bmks270 said:
aggiehawg said:
benchmark said:
aggiehawg said:
Trump himself was not being investigated.... I don't think Comey was lieing here (being illegally spied on aside). But Comey and friends did go out of their way to make it appear as if he was being investigated in the media, but then telling him they weren't in person. Of course Trump was pissed, he could see plainly the games they playing and the smear they were perpetuating in the media. Comey's congressional testimony is also that Trump was not under investigation.
There may be a valid investigation or monitoring of the actions of Russians trying to get cozy with Trump people, like in the case of Papadopoulos, but that is different than investigating Trump.
I think it may be that there was this Papadopoulos / Russian relationship and the FBI used that as a pretext to illegally expand their scope and monitor Trumps team for political reasons. It gave them this idea of let's spy on the whole team using the dossier. Okay, so now the FBI decides they want to expand their surveillance and cast a larger net (for political reasons). How can they get a warrant to cast the net they want to cast? Who with links to Trump is the easiest target? Carter Page.... and then how convenient for the FBI is it that their long time friend just happens to have compiled this dossier naming Trump and Carter Page in Russia doing bad things (convenient right).
I'm open to the Mueller investigation having some legitimacy into being concerned with Russias attempts to get close to Trump or hack the DNC if the reported Papadopoulos / Russia interactions and origin of Papadopoulos FISA is true. But if Trump is that target of inquiry as opposed to Russians then it's a complete farce.
That being said, misleading the FISA courts with falsified evidence is completely unacceptable. FBI was clearly abusing their power.
But the rot predates all of this. We know they were performing illegal 702 Queries going way back, who knows how far, even allowing private contractors (likely Fusion GPS & CrowdStrike) to perform them...Adm. Rogers shut that down in
April 2016. That was disclosed in the declassified FISA Court document (the MSM is clueless about this document). We assume they were performing opposition political research on all the major Repub candidates -- clearly illegal -- they were already on the slippery slope. But April 2016 was the pivotal month. This is when a new plan had to be formulated to obtain dirt on the opposition, likely to be Trump, but the plan was devised in the atmosphere that Hillary was a certain winner, and whatever they did, they would not be held accountable. In April, Fusion also acquired a new backer for funding, the DNC/HRC, Mary Jacoby visited the WH, and a new course was set, involving a group of long time friends. During the ensuing month, Steele was contracted (an anti-Trumper), Nellie Ohr was hired, & the Dossier begun. On June 9, 2016, the infamous Trump Tower Meeting occurred, most likely set up by Fusion GPS. In early July Steele had made formal contact with the FBI, and the FBI initiated a formal but secret investigation in late July, clearly nefarious at this point...remember, they didn't inform Congressional Committees until well into 2017. Congress was briefed about Carter Page in late summer, a person previously investigated over possible Russian dealings in 2012-13, & culminating in the FISA Warrant in October. Manafort was another person of interest, appearing in the dossier as well, and he previously was a subject of a FISA Warrant, but he resigned from the Campaign in august after his Ukrainian ties were exposed.
The stuff about Papaopoulos is misleading. He did not come to the attention of the FBI until late July, but they never sought a FISA Warrant on him, and the FBI did not even interview him until 2017. He was a nobody.
