpromised and Underdelivered, FISA Memo Does Not 'Vindicate' Trump
Pretty sure that nothing could ever possibly vindicate Trump's insanity.
It appears as time goes on that the investigations have come full circle and are eyeing the Obama administration's illegal use of the upper FBI and DOJ staffers to obtain negative info on Trump and his campaign, all instigated to help Hillary get elected. Now it appears that all the dossier crap (and is there another one?) has been directed to destroy his presidency. Don't they call this sedition? What with the midterm elections coming up, it's going to be an interesting summer.
There is no "memo war" over the Nuns memo. It as released. It's a dud. The talking heads on FOX are making a big ado about it, but every rational person who has read it knows it's meaningless and just another case of Nunes making a fool of himself over nothing.