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Why has he been subpoenaed by Congress and a grand jury if he has been cleared?
Why has he been subpoenaed by Congress and a grand jury if he has been cleared?
Flynn is singing
Mueller could obtain Trump's tax returns -- without telling Trump
The president and his beleaguered White House staff have given no outward sign that they have thought about the prospect yet.
But in interviews, veteran federal prosecutors and legal scholars said that Mueller, who began his investigation only last week,
has clear-cut authority to obtain the president’s tax returns—perhaps the most sensitive and sought-after government do ents since the Pentagon Papers—from the IRS
if Mueller suspects they might contain evidence of a crime.
And short of firing Mueller and shutting down his investigation,
Trump—who is the first president in 40 years to refuse to make his tax returns public, despite once promising to do so—
would have almost no way of stopping him.
In fact, the prosecutors said, the president and his lawyers would not necessarily even know that Mueller had obtained them.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/...tail=emaildkre
"But but her emails"
Devin Nunes violates House rules and his recusal, issues subpoenas without Democratic support
he’s once-again using that position in an attempt to cripple the House investigation into connections between Trump and Russia.
he violated House rules to issue a series of subpoenas designed to, once again, give cover to lies pumped out by Trump.
failed to consult Democrats on the subpoenas.
The subpoenas asked the agencies to provide details of any requests made by two top Obama administration aides and the former CIA director to "unmask" names of Trump campaign advisers inadvertently picked up in top-secret foreign communications intercepts, congressional sources said.
Nunes move is against the rules, beside the point, and entirely designed to obstruct the actual investigation.
On a day when the committee issued subpoenas seeking do ents related to the Trump–Russia investigation,
Nunes has created his own investigation, single-handedly, using his position as committee chair
to subvert and derail the actual investigation as he attempts to provide talking points for Trump.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/...tail=emaildkre
rightwing assholes expecting collusion to be proven, so saying Repug collusion with Pootin is ok, is not a crime for Pootin to a Pres election
Collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia probably would have been illegal, contrary to conservative claims
PolitiFact rated Fox anchor Gregg Jarrett’s claim that collusion with a foreign government in an election isn’t a crime “false,” citing three election law experts who named four statutes that could have been violated.
Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera was among the first to say that collusion with the Russian government in an election wouldn’t be a crime.
Sean Hannity said on his radio show on May 22, “Let’s say they did [collude], they said to Vladimir Putin, ‘Hey Vladimir, release everything you got.’ And Vladimir released it to Julian Assange. You know, is that a crime?”
Fox’s Jarrett asserted on air that “collusion is not a crime. … You can collude all you want with a foreign government in an election. There is no such statute.”
Jarrett made a similar argument in a FoxNews.com op-ed.
conservative author Michael Reagan claimed on CNN, “Collusion is not breaking the law,” and repeatedly asked “what law” collusion breaks.
three election law professors, and they all said that while the word ‘collusion’ might not appear in key statutes (they couldn’t say for sure that it was totally absent), working with the Russians could violate criminal laws”:
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/06/01/collusion-between-trump-campaign-and-russia-probably-would-have-been-illegal-contrary-conservative/216735?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_c ampaign=Feed%3A+MediaMattersForAmerica-CountyFair+%28Media+Matters+for+America+-+Blog%29
Another non-story that will be forgotten in a few days
"But but her emails"
"The FBI and Congress are examining a campaign event last spring during which Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner were in a small gathering with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak and other diplomats at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, multiple U.S. officials told NBC News."
"A U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told NBC News that the FBI also is scrutinizing the Mayflower event, which was sponsored by a pro-Russian think tank. The official said the FBI is interested in who was at the event and what was said, in the context of the counter-intelligence investigation into Russian election meddling. That official said there was no indication the bureau is zeroing in on Sessions."
"It has long been known that Trump briefly met Ambassador Kislyak that day at a VIP reception shortly before he gave a foreign policy address at the hotel. But witnesses said it wasn't a private meeting, and White House officials dismissed it as inconsequential."
"Mr. Trump warmly greeted Mr. Kislyak and three other foreign ambassadors who came to the reception," the Wall Street Journal reported in May 2016.
Kushner and Sessions were also in the room, contemporaneous news reports say. Sessions' aides have insisted he did not speak to Kislyak."
================================================== ================================================== ================
"The Department of Justice appointed special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter," Department of Justice spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement. "We will allow him to do his job. It is unfortunate that anonymous sources whose credibility will never face public scrutiny are continuously trying to hinder that process by peddling false stories to the mainstream media. The facts haven't changed; the then-Senator did not have any private or side conversations with any Russian officials at the Mayflower Hotel."
"Nunes has subpoenaed three Obama administration officials — CIA Director James Brennan, UN Ambassador Samantha Powers, and, of course, National Security Advisor Susan Rice"
"The subpoenas asked the agencies to provide details of any requests made by two top Obama administration aides and the former CIA director to "unmask" names of Trump campaign advisers inadvertently picked up in top-secret foreign communications intercepts, congressional sources said."
Get your lube ready djohn2oo8
for what? the unmasking stuff is going to lead to anything. there are a number of ways to justify unmasking... such as to provide context for what the foreign agent is talking about i.e. if the foreign agent says "ok get the job done" it matters a lot if he's talking to a diplomat or a mechanic
if an ambassador/diplomat/foreign minister has having conversations it's reasonable that the context of who they were talking to is pertinent if it involves somebody on a transition team, or a national security figure, etc
of course amidst all the investigation going on in washington, the only issue fox news cares to discuss relating to any of it is the "massive unmasking scandal" which is going to be a non-story. dont get me wrong, i'm sure no matter what happens at the hearings, no matter who says what, there will be people claiming that susan rice's testimony was a bombs proving political sabotage, politically motivated surveillance, etc. none of it will be legally significant though, in all likelihood.
the leaking of the information is a different story (if they're actually able to crack down and find out who's doing what), but the unmasking itself? i'm not expecting much. if im wrong, i'll bump this myself and acknowledge it
Last edited by spurraider21; 06-01-2017 at 02:28 PM.
The unmasking stuff has already lead to changes in the NSA so your claim it isn't going to lead to anything fails from the get go.
It's not just about the huge increase of Americans unmasked but also the illegal dissemination of the intel throughout the Obama administration that was done by design so it could be leaked to the press. And it isn't just Fox news that cares about it as the ACLU has been very vocal about the abuses as well. Did you ever stop to think why Obama made it possible for political appointees to unmask and obtain NSA intercepts of Americans? The NSA was abused and used a political tool, and none of this was supposed to come out as Hillary was supposed to be the next President and all of these illegal acts could be swept under the rug.
=======
"During his final year in office, President Obama's team significantly expanded efforts to search National Security Agency intercepts for information about Americans, distributing thousands of intelligence reports across government with the unredacted names of U.S. residents during the midst of a divisive 2016 presidential election.
The data, made available this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, provides the clearest evidence to date of how information accidentally collected by the NSA overseas about Americans was subsequently searched and disseminated after President Obama loosened privacy protections to make such sharing easier in 2011 in the name of national security. A court affirmed his order.
The revelations are particularly sensitive since the NSA is legally forbidden from directly spying on Americans and its authority to conduct warrantless searches on foreigners is up for renewal in Congress later this year. And it comes as lawmakers investigate President Trump's own claims that his privacy was violated by his predecessor during the 2016 election.
In all, government officials conducted 30,355 searches in 2016 seeking information about Americans in NSA intercept metadata, which include telephone numbers and email addresses. The activity amounted to a 27.5 percent increase over the prior year and more than triple the 9,500 such searches that occurred in 2013, the first year such data was kept.
The government in 2016 also scoured the actual contents of NSA intercepted calls and emails for 5,288 Americans, an increase of 13 percent over the prior year and a massive e from the 198 names searched in 2013.
The searches ultimately resulted in 3,134 NSA intelligence reports with unredacted U.S. names being distributed across government in 2016, and another 3,354 reports in 2015. About half the time, U.S. iden ies were unredacted in the original reports while the other half were unmasked after the fact by special request of Obama administration officials.
Among those whose names were unmasked in 2016 or early 2017 were campaign or transition associates of President Trump as well as members of Congress and their staffers, according to sources with direct knowledge.
The data kept by ODNI is missing some information from one of the largest consumers of NSA intelligence, the FBI, and officials acknowledge the numbers are likely much higher when the FBI’s activity is added.
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“This data confirms that there is a lack of acknowledgment that information is being specifically and increasingly mined about Americans for investigations that have little or nothing to do with international terrorism,” she added.
The ACLU’s concerns were heightened by the release last month of apreviously classified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court do ent that revealed that then NSA has a “potentially very large and broad" collection of data on U.S persons that was never intended under the law.
“702 is a critical tool to protect this country and the way it works is we are allowed to conduct surveillance again, under the supervision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on non-U.S. persons who are outside the United States if they're using American infrastructure; an email system in the United States, a phone system in the United States. So it doesn't involve U.S. persons and doesn't involve activity in the United States,” Comey testified.
22 of 26
But numerous civil liberty experts, including the ACLU’s Guliani, say such representations aren’t accurate because the NSA accidentally collects so much information on Americans and then shares it after the fact. The FBI, for instance, regularly queries the NSA database and the declassified court do ent in March said “there is no requirement that the matter be a serious one nor that it have any relation to national security.”
“I think it shows that the facade that government gives that these programs are just targeted at foreigners is just that, a façade,” Guliani told Circa. “The reality is we have an invasive surveillance program and the data we have shows the impact on Americans is quite substantial.”
http://circa.com/politics/president-...-2016-election
Schiff said the Dems approved subpoenas, but NOT the ones NoNutz issued.
if they're going to tighten the standards for unmasking and dissemination of surveillance in general, that's one thing. again, as discussed in the other thread you made, the circa article tries to tie it up to the russia investigation as one big conspiracy
1) was the NSA generally loose with unmasking? sure, probably. that's what the aclu guy is discussing in the circa article you have as your home page
2) are they going to be able to show that their decision to unmask flynn and others was so politically motivated that it was even more egregious than their generally loose standards? unlikely.
also why is nunes requesting subpoenas relating to this ? i thought he had to recuse himself. if so, he could be able to bring people in to investigate NSA practices in general, but not specific to the russia stuff, flynn, etc
could be wrong on that, just going off memory
The Circa article does not try and tie it up to the Russia investigation as one big conspiracy. You are thinking of the New York post article I posted.
1) Obama substantially loosened the rules for unmasking and opened up it for political appointees to request the reports, not the NSA
2) The numbers during the election year speak for themselves as the increase was substantial and it would not be a hard case to make that they were politically motivated.
"In all, government officials conducted 30,355 searches in 2016 seeking information about Americans in NSA intercept metadata, which include telephone numbers and email addresses. The activity amounted to a 27.5 percent increase over the prior year and more than triple the 9,500 such searches that occurred in 2013, the first year such data was kept.
The government in 2016 also scoured the actual contents of NSA intercepted calls and emails for 5,288 Americans, an increase of 13 percent over the prior year and a massive e from the 198 names searched in 2013."
And the above numbers are not even including the FBI
"The data kept by ODNI is missing some information from one of the largest consumers of NSA intelligence, the FBI, and officials acknowledge the numbers are likely much higher when the FBI’s activity is added."
of course the circa article tries to tie it up to the russia investigation. the le of the article you linked specifically mentions surveillance during the election (the surveillance during the election, as we know, was in regards to russia)
but onto the numbers...
so in searches, we saw a 27.5% increase over the prior year, and TRIPLE to the searches in 2013. so there were probably jumps in between 2013 and 2015, too. do we have a year by year figure from 2013-2014-2015-2016? also, if a lot of these interceptions came as a direct result of russia comms, then it stands to reason you'd have bigger numbers in a year where there was increased activity (election year)
for the phone calls there were 198 names searched in 2013, and 5,288 in 2016. thats a big leap. was the sudden e in 2016? probably not, as your own article even says that 2016 only had a 13 percent increase over the prior year. to go from 198 to 5,288 in 3 years, you're going to have much bigger leaps than 13% in the other years... just mathematically speaking
none of this is compelling to show that 2016 was a special year due specifically to political motivation
You originally said the Circa article was trying to tie it to the Russia investigation as one big conspiracy, that's quite different than the article mentioning the Russia investigation.
I don't see how you can say the numbers aren't compelling considering the largest consumer of NSA intelligence isn't even included, especially now knowing that after the large increases the same reports were illegally disseminated throughout the administration by Obama political appointees.
its not compelling that 2016 saw a dramatic e due to political motives. while the circa article doesn't provide them (for some odd reason), its pretty clear that there were massive jumps in 2013, 2014, 2015... and that 2016 wasn't some outlier
TSA deflecting, as always, from the egregious corruption, compromise by Pootin of Trash and his entourage.
Keep fighting bro! Viva la résistance!
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