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U.S. Politics 2017 (split fm US Election: 2016)

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The DNC clown show continues: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/clinton-dnc-russia-dossier-trump_us_59efc1a6e4b0bf1f8836a7c4

Report: DNC And Clinton Campaign Funded Research Behind Trump Russia Dossier

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly looked into the dossier as part of his investigation into possible ties between Trump's campaign and Moscow.

10/24/2017 19:04 EDT | Updated 13 hours ago
Nick Visser Reporter, HuffPost

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped to pay for the research behind a secret dossier on Donald Trump and his alleged ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential election, according to a report from The Washington Post published Tuesday evening. 

The outlet, citing unnamed sources familiar with the dossier’s funding, said Mark Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, hired the firm Fusion GPS to conduct the opposition research. Fusion in turn hired Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to U.S. intelligence agencies.

The research was funded until just before the election, according to the Post report. The Post’s sources said that neither the Clinton campaign nor the DNC directed Steele’s research, and stressed that he was a contractor for Fusion GPS.

HuffPost has reached out to the DNC for comment.
Click to expand...
 
The fact that either Clinton or the DNC had commissioned a research project into Trump during the election campaign is neither news nor suspicious. It's a normal part of the process.

The fact that the research turned up evidence of about Trump isn't news either. One would have expected that there would be something about an individual who was/is so public and flamboyant.

The question of whether "how much influence this dossier had on the current Mueller investigation" is irrelevant. The investigation is ongoing and Mueller will be able to fully investigate the circumstances behind the dossier. The question would only be relevant if: 1) the Mueller investigation had been completed; 2) the dossier was false; and 3) Mueller had relied on the dossier in making his findings. All of the Foxish hand wringing is premature.

The real question about the dossier is whether or not the evidence turned up is true or not and, if not true, whether it was fabricated at the instigation of either Clinton or the DNC. Quite frankly--notwithstanding the screeching from all the news pundits--we're a long way away from determining that. Let Mueller get on with his job.

:cheers:
 
FJAG said:
The fact that either Clinton or the DNC had commissioned a research project into Trump during the election campaign is neither news nor suspicious. It's a normal part of the process.

The fact that the research turned up evidence of about Trump isn't news either. One would have expected that there would be something about an individual who was/is so public and flamboyant.

The question of whether "how much influence this dossier had on the current Mueller investigation" is irrelevant. The investigation is ongoing and Mueller will be able to fully investigate the circumstances behind the dossier. The question would only be relevant if: 1) the Mueller investigation had been completed; 2) the dossier was false; and 3) Mueller had relied on the dossier in making his findings. All of the Foxish hand wringing is premature.

The real question about the dossier is whether or not the evidence turned up is true or not and, if not true, whether it was fabricated at the instigation of either Clinton or the DNC. Quite frankly--notwithstanding the screeching from all the news pundits--we're a long way away from determining that. Let Mueller get on with his job.

:cheers:
Click to expand...

I find it somewhat unusual that the authors invoked their right against self incrimination. That doesn't say much about the possible accuracy of the information.
 
ModlrMike said:
I find it somewhat unusual that the authors invoked their right against self incrimination. That doesn't say much about the possible accuracy of the information.
Click to expand...

MM is on the right path here.The so called op research were actual lies about Trump. If you look at this from the angle of a spy novel you will see that this was actually intended to paint Trump in a bad light. as far as the election. It didnt have to be true to be an effective ploy. Throw in the sale of 20% of the US uranium stockpile which enriched the Clintons by $145m or so. The media threw that gem out because I think the highest level of the DP decided to get rid of Hilary to clear the way for 2018.Otherwise she would continue to hang around.Maybe Bernie will be the candidate to run against Trump,Biden or Gov Kane.

Breaking news the FEC has filed a complaint against the Clinton Campaign and DNC for not reporting the dossier payment. :pumpkin:

http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/document/fec-complaint-hillary-america-dnc-failure-disclose
 
Them's fine billings. I was obviously practicing the wrong type of law in the wrong country all my life.  ;D

:cheers:
 
FJAG said:
Them's fine billings. I was obviously practicing the wrong type of law in the wrong country all my life.  ;D

:cheers:
Click to expand...

The Liberals are always in the Canadian market for ........


;D
 
>An important question is how much influence this dossier had on the current Mueller investigation.

Not that investigation; an earlier one: was the "information" in the dossier used to procure the FISA warrants to listen in on Trump's associates?  It looks bad if the FBI relied on what they knew to be crap, especially if it also turns out they knew who paid for the crap.  (Imagine the possibilities if you had a tame agency that would use whatever you fed them as an excuse to put the heat on your political opponents.)
 
Brad Sallows said:
>An important question is how much influence this dossier had on the current Mueller investigation.

Not that investigation; an earlier one: was the "information" in the dossier used to procure the FISA warrants to listen in on Trump's associates?  It looks bad if the FBI relied on what they knew to be crap, especially if it also turns out they knew who paid for the crap.  (Imagine the possibilities if you had a tame agency that would use whatever you fed them as an excuse to put the heat on your political opponents.)
Click to expand...

Makes Watergate look somewhat tame by comparison.
 
I'm sure the speculation fairy will be waving her magic wand until the official business is revealed on Monday. Wonder how close the consensus (fat chance) of the speculation will be to the actual events that unfold. Watching Fox News and CNN is like existing in two parallel universes.
 
Old Sweat said:
Watching Fox News and CNN is like existing in two parallel universes.
Click to expand...

Fox News did a poll,

Oct 25, 2017

"Some of the drop comes from white men without a college degree, as 56 percent approve of the president, down from 68 percent last month.  Working-class white men were a key voting bloc for him in the election (71 percent backed Trump according to the Fox News Exit Poll)."
https://www.google.ca/search?q=%22fox+news+poll%22++trump++%22white+men+without+a+college+degree%22&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-CA%3AIE-Address&rlz=1I7GGHP_en-GBCA592&dcr=0&biw=1280&bih=603&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A10%2F24%2F2017%2Ccd_max%3A10%2F28%2F2017&tbm=

 
Mueller's team has issued its first criminal charges. So far, everything is sealed, but arrests could come as soon as Monday.

First charges filed in probe of Trump-Russia collusion: What we know and don’t know
Arrests could come as soon as Monday.

Updated by Dylan Scott@dylanlscottdylan.scott@vox.com  Oct 28, 2017, 10:30am EDT

A federal grand jury has approved the first criminal charges in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump presidential campaign and its ties to Russia, a monumental step in the probe that has loomed over so much of President Trump’s first year in office.

CNN first reported the news late Friday night. Reuters and the Wall Street Journal have now also reported that charges have been filed.

The indictments are sealed, so the specific charges and, most importantly, the person or persons being charged are not yet known. Arrests could be made as soon as Monday, according to CNN.

Mueller has been leading the Russia probe since May; he was appointed shortly after Trump fired FBI director James Comey. The investigation includes exploring any possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government, the Trump family’s financial ties to Russia, and any obstruction of justice by Trump in the investigation that was started by Comey.

Vox’s Zack Beauchamp and Andrew Prokop explained the Mueller investigation in more detail here.

What isn’t clear from Friday’s news is the target or targets of the Mueller indictments. But two prominent Trump officials have long been at the center of the Russia investigation: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as Trump’s national security adviser.

Manafort’s house was raided in the course of the investigation, and people close to him have been issued subpoenas. Mueller’s team reportedly told Manafort, who ran Trump’s campaign during the summer of 2016, to expect an indictment.

As Vox previously explained, “Manafort’s history of pro-Russia consulting work and experience with international skullduggery have long made him a prime suspect for potential collusion.” He is said to have attended a meeting at Trump Tower in 2016 with Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian attorney. No firm evidence of collusion has yet surfaced, but the Mueller probe has also investigated Manafort’s work before the presidential campaign, whether he properly disclosed his work for foreign entities, and whether he has ever been involved in illegal money laundering overseas.

The end game, according to previous reports, is federal investigators want to use the pressure of criminal charges to get convince Manafort to provide more details on any possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Mueller is also known to be investigating General Flynn, as Vox has documented. Previous reports have suggested that Flynn may have been involved in efforts to contact Russian hackers about accessing Hillary Clinton’s emails. Flynn was also reported to have had extensive contact with Russian officials during the presidential campaign.

Flynn, whom Trump had appointed to be his national security adviser after aiding his 2016 campaign, stepped down in February once it became clear he had lied about his contacts with a Russian ambassador shortly after the election.

As of mid-Saturday morning, Trump — who suggested he could attempt to remove Mueller if the Russia investigation went in directions that he didn’t like — had not yet tweeted or otherwise commented about the pending charges.

So here is what we know for sure:

* Charges have been filed and approved by the federal grand jury, the first of Mueller’s investigation
* Arrests could be made in next few days

And what we don’t:

* Who is being charged
* What the charges are
* Whether the charges are being used as leverage to further the investigation
* How Trump will react.
Click to expand...
 

Article Link
 
Retired AF Guy said:
Mueller's team has issued its first criminal charges. So far, everything is sealed, but arrests could come as soon as Monday.
 

Article Link
Click to expand...

That's not even a story yet. It's just a check mark on somebody's wish list.
 
Timeline on the Fusion GPS "dossier". Perhaps the most egregious part of the story his its use to authorize domestic spying on a political opponent, far worse than Watergate or many other known scandals in US politics:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/

FINALLY, A Definitive Timeline Showing When Clinton, DNC Started The Russian Dossier
CHUCK ROSS
Reporter
1:48 AM 10/28/2017

There has been much confusion in the media — and thereby, the public — about who funded the infamous Trump dossier. Some outlets have incorrectly reported that Republicans began financing the dossier before the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee took over last Spring.

But that is incorrect. Democrats are solely responsible for the dossier, which was passed around by their research firm, Fusion GPS, to Beltway reporters and select lawmakers during the heat of the presidential campaign.

Here is the definitive timeline of how it all transpired.

Oct. 2015: It was reported late Friday that the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by GOP mega-donor Paul Singer, hired Fusion GPS to investigate Trump. Free Beacon’s editor said Friday that the research was standard opposition research and that it was not tied to the dossier work that would follow several months later. It is not clear what, if anything, Singer knew about Free Beacon’s hiring of Fusion. The hedge fund manager was Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s biggest backer.

Feb. 20, 2016: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush drops from the Republican primary.

March: Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie, the law firm for the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. Perkins Coie general counsel revealed this week that Fusion offered to continue Trump opposition research it had started while working for a Republican candidate.

March 15: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio drops from the Republican primary after losing to Trump in his home state.

April: Perkins Coie, using money from the Clinton campaign and DNC, hires Fusion GPS. Marc Elias, a Perkins Coie partner and general counsel for both the campaign and DNC, would serve as the bagman.

That month, Federal Election Commission records show that the Clinton campaign paid Perkins Coie a total of $150,000 for legal services. The DNC paid the firm around $107,000. It is unclear how much of that went to Fusion GPS. Both the campaign and DNC would pay Perkins Coie hundreds of thousands more dollars throughout the campaign.

May: Free Beacon ends its contract with Fusion.

May 3-4: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz drops out of the Republican primary on May 3. Ohio Gov. John Kasich drops out of the next day, leaving Trump as the only GOP candidate.

June: Fusion GPS hires former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and his London-based firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia. Steele discloses this in court filings earlier this year as part of a lawsuit he faces over the dossier. Steele said he worked for Fusion GPS from June through November.

June 20: Steele writes first memo of the dossier. It alleges that Trump used prostitutes during a visit to Moscow in 2013 and that the Kremlin was blackmailing him with the evidence. The memo also alleges that the Trump campaign was engaged in a well-orchestrated collusion campaign with Russian operatives.

July 5: Steele provides his research to an FBI contact, The New York Times has reported. The documents made their way to FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzock two weeks later.

July: Chatter began appearing on social media referring to damning information about Trump’s ties to Russia. Republican strategist Rick Wilson told The New York Times back in January, after the dossier was published, that he was first asked about the document by a reporter in July.

July 26: A Wall Street Journal reporter contacts Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser, about allegations made about him in the dossier. Page disclosed that detail last month in a lawsuit he filed against the parent company of Yahoo! News, which republished claims from the dossier last September. (RELATED: Carter Page Sues Yahoo! News Over Dossier-Based Article)

Late July: The FBI opens a counterintelligence investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Aug. 25: Then-CIA Director John Brennan briefs then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid about possible links between Trump associates and Russian operatives. According to The New York Times, officials in the meeting said that Brennan “indicated that unnamed advisers to Mr. Trump might be working with the Russians to interfere in the election.”

September: The FBI obtained a surveillance warrant from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Carter Page. The application for the warrant reportedly cited the dossier as evidence.

Late September: In court filings in London, where he is being sued, Steele says that he briefed reporters at several news outlets following instructions from Fusion GPS. Steele briefed The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The New Yorker and Yahoo! News.

Sept. 23: Yahoo News publishes an article that, it is now known, relied heavily on the dossier’s claims about Page. The article, from veteran journalist Michael Isikoff, contains allegations that Page met secretly with Russian government officials that July in Moscow. Page has denied the allegation and is suing Yahoo! over the article.

October: Steele met with FBI agents who offered to pay the former spy to continue his investigation of Trump.

Mid-October: Steele, again acting on directions from Fusion, met with reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo! News.

Oct. 31: Earlier in October, Steele conducted an interview on Skype with Mother Jones reporter David Corn. Corn published a piece referring to Steele as a “Western intelligence official” who had compiled information on Trump’s ties to Russia.

November: The contract between the Democrats, Fusion and Steele ends along with the presidential campaign.

Nov. 18: Arizona Sen. John McCain and a former assistant, David Kramer, are told about the existence of the dossier by an associate of Steele’s, former British diplomat Sir Andrew Wood. Kramer travels to London later that month to meet with Steele and find out more about the dossier. Steele forwards a copy of the dossier to Fusion, Kramer and McCain.

Dec. 9: McCain provides a copy of the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey during a meeting at the latter’s office.

Dec. 13: Steele writes the final memo of the dossier. It alleges that a Russian tech executive used his companies to hack into the DNC’s email systems. The executive, Aleksej Gubarev, denied the allegations after the dossier was published by BuzzFeed on Jan. 10, 2017. He is suing both BuzzFeed and Steele.

Jan. 6: Comey and other intelligence community officials brief then-President-elect Trump on some of the allegations made in the dossier.

Jan. 10: CNN reports that the briefing of Trump took place four days earlier. Citing that reporting as justification, BuzzFeed publishes the dossier.

March 15: Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrel, a supporter of Clinton’s, casts doubt on the dossier and Steele’s sourcing.

Morrel said that the revelation that Steele paid intermediaries to obtain information that wound up in the dossier “kind of worries me a little bit.”

“If you’re paying somebody, particularly former FSB officers, they are going to tell you truth and innuendo and rumor, and they’re going to call you up and say, ‘Hey, let’s have another meeting, I have more information for you,’ because they want to get paid some more,” said Morell.

Aug. 22: Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson meets with the Senate Judiciary Committee for 10 hours but refuses to disclose the identity of his clients.

Sept. 18: Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he was unaware of who paid for the dossier. It would later be reported that Podesta was sitting next to the man who actually did pay for the document, his attorney, Marc Elias. Elias apparently did not speak up during the interview to take responsibility for the dossier. (RELATED: John Podesta Denied Knowing Who Paid For Dossier)

Oct. 4: The House Intelligence Committee issues subpoenas to Fusion’s three co-founders as well as to its bank, TD Bank. One goal of the subpoenas was to find out Fusion’s clients’ identities.

Oct. 18: Two Fusion partners, Peter Fritsch and Thomas Catan, plead the Fifth during House Intelligence Committee interviews.

Oct. 20: Fusion GPS files a request for an injunction attempting to block the release of its bank records.

Oct. 24: Perkins Coie, the law firm for the Clinton campaign and DNC, reveals itself as Fusion’s dossier client. The Washington Post reports Elias’ involvement.
Click to expand...
 
Thucydides said:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
Click to expand...

The Daily Caller

Controversies

False prostitution allegations
Fox News controversy
2016 presidential election
Encouragement of violence against protesters
Articles by white supremacist Jason Kessler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Caller#Controversies
 
Brad Sallows said:
>The Daily Caller
> Controversies

?
Click to expand...

I will post the link of Daily Caller Controversies - again.
Readers can consider the source of the article posted.
Interesting article about its author at the bottom of this post.

QUOTE

Controversies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Caller#Controversies

False prostitution allegations

In March 2013 The Daily Caller posted interviews with two women claiming that New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez had paid them for sex while he was a guest of a campaign donor.[23] The allegation came five days before the 2012 New Jersey senate election. News organizations such as ABC News, which had also interviewed the women, the New York Times, and the New York Post declined to publish the allegations, viewing them as unsubstantiated and lacking credibility.[24][25][26] Subsequently, one of the women who accused Menendez stated that she had been paid to falsely implicate the senator and had never met him.[24][27] Menendez's office described the allegations as "manufactured" by a right-wing blog as a politically motivated smear.[28]

A few weeks later, police in the Dominican Republic announced that three women had claimed they were paid $300–425 each to lie about having had sex with Menendez.[29] Dominican law enforcement also alleged that the women had been paid to lie about Menendez by an individual claiming to work for The Daily Caller. The Daily Caller denied this allegation, stating: "At no point did any money change hands between The Daily Caller and any sources or individuals connected with this investigation".[30] Describing what it saw as the unraveling of The Daily Caller's "scoop", the Poynter Institute wrote: The Daily Caller stands by its reports, though apparently doesn't feel the need to prove its allegations right".[31]

Fox News controversy

In March 2015 Daily Caller columnist Mickey Kaus quit after editor Tucker Carlson refused to run a column critical of Fox News coverage of the immigration policy debate.[32] Carlson, who also works for Fox, reportedly did not want the Caller publishing criticism of a firm that employed him.[33] Journalist Neil Munro quit two weeks later.[34]

2016 presidential election

According to a study by Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, the Daily Caller was among the most popular sites on the right during the 2016 presidential election. The study also found that the Daily Caller provided "amplification and legitimation" for "the most extreme conspiracy sites", such as Truthfeed, Infowars, Gateway Pundit and Conservative Treehouse during the 2016 presidential election.[35][36][37] The Daily Caller also "employed anti-immigrant narratives that echoed sentiments from the alt-right and white nationalists but without the explicitly racist and pro-segregation language."[36] The Daily Caller also playeda significant role in creating and disseminating stories that had little purchase outside the right-wing media ecosystem but that stoked the belief among core Trump followers that what Clinton did was not merely questionable but criminal and treasonous. In a campaign that expressed deep anti-Muslim sentiment, a repeated theme was that Hillary Clinton was seriously in hock to Muslim nations.[36]

In one of its most frequently shared stories, the Daily Caller falsely asserted that Morocco’s King Mohammed VI flew Bill Clinton on a private jet, and that this had been omitted from the Clinton Foundation's tax disclosures.[36] The Daily Caller also made the "utterly unsubstantiated and unsourced claim" that Hillary Clinton got Environmental Protection Agency "head Lisa Jackson to try to shut down Mosaic Fertilizer, described as America’s largest phosphate mining company, in exchange for a $15 million donation to the Clinton Foundation from King Mohammed VI of Morocco, ostensibly to benefit Morocco’s state-owned phosphate company."[36]

Encouragement of violence against protesters[edit]

In January 2017, the Daily Caller posted a video which encouraged violence against protesters.[38][39][40][41] The video in question showed a car plowing through protesters, with the headline "Here's A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road" and set to a cover of Ludacris' "Move Bitch."[38] The video drew attention in August 2017 when a white supremacist plowed his car through a group of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.[38] After the video attracted attention, the Daily Caller deleted it from its website.[38][41]

The Southern Poverty Law Center subsequently criticized the Daily Caller, saying that it had a "white nationalist problem".[42] SPLC also said that two other contributors to the Daily Caller had ties to white nationalist groups.[42]

Articles by white supremacist Jason Kessler

The Daily Caller has posted articles by Jason Kessler, a white supremacist who organized a rally of hundreds of white nationalists in Charlottesville.[43][44] Before Kessler posted his article, it was known that he had spoken at white supremacist gatherings.[45] After Kessler received attention for his organizing of the Charlottesville white supremacist rally, the Daily Caller removed his articles from its website,[46] but the Caller's Executive Editor defended Kessler's articles.[47]

END QUOTE

Match the numbers in the Controversies with the numbers in the References.

References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Caller#References

QUOTE

FINALLY, A Definitive Timeline Showing When Clinton, DNC Started The Russian Dossier
CHUCK ROSS
Reporter
1:48 AM 10/28/2017

"Daily Caller reporter renounces racist, misogynistic writings"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/09/14/daily-caller-reporter-renounces-racist-misogynistic-writings/?utm_term=.eda8e1bf422c

END QUOTE





 
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