Who Believes in Russiagate?
Knowledgeable reporters on the left and right are frightened by the spread of an elite conspiracy theory among American Media
Half the country hates Donald Trump, and even the half that thinks he’s doing a good job often flinch from his boorishness, his nasty public attacks, sometimes even on his own aides. For all the top talent he says he’s surrounded himself with, the president repeatedly attracts among the worst that Washington—and New York—have to offer. No doubt that’s one reason why whatever is thrown at him seems to stick.
At the same time, there is a growing consensus among reporters and thinkers on the left and right—especially those who know anything about Russia, the surveillance apparatus, and intelligence bureaucracy—that the Russiagate-collusion theory that was supposed to end Trump’s presidency within six months has sprung more than a few holes. Worse, it has proved to be a cover for U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement bureaucracies to break the law, with what’s left of the press gleefully going along for the ride. Where Watergate was a story about a crime that came to define an entire generation’s oppositional attitude toward politicians and the country’s elite, Russiagate, they argue, has proved itself to be the reverse: It is a device that the American elite is using to define itself against its enemies—the rest of the country.
Yet for its advocates, the questionable veracity of the Russiagate story seems much less important than what has become its real purpose—elite virtue-signaling. Buy into a storyline that turns FBI and CIA bureaucrats and their hand-puppets in the press into heroes while legitimizing the use of a vast surveillance apparatus for partisan purposes, and you’re in. Dissent, and you’re out, or worse—you’re defending Trump.
Recently, a writer on The New Yorker blog named Adrian Chen gave voice to the central dilemma facing young media professionals who struggle to balance their need for social approval with the demands of fact-based analysis in the age of Trump. In an article pegged to special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictments of the Internet Research Agency, Chen referenced an article he had written about the IRA for The New York Times Magazine several years ago. After the Mueller indictments were announced, Chen was called on to lend his expertise regarding Russian troll farms and their effect on the American public sphere—an offer he recognized immediately as a can’t-win proposition.
“Either I could stay silent,” wrote Chen, “and allow the conversation to be dominated by those pumping up the Russian threat, or I could risk giving fodder to Trump and his allies.”
In other words, there’s the truth, and then there’s what’s even more important—sticking it to Trump. Choose wrong, even inadvertently, Chen explained, no matter how many times you deplore Trump, and you’ll be labeled a Trumpkin. That’s what happened to Facebook advertising executive Rob Goldman, who was obliged to apologize to his entire company in an internal message for having shared with the Twitter public the fact that “the majority of the Internet Research Agency’s Facebook ads were purchased after the election.” After Trump retweeted Goldman’s thread to reaffirm that Vladimir Putin had nothing to do with his electoral victory, the Facebook VP was lucky to still have a job.
Chen’s article serves to explain why Russiagate is so vital to The New Yorker , despite the many headaches that each new weekly iteration of the story must be causing for the magazine’s fact-checkers. According to British court documents , The New Yorker was one of the publications that former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele briefed in September 2016 on the findings in his now-notorious dossier. In a New Yorker profile of Steele this week—portraying the spy-for-corporate-hire as a patriotic hero and laundering his possible criminal activities — Jane Mayer explains that she was personally briefed by Steele during that time period.
The New Yorker has produced tons of Russiagate stories , including a small anthology of takes on the Mueller indictments alone. Of course there’s one by the recently-hired Adam Entous, the former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the news that the Washington firm Fusion GPS, which produced the Steele dossier, had been hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee—a story that helped Fusion GPS relieve some of the pressure congressional inquiries had put on the firm to release its bank records. No doubt Entous will continue to use his sources, whoever they are, to break more such stories at The New Yorker .
One person at The New Yorker who won’t get on board with the story is Masha Gessen. Born in Moscow, Gessen knows first-hand how bad Putin is and dislikes Trump only a little less than she dislikes the Russian strongman. Yet in a recent New Yorker piece, Gessen mocked Mueller’s indictments : “Trump’s tweet about Moscow laughing its ass off was unusually (perhaps accidentally) accurate,” she wrote. “Loyal Putinites and dissident intellectuals alike are remarkably united in finding the American obsession with Russian meddling to be ridiculous.”
Another native Russian-speaking reporter, Julia Ioffe, formerly with The New Republic and more recently, The Atlantic , has some similar reservations. In a September 2016 article for Politico , she threw cold water on the legend of Carter Page, master spy and wheeler-dealer. As Ioffe reported, virtually no one in Moscow had ever heard of Page.
From the beginning, Gessen saw the collusion story as dangerous, not because she supported Trump but because it fed into a fantasy that convinced Trump’s opponents that they need not bother with the difficult and boring work of procedural politics. And who were the would-be agents of America’s salvation? Spies—the former British spy allegedly responsible for the dossier and countless American intelligence officials using anonymous press leaks to manipulate the American public.
“The backbone of the rapidly yet endlessly developing Trump-Putin story,” Gessen wrote in The New York Review of Books nearly a year ago, “is leaks from intelligence agencies, and this is its most troublesome aspect.”
The specter of an intelligence bureaucracy working in tandem with the press to preserve the prerogatives of a ruling clique is the kind of thing that someone who knows Russia from the inside and actually fears the specter of authoritarian government would naturally find worrying. And not surprisingly, concerns over the role of the intelligence community and its increasingly intrusive methods motivate other Russiagate critics on the left, like Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept, historian Jackson Lears writing at the London Review of Books , and Stephen Cohen at The Nation .
“One of the most bizarre aspects of Russiagate,” writes Lears, “is the magical transformation of intelligence agency heads into paragons of truth-telling—a trick performed not by reactionary apologists for domestic spying, as one would expect, but by people who consider themselves liberals.”
Cohen, a distinguished if often overly sympathetic historian of the Soviet Union, was even more alarmed. “Was Russiagate produced by the primary leaders of the US intelligence community?” asks Cohen, referring to former CIA director John Brennan as well as ex-FBI chief James Comey. “If so, it is the most perilous political scandal in modern American history and the most detrimental to American democracy.”
Yes, the left hates Trump. I didn’t vote for him, either. But what Gessen, Greenwald, Lears, and Cohen all understand is that Russiagate isn’t about Trump. He’s just a convenient proxy for the real target. Their understanding is shared by writers on the right, like Andrew McCarthy, a former lawyer at the Department of Justice, who has unfolded the Russiagate affair over the last year in the pages of National Review , where he has carefully explained how the DOJ and FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to spy on Carter Page and violate the privacy of an American citizen.
What unites Gessen, Greenwald, Lears, and McCarthy obviously isn’t politics—rather, it’s the recognition that the Russiagate campaign represents an attack on American political and social institutions, an attack on our liberties, an attack on us. Russiagate is a conspiracy theory, weaponized by political operatives, much of the press, as well as high-level intelligence and law enforcement bureaucrats to delegitimize an American election and protect their own interests, which coincide with those of the country’s larger professional and bureaucratic elite.
The story of how the Russiagate collusion myth was made and marketed is much easier to understand—it’s social. Imagine a map of professional, academic, and family networks that connect people across professions like law, journalism, public relations, and lobbying, which intersect with political institutions, like the permanent bureaucracies that staff places like the FBI, CIA, Congress, and the White House. That map is largely blue, but there’s lots of red there, too.
The story of how spies and journalists came to collaborate on a disinformation campaign is also, as the left may not be surprised to find, partly explained by economics. With the rise of the internet and social media, and the resulting collapse of print advertising, it was no longer necessary for the media to mass so close to New York City ad firms. Surviving old-media outlets and their new-media cousins moved much of their operations to Washington, which offered one-stop shopping for “national” stories. Having insulated itself from the 2008 economic collapse, the capital thrived. Ambitious and inexperienced young journalists flocked to where the jobs were, staffing startup news and social media operations—which were often simply partisan war rooms that produced and solicited opposition research—just in time to cover Obama’s historic presidency.
For those like Gessen, Cohen, Lears, and others on the left who don’t understand how and when American journalists got in bed with the country’s spies, it started several years before Trump or Russiagate. It was while reporting on the Obama administration that the press came to rely on the White House’s political operatives, including intelligence officials, for sources and stories about American foreign policy. It got worse when the Obama administration started spying on its domestic opponents during the Iran deal, when the Obama administration learned how far it could go in manipulating the foreign-intelligence surveillance apparatus for domestic political advantage. As Adam Entous, then of The Wall Street Journal , wrote in a December 2015 article , “the National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups.”
Obama administration officials had leaked the story to Entous in order to shape its reception. After all, the real news was pretty bad—Obama had spied on Americans and the Americans he spied on, Congress and Jewish community leaders, knew it. But in Entous’ account, it was only by accident that the National Security Agency had listened in on Americans opposed to the Iran deal, opponents whose communications had simply been “swept up.” While Entous’ evident lack of skepticism about that account was hardly good reporting, it was perfectly in keeping with the maxim of not biting the hand that feeds you.
What the White House really wanted to know, on Entous’ telling, was what the Israeli prime minister and his ambassador to Washington were doing to contest the Iran deal. Except, neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer makes U.S. policy: Congress does. As I explained in an April Tablet article , the purpose of the spying campaign was to help the White House fight U.S. legislators and other Americans critical of the deal—i.e., to win a domestic political battle. A pro-Israel political operative who was deeply involved in the Iran deal fight told me last year, “The NSA’s collections of foreigners became a means of gathering real-time intelligence on Americans.” With the Iran deal, as would later happen with Russiagate, the ostensible targets of intelligence collection—Israel, then Russia—were simply instruments that the Obama administration used to go after the real bad guys, namely its enemies at home.
The same process of weaponizing foreign-intelligence collection for domestic political purposes that the Obama administration road-tested during the Iran-deal fight was used to manufacture Russiagate and get it to market. Except instead of keeping a close hold of the identities of those swept up during “incidental collection” of U.S. persons, departing Obama White House officials leaked the names to friendly reporters.
Leaking classified intelligence is a felony, which means that Obama officials, many in the intelligence community, who leaked the names of Americans whose communications were intercepted to the press, were breaking the law. A crucial concern, then, was the trustworthiness of the intermediaries chosen to publish classified intelligence. It is to those intermediaries that anyone seeking to understand how the press became an instrument of the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy’s information war must now turn.
Entous, now The New Yorker ’s man in Washington, had already proved his trustworthiness by shaping the story about Obama administration spying on congressional and American Jewish-community leaders in a way that was favorable to the administration, and disguised blatant abuses of power. More stories would now come his way, courtesy of the U.S. intelligence community.
One of Entous’ most famous Russia-related scoops was a Dec. 31, 2016, Washington Post article reporting that “according to US officials,” Russians hackers had penetrated the computer system of a Vermont dam. As it turns out, the story was entirely wrong.
A statement from Burlington Electric released shortly after the Post ’s story explained that a laptop unconnected to the company’s grid was affected by malware. There was no threat to the dam, never mind “the nation’s electrical grid,” as the anonymous U.S. officials quoted in the Entous story had claimed.
In other words, there was no story—which Entous or his co-writer would have discovered had they contacted the electricity company. They didn’t, because the story was not sourced to original reporting—i.e. discovering from sources on location in Vermont that the state’s electrical grid had in fact been compromised. In support of reporting like that, the journalists might well have sought supporting information or quotes from government officials, named or even anonymous. Instead, their story started with anonymous U.S. officials, who leaked to Entous and his colleague for the evident purpose of advancing the Russiagate narrative. Russia was everywhere—from a dam in Vermont to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
If Entous’ story about the Obama administration’s spying on Congress and U.S. Jewish leaders showed that the reporter was trustworthy, the Vermont-dam article showed he wasn’t going to ask many questions of the officials who pointed him toward a nonexistent story, whose purpose appeared to have less to do with the health of the state of Vermont than with fear-mongering about Russia.
Clearly, someone noticed. In the March 1, 2017, Washington Post , Entous was lead byline on an article breaking the news that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. A July 21, 2017, Post story on which Entous had the lead byline alleged that Sessions had discussed campaign-related matters with Kislyak. The latter story provides evidence of how the March and July articles were produced—U.S. officials leaked classified intelligence regarding intercepts of Kislyak’s communications with Moscow, in which he discussed Sessions. Officials then unmasked the identity of the attorney general and leaked it to Entous and the other reporters on the story.
Following close on the heels of those two pass-through DC-based “scoops,” Entous was lead byline on an April 3, 2017, story reporting a meeting in the Seychelles between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian banker, reportedly to set up a back channel between Trump and Putin. After publication of the story, Prince said he was shown “specific evidence” by sources from the intelligence community that his name was unmasked and given to the paper. “Unless The Washington Post has somehow miraculously recruited the bartender of a hotel in the Seychelles,” Prince told the House Intelligence Committee in December, “the only way that’s happening is through SIGINT [signals intelligence].” Recent news reports suggest that Prince’s meeting has become a key focus of the Mueller investigation. If those reports are accurate, it seems even more likely that classified intelligence was purposefully being leaked to put pressure on Prince. A week later, on April 11, 2017, Entous is bylined on yet another story based on a leak of classified intelligence that once again violated the privacy rights of an American citizen when the Post broke the news that the FBI secured a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on Carter Page.
If you think Russiagate is real, then you will probably conclude that Sessions, Prince, and Page are all part of a single, monstrous criminal conspiracy—and that Adam Entous is one of the most important journalists in American history, an indefatigable shoe-leather reporter who helped whistleblowers inside the federal government put the truth before the American public, like Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Neil Sheehan combined. If you think the collusion story is nonsense, then Entous is just a political operative with a convenient byline. And if you think Russiagate is a campaign of political warfare waged in the shadows by bureaucrats who violated the privacy of American citizens in order to undo election results they disagreed with, then Entous is something worse—an asset whom sectors of the intelligence community have come to rely on in order to manipulate the public.
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He moved out of his residence in NY when it was discovered his campaign was being wiretapped by the Obama Administration. Obama and his holdovers were still spying on them when the possible backdoor communications were being set up. And it was after the election. We've ended the most corrupt administration in my life time by ending Obama and Hillary's rise to the Presidency.
Now it is time to get down to the real collusion and get rid of the Soviet Style Prosecutor with his Democrat Attorneys and ending their witch hunt and possibly putting Mueller under investigation as well. He has already ruined one man's life for 5 years and has never shown any remorse or apologized for it.
I agree, no reasonable person with a lick of common sense intelligence believes this conspiracy fairy tale. Now that viable information has emerged that the Democrats were possibly spying on American citizens and obtaining fraudulent FISA warrants, should be making some left wingers very nervous. I think Sessions is doing the right thing iin appointing another Special Counsel to investigate the devious antics of the Obama administration and Hillary's role in it.
Not a one of us knows anyone who changed their vote for any reason other than maybe her 'Deplorable' statement.
It's a crock because the truth isn't what they believe. We're stuck with them. It has taken decades to brainwash a nation.
Fortunately we were able to at least slow them down and more Americans are beginning to realize the Soviet style politics the Democrats and their media have been using to influence us.
I'm just happy the most corrupt administration in the history of this country is out of office now. If Hillary had won, just think where we would be today. We wouldn't know anything about the real collusion.
If we can get past this witch hunt on Trump, which by the way has produced no charges that has anything to do with Trump, we can get on to the real collusion.
It should be really interesting and I'm looking forward to it.
Heck, they think millions of voters hadn't already made up their minds on who to vote for until just days before the lection, although we endured over a year of campaigning and the candidates were completely different.
Illogical at best.
If Mueller investigation is such a fantasy then why are Manafort, Gates and other copping pleas at the speed of light? Apparenty you know more than their highly paid lawyers do.
Off Topic [ph]
Off topic. The seeder is not the subject.
By the way, this article is from a Left Wing site, although not nearly as far to the left as to n.ot have any common sense
Tablet Magazine
LEFT-CENTER BIAS
These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation.
Factual Reporting: HIGH
World Press Freedom Rank: USA 43/180
Notes: Tablet magazine founded 2009, is an American Jewish daily online magazine owned by nonprofit, Jewish organization Nextbook. Tablet Magazine covers topics such as “Jewish news, ideas, and culture” They also accept pieces from freelance writers.
Tablet typically publishes well-sourced news stories from reputable news organizations that are reliable for factual content. Editorially, there is a left leaning bias with articles that use loaded language to disparage Donald Trump. Overall, we rate Tablet Magazine as Left-Center biased due to editorial bias and highly factual in news reporting. (M. Huitsing 8/29/2017)
LEFT-CENTER BIAS
Here's Proof that Mueller's so-called "Which Hunt" is valid-- more "witches" indicted. There definitely was Russian meddling in our election-- beyond any shadow of a doubt!
( Warning: Be aware that the following video is produced by an extreme left-wing news out-- the alt-Left Fox News!)
OK, 2 indictments-- so what?
No one believes Mueller probe has produced anything...
A few un-important indictments-- Oh, and a guilty plea from Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn-- again, no big deal.
[And yes-- this is from the ultra-liberal far left news site Fox News: Lock Them Up, Lock Them Up!]
Who believes in RussiaGate?
Why Rick Gates, of course!
Former Trump Campaign aide Rick Gates pleads guilty to conspiracy, tax charges
Is it even necessary to mention that this is obviously "fake news" ...why?
Because it is from an obviously "fake news" source!
(Pretty Foxy, eh? LOL
They could have canned Manafort in 2014, long before Trump even decided to run for President. Krishna has proven nothing here with those videos except he is sold on the idea someone, somewhere is guilty of collusion with the Russians and they will be able to remove Trump.
He must not know what these people are charged with and it doesn't have anything to do with the campaign or collusion with Russia.
Now I say I don't know anyone who could overcome a investigation by the FBI which has no limits, not even anyone on this site. That's why it is nothing but a witch hunt using Soviet Style tactics. But the Left loves that kind of investigation as long as it isn't on them. They've always stood with the USSR even when Ted Kennedy colluded with them to defeat Reagan, the Left stood with the Soviet Union. Why do you think they call them the Left?
Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit
Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times , came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.
"On 9-10 May of this year," the May 14 memorandum explained, "Sen. Edward Kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow." (Tunney was Kennedy's law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) "The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov."
Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. "The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations," the memorandum stated. "These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign."
Continue...
"He moved out of his residence in NY when it was discovered his campaign was being wiretapped by the Obama Administration."
BS. Provide proof of your nonsense, otherwise it's just more crap being stirred up to muddy the waters.
"Obama and his holdovers were still spying on them when the possible backdoor communications were being set up."
The "them" were known campaign operatives attempting to obfuscate their clandestine meetings with Russian spies. It's our governments job to keep tabs on foreign adversaries like Russia trying to recruit Americans as Russian assets.
"And it was after the election."
But before the inauguration which is not only highly improper, it's likely illegal. We have only one President at a time.
"We've ended the most corrupt administration in my life time by ending Obama and Hillary's rise to the Presidency."
If defending our nation against enemy foreign governments attempting to manipulate US foreign policy by surreptitiously working in secret to recruit Americans to be used as Russian assets is "corruption", then we need more of that, not less. If the Obama administration HADN'T been investigating this illegal back channel communication they would have been derelict in their duty. You can hate Obama all you want, most of his haters need only look at his skin color to harbor resentment, hate and jealousy for him being far smarter than the average white supremacist, but he did his job and did it well. Presidential historians will look back on his Presidency as one of the best of all time. Thankfully the bigots aren't educated enough to be the historians who will document the impressive Obama legacy.
Wrong again, it is not illegal to establish back channel lines of communication before the inauguration. You need to quit watchng CNN so much.
Back channel lines meant to avoid our own intelligence agencies by using Russia's more trustworthy ones?? This is your argument???
It is if you're using the back channel to make US foreign policy such as agreeing to drop sanctions and repeal the Magnistky Act in return for aid during the election.
Just too easy.
Back-channel communications are nothing new for White House
They're new for a transition team well before the inauguration.
They are new when their intention is to avoid our own intelligence agencies. Or did you miss that part of my comment?
Nope, why would you think of such a stupid thing?
It has nothing to do with inauguration. He is president-elect and such communications are done by every incoming president.
No they are not. As soon as the new President is elected, none of them waste any time communicating with other countries. The only problem this time the Obama Administration was doing what the leaders of third world countries do.
Exactly, which is what they were trying to do. However America has one President at a time and until January 20th, 2017 that President was Barack Obama. And yet Jared Kushner was trying to set up a secret back channel line of communication with Vladimir Putin for Donald Trump to use. He even went so far as to suggest that it be set up in the Russian Embassy and would use current Russian technology, which of course the Russians said No to as they wouldn't want any non-Russian in their communications room to see all of their classified equipment and codes. He also suggested that, no matter where line was connected in the US, that it end in Russia in the Kremlin at Putin's desk and that it was to always be a secret. The idea was that Trump and Putin would have a straight line of communication with Putin that no one else would know about for conversations with our number one adversary in the world that would not be recorded and not revealed to our Intelligence Services, our State Department and Homeland Security and yes that is illegal. For Kushner and Trump.
And no, none of this was usual or normal.
That's what happens, Greg. After awhile when government officials commit illegal activities without any punishment for doing so, it becomes normal and people forget what it is suppose to be or what it once was before the illegal activity became common. That's how we lose our freedoms, death from a thousand cuts.
Seriously? The intelligence agencies are a tool for the President to use in instances like this. You have yet to explain why he was trying to set up these channels in such a way as to prevent our intelligence agencies from monitoring the Russians.
Making things up again?
Interesting that your article cites Masha Gessen given that she's one of the folks who has been warning that Trump is a wannabe dictator.
.
It's also amusing that you posted it the same day that Trump said he'll only agree to be interviewed by Mueller if he ends the investigation. That's like robbing a bank and then telling the cops that you'll agree to be interviewed so long as they drop the charges.
And he would most likely still refuse. Mueller would eat him alive! I would love it best if he got him in front of a Grand Jury, so they could see the looks on his face as he hears questions on things that he is positive Mueller doesn't know about. Then again maybe he will do it. His massive, bloated, fat ego might make him believe that he is smarter then Mueller (
) and can "handle" him. That would be like a field rat thinking it can out smart the Wolf, if they were locked together in an empty room.
This fact doesn't seem to be getting through. This article is from a left wing site and two other left wing sites back up the facts in the article. I could care less whether this lady thinks Trump wants to be a dictator.
Trump has done everything by the Constitution, something I can't say about Obama. He's abided by the Constitution, even when it went against him, for example his authority to determine who is allowed into this country and the Liberal court filled with Clinton and Obama Judges stopped him, even though they said they would have done exactly the opposite if Hillary had done the same thing. Now the Constitution doesn't give any examples of how one is to follow it for one person and not the other.
Does anybody recall when Donald Trump first made the charge (mostly from logic & gut instinct) that the Trump Tower had been wiretapped? There was an immediate & carefully worded response from an Obama spokesperson that the former President did not order a wiretap. That's when I realized that Trump Tower had indeed been wiretapped and I said so at the time on NV.
This article demonstrates how the media, in their hatred of Donald Trump, left all their journalistic standards by the wayside as they willfully became a tool of the deep state in a thinly veiled attempt to smear and remove a President from office.
I remember it and you are exactly right about your assumption in my opinion. Obama also played the part of being one of the victims throughout his Presidency, being just one of the people, he wasn't responsible for anything, it was the government you and he were fighting against together.
I know what you mean by the carefully worded response from the Left.
Another time was when the SCOTUS was to come back in June with their ruling on Obamacare. As soon as I heard that, I know the Left would get to some who weren't falling in line in some way. I already knew at that point what was going to happen. I just didn't know the details, but Roberts was the man with the gun to his head in my opinion.
What a crock.
Tell us why you think so.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/05/a-so-far-complete-timeline-of-the-investigation-into-trump-and-russia/?utm_term=.7c60e22f72f3
Any more questions see, the Mueller investigation news on Monday, I'm sure there will be something new then.
Really, denying and taking the Russian propaganda side of Putin, how surprising! I'll bet you don't think Putin ordered that assassination in the UK the other day either. I do see a lot of denial here from conservatives, this seed just one more. It really doesn't matter though because they can't control the truth from coming out. One can be more informed if one looks for the right sources. Not sure why you are so comfortable believing two know liars. Putin is a master from the KGB, and Trump has lied every single day he opens his gob since he's been in office.
Food for thought...
BTW, you know this crap (foreign election interference) happens every election in every country and the USA is the worst worldwide perpetrator of such activities? It is every countries job to prevent as much as possible.
Facts are that the only reason it is getting so much press this election is because of how close the election was, who the liberal media wanted to win, and a powerful woman and party who still can't admit she(they) lost it on her own merit. I wonder if they will think twice about trying to shove some unlikable lying criminal establishment stooge down the countries throat next primary.
Not taking sides at all. The simple plain truth is that no collusion or whatever you want to call it between Putin and Trump. What would be point of it? You're looking under lilypads for fairies, and there are none there.
Any other questions? Is there anyone is the TRUMP admin...ANYONE that doesn't have ties to Russia?
Aww, what a cool chart, but where on it does it show proof of anything. I know you can do better than this.
Epic fail, not facts therein.
Cool chart, have you seen this one?
If it walks like a duck...quacks like a duck...looks like a duck.... probably a duck.
Hillary? Again???
...If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
I happen to think the Clinton cartel is hiding a lot more Russian secrets and implications than Donny is.
Not really. That's Trump's only go to. As soon as a new stink in his administration crops up, he starts screaming HILLARY again. I use it as a way to measure just how panicked he is over Mueller on a given day.
What makes you believe that without any evidence? The FBI was able to review the supposedly deleted/missing emails, they pieced together the 32,000 of them and found nothing to implicate Hillary or her team in any malfeasance. Oh, I forgot, you non-evidence of some "deep state" cabal is effecting your reasoning centers. You might want to try removing the tin foil hat and thinking for yourself once in a while, it will do you a world of good.
Lib50 says 'One can be more informed if one looks for the right sources.'
Here I've provided an article from a Left leaning source and 96 has provided them with information from Washington Post Democrat Party arm and they are still criticizing our sources, which proves they refuse to open their eyes and minds and accept the truth when it hits them in the face.
Guess it's time go scream at the sky for a couple of hours.
Have a quacker!
Greg, there is no proof and even the two or three who have been charged didn't have anything to do with colluding with Russia or the Trump campaign.
In fact as is indicative of Mueller, destroying innocent people's lives is what he does best.
He could have gotten Manafort when he was FBI Director, but didn't.
Evidently the 91% negative media has a lot of people fooled and they just can't accept they've been duped.
what we now know went on between Clinton allies Sidney Blumenthal and Jonathan Winer and the author of the infamous dossier, Christopher Steele. We know that Steele was paid with Clinton campaign money and that he was “passionate about [Trump] not being president.” We know that Winer, an old Washington hand and former John Kerry staffer was Steele’s man at the State Department and, incredibly, admitted to distributing more than 100 of Steele’s commercial business documents within senior offices at the State Department. Soon enough, we will know who Steele’s clients were that paid for their views to be disseminated within the Obama administration and what Russian interests were involved. And by the way, it turns out Blumenthal, a long-time specialist in the political dark arts, had his own anti-Trump dossier, authored by political activist Cody Shearer, which he gave to Winer; Winer passed it to Steele, and Steele passed it to the FBI. Presto. Keeping someone between the political operatives and the FBI: That’s how real pros do it in the swamp.
Anyway, you would think this operation would warrant appropriate news coverage and multiple follow-up questions from the mainstream media. But instead, it is mostly crickets. Compare the coverage of the Blumenthal-Steele-Winer troika and their work to influence the FBI and supply anti-Trump campaign dirt to the media with the coverage of a single meeting that took place with a Russian lawyer and Trump campaign personnel. Ask yourself which is most significant: Donald Trump Jr. — the hapless, amateur son of then-candidate Trump — having a one-off, stray meeting in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer who perhaps promised, but did not deliver, compromising information on Clinton, or Winer, Blumenthal and foreign national Steele all playing a role in getting campaign dirt through Steele’s and State Department channels into the hands of the FBI ? With all the breathless scrutiny surrounding Trump Jr.’s meeting, one would think there would at least be a modicum of interest in Blumenthal, Winer and Steele.
Taking a cruise down Denial? What part of ONGOING INVESTIGATION are you missing? Mueller is deep into the investigation and the circle is tightening closer to Trump with each new indictment or plea. Now you can pretend its all over and Trump has been exonerated, but its not and he isn't. While Trump and GOP denies and panics, Mueller keeps digging. I'm happy to wait til hes done. I would not break out the champs if I were you.
Mueller is deep into the investigation and the circle is tightening closer to Trump with each new indictment or plea.
The tighter the circle gets, the louder and more irrational the deniers get.
And it happened in 2012 as well. Obama knew it then and knew it during 2016. The only thing is he was convinced Hillary would win in a landslide and if she had, we'd never know all the corruption we've learned about since then.
Six, even you would acknowledge your over fondness for conspiracy theories.
In that light, your ever increasing comments about this subject are delusional.
Right wingers operate under the conviction that if you repeat nonsense with enough conviction and repetition it will achieve the desired brainwashing properties. It does work on vulnerable 'conservative' and 'patriot' thought patterns.
I heard something yesterday that the FBI Field Office in Arkansas is looking into the Clinton Foundation again. I can't remember what exactly they are looking for, heard it on the radio as I passed some offices.
The Uranium One conspiracy theory blew up in y'alls faces. What's next? 'Fat And Furious - The Donald Trump Story' ?
Have a quacker!
OK.
Judge Jeanine: Outing The FBI Crime Family
I love watching Judge Jeanine-- she's one of my favourite comedians!
Thanks for posting.
Fat and Furious ....
Yep, I'll admit it. I just laughed so hard I peed a little.
Those facts are out of their field of vision.
It has been happening that way since the early 90's when the Clinton's first moved to Washington DC.
Hillary Clinton's Fingerprints Among Those Found on Papers
June 5, 1996
Republicans on the special Senate Whitewater committee released a report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation today showing that the fingerprints of the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were found on records discovered in the White House family quarters two years after they were first sought by investigators.
The F.B.I. report also found that the documents, copies of billing records from Mrs. Clinton's work as a lawyer in Arkansas, revealed fingerprints of five others. They were Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel who committed suicide in July 1993; a personal assistant to the Clintons who had also worked at Mrs. Clinton's law firm; an aide to the Clintons' current lawyer, and two other law firm aides.
This is clearly important and relevant evidence," said Michael Chertoff, the counsel for the committee's Republicans. "It clearly means she touched these records at some point in time."
Continue...
I'm not going to continue. There are so many. I don't know if there is enough room on Perrie's server to load all of Hillary's corruption.
I can't wait until they get on with the new investigation where the collusion with Russia proof is already available. They don't even have to spend time looking for it. Just think when they have the ability to do all the things the most corrupt administration has had the ability to do. Only I don't want anything illegally done as the Obama Administration did for 8 years.
Pretty pathetic you voting up your own pathetic posts and memes
It must be hard for Trumpers to separate the facts from the bullshit. You don't get indictments and plea deals because there is no criminal activity under scrutiny. Mueller follows where the trail leads and if there's a crime, he prosecutes. How hard is that to comprehend?
I bet you are longing for those Benghazi days, when republicans could go after Clinton or Obama at will. Do you know how long those Benghazi investigations went on?
Enjoy the fruits of Trey Gowdy's labors. Karma's a bitch.
Excellent comment!!!
He selectively prosecutes. How much has come back of illegal activity by the Dems with no Grand Juries or charges being filed? There's even talk of another Special Prosecutor being appointed to look into the FISA Warrent process that facilitated this farce of a "Russia Collusion" investigation.
19 down and many more to go. Mueller is just getting started. Knew there was a reason for buying all of that Boy Scout popcorn. This is getting good.
No, my friend, the phony BS is what republicans tried to do to Clinton and Obama. NOT ONE INVESTIGATION PANNED OUT FOR THE GOP! No matter how long and where they went. Unfortunately for you, Mueller does have real stuff. Real important stuff. And republicans can't stop him. They are especially worried because some of this investigation will taint their party. Follow the money. Mueller is. One thing we all know for sure. Greed is one of Trump's drivers.
Prove it.
They still haven't received all the requested information about Benghazi. How long ago was that?
They have reliable anonymous sources.
Oh, you are really stuck in fake investigation territory here. Republicans must REALLY be incompetent.
The seeded article is phenomenally boring.
I challenge anyone to glean a half dozen important sentences from it and present them to us as proof of SOMETHING.
This seed is warmed over Glenn Greenwald analysis which always concludes that the problem with everything is the "elites" in government and media.
This article begins (in six words) with an obvious lie.
Half the country hates Donald Trump,
It's much more than half the country.
Sorry, but his real approval rating is very close to 50% and rising!
Um, can you prove that? I can prove you are wrong...
40.1% approval/54.9% disapproval.
And before you call it a left wing rag, or cherry picked polls. RCP is an AVERAGE of ALL the polls. Including right leaning and left leaning. I am sure that you were going to find the one or two polls that show trump at 50%? Those polls are included in this poll as well and anyone that has taken even BASIC statistics will tell you, "the more data you have, the more accurate the results will be". RCP is probably the most accurate site there is. Have a super day.
I know a lot of people, but I don't know a single person who would make the claim that Donald Trump is a decent human being. He is entirely unlikeable to anyone but an immoral degenerate (aka deplorable).
Apparently no one has told you that polls reflect POPULARITY. Not the electorate. I was responding to a poster that said that trumps approval, (popularity), is 50%. If you cannot follow the thread, or understand the posting structure here, ask someone to help you.
I didn't post an opinion, I posted a fact.
I didn't see any polls that predicted the electorate. Let me explain this to you in the simplest possible way because it's pretty clear you simply do not understand.
Polls predict the popular vote in an ELECTION. Who was the predicted winner, of THE POPULAR vote? Hillary. Who WON the popular vote? Hillary. The polls were pretty close to spot on.
When there IS NO ELECTION. The polls reflect the same thing, the popularity, or approval. NOW do you get it?
.
Yes yes, we all know trump won the rigged election, I mean, he said it was rigged many times. Just sayin.
How tedious it will be that we have to be subjected to several more years of popularity polls instead of facts based upon what the electorate affirms and confirms.
I don't like him either, but he was the lesser of two evils, and is doing a good job.
Doing a good job at making the US the laughingstock of the developed world.
He's a fucking pathological liar. Is there something about that fact that you don't understand?
The only Americans Trump cares about are the ones whose last name is Trump.
"Booming economy"
Was already booming when he took office.
"nearing record employment levels"
Already historically low unemployment when he took office at 4.7%, he's simply ridden the trend down to 4.1%.
"letting other countries know that we are NOT//NOT the global sugar daddy any longer and we'll level the playing field"
Letting other countries know the US will no longer be a global leader and allowing China to start dictating the global agenda.
"getting China to pressure NOKO"
Unsuccessfully. North Korea actually ramped up its missile tests after Chinese pressure.
"actually getting NOKO to realize that they have no option other than to denuclearize the Korean peninsula"
No evidence whatsoever of this bizarre false statement. Trump is now doing exactly what they want which was to recognize them as a nuclear power and agreed to come to the table without any preconditions such as denuclearization.
"is a pretty good START of the Trump Presidency"
If the chaos and incompetence was just the beginning we are in for a very long and depressing three years if Trump manages to make it that long.
No... it's not really, but if it makes you happy to think so, knock yerself out.
And according to your credible sources, Obama and Company were spying on his campaign and we know Hillary's campaign was colluding with the Russians.
And no one who has been charged with anything has been charged with anything that had anything to do with Trump's campaign.
If there was anything that influenced the election, it was that stupid 'Deplorable' statement.
So what! So was Obama and especially Hillary. We don't care, he's doing what he was elected to do.
No, his approval rating it isn't close to 50%. His disapproval rating is well over 50%. Americans also disapprove of the tariffs and his handing of gun control.
You need to find some new fake news, that old crap is bullshit.
Actually it's 100% of the people who like him, just like it was with Obama. Kind of like it was almost 100% Hillary was going to win in these polls until it wasn't.
Link please? Can you provide a credible source to your statement of fact?
Now that is truly laughable. IF that were true, he would be spending more time and energy in rebuilding the failing infrastructure in so many areas of America to insure the safety of our country's people, and many other areas in need of attention that would provide a better life for our wildlife, instead of selling off public land to developers and oil companies that will help fill his, his family's and his Good 'ol Boy's pockets down stream.
You get back as good as you give. It works both ways.
As much as you get paid to do the same for the junk sources you use and call it fact?
Actually I don't. But it leans neither left nor right. It's an average of ALL the polls in the USA. Had you read my post, or bothered to follow the link you would know that.
Try 34%. Why lie?
I would challenge anyone to glean a half dozen important sentences from it and present them to us as proof of SOMETHING.
And yet you're taking a few groundless allegations against Trump and are trying to present them to us as proof of something. What you should be doing is looking at the evidence from both sides and come up with an informed and intelligent opinion.
Comment removed for CoC violation [ph]
I take that as a compliment, it proves I'm getting to you and proving you wrong, and you can't come up with anything intelligent to say. Skirting the CoC [ph]
Skirting the CoC [ph]. Gotta give ya that one.
In regards to the above comments:
You are here to have a discussion. Have one.
So he admits he is a waste of time, and I agree with him and it's skirting? Really?
I am done here.
I strongly protest this coc violation.
People get told worse than that they are a waste of time here, all the time, with no coc violation applied. This is ridiculous.
I don't have to prove anything. Read their histories and political beliefs, it's all online.
Promise?
More bullshit! Pulled straight of Wayne La Pierre's ass!
You claim this to justify your support of a out and out racist and anti semite:
The attempt to condemn the Republicans because ofsome group or another or some individual . It OK for only one side not to disavow an less than honorable group .
You mean like obama fawned over the castro brothers, hugo chavez and putin?
Actually he did not specify any group of people but did rightly say that there were good people on both sides of the issue of removing civil war statues .
Who?
Who?
Fail.
Didn't see that. I've looked everywhere for it. Not saying it doesn't exist. Maybe Perrie deleted it as a COC violation as it surely would be, but actually unless you can point me to it, I believe it is just your imagination playing tricks on you.
Is that all you have? Interesting......NOT.
He didn't specifically exclude antifa, anarchist and the extreme left wing either. Are you going to tell ne he supports them andthey him?
Who's drumpf?
Hey it has something in common with seeds someone else posts he John?
Oh there is a "Russiagate" all right, but Trump isn't the perpetrator.
I know...it's Obama and Hillary and all their henchmen and women. Not to mention the holdovers in the FBI and DOJ
What did you say just moments ago?
Funny, you complain about someone being off topic, then just minutes later, bring up Obama and Hillary...which have NADA to do with the article at all. Hypocrite much?
The reason she did that was, at that time, they were 100% sure Hillary was going to be elected. They didn't want to have to deal with the flack of the Russians being involved in the election because it would be pointed out that's the reason Hillary won. See how that works.
Could be John Miller...
Keep thinking that way, and forgetting to pay attention to the midterm elections.
A Democrat won Alabama... The reddest of red states... If that is an indicator? The repubs are going to take an EPIC beating. And how many repub congressmen are retiring? 40? Wonder why so many? Hint: Because trump is like an anchor, and they know they have no chance of winning.
A republican won the presidential election in MI. A UNION state, That hasn't happened since the 80's... Strange times. It seems to me incumbents of both parties need to worry. People are fed up and the only recourse you have is to vote them out, isn't it?
Don't get cocky, liberals might actually vote this mid term.
Yeah...but, considering the person he beat, it was a foregone conclusion.
I sincerely doubt that Trump could ever match Obama's record as an anchor,
What was it?
Over 1000 seats in less than eight years, and you want to talk about a handful of elections??
LMFAO!
That is what the Republicans thought too, and the loser still won't accept it.
You might take your own advice.
Never said you were. So why the deflection?
I'll be glad when the Special Prosecutor, not Mueller and his band of Democrats, take on that investigation. Hell, there's not much left to do. They already have the evidence, something Mueller and his band of Communistic Prosecutors have spent over a year on and still don't have anything to our knowledge.
But...
... ... ... what is the relationship between Stormy Daniels and Vladimir Putin?
"Who believes in Russiagate?"
It's not a matter of immaterial belief anymore, we have irrefutable facts regarding Russia's bad behavior and the complicity of the Trump campaign.
Fact: Russia did illegally hack the DNC as well as State department servers and at least two dozen State voter roll databases.
Fact: Russia did offer dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign in exchange for lifting sanctions and a repeal of the Magnitsky act.
Fact: Russia did weaponize their stolen emails and released them in a coordinated fashion to aid the Trump campaign. Within hours of the Billy Bush bus tape the Podesta emails were released which was something Roger Stone had predicted just a week before showing active knowledge of Russian meddling.
Fact: Russia did fund numerous agents to come to the US and organize campaign style events as well as funding hundreds of thousands of bots spreading disinformation and outright lies in an effort to throw the election for their preferred candidate Donald Trump. Putin spent $1.25 million a month during the campaign in an effort to aid Trump and sink Hillary's campaign using Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other media outlets along with RT and Sputnik to spread their lies.
Fact: The Trump campaign met numerous times with Russian officials in an effort to gain dirt on Hillary and then lied about those meetings. The campaign manager Paul Manafort had several financial ties to Russian banks and was actively laundering money for them creating a huge conflict of interest. Mike Flynn also had numerous financial ties to both Russia and Turkey and was actively on the payroll of a foreign government while working on the Trump campaign and was still working for Turkey when he accepted and began to work as Trumps National Security Advisor. Flynn also met with Russian officials before Trump became President and was making US foreign policy promises in violation of the Logan act and then lied about those meetings.
Fact: During the campaign the Trump team changed the Republican party platform removing the support for Ukraine and the sanctions that were in place because of Russia's illegal invasion of Crimea.
The only thing we don't have yet is an actual recording of Trump speaking with Putin coordinating this attack on our election process. If that is now the low bar Trump supporters are using to claim innocence then the Republican party has already fallen to an enemy foreign government and should be viewed as an enemy of western Democracy and American ideals.
Really good article, whose point will go over the heads of many.
Thanks Sean. It's actually getting a little over my head, kind of like in 'outer space'. It's rather simple, 'Who believes in Russiagate?'.
It doesn't matter to me whether anyone believes it or not. No one knows a single person who voted for Trump because of anything to do with Russia, but I bet there were people who were on the fence until that stupid 'Deplorable' comment Hillary made caused her to lose votes.
I mean for a Presidential candidate to make a comment like that and not expect to lose voters would be ludricous.
Yea, republicans will never get it...
I don't know where to put this, but let's pull it back in the road.
I'll believe Mueller and the conclusions drawn by his investigation.
CrowdStrike: Five Things Everyone Is Ignoring About The Russia-DNC Story
I'm not able to post any articles on this site. Apparently there is a secret to selecting pictures that are now required for articles.
I've never experienced a site that inadvertently dissuaded members to participate because they're not able to pass a tech course. This is very frustrating. It really shouldn't be this hard.