https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/deputy-attorney-general-rod-j-rosenstein-delivers-remarks-2018-american-bar-association

This was delivered today, a high & lofty speech IMO. I believe Rosenstein was attempting to present a justification for his position regarding the Mueller investigation in this discourse. Our legal experts may see things in a different light.

How does signing off on a FISA warrant based on the Steele Dossier fit into that love of the law?

BQ78 said:

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How does signing off on a FISA warrant based on the Steele Dossier fit into that love of the law?

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I'll go you one better.

How does "love of the law" allow the use of Title I FISA warrants and all of the intrusions that allows, to be used in a criminal case against an American citizen*? Where is the due process?

*Barring actual espionage or terrorism, of course.

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How does "love of the law" allow the use of Title I FISA warrants and all of the intrusions that allows, to be used in a criminal case against an American citizen*? Where is the due process?

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This has been bothering me, too. Create a pretext (lie) to get a FISA warrant, and then spin that into an SC investigation with criminal indictments against US citizens.

93MarineHorn said:

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Quote:

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How does "love of the law" allow the use of Title I FISA warrants and all of the intrusions that allows, to be used in a criminal case against an American citizen*? Where is the due process?

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This has been bothering me, too. Create a pretext (lie) to get a FISA warrant, and then spin that into an SC investigation with criminal indictments against US citizens.

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Well, if you go back through this gargantuan thread, that has been bugging me for a loooonnnggg time.

I am not saying everything they have against Manafort is fruit of the poisonous tree but it sure seems the information gleaned from the multiple FISA warrants on Manafort would be the seed for a lot of it. Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, they removed the haystack leaving only the needle and did so without an Article III court's assessment of probable cause.

Of course by then they had amassed enough to obtain probable cause from a legit court. The real stink here is that DOJ/FBI/SC can hide behind "that's classified" to hide the true origination of the evidence.

In the absence of credible evidence of espionage or connections to terrorism, counter-intel should NEVER be allowed to morph into a criminal prosecution against American citizens. Should almost be a get out of jail free type of prohibition. Government has a FISA warrant on an American citizen? The ONLY crimes they can be prosecuted for are espionage or terrorism. That's what FISA warrants are supposed to be limited to in the first place.

ETA: Imagine being able to have used FISA warrants to go after Mafia members back in the day. FISA has been around since the late 70s, 1978 to be exact. Did Guiliani use them to go after Gotti? Hell no, of course he didn't. He got Article III court approved wire taps.

In reply to the above....I think we'd all agree criminal charges can be added after the espionage / terrorist charges are complete, but not the other way around

pedro_martinez said:

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In reply to the above....I think we'd all agree criminal charges can be added after the espionage / terrorist charges are complete, but not the other way around

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When you say "complete" you mean after conviction?

Hawg, I hate it when you, Blindey, and BMX, bring issues that favor a couple of defendents I really don't like. I have this enormous ambivalence towards Manafort and his business partner. OTOH, my extreme distaste for Mueller, about 80% of his team, and the SWAT tactics they've used, always puts me back in the seat of Manafort, et al.

Just thought I'd share, because I can't be the only one who sees this trial in a similar manner. It's the same contempt I have for the actions of the Dem party, which should say a lot!

It is establishing a terrible precedent unless some judge steps in and stops it, or our nutless congress corrects it.

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Hawg, I hate it when you, Blindey, and BMX, bring issues that favor a couple of defendents I really don't like. I have this enormous ambivalence towards Manafort and his business partner. OTOH, my extreme distaste for Mueller, about 80% of his team, and the SWAT tactics they've used, always puts me back in the seat of Manafort, et al.

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I don't think anyone on this thread has any affection for Manafort and all think he's definitely dirty.

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Stone stressed that he is deeply sympathetic to Manafort's legal plight, has been outraged by his incarceration, and believes him to be totally innocent of all charges. "It take an incredible amount of strength and fortitude to withstand the pressure put on him by Mueller to plead guilty and instead go to trial."

The conservative operator ripped his former colleague's sense of style, saying, "it's what a aluminum siding salesman from Ohio would wear if he became a millionaire." Stone gave TheDC a lengthier statement noting:

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"Manafort's style choices were generally wrong for his body type his custom made Italian suits never fit him properly largely because their svelte design was wrong for his build. He did have generally good taste in shirts and ties mostly buying at Charvet in Paris. Bijan of Beverly Hills....Much of his wardrobe is known for two things the ridiculously expensive prices and gaudiness of their clothing.
Manafort had the view that if something was expensive that meant it was good. He wore $6500 suits that didn't fit him."

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I know some people here don't like Roger Stone, but I thought his comments about Manafort were both amusing and objective.

MouthBQ98 said:

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It is establishing a terrible precedent unless some judge steps in and stops it, or our nutless congress corrects it.

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I may be off-base in my paranoia, but I believe in Manafort's court proceedings, the SC has indicated to Ellis that some evidence against Manafort is Classified and can't be shared w/defense counsel, but they used it to indict him...something like that.

I don't think Ellis fell for it...yet, but the other judge (Obama's Accolyte) is allowing it. If this becomes acceptable in proceedings, one could be convicted and thrown in Leavenworth, without a key, and never know the evidence / testimony against you.

... was Manafort the "insurance policy", since they already had a ready made criminal case against him that they simply hadn't pursued in the past?

fasthorses05 said:

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Hawg, I hate it when you, Blindey, and BMX, bring issues that favor a couple of defendents I really don't like. I have this enormous ambivalence towards Manafort and his business partner. OTOH, my extreme distaste for Mueller, about 80% of his team, and the SWAT tactics they've used, always puts me back in the seat of Manafort, et al.

Just thought I'd share, because I can't be the only one who sees this trial in a similar manner. It's the same contempt I have for the actions of the Dem party, which should say a lot!

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The name of the game. Guilty people go free all of the time because the rules are there to protect the innocent from government tyranny. Often "unjust" results occur because of our justice system.

But as to Manafort, yeah he's guilty as hell for all sorts of stuff but here's the point during all of the proceeding investigations into his activities in the EDVA and likely SDNY, they never even convened a grand jury because they didn't have enough evidence they believed to convict. Not until Mueller was appointed, brought on Peter Strzok and Voila! Access to FISA material from previous warrants. With that road map it was much easier to narrow in on the foreign bank accounts, the shell companies, etc.

did Manafort lawyer file any motion based on illegal search due to FISA warrant being the source in either court?

link to evidence that will be used not being given to the defense?

BMX Bandit said:

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did Manafort lawyer file any motion based on illegal search due to FISA warrant being the source in either court?

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How could they?

I had a case years ago where I hit a brick wall because the crucial fact needed to defend my client (civil suit) was highly classified. I had identified the government contractors with actual first-hand knowledge but they refused to answer any questions because what they had done was classified.

Took me a year to get it declassified and even then it was redacted but revealed enough to help my client's defense.

what do you mean how could they?

if the FISA warrant is the genesis of the information against Manafort, then file a motion to suppress the evidence based on 4th amendment and due process

Another thing watching this that should infuriate everyone, is the FBI went to these lengths just to spy on Trump because if an election. Not plotting to shoot up and kill dozens of people in a Florida , night club, or to plot a bombing at one of the largest sports events in the country, or to walk into a public school and shoot up the place and kill a dozen people. The Tsarnaev brothers, Omar Mateen, and Nikolas Cruz were all on the FBI radar, had been reported on and they either ignored it or made no real effort to stop them or at least investigate them. They were reactive not proactive, yet they went to these lengths to spy on a presidential candidate, president elect, and a president. And those three events I described are just a fraction of the real list of tragic catastrophic events that have happened, only to find out with in a couple of days you here. "Oh yeah were knew about them", or "Oh yeah someone reported something about them." and they did nothing or ignored it. The millions of dollars in tax money that was expended not only to spy on an election, but now to investigate the same person they were illegally spying on.

The US Attorney's office could have gone after Manafort any time they wanted to. The Special counsel hasn't uncover any new revelation of evidence on him, this is the prosecution of a cold case file. Joe Blow at the DoJ could have indicted a bunch of Russians, two companies and one company that didn't even exist. It's almost surreal to sit back and look at the totality of it all. In this thread alone we have a mountain of evidence and it's not a drop in the bucket that is really out there behind redactions, in destroyed documents, and documents never seen. Not to mention the mountains of meta data and electronic evidence sitting on the hard drives in Ft Mead. It's simply unbelievable.

Agreed. If the evidence required to possibly exhonerate and defend the accused is inaccessible, the burden of that should fall on the state. The 4th amendment protections should apply if evidence can't or won't be produced, and that's just too damn bad for the prosecution because our principle is that it is better the guilty go free than the innocent be convicted or civil rights of either be violated in the process. This "that's secret" bull**** has to stop.

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The Special counsel hasn't uncover any new revelation of evidence on him

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thats a pretty bold assertion. Anything to support it?

It seems more to me like the state Dept and CIA, with the help of a handful of complicit or compliant FBI leaders, was running things, and the FBI was mostly being exploited by this group as a tool to carry out the work.

BMX Bandit said:

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The Special counsel hasn't uncover any new revelation of evidence on him

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thats a pretty bold assertion. Anything to support it?

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Based on everything we've seen they are bootstrapping a cold case and even went as far to suspend SOL to run with it.

Have you seen anything revolutionary to date? It would be bolder to say we have.

I think the suggestion that Strzok's multi-organizational access and clearance provided some key additional information via counterintelligence sources to augment the case against Manafort, but also that the case against him was adequate, but not something that was pursued in the past due to political ties and optics, and the fact that probably 10,000 people that work in DC could have similar cases brought against them if the government was that aggressive.

I don't think you have any clue what was in their investigation file previously compared to what new information Mueller found.

How can you claim we haven't seen anything revolutionary when we don't even know what they had before?

I'd personally love to see the legal mechanism to attack a FISA warrant based on 4th amendment violations, against a legal weapon design to defeat the 4th amendment personally.

Has anyone ever seen a FISA application go public before in any form, redacted or not? Have you ever seen one in a court proceeding? You may have heard mention of one, but that's about it. Hard to fight something that you can't obtain under discovery.

BMX Bandit said:

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what do you mean how could they?

if the FISA warrant is the genesis of the information against Manafort, then file a motion to suppress the evidence based on 4th amendment and due process

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You do realize that the Carter Page FISA applications were the first time any of those have ever been made public? How could Manafort's lawyers confirm the existence of Title I FISA warrants on their client? News reports with unnamed sources?? Try to depose someone on Team Mueller? Someone from the FBI? Rosenstein?

"Based on information and belief" only gets you so far without that information being declassified. (Side note: Judge Ellis asked Team Mueller if they wanted to invoke CIPA procedures. Had they done that, then Manafort's lawyers would have had a shot at finding out about the FISA warrants but Team Mueller avoided that potential trap. Have to give it to Judge Ellis, the guy is sharp.)

But let's go back as to how the Manafort trial is actually proceeding. They sure have a hell of a lot on Manafort's spending habits and that's mostly Asonye from the EDVA. You see how much the EDVA had amassed without Team Muellers' multi-tens of millions dollar budget and access to classified materials. Even Judge Ellis commented to Asonye back in May that the EDVA didn't have ten million (the guessed number at the time) to devote entirely to Manafort's case. A statement with which Asonye grimly agreed. The EDVA didn't have the resources.

aggiehawg said:

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BMX Bandit said:

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what do you mean how could they?

if the FISA warrant is the genesis of the information against Manafort, then file a motion to suppress the evidence based on 4th amendment and due process

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You do realize that the Carter Page FISA applications were the first time any of those have ever been made public? How could Manafort's lawyers confirm the existence of Title I FISA warrants on their client? News reports with unnamed sources?? Try to depose someone on Team Mueller? Someone from the FBI? Rosenstein?

"Based on information and belief" only gets you so far without that information being declassified. (Side note: Judge Ellis asked Team Mueller if they wanted to invoke CIPA procedures. Had they done that, then Manafort's lawyers would have had a shot at finding out about the FISA warrants but Team Mueller avoided that potential trap. Have to give it to Judge Ellis, the guy is sharp.)

But let's go back as to how the Manafort trial is actually proceeding. They sure have a hell of a lot on Manafort's spending habits and that's mostly Asonye from the EDVA. You see how much the EDVA had amassed without Team Muellers' multi-tens of millions dollar budget and access to classified materials. Even Judge Ellis commented to Asonye back in May that the EDVA didn't have ten million (the guessed number at the time) to devote entirely to Manafort's case. A statement with which Asonye grimly agreed. The EDVA didn't have the resources.

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none of this has anything to do with my question. maybe I'm not asking it right or not understanding the argument being made.

the claim is that the FISA warrant as the genesis of the case against Manafort violates his rights, correct?

If yes, then my question is "Has Manafort's attorneys filed a motion to suppress based on that issue?"


OR, are people saying "We suspect the FISA warrant is how the evidence was gotten on Manafort, but no way to know since we have no seen" If that is the case, then I understand the point as to why it would be impossible to challenge.

BMX Bandit said:

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I don't think you have any clue what was in their investigation file previously compared to what new information Mueller found.

How can you claim we haven't seen anything revolutionary when we don't even know what they had before?

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Well when the last administration went after him before and it tied into the Podesta Brothers and Greg Craig, the case went cold because of lack of evidense? Not according to information that is being pried out of the DOJ by FOIA warriors.

Your take is they needed to spend 40 million dollars on the SC to find out what they have now? Sorry if you feel that way, and I can't change that, I'm just not buying it. A two bit gum shoe with a drinking problem could have dug up this garbage being presented to the court. To think otherwise is laughable.

The case was always there, but the DOJ at the time knew not to pursue it over the politics of it, at the time.

RoscoePColtrane said:

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BMX Bandit said:

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I don't think you have any clue what was in their investigation file previously compared to what new information Mueller found.

How can you claim we haven't seen anything revolutionary when we don't even know what they had before?

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Well when the last administration went after him before and it tied into the Podesta Brothers and Greg Craig, the case went cold because of lack of evidense? Not according to information that is being pried out of the DOJ by FOIA warriors.

Your take is they needed to spend 40 million dollars on the SC to find out what they have now? Sorry if you feel that way, and I can't change that, I'm just not buying it. A two bit gum shoe with a drinking problem could have dug up this garbage being presented to the court. To think otherwise is laughable.

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thats not my take at all.

YOU made a claim, but apparently can't support the basis. That is fine, I was just wondering if it the claim had an actual basis or not.


As Mouth said: "The case was always there, but the DOJ at the time knew not to pursue it over the politics of it, at the time." That really can't be disputed. You claim they had everything then that they have now. Thats what is all conjecture.

BMX Bandit said:

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aggiehawg said:

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BMX Bandit said:

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what do you mean how could they?

if the FISA warrant is the genesis of the information against Manafort, then file a motion to suppress the evidence based on 4th amendment and due process

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You do realize that the Carter Page FISA applications were the first time any of those have ever been made public? How could Manafort's lawyers confirm the existence of Title I FISA warrants on their client? News reports with unnamed sources?? Try to depose someone on Team Mueller? Someone from the FBI? Rosenstein?

"Based on information and belief" only gets you so far without that information being declassified. (Side note: Judge Ellis asked Team Mueller if they wanted to invoke CIPA procedures. Had they done that, then Manafort's lawyers would have had a shot at finding out about the FISA warrants but Team Mueller avoided that potential trap. Have to give it to Judge Ellis, the guy is sharp.)

But let's go back as to how the Manafort trial is actually proceeding. They sure have a hell of a lot on Manafort's spending habits and that's mostly Asonye from the EDVA. You see how much the EDVA had amassed without Team Muellers' multi-tens of millions dollar budget and access to classified materials. Even Judge Ellis commented to Asonye back in May that the EDVA didn't have ten million (the guessed number at the time) to devote entirely to Manafort's case. A statement with which Asonye grimly agreed. The EDVA didn't have the resources.

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none of this has anything to do with my question. maybe I'm not asking it right or not understanding the argument being made.

the claim is that the FISA warrant as the genesis of the case against Manafort violates his rights, correct?

If yes, then my question is "Has Manafort's attorneys filed a motion to suppress based on that issue?"


OR, are people saying "We suspect the FISA warrant is how the evidence was gotten on Manafort, but no way to know since we have no seen" If that is the case, then I understand the point as to why it would be impossible to challenge.

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The latter. There has been no official confirmation that Manafort was subject to FISA warrants, just press reports with unnamed sources. Given the totality of the circumstances however it makes it more likely than not.

Keep in mind that Strzok retained his authority to send out NSLs, access classified materials and more importantly, declassification authority while he was on Team Mueller as to whom he could share such information. And he retained that authority right up until the time he was booted down to a cubicle in HR.

ETA: They sure honed down on Manafort's precise account numbers in overseas banks pretty damn quick after Mueller's appointment. If the EDVA already had that information why didn't they move on it? Fear of back splash onto Podesta? Only if they went after the FARA stuff. What does Tony Podesta have to do with Manafort's tax evasion and money laundering?

Yes

pedro_martinez said:

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Yes

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Okay I can go along with that. Pig pile sentences on such a defendant.

Fair point.

BMX Bandit said:

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RoscoePColtrane said:

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BMX Bandit said:

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I don't think you have any clue what was in their investigation file previously compared to what new information Mueller found.

How can you claim we haven't seen anything revolutionary when we don't even know what they had before?

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Well when the last administration went after him before and it tied into the Podesta Brothers and Greg Craig, the case went cold because of lack of evidense? Not according to information that is being pried out of the DOJ by FOIA warriors.

Your take is they needed to spend 40 million dollars on the SC to find out what they have now? Sorry if you feel that way, and I can't change that, I'm just not buying it. A two bit gum shoe with a drinking problem could have dug up this garbage being presented to the court. To think otherwise is laughable.

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thats not my take at all.

YOU made a claim, but apparently can't support the basis. That is fine, I was just wondering if it the claim had an actual basis or not.


As Mouth said: "The case was always there, but the DOJ at the time knew not to pursue it over the politics of it, at the time." That really can't be disputed. You claim they had everything then that they have now. Thats what is all conjecture.

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Please point to where I said "they had everything" The Special counsel hasn't uncover any new revelation of evidence on him, They didn't need the SC to find anything they have dug up recently.

Inserting something I didn't say into a conversation, and accuse me a saying it, is what I call conjecture.