Skripal: Theresa May set to hit back Russia over spy attack

[seemslikeadream]

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[Belligerent Savant]

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I've been avoiding much of the white noise in the MSM, candidly -- my tolerance for manipulated narratives is low.

How does Nunes discredit the findings in the report alloneword cited?

[seemslikeadream]

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[Elvis]

I count eighteen supporting links just in the excerpt posted by alloneword; does one questionable reference (the Nunes report) discredit the entire report?

None of the report's key points are undermined by the reference; that link is only a minor detail about Steele's quite real "difficulties" which the report goes on to list (with links):

These difficulties included a referral for criminal investigation by two US Senators, a libel case in the US against the publisher of the dossier which had led to a court ruling that Steele should be questioned in an English court, and a libel case in England against Orbis and Steele.

The Senate criminal referral may be based on bullshit (or not) but that's immaterial to the point.

[seemslikeadream]

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[Elvis]

if it's immaterial why is it there?

It's there because the criminal referral was one of Steele's "difficulties"; they're sourcing the fact of the referral, there's nothing to misunderstand or misrepresent.

Your objection was to linking the Nunes report, and since you agree its mention is a minor detail that doesn't affect the key points of the report, I recommend reading the rest of the excerpt; some very good points are made, raising very serious questions about the British government narrative.

[MacCruiskeen]

Scroll down. Keep scrolling. Keep scrolling. No, it does end eventually, just keep scrolling.

with everything I know about Nunes and I know practically everything......when I clicked on that link and saw that Nunes report I just didn't go any farther.....if they were using that propaganda I wasn't going to read anymore

here's the first page of the link I provided

I am very sorry but the story can't be told in a couple of words ....if you want to know what is going on you'll have to read the whole thing

and please if you could do not accuse me of c/p and please do not accuse me of being off topic ....you ask a question about Nunes and I am answering it......I thought I'd copy the whole first page because you did not click on the link I provided

but this is an important slice

“[T]he Majority voted today on a party-line basis to grant House Members access to a profoundly misleading set of talking points drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI and its handling of the investigation,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. “Rife with factual inaccuracies and referencing highly classified materials that most of Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they had never read, this is meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI.”

Republican lawmakers are pushing for the House Intelligence Committee to release a memo written by the panel's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, that outlines purported surveillance during the transition period against President-elect Donald Trump by former President Barack Obama's administration.

And Russia-linked Twitter bots have jumped on the bandwagon.

Indeed, Gaetz, DeSantis, and King — three of those squawking the loudest — voted to give the same FBI they’re claiming is rife with abuse more power to spy on Americans, including political dissidents. Nunes, who wrote this alarming report, also wrote the bill to expand the power of the FBI he’s now pretending is badly abusive.

I found the memo




Russia-linked Twitter accounts are working overtime to help Devin Nunes

#ReleaseTheMemo has spiked 233,000% over the past 48 hours, according to Hamilton 68, a website that tracks Russian propaganda in near-real time.



Meet the guys behind the earth shattering "Memo"

Florida Republican Matty Gaetz stuns MSNBC’s Chris Hayes by calling ‘disgusting’ Haiti ‘all sheetmetal and garbage’

Again, not one of the Republicans screaming most loudly to #ReleaseTheMemo voted the way you'd expect on 702 reauthorization if they really believed the FBI was abusing its power.

ROLL CALL: Trump’s Biggest Enablers In Congress On Russia Probe
By Allegra Kirkland | January 19, 2018 6:00 am

The Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to derail, undermine, and distract from the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election has had some crucial help from the President’s enablers on Capitol Hill.

These Trump allies have turned public committee hearings with senior intelligence officials into debates about leaks to the media. They’ve proposed bills to decapitate special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, recasting the lifelong Republican former FBI director as a liberal hack. They’ve called for additional investigations into what they describe as anti-Trump bias at the FBI and DOJ. And of course, they’ve aimed to change the subject by attacking Hillary Clinton.

In doing all this, they’ve often appeared to put their loyalty to the president ahead of the need to conduct a full investigation into a major threat to national security.

In descending order, these are the GOP lawmakers who have most aggressively gone to bat for Trump.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)


Nunes has used his powerful perch to cast doubt on the existence of any links between the Trump campaign and Russia, and to carry out shadow probes that better suit the administration’s storyline.

First, there was his one-man “unmasking” debacle last spring. The California Republican took to the press “evidence” he received directly from the White House, describing it as proof that Obama administration officials improperly revealed the identities of Americans caught up in classified intelligence reports. After Nunes’ claims were debunked by bipartisan lawmakers and national security experts, he found himself facing a House Ethics Committee probe for allegedly mishandling classified documents. In response, Nunes temporarily recused himself from his panel’s Russia probe.

That didn’t stop him from issuing a series of subpoenas to intelligence agencies and to Fusion GPS, the firm that assembled a dossier documenting Russia’s alleged coordination with the Trump campaign. He and other House Intelligence Committee Republicans are currently hunting for evidence that top DOJ and FBI officials improperly handled the dossier.

Nunes has also put himself on the frontline of two other issues the GOP has used as counterweights to the Russia probe. In October, he announced a new probe into the debunked Uranium One scandal involving the Obama administration’s approval of a deal selling part of a company that exports uranium to Russia’s government, a move said to have benefited a donor to the Clinton Foundation. And he threatened to hold DOJ leadership in contempt of Congress for allegedly withholding information about former top FBI official Peter Strzok, who was forced off of Mueller’s team after the discovery of text messages he’d sent disparaging Trump.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA)


Grassley began the new year by sending off Congress’s first criminal referral in the Russia probe. But the target wasn’t anyone accused of colluding with Putin’s government. Rather, it was Christopher Steele, the former British spy who put together the dossier detailing alleged collusion, and a favorite target of the right. Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) alleged that Steele lied to federal agents about his contacts with the media.

The Iowa Republican also wrote to the Justice Department suggesting that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe may need to recuse himself from the Russia probe for matters related to his wife’s unsuccessful Democratic campaign for state office in Virginia. And he publicly questioned whether the FBI warned the Trump campaign about ties between some of its staffers and Russian officials. Both moves furthered the conservative storyline alleging anti-Trump prejudice at the bureau.

Grassley has also called for a special counsel to investigate Uranium One, and made much hay of the allegations against Strzok, announcing in December that he was opening a probe into the former FBI official’s “reported bias.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)


The freshman Florida congressman in November became the first lawmaker to openly demand Mueller’s firing.

After months of calling for a second special counsel, Gaetz led a group of GOP lawmakers in introducing a resolution calling for Mueller to step down immediately because he was the head of the FBI when the Uranium One deal was approved. Gaetz called Mueller’s impartiality “hopelessly compromised” and urged other Republicans to join his cause.

The outspoken Freedom Caucus member frequently appears on Fox to float allegations that it was the DNC that collaborated with Russia. And Gaetz has said he personally warned Trump about his concerns that Mueller’s probe is “infected with bias,” putting the country at risk of a “coup d’etat.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)


Jordan has leveraged his seat on the House Judiciary Committee to push conspiracy theories in public hearings with senior U.S. officials.

The Ohio Republican has called for a special counsel to investigate whether Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the FBI cooperated to promote the Steele dosser. And he offered FBI director Wray his “hunch” that Strzok was personally responsible for using the dossier as justification for the FBI to “spy” on the Trump campaign.

The Freedom Caucus member kicked off 2018 with an op-ed calling for Sessions to step down for failing to plug the steady stream of leaks emanating from the DOJ on the Russia probe.

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)


DeSantis in August became the first lawmaker to propose a measure that would end Mueller’s investigation, which DeSantis has called a“fishing expedition.” It would have eliminated funding for the probe six months after the amendment’s passage, and prohibited Mueller from looking into matters that occurred prior to the June 2015 launch of Trump’s presidential campaign.

At the same time, DeSantis, who is running for governor of Florida, has argued that the dossier—which was initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon before the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign took over—proved “without a shadow of a doubt” that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)

UNITED STATES - JULY 28: Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., leaves a meeting of the House Republican Conference in the Capitol on July 28, 2017. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

The House Freedom Caucus Chairman co-wrote the Washington Examiner piece with Jordan calling for Sessions’ resignation over leaks.

But his op-ed campaign to change the conversation about Russia dates back far earlier. Last June, he lamented that the Democrat-led “hysterics surrounding Russia” were a concerted effort to derail Trump and Congress’ agenda. After all, Meadows reminded CNN’s readers, “no formal charge has been leveled against anyone.”

Meadows would make a similar case in a Fox News op-ed published just days before Mueller’s team announced its first charges, asserting “it’s time to move on” from investigations into Trump’s campaign and Russia. In the op-ed, he called for a special counsel to investigate matters involving Clinton and the Obama DOJ.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)


In early 2017, Graham, a long-time foreign policy hawk, was questioning Trump’s softness on Russia and mocking Nunes’ “Inspector Clouseau” investigations into classified leaks. By the end of the year, Graham had changed his tune.

The veteran South Carolina senator signed off on Grassley’s letter referring Steele for criminal investigation. He alleged that Trump’s “blindspot” on Russia is “changing for the better.” And he has lent weight to calls for a second special counsel with his loud, public calls for independent investigations of the Trump-Russia dossier, Uranium One deal, and alleged anti-Trump bias at DoJ.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC)


Gowdy has maintained his public support for the Russia probe and Mueller, but the House judiciary and intelligence committee member has done plenty to cast doubt on the investigation’s legitimacy.

The South Carolina lawmaker latched on to the leaks issue early on, and spent much of the House Intelligence Committee’s first hearing on Russia last March grilling then-FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers about how the press obtained classified information about Trump officials. Gowdy ran through a list of Obama officials who could have leaked ousted national security adviser Mike Flynn’s contact with the Russian ambassador, even suggesting that the former President himself could have been behind it.

Gowdy has dismissed calls for a second special counsel, but has railed against leaks from and bias on Mueller’s team, recently telling CNN it was “tone-deaf” that the special counsel was unable to “find prosecutors that don’t have an ‘I’m With Her’ T-shirt on.”

Gowdy came to national prominence as the chair of the special House committee created in 2014 to investigate the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attacks. Many Democrats described the panel as an effort to damage Clinton.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker ... estigation

Devin Nunes Will Do Anything to Protect Donald Trump
By Josh Marshall | January 22, 2018 6:01 pm

We are on genuinely untrodden territory with a faction of House Republicans working to discredit federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies because they are investigating the President and finding damning information about him and his 2016 campaign. As you’ve likely heard, Rep. Devin Nunes, Chairman of the House intel committee had his staff write this “memo” which allegedly presents evidence of intelligence and law enforcement wrongdoing during the 2016 presidential campaign – basically “deep state” plotting against candidate Donald Trump.

Over the last week there’s been a huge campaign on the right to “release the memo”. That campaign has also been supported by Russian intelligence backed social media accounts.

All of this stems from and began with Mike Flynn’s efforts to snoop on the investigators probing his actions during the 2016 campaign which Flynn began as soon as he got into the White House almost exactly one year ago. This is the story of the “review” conducted by Flynn protege Ezra Cohen-Watnick and the whole “un-masking” charade from earlier in the year. Devin Nunes was the Hill leader who made common cause with Flynn and Cohen-Watnick and got himself temporarily knocked off the Russia investigation for his shenanigans. Now he’s back with this. It’s simply a continuation of the un-masking nonsense.

Now we learn that Nunes, after circulating the classified “memo” to the entire House of Representatives, has refused to allow the FBI itself to see the document. CNN just reported this a few moments ago and that comes after a report of the same yesterday from The Daily Beast. Keep in mind, the FBI in its counter-intelligence capacity is the organization being accused in the memo. Nunes is clearly a clown and willing to subvert the rule of law to defend a lawless President. What is striking is that the entire House GOP and, critically, House Speaker Paul Ryan is going along with it.

The FBI of course needs deep scrutiny and has a history of various misdeeds. But there’s simply no evidence of any misdeeds in this case other than the crime of helping to uncover facts about the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russian intelligence operatives during the 2016 campaign. It’s amazing that this is happening.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/de ... nald-trump

Executive Intelligence Review has a really wacky take

Rep. Devin Nunes Sets Stage for Taking Down British Coup Aimed at the President

....google it I will not link to it here

Fox News of course is all over the story...I refuse to link to them but again if one is interested not hard to find one can even find their crap about it posted here

and then there's Breitbart for those who can stomach reading that site you can go there and see their crap I won't post it here.

last but not lest there are plenty of blogs and so called discussion sites pushing this shit

Wow, lots of hyperventilating going on. Could be Hannity knows all about that NRA-Russia connection. Caught a few minutes of his show today and the guy sounds like he's going into complete panic.

Matty Gaetz and L'il Jimmy Jordan would do well to go read the transcript released today by the House Intelligence Committee - (Yeah, I know... Intelligence.... scary stuff for two members of the Freedom from Facts Caucus, but...)...

the transcript of the testimony of the Fusion GPS founder Simpson....

the hearing that, if you read the transcript, it seems that all the Con members of the Committee up and left after about two hours, because for the remainder of the transcript, it seems only Democrats are asking questions.....guess the Cons had more important things to do, like make up false talking points about "palace coups"...

anyway, lots of important info, like Fusion originally being hired to do its research by the very conservative Washington Free- Beacon newspaper - not the DNC and Hillary - and being tasked to look into the Donald's business dealings.... which led to investigations in to the business ties he had with Russian oligarchs that he like sot deny.....

because lying that you have no business deals in Russia is not the same as saying you have no business deals with Russians....

and then there are all the strange purchases of Trump-owned real-estate by Russians in all cash deals, when they seemingly purposely over - pay for the properties..... also known as money- laundering.

So, there is no "palace coup", but there is an investigation into criminal activities, and the resulting obstruction of justice.

- RyansGdad

Democrats derided the release of the report as part of an attempt to discredit senior leaders of the agencies leading investigations into President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia and whether any of his associates aided Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 election.

“[T]he Majority voted today on a party-line basis to grant House Members access to a profoundly misleading set of talking points drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI and its handling of the investigation,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. “Rife with factual inaccuracies and referencing highly classified materials that most of Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they had never read, this is meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI.”

Release the Memo: What's the Conspiracy Behind the Right-Wing Meme?
Republicans claim a secret document reveals a Hillary Clinton plot "worse than Watergate" – and they're getting a big boost from Russian bots


On a day like Friday, with a shutdown looming and DACA in the balance and Chuck Schumer huddling with President Trump in the White House, you might logically expect right-wing Twitter to be blowing up – but not, necessarily, with the seemingly unaccountable hashtag that's dominated the platform since Thursday evening: #ReleaseTheMemo. But then again, you might not logically expect American conservatives to work in concert with Russian state propagandists and Twitter bots – though by now, God knows, nobody should be surprised.

The "memo" in question is a confidential four-page document assembled by a stealthy group of House Republicans, led by Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes, over the past month. These members, as part of the G.O.P. effort to discredit Robert Mueller and demolish his investigation into the Trump campaign's Russian collusion, undertook to "probe" whether the FBI and Justice Department misused the infamous dossier compiled by British intelligence expert Christopher Steele. Surprisingly enough, they seem to have found what they set out to find – judging, at least, from the dark and hysterical hints about the contents of the memo that right-wingers in Congress began to issue last evening.

Mark Meadows, chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, declared himself "shocked" to the core by his fellow Republicans' findings, and demanded they be released "so that all Americans can judge for themselves," adding, "Part of me wishes that I didn't read it because I don't want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much." Releasing a four-page partisan memo is the last, best hope to "preserve our democracy," according to Rep. Matt Gaetz, another Freedom Caucus member. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican, was among those who dashed to the House floor to sputter: "The American people deserve, they must, they want to know what's in this document. Release the memo! Release the memo and all of the related documented sourced in the memo."

On Thursday night's Hannity, the host led the show by calling the memo's findings – whatever they might be – "worse than Watergate," borrowing from the ultra-reliable Rep. Steve King. How so? "What we're talking about tonight is the systematic abuse of power, the weaponizing of those powerful tools of intelligence and the shredding of our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights," Hannity declared. Details, of course, were not forthcoming. But Hannity knows what he knows – and, rest assured, it's more than enough to justify putting a swift end to Mueller's Trump "witch hunt." Don, Jr. signaled this morning that he'd gotten the message loud and clear:



So what's in this "bombshell report," as it was soon being called almost universally? According to Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, "a profoundly misleading set of talking points drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI and its handling of the investigation," which references "classified materials that most of the Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they have never read." One of those talking points, it appears, involves an accusation reported by Politico that one Trump foreign-policy aide was “inappropriately” surveilled during the campaign, in a misuse of FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act).

If that doesn't sound quite like the advertised "bombshell," you aren't exercising your imagination – or your Twitter account – nearly enough. Nunes' talking points, right-wing Twitter trolls have been declaring, means nothing less than the destruction of Barack Obama's presidential legacy and the unraveling of the real conspiracy to steal the 2016 election for the Democrats. "Obama, Comey, McCabe, Hillary, Rosenstein, Strzok, Page, Huma, and Susan Rice need to go to prison for illegally spying on Donald Trump!" tweets Red Nation Rising. The indisputable bases for all of their convictions is, of course, in that four-page memo – hiding from the American people, practically in plain sight! (Of course, Trump or House Republicans could easily make the memo public – even some progressives are beginning to call for #release, certain that the memo can't be that damning.)

What's remarkable about this meme isn't the fact that it's being spread far and wide – it's how much it's dominated Twitter these last two days, with so many other banner headlines in the news. The Hamilton 68 Dashboard, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States which tracks more than 500 Russia-influenced Twitter accounts to gauge the reach of disinformation campaigns, shows a massive surge behind the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag in the last 48 hours, led by the usual mix of right-wing platforms like Breitbart, Fox News, and The Gateway Pundit – along with Russian bots and state media outlets like Tass, RT, and Sputnik.

It's hardly unprecedented, in these Trump times, for right-wing sites to be amplifying messages from Russian propagandists, or for members of Congress to chime in. But "the degree to which they're promoting this hashtag is significant," says Jonathon Morgan, one of the creators of the "disinformation dashboard." Morgan, CEO of Austin-based New Knowledge, which tracks disinformation campaigns in social media, can't recall anything quite like this: Whereas the periodic explosions of Russian-Republican memes – especially when they're designed to undercut the Trump-Russia probe – occasionally reach 400 uses of the hashtag per day, "we're measuring more than 3,000" uses of #ReleaseTheMemo since Thursday. That's not a meme; it's an avalanche.


Morgan speculates that the sudden explosion of #ReleaseTheMemo partly stems from "the way these websites, like Breitbart, are positioning the story to place Obama in a bad light," along with the way the meme is being framed as "manufactured justification for ending the Mueller investigation." (Rumor also has it that the memo will somehow be "the final nail in the coffin" for the Clintons.)

The #ReleaseTheMemo craze is not just wishful right-wing thinking. It's not simply your run-of-the-mill right-wing plot to distract Trump voters from Stormy Daniels, "shitholes," and the shutdown. It's one more piece of powerful evidence of how Russia and its Twitter bots are teaming with right-wing Republicans in a concerted pro-Trump propaganda campaign. The actual memo, as soon as its contents are leaked or revealed in full, is bound to disappoint those screaming for its release – and sure to raise red flags about the sources and methods of the House Republican staffers who put it together. But that won't stop the next Russian-Republican propaganda shitstorm from taking over social media; in fact, it guarantees exactly the opposite. The American right is doing the work of Russian bots. Which, come to think of it, might just be something that needs investigating.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/n ... me-w515654

STEVE KING JUST VOTED TO SUBJECT AMERICANS TO “WORSE THAN WATERGATE”

January 19, 2018/1 Comment/in FISA, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel
Devin Nunes has launched the next installment of his effort to undercut the Mueller investigation, a “Top Secret” four page report based on his staffers’ review of all the investigative files they got to see back on January 5. He then showed it to a bunch of hack Republicans, who ran to the right wing press to give alarmist quotes about the report (few, if any, have seen the underlying FBI materials).

Mark Meadows (who recently called for Jeff Sessions’ firing as part of this obstruction effort) said, “Part of me wishes that I didn’t read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.”

Matt Gaetz (who strategized with Trump on how to undercut the Mueller investigation on a recent flight on Air Force One) said, “The facts contained in this memo are jaw-dropping and demand full transparency. There is no higher priority than the release of this information to preserve our democracy.”

Ron DeSantis (who joined Gaetz in that Air Force One strategy session with Trump and also benefitted directly from documents stolen by the Russians) said it was “deeply troubling and raises serious questions about the [the people in the] upper echelon of the Obama DOJ and Comey FBI,” who of course largely remain in place in the Sessions DOJ and Wray FBI.

Steve King claimed what he saw was, “worse than Watergate.” “Is this happening in America or is this the KGB?” Scott Perry said. Jim Jordan (who joined in Meadows’ effort to fire Sessions) said, “It is so alarming.” Lee Zeldin said the FBI, in using FISA orders against Russians and facilities used by suspected agents of Russia was relying “on bad sources & methods.”



It all makes for very good theater. But not a single one of these alarmists voted the way you’d expect on last week’s 702 reauthorization votes if they were really gravely concerned about the power of the FBI to spy on Americans.

Indeed, Gaetz, DeSantis, and King — three of those squawking the loudest — voted to give the same FBI they’re claiming is rife with abuse more power to spy on Americans, including political dissidents. Nunes, who wrote this alarming report, also wrote the bill to expand the power of the FBI he’s now pretending is badly abusive.

Even those who voted in favor of the Amash-Lofgren amendment and against final reauthorization — Meadows, Jordan, and Perry, among some of those engaging in this political stunt — voted against the Democratic motion to recommit, which would have at least bought more time and minimally improved the underlying bill (Justin Amash and Tom Massie, both real libertarians, voted with Democrats on the motion to recommit). Zeldin was among those who flipped his vote, backing the bill that will give the FBI more power after making a show of supporting Amash’s far better bill.

In short, not a single one of these men screaming about abuse at the FBI did everything they could do to prevent the FBI from getting more power.

Which — if you didn’t already need proof — shows what a hack stunt this is.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/01/19/s ... watergate/

ON DESANTIS ATTEMPTING TO STOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO THEFT THAT BENEFITTED HIM

August 28, 2017/5 Comments/in Mueller Probe, Russian hacks /by emptywheel
Florida Congressman Ron DeSantis has presented a bill that would defund the Robert Mueller investigation six months after the bill passed.

DeSantis has put forward a provision that would halt funding for Mueller’s probe six months after the amendment’s passage. It also would prohibit Mueller from investigating matters that occurred before June 2015, when Trump launched his presidential campaign.

The amendment is one of hundreds filed to a government spending package the House is expected to consider when it returns next week from the August recess. The provision is not guaranteed a vote on the House floor; the House Rules Committee has wide leeway to discard amendments it considers out of order.

It’s interesting that DeSantis, of all people, would push this bill.

After all, he’s one of a small list of members of Congress who directly benefitted from Guccifer 2.0’s leaking. Florida political journalist Aaron Nevins obtained a huge chunk of documents from Guccifer 2.0.

Last year, a Republican political operative and part-time blogger from Florida asked for and received an extensive list of stolen data from Guccifer 2.0, the infamous hacker known for leaking documents from the DNC computer network.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Aaron Nevins, a former aide to Republican state Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, had reached out to Guccifer through Twitter, asking to “feel free to send any Florida-based information.”

About 10 days later, Nevins received about 2.5 gigabytes of polling information, election strategy and other data, which he then posted on his political gossip blog HelloFLA.com.

“I just threw an arrow in the dark,” Nevins told the Journal.

After setting up a Dropbox account for Guccifer 2.0 to share the data, Nevins was able to sift through the data as someone who “actually knows what some of these documents mean.”

Among the documents stolen from the DCCC that Nevins published are five documents on the DCCC’s recruitment of DeSantis’ opponent, George Pappas. So effectively, DeSantis is trying to cut short the investigation into a crime from which he directly benefitted.

Call me crazy, but this seems like an ethical violation, and possibly a good reason to submit a bar complaint against DeSantis. And his constituents might want to ask why he’s trying to help Russia and its domestic enablers undermine democracy.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/08/28/r ... itted-him/

Republicans authorize sharing of classified report on FBI, DOJ officials' conduct
By KYLE CHENEY 01/18/2018 07:45 PM EST Updated 01/18/2018 08:19 PM EST

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have authorized their colleagues to access a highly classified report that they say details their concerns with the conduct of top FBI and Justice Department officials, as well as the agencies’ handling of a controversial surveillance program.

“We have concerns — FISA concerns — that all members of the body should know,” said Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), a member of the committee, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Some of President Donald Trump’s allies in the House have argued that the program was inappropriately used to surveil a foreign policy aide to the Trump campaign.


Democrats derided the release of the report as part of an attempt to discredit senior leaders of the agencies leading investigations into President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia and whether any of his associates aided Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 election.

“[T]he Majority voted today on a party-line basis to grant House Members access to a profoundly misleading set of talking points drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI and its handling of the investigation,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. “Rife with factual inaccuracies and referencing highly classified materials that most of Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they had never read, this is meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI.”

“This may help carry White House water, but it is a deep disservice to our law enforcement professionals,” he added.

Conaway noted that the classified report would probably remain off-limits to the public, though all members of the House are permitted to view it. But by releasing it to other House members, it gave Trump allies outside the Intelligence Committee a chance to batter FBI leadership and underscore complaints they’ve raised about the agency’s handling of its investigation of Trump associates’ contacts with Russia. Throughout the day Thursday, a handful of Trump’s top House allies began calling for the immediate public release of the report.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said the report must be released to “preserve our democracy.” Another conservative ally, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), called the report “deeply troubling” and said the Intelligence Committee should dust off a little-used process to reveal classified information publicly in order to show the public. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) said the report would reveal “FISA abuse.”

“Releasing this classified information will not compromise good sources and methods,” Zeldin said in a statement. “It will, however, reveal the feds’ reliance on bad sources and methods.”

A source familiar with discussions between the leader of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), and House leadership — amid high-stakes negotiations over the government spending bill — said Meadows asked Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) explicitly to authorize a vote on releasing the report. The source said Ryan deferred to the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who has authority over whether to start the process on releasing the report.

Meadows, taking to the House floor late Thursday, said he was “shocked” by the contents of the report.

“It is time that we become transparent on all of this,” he said. “And I am calling on our leadership to make this available so that all Americans can judge for themselves.”

Conaway, though, told reporters he’d counsel his colleagues against revealing classified material.

“That’d be real dangerous,” he said, suggesting that a version of the committee’s findings could be made public without getting into the specifics of what drove Republicans’ decision to share the report with colleagues.

Another member of the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), said he would like to release an unclassified version of the report “scrubbed” to protect classified information. He said that in addition to questions about FISA, the report would highlight concerns among Republicans about “the judgment of some members of the FBI or some members of the Department of Justice.”

The report appears to be the result of an inquiry by a subset of Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee, the details of which were revealed last month. That investigation, led by Nunes, focused on what some Republicans on the panel have come to view as abuses of the FISA process by senior FBI and DOJ officials, as well as the handling of a disputed Trump-Russia dossier by intelligence and law enforcement officials.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/ ... fbi-348024

Russia-linked Twitter accounts are working overtime to help Devin Nunes and WikiLeaks

Natasha Bertrand

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations have begun promoting the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo.
It's a reference to a document written by Rep. Devin Nunes that purports to show abuse by the Obama administration of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The frequency with which the accounts have been promoting the hashtag has spiked by 233,000% over the past 48 hours, according to an analysis.
The most-shared URL has been a link to WikiLeaks' "submit" page.

Republican lawmakers are pushing for the House Intelligence Committee to release a memo written by the panel's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, that outlines purported surveillance during the transition period against President-elect Donald Trump by former President Barack Obama's administration.

And Russia-linked Twitter bots have jumped on the bandwagon.

#ReleaseTheMemo is the top-trending hashtag among Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations, according to Hamilton 68, a website launched last year that says it tracks Russian propaganda in near-real time.

The frequency with which the accounts have been promoting the hashtag has spiked by 233,000% over the past 48 hours, according to the site. The accounts' references to the "memo," meanwhile, have increased by 68,000%.

The most-shared domain among the accounts has been WikiLeaks, and the most-shared URL has been a link to WikiLeaks' "submit" page.

WikiLeaks said on Thursday that it would reward anyone with access to the "FISA abuse memo" who chooses to submit it to the site. The Russia-linked accounts have evidently been sharing the "submit" page to push the memo's release.


Hamilton 68 has been working to expose trolls — as well as automated bots and human accounts — whose main use for Twitter appears to be an amplification of pro-Russia themes. The site's mission is to monitor and illustrate the themes that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Americans to be thinking and talking about, including "the failure of democratic governance in the United States."

Bret Schafer, a communications coordinator at the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy who tracks the Hamilton 68 accounts, said he "certainly can't remember" the last time the researchers had seen a topic "promoted to this level" by the Russia-linked bots and trolls.

"On a normal day, our top hashtag is typically used around 400 times in a 48-hour period by the network we track," he said in an email on Friday.

"As of right now, #ReleaseTheMemo has been used over 3,000 times (and five other related hashtags are in the top 10)," he said. "In total, they've easily shared more than 4,500 hashtags on the topic in the past two days, and our top URL is Assange's offer to pay for a copy of the memo. That certainly seems to be a sign of a coordinated effort by the bots and trolls."

Mueller's top critics want the memo out


Several Republican congressmen — many of whom have been highly critical of the special counsel Robert Mueller, the FBI, and the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia — have released statements calling on the House Intelligence Committee to declassify and release Nunes' four-page memo.

The executive branch would have to review the document before it could be released to the public, but "this could happen real quick," Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News on Thursday. "Chairman Nunes is committed to getting this information to the public."

The document purportedly describes classified information Nunes obtained from the FBI and Justice Department as part of his investigation into whether the Obama administration misused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on Trump and his associates during the presidential transition.

"The House must immediately make public the memo prepared by the Intelligence Committee regarding the FBI and the Department of Justice," said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who has called on Mueller to resign. "The facts contained in this memo are jaw-dropping and demand full transparency. There is no higher priority than the release of this information to preserve our democracy."

Rep. Ron DeSantis, who has introduced legislation that would curtail Mueller's mandate and budget, said in a statement on Thursday that "the classified report compiled by the House Intelligence is deeply troubling and raises serious questions about the upper echelon of the Obama DOJ and Comey FBI as it relates to the so-called collusion investigation."

'A profoundly misleading set of talking points'
Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff (D-CA) speaks after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions attended a closed door interview with the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol in Washington, U.S., November 30, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Rep. Adam Schiff. Thomson Reuters
Democrats, meanwhile, have called the Nunes memo grossly exaggerated and misleading.

"The Majority voted today on a party-line basis to grant House Members access to a profoundly misleading set of talking points drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI and its handling of the investigation," Rep. Adam Schiff, the panel's top Democrat, said in a statement on Thursday.

"Rife with factual inaccuracies and referencing highly classified materials that most of Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they had never read, this is meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI," Schiff continued.

A source with knowledge of the memo told Business Insider that it was "a level of irresponsible stupidity that I cannot fathom," adding that it "purposefully misconstrues facts and leaves out important details."

Schiff said the document "may help carry White House water, but it is a deep disservice to our law enforcement professionals."

Nunes began investigating the Justice Department and FBI after he traveled to the White House to view classified information in March without telling his committee colleagues. There, he viewed classified information that he said showed FISA abuse by Obama administration officials.

Nunes would neither confirm nor deny that he got the information from the White House.

"We have to keep our sources and methods here very, very quiet," he told reporters at the time. He told Bloomberg later that the information had come from a "network of whistleblowers."

Nunes briefed Trump on the intelligence, which Nunes said showed that the president and his advisers may have had their communications "incidentally collected" — and their identities "unmasked" in intelligence reports — by the intelligence community after the election.

A source of concern has been why some of Trump's associates who had been caught up in the surveillance and later unmasked, such as Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, had their names leaked to the press.

But Republican and Democratic congressional aides told reporters in early April — after being briefed on the classified reports — that Obama administration officials did not act inappropriately.

Indeed, the committee under Nunes' leadership made at least five unmasking requests to US spy agencies between June 2016 and January 2017 related to Russia's election meddling, The Washington Post reported last year.

The report came days after Nunes, who would have had to sign off on any committee requests to reveal the identities of US persons mentioned in intelligence reports, called unmaskings "violations of Americans' civil liberties."
http://www.businessinsider.com/release- ... nts-2018-1

This newly declassified Nunes Memo completely omits the fact that a conservative website called the Washington Free Beacon, funded by New York GOP hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, hired Fusion GPS, which produced the Steele dossier.





What an incredible dud. Sweet Jesus

It took trump several HOURS to read this yesterday?

Rosenstein was the target here let's not pretend otherwise

this was a step in cutting Mueller off at his knees......epic fail






yes Total nothing burger


but one should not ignore anything the dictator in thief does


all this "memo" was...was a motion to suppress wire tap evidence

THE RIGHT WING
Key Watergate Scandal Figure John Dean Says Nunes Should Go to Prison for ‘Betraying National Security’
Dean wrote a similar memo when he was an attorney in the Nixon-era White House.
By Bob Brigham / Raw Story February 3, 2018, 8:33 AM GMT

Yet another gigantic steaming trump dump, this time on a thread about the skripal affair.

Why do the mods allow this? Why?

[MacCruiskeen]

If anyone else carried on like that even once, they would be given a stern warning at the very least and more likely a week's suspension without a moment's notice.

I'm sick to death of the blatant double standards around this place. Is slad immune to all criticism? Do special rules apply to her? Is she a protected species? Say it loud and clear, if so, and not shamefacedly and surreptitiously by private message. If rigorous intuition general discussion no longer exists, then have the minimal decency to inform all of us openly at long last so that honest people posting in good faith can stop wasting their fucking time.

[seemslikeadream]

i deleted everything I could

there you go all gone sorry to have disturbed you all that is left is what you quoted I can not do anything about that

I won't bother you again in this thread

there are no special rules for me do not accuse the mods of that... I broke no rules since you believe I broke some rule I deleted it all

my thread is all yours I will not post in it again to satisfy you and keep you happy and so you do not make false accusations against the mods

this is the last I am going to do this for you do not follow me around and think you will bully me into doing this again I will not

Do not try bullying the mods

I am done with you in the future if you think I have broken a rule alert a mod and get a ruling

From this moment on you will be on my ignore list and that is permanent I will no longer see anything you write ever again I will never respond to you again

Your words make me sick I feel like I have been poisoned when I read them and to keep posting here I need to never see them again...I will never see your ranting and raging again and that is a good thing for me

you have bullied me out of my own thread.....

DO NOT THINK THIS WILL EVER HAPPEN AGAIN......EVER

This is the first time in 14 years I have ever been bullied out of my own thread and it

WILL NOT HAPPEN EVER AGAIN MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THAT

I am NEVER going to change my thread titles for you .....I am NEVER going to change the way I have posted here for 14 years for you....who do you think you are?

and if you think you are going to get away with making false accusations against me you are sorely mistaken .....DO NOT LIE ABOUT ME EVER AGAIN ...DO NOT LIE IN AN OPEN THREAD DO NOT LIE IN A PRIVATE PM DO NOT LIE PERIOD


Your 2 YEAR LONG ritual serial abuse towards me ends right fucking now! IT IS OVER PERIOD TWO FUCKING YEARS IS TWO FUCKING YEARS TOO LONG .....I WILL NO LONGER BE A PARTY TO IT ...TALK TO THE HAND BUDDY.....YOUR CRUSADE ON ME IS FINITO!

Go ahead and put another nail in......I won't feel it


Jeff was right then and what he said about you is still viable 8 years later ...you never change

- Macruiskeen
- Nordic

It wasn't agent-baiting, so much as incorrigible, vulgar thuggery. I don't care on which side of an argument it's found, it's disruption. Their accounts are currently active, and probationary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPuuT9fpG-o

[seemslikeadream]

lovely I hear I get my thread back ...thank you very much I really really appreciate it and now I can continue to post in my own thread

Novichok Poisoning: Russia’s Version #38 – False
May 08, 2018

Alexander Shulgin
Russia’s representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
“In the United States, nerve agents of “Novichok” type have not only been produced, but have even been patented as chemical weapons. Moreover, a search on the electronic source google.patents.com using the keyword “Novichok” finds more than 140 patents granted in the United States related to the use of, and protection from, the impact of the ‘Novichok’ chemical warfare agent.”
Source: Mid.ru, April 18

FALSE

There are no patents issued in the U.S. to “produce and use” Novichok
In a speech at an Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) meeting in The Hague on April 18, Russia’s permanent representative to the organization, Alexander Shulgin, said that chemical weapons agents of the “Novichok” type had not only been produced in the U.S., but patented there in December 2015. According to a transcript of his speech posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, Shulgin also put forward what he said was documentary evidence of his claim: he said a search of the “google.patents.com” data base using the keyword “Novichok” found “more than 140 patents granted in the United States related to the use of, and protection from, the impact of the ‘Novichok’ chemical warfare agent.”


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABLMWrpIn8A

​The Russian ambassador’s claim contains several errors.

First, the correct address of the actual source is “patents.google.com,” not “google.patents.com.”

Secondly, a search of “patents.google.com” using the keyword “Novichok” yields 59 results, not 140.

Thirdly, among the 59 results, there are no patents for “producing” or “using” Novichok. Rather, the results are for such things as the “detection” and “composition” of Novichok series nerve agents, as well as “detoxification,” “prevention” and treatment of poisoning caused by Novichok series nerve agents.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... qvMlyHz3O0
​Asked to comment on what Shulgin said, Paul Fucito, press secretary of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office told Polygraph.info: “I could not begin to speculate on the claim.”

Fucito added: “After a thorough search, we cannot find anything to support claims for any patents issued for the production of a combat substance. The term ‘Novichok’ has appeared, however, in issued U.S. patents for various treatments (including exposure to chemicals/toxins) and the detection of substances.”

Although Russia’s OPCW representative referred to the public domain, there are patents and licenses issued in the U.S. under the Executive Order for Classified National Security Information, and those are not accessible in the patents.google.com database to which Shulgin referred in his speech at The Hague.

The office of Russia’s permanent representative to the OPCW in The Hague, Netherlands, did not respond to Polygraph.info’s request for a copy of the documentary evidence Alexander Shulgin presented at the April 18 meeting.

The British government has accused the Russian government of using a nerve agent to poison former Russian military intelligence colonel Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury on March 4.

After conducting an independent examination of samples from Britain, the OPCW concurred with the findings of the British government’s Porton Down research facility, finding “the toxic chemical was of high purity.” The OPCW was silent on the source of the poison.

The incident led to a diplomatic crisis, with about 20 countries, including the United States, expelling Russian diplomats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGMRBnUqt3g

Russia denied any connection to the poisoning and during the two months following the incident produced multiple “alternative versions” of the incident in Salisbury.

EU Mythbusters, a European Union source for combating Russian disinformation, counted 37 different versions voiced by Russian officials or state media. Alexander Shulgin’s claim is #38.


https://www.polygraph.info/a/novichok-p ... 15838.html

[JackRiddler]

New Skripal thread, continues from this one.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41004

[seemslikeadream]

yes I know ...my original continues here some people want to switch some people don't.....please please be my guest and do what you would like we don't need to argue about it

the title of this thread will not be changed

this thread will not be locked

this was a new article and I choose to post it in my thread

Novichok Poisoning: Russia’s Version #38 – False
May 08, 2018

Alexander Shulgin
Russia’s representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
“In the United States, nerve agents of “Novichok” type have not only been produced, but have even been patented as chemical weapons. Moreover, a search on the electronic source google.patents.com using the keyword “Novichok” finds more than 140 patents granted in the United States related to the use of, and protection from, the impact of the ‘Novichok’ chemical warfare agent.”
Source: Mid.ru, April 18

FALSE

There are no patents issued in the U.S. to “produce and use” Novichok
In a speech at an Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) meeting in The Hague on April 18, Russia’s permanent representative to the organization, Alexander Shulgin, said that chemical weapons agents of the “Novichok” type had not only been produced in the U.S., but patented there in December 2015. According to a transcript of his speech posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, Shulgin also put forward what he said was documentary evidence of his claim: he said a search of the “google.patents.com” data base using the keyword “Novichok” found “more than 140 patents granted in the United States related to the use of, and protection from, the impact of the ‘Novichok’ chemical warfare agent.”


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABLMWrpIn8A

​The Russian ambassador’s claim contains several errors.

First, the correct address of the actual source is “patents.google.com,” not “google.patents.com.”

Secondly, a search of “patents.google.com” using the keyword “Novichok” yields 59 results, not 140.

Thirdly, among the 59 results, there are no patents for “producing” or “using” Novichok. Rather, the results are for such things as the “detection” and “composition” of Novichok series nerve agents, as well as “detoxification,” “prevention” and treatment of poisoning caused by Novichok series nerve agents.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... qvMlyHz3O0
​Asked to comment on what Shulgin said, Paul Fucito, press secretary of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office told Polygraph.info: “I could not begin to speculate on the claim.”

Fucito added: “After a thorough search, we cannot find anything to support claims for any patents issued for the production of a combat substance. The term ‘Novichok’ has appeared, however, in issued U.S. patents for various treatments (including exposure to chemicals/toxins) and the detection of substances.”

Although Russia’s OPCW representative referred to the public domain, there are patents and licenses issued in the U.S. under the Executive Order for Classified National Security Information, and those are not accessible in the patents.google.com database to which Shulgin referred in his speech at The Hague.

The office of Russia’s permanent representative to the OPCW in The Hague, Netherlands, did not respond to Polygraph.info’s request for a copy of the documentary evidence Alexander Shulgin presented at the April 18 meeting.

The British government has accused the Russian government of using a nerve agent to poison former Russian military intelligence colonel Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury on March 4.

After conducting an independent examination of samples from Britain, the OPCW concurred with the findings of the British government’s Porton Down research facility, finding “the toxic chemical was of high purity.” The OPCW was silent on the source of the poison.

The incident led to a diplomatic crisis, with about 20 countries, including the United States, expelling Russian diplomats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGMRBnUqt3g

Russia denied any connection to the poisoning and during the two months following the incident produced multiple “alternative versions” of the incident in Salisbury.

EU Mythbusters, a European Union source for combating Russian disinformation, counted 37 different versions voiced by Russian officials or state media. Alexander Shulgin’s claim is #38.


https://www.polygraph.info/a/novichok-p ... 15838.html

[Jerky]

There is no "new Skripal thread". There's just this one, and then a new thread designed to deliver the Kremlin party line, fresh from RT and Sputnik, by those who've decided to align themselves with that cohort, in an effort to distract from the truth of the matter (which will continue to be reported HERE, in the REAL SKRIPAL THREAD.

Cheers!
Jerky

[JackRiddler]

New and improved Skripal thread! As endorsed by Jerky's Spirit: "More Kremlin, less Russiagate!" Occasional responses between posters in their own words concerning the merits of the case. Gluten and 36 screen copy paste free!
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41004

[smiths]

Jerky, are you recommending to the (terribly victimised) SLAD that this thread title should be changed to your suggestion , "the REAL SKRIPAL THREAD"?