Creepy Tulsi Gabbard lies about Obama administration treason

Another late posting, written September 2025.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accuses Obama and others for treasonous actions. It's very shoddy with intentional twisting of facts. Statement from Gabbard. First group of declassified documents. Fox got the exclusive first reporting, but the manipulation shows through. Gabbard is also touting this intelligence community critique of a 2016 intelligence brief, but it's highly biased, skipping over so much evidence of Russian interference. There's also the Durham appendix that used to be classified discussing a lot of Russian material including accusations directed at Hillary. And a whiny whistleblower. Very whiny. 

Another whistleblower revelation against Adam Schiff this time. Someone who was staff on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence says Schiff (and also Swalwell) instructed staff to leak Russia-related material but not get caught. 

How big was the Steele dossier among liberals? I recall BuzzFeed labeled it as "unverified" in the second paragraph of the news story releasing the dossier. Yes, libs know what 'unverified' means. I read that Rachel Maddow treated it as reliable info, but most libs didn't. Adam Schiff (the lowlife) treated it like it was real, but he was playing games claiming proof of collusion but not pointing to specific proof. What the fuck with that kind of game? It only damages credibility, and Schiff deserves to be reviled, not move on to the Senate. 

Sources for how libs took the dossier: The Nation. The Guardian. Just Security. Hoover Institute. WaPo. These show some signs of taking it seriously. More common was laughing at it or being tentative. How a Sensational, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for Donald Trump was the NYT headline. Bob Woodward called it garbage. NPR explains its reasoning on reporting on the unverified dossier. Politifact ran a list of information/allegations about the Trump-Russia connections, and listed the dossier as unverified, uncorroborated, and "should be viewed with skepticism." 

What did the left actually say about Trump and collusion?

I read it all the time from conservatives: The left was sure Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election. 

Did the left actually believe that? Ok, I'll use google to find out. Looking at June 2016 until mid-September, I don't see declarations that Trump was colluding. I see discussions of Trump's financial ties, his statements about Russia, his choices of advisers, and how Russians apparently hacked the DNC and gave the documents to Wikileaks. I don't see claims that Trump colluded with Russians. 

CNN 7/26/16. Discussion on Russian meddling, no accusation of collusion or conspiracy involving Trump. 

Lawfare 7/27/16. Q&A, no charges of conspiracy or collusion.

Washington Post 7/29/16. Q&A, no charges of conspiracy or collusion.

The Guardian 7/30/16. Long article. Direct collusion "probably not happening."

Vox 8/15/16. Conspiracy theorizing is wild but grounded in Trump's Russia ties. 

Reuters 8/25/16. Focus on Carter Page, who was one of many advisers who had close Russian ties. 

Politico 9/5/16. Russia is interfering, but no accusation against Trump except for spreading hate. 

After leaks of the Steele dossier

So now I'll look for how it was discussed after parts of the Steele dossier was leaked to Yahoo, and was published in its entirety in January 2017. 

NPR 1/10/17. Reports on the dossier, which was published that day by Buzzfeed. "NPR is not detailing the contents of the brief because it remains unverified....." but characterized it as discussing efforts to cultivate Trump, blackmail possibilities, and secret mettings with aides. 

NYT 2/14/17. Unnamed sources say Trump campaign had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence. Alarming, but sources say no evidence of collusion this far. 

USA Today 2/15/17. Timeline of contacts. Not veering into speculation. 

Politico Magazine March/April 2017. Trump/Russia connections in 7 charts. Looks solid and not veering into speculation. 

The Guardian 3/22/17. Comey testifies that Trump is being investigated. Speculation on effect of that news, but not about possible actions by Trump and his campaign. 

Politico 3/22/17. Schiff claims the evidence for collusion is more than circumstantial. He can't say what it is. 

PRI 3/30/17. Very accusatory tone, but still couched as investigations and suspicions. 

CNBC 4/6/17. Clinton says potential collusion should be looked into. 

The Guardian 4/13/17. British spy services warned US intelligence dating back to 2015. An unnamed source states there is "concrete.... evidence of collusion" and that's the strongest statement in the article. 

Reuters 5/18/17. More contacts between Trump officials and Russians disclosed. Sources say no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion. 

I also checked some further left media. Many have told me that Rachel Maddow pushed the collusion story night after night. This video would be one example. I didn't watch her so I don't know how representative it is, but it does push the story hard, with statements like the evidence is growing and the Repubs were meeting with Russians just as Russians were hacking the elections. 

Keith Olbermann was always a human flamethrower and he continues it, though from a very shoddy video studio with terrible lighting. He latches onto the accusations from Louise Mensch, a name I had forgotten. Well, she was a bit correct but also going deep into nutcase territory. 

Personal memories

What I recall about the Russian collusion story: I was tentative on it, preferring to wait for hard evidence. Evidence was being uncovered frequently, so it was very reasonable to wait and see. I was dubious about the Steele dossier and the way it was released encouraged wariness. It was labeled as unverified from the very beginning. 

In contrast, most of the information covered in the Mueller report had been leaked beforehand, and the solid news organization were right on most of it. I read the indictments as they came out, and they were loaded with info. So I never had to correct mistaken claims I made because I was cautious and conservative. The Mueller report wasn't a relevation. The good MSM sources continued being fairly good, including when they reported that the Steele dossier was financed by the Clinton campaign. Now that was quite an Aha! moment. 

So I was cautious in what I believed, and I recall most on the left being that way too. Maybe because I don't watch MSNBC or Keith Olbermann. My conclusion is that conservatives downplay the actual events of Russian interference and overhype the collusion/conspiracy speculation on the left. 

Image: The Intercept

Finally the Durham report lands

Republicans have been looking for a white knight who will finally prove that the deep state conspired to support Hillary Clinton and block Trump as much as possible. Sadly for them, evidence for this has been spotty, and there were never enough connections with the evidence that existed to make a convincing story of it. The Inspector General Michael Horowitz was supposed to blow the whole mess wide open, but he didn't come through. So Durham was the next and probably last white knight. 

Durham really tried to deliver. However it's rather hard if you can't fabricate evidence. When you're stuck with lackluster evidence, you just shine it up as much as possible, and this is what Durham did. 

Mostly he hammers on the FBI for moving too aggressively to a full investigation instead of a smaller investigation. He also hammers on the FISA warrant application, but that's a repeat of the criticism from IG Horowitz, so not new info. 

So it's page after page of Durham droning on about the FBI agents being too serious, not gentle enough, not having a light enough touch, being tougher on Trump campaign officials than Hillary campaign officials. Why were they so hot to investigate more deeply? Gee, Durham seems to think it was bias against Trump, and nothing to do with the unprecendented hacking and release of DNC documents. 

New from the Durham report: The Clinton Plan

I did learn something new from the Durham report. I'm not sure how I missed it, but back in late July 2016, some intelligence floated in that Hillary Clinton approved a campaign plan (the Clinton plan) to fabricate information and spin that Trump was conspiring with the Russians. This plan (which was just an allegation that floated in from somewhere unspecified) wasn't taken seriously by the intelligence community, so they didn't seriously look into whether there was such a plan and it was being executed. 

Now a lot of conservatives thought or still think that this is real. The deep state (which includes Hillary) did join together to fabricate the Russia hoax, and it was wildly successful. 

I knew about the deep state version of the theory, but not the Clinton plan version. The deep state version has Brennan, Hillary, Susan Rice, Obama, Biden, Comey, Clapper, FusionGPS and some others, and it's been around since before the 2016 election. I didn't hear about the Clinton Plan version until the Durham report. 

There are data points that support the deep state conspiracy theory, including the existence of Crossfire Hurricane, the Steele dossier, the texts between Page and Strzok, unmasking of names in intelligence, etc. However, a more likely explanation is that the US does have counterintelligence agencies, and they are activated in the case of Russians fucking acting like assholes and interfering in US elections. So having an investigation like Crossfire Hurricane is a reasonable and legitimate response to the fucking hacking. Unmasking--reasonable! Obama briefed--reasonable! And so on. 

The Steele dossier was a typical kind of opposition research, but it sure backfired, so that was a mistake, and it's on Hillary. The moral of that episode is not to get your oppo research from disreputable folks like Russia intelligence sources. Just don't do it because it's likely to be shit and you don't want contact with it. 

Image: sunjournal.com

Extras. Horowitz report. Wittes of Lawfare is slowly digesting the Durham report. A 2018 version of the Russiagate conspiracy theory. This article may contain the best synopsis of the Clinton Plan. However there isn't a lot there. Clinton hardly had to invent fibs about Trump and Russia because Russia and Trump were creating so much ammunition on their own. 

May/June links

(Catching up on posts started a while ago. This one originally written around so long ago it's embarrassing)

The man who recorded the confrontation and death of Ahmaud Arbery, he was very nervous about his role in the incident. He tried to distance himself and wished for justice for Arbery. Now he is also charged in the murder.

Michael Flynn in the news. Transcript of his call to the Russian ambassador.  The adviser to judge says no, you can't just drop charges against someone who pleaded guilty.

Egregious incident of stalking and harassment by ebay security employees. ebay!!!!

Trouble counting lots of absentee ballots. States need to step up and make this work better.

Qanon is strange and fascinating - not what they write, but how people are responding to this weirdness and hokey conspiracy thing. More about the origin and internals in a video with a founder of 8chan (starting at 37:46).

Bolton's book, delayed by the Trump administration, showed that quid pro quo was actually standard for Trump.

According to Steve Bannon, Trump's campaign is wobbling. Trump needs to be the president and take care of the problems, like the huge covid crisis.

Interesting law ruling from the Supreme Court that concerns tribal lands. It expands the power and independence of the tribes.

Image: chicagotribune.com

March links

A few quaint events of interest happened in March before the virus hit.

Before the primaries ended. A stroll down memory lane with the winners and losers from a debate.  Biden won the South Carolina primary, won most of Super Tuesday, and won again the following Tuesday. Everyone other than Sanders dropped out.

Russian interference charges dropped. I'm not sure if it's real or a pretext--good reasons to believe either way. It probably never would have gone to trial.

Watch him end his career. ...and on to a well-deserved retirement. Chris Matthews of MSNBC won't believe a woman candidate about sexual harassment. Dumb move. 'I just don't believe it' doesn't fly anymore because it's generally very believable.

Rift in the left. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is actually trying to be more pragmatic than the garden variety far leftist.

Trolls can be controlled online. Not a March item, but something dear to me and my dislike of trolls. Reddit managed to greatly reduce trolling. A confession of someone who was addicted to trolling and wised up on  his own.

Everything else is covid-related.

Image; cbsnews.com

Inspector General Report on the FBI

This long-awaited report was supposed to reveal the cesspit in the FBI--all those conspiratorial corrupt agents trying to prevent Trump from competing in the election or taking the power he rightfully won.

The report didn't do that. A few weeks before its release (when the final changes are being made to the umpteenth draft), Trump predicted that it would be perhaps the biggest scandal ever, reaching all the way to Obama. Beyond that, Trump is strangely vague about the contents. Trump was either misinformed or deluded. The complaints in the report encompass several teams of agents but are clustered around just a few elements of the process, primarily the FISA warrant.

It's interesting to recall what the wingnuts predicted. Trump's phones were tapped (by Obama!). His campaign was spied on. The meeting between Mifsud and Papadopoulos was an FBI or CIA trap. The Trump Tower meeting was an FBI trap. The supposed report by the Australian diplomat was a fake. The FBI was working solely with the DNC and Hillary campaign, and the rest is lies to cover up how putrid and biased the FBI had become--no professionalism, raw partisanship. (I've written recently about one such conspiracy post.)

Well, the IG report is available with minimal redactions, and it does very little to support that wingnuttery. I've read various parts of it. It concludes that the FBI had reasonable grounds to open the investigation. It seems like the IG found the stuff about the Australian diplomat plausible, and not a phony cover story. A very common phrase from the report was:

... we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision.

This wording was used in regard to the opening of the counterintelligence investigation, the use of 'confidential human sources' (informants sent to collect information), or in seeking the FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page. So those texts between Strzok and Lisa Page that the conservative media pretended were so ominous--the IG didn't find that they had any operational effect. No surprise there. They always seemed to be casual texts, not messages between conspirators setting operations into motion.

The biggest issues concerned the FISA warrant, the use of information from Steele, and the handling of that information and exculpatory information. The IG report had a lot of complaints about that area. However, that is really very limited.

Just consider what wasn't in the IG report:

1. Efforts to entrap Trump advisers (as conspiracy theorists theorized).
2. Clinton or her close circle instructing the FBI.
3. The FBI gathering tons of inside strategy information from multiple taps and bugs on the Trump campaign.
4. The FBI gathering inside campaign strategy information from tapping Page.
5. The FBI sharing ill-gotten inside campaign strategy information around in the FBI. 
6. The FBI sharing ill-gotten inside strategy information about the Trump campaign with close advisers of Obama or Clinton. 
7. The FBI working with Clinton and Obama advisers on how to hamstring Trump during his transition and after his inauguration. 

How do I know this isn't in the report? Because I read through the rather boring Table of Contents (pages xx-xxviii). It's a relatively painless overview of the decidely non-juicy details.(CHAPTER FOUR: THE FBI'S RECEIPT AND EVALUATION OF INFORMATION FROM CHRISTOPHER STEELE PRIOR TO THE FIRST FISA APPLICATION... CHAPTER EIGHT: MISSTATEMENTS, OMISSIONS AND ERRORS IN THE FISA RENEWAL APPLICATIONS.) Conclusions start on page 410. That's how I found out who got their hands slapped the hardest.

From the IG report, you don't get a sense that the FBI was a den of anti-Trump activist spies. Instead they are rather methodical drudges, but they still didn't manage to follow all the very important rules, and therefore everyone involved should have their performance reviewed. This applies especially to Bruce Ohr of the DOJ. Uhhhh, that's it. Performance reviews. That's kind of anti-climactic. 

The most common complaints, besides that information wasn't included in the FISA application or renewals as it should have been:

While we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the case agents ... we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified. 

Yep, those agents didn't explain why they didn't do things the right way. So maybe they were conspiring with... someone, but they were wily enough to get away with it. 

Were there any bombshells from the IG report? None at all, unless you were counting on some juicy conspiracy revelations. Too bad for those who were, such as Attorney General and all-around toady Bill Barr. I'd say better luck next time (the Durham investigation), but I wouldn't mean it.

Some will interpret it this way.

Image: cartoonistgroup.com

Update 4/1/20. As I suspected, the kinds of mistakes/shortcuts taken in the Carter Page FISA application weren't unique, but were rather common practice for FISA applications, which the Inspector General found as a follow-up to some of his other investigations. All those tut-tutting the Page application didn't know what the actual practice is, and, horrors, some rules are kind of winked at. Ummm, I've done this myself on some of the damn paperwork on some of my jobs, so that was always my top suspicion.

Update 4/10/20. Another disclosure on a Friday afternoon. Some footnotes in the Page FISA warrant were declassified. GOPers claim that they show the FBI knew the Steele document was rubbish. The footnotes actually show that the FBI was aware that the Steele document was likely to be partly Russian disinformation. GOPers maximize the disclosures beyond what they say. Fox News goes for broke. Hmmmm, though, on a Friday afternoon. Is this a burial or not?

Amazing theorizing about the Trump 2016 campaign

We all know about Occam's razor--that the simplest explanation is usually correct. We need a pithy name for a complementary principle--the bizarre and nutso complexity that is piled high to support a conspiracy theory.

A column in National Review inspired this realization. Here's the subhead:

The State Department and an Australian diplomat grossly exaggerated Papadopoulos's claims - which were probably false anyway.

The author makes such leaps of assumption. Papadopoulos didn't know about the DNC hacked emails (true) and didn't know about any emails (a big leap). Mifsud didn't tell Papadopoulos about any emails because there is only Papadopoulos's claim about that (true, but why would Papadopoulos fabricate that?) Mifsud wasn't a Russian agent as Papa believed, but was most likely a British one (because the author wants it to be so).

When Mifsud was interviewed by the FBI in 2017, he denied saying anything to Papa about emails. This must be true because Mifsud wasn't charged with lying to the FBI. (Never mind that he perhaps wasn't charged because they couldn't prove this was a lie.) Also, the Mueller report didn't say Mifsud knew about Russian intelligence, therefore Mifsud must not know anything about Russian intelligence (because the Mueller report contain all known information and nothing is true unless reported there).

And on, and on, and on. There is no evidence Papa told the Australian diplomat about the Russian approach because the Aussie can't be trusted, and made the whole thing up.

Yes, there's more. It just keeps on this way, doubting everything except when it's convenient not to doubt something.

The only interesting possible fact in the whole piece is that Steele passed some information on to an FBI legal attache on July 6, 2016. Maybe this was before the Australian wrote his meeting with Papa for the second time, and with much more urgency due to the leak of DNC emails. It should be possible to check this. I'm certainly not taking the word of this author. Nonetheless, it is worth noting the information for future checking.

The upshot of the whole 'it didn't happen' is that there was no other information given to the FBI about Russian contacts with the Trump campaign except for the Steele shitty and questionable research.

But maybe there was... Maybe the Mifsud, Papa, and Australian connection was as reported: a solicitation by Mifsud which Papa spilled to an Australian. Shall I apply Occam's razor?

Image: amazon.com

Update 12/27/19. I checked back to see if the author had amended anything due to the IG report. OF COURSE NOT. DON'T LET FACTS INTERFERE WITH A GREAT NARRATIVE... or even a mediocre narrative. The author, Andrew McCarthy, shows again that he's a hack.

Messy questions about Ukraine

I'm not trying to derail the inquiry into Trump pressuring Ukraine for dirt on Biden while withholding aid that they sorely needed. That was horrendous, and so like Trump not to consider the legal and ethical implications.

However, I wonder about a couple issues laying around from 2016. It's pretty obvious to me that Biden's son cashed in, and that wasn't seemly. (It's not illegal isn't a compelling argument.) What about the black ledger that showed Manafort receiving millions of dollars. There are charges that it's a forgery. I hadn't thought of that possibility, but maybe we should consider it. It turned up at a convenient time, and it was payback from some Ukrainians to Manafort, an adviser to their recently departed, dearly hated ex-president.

Has the black ledger been verified? It contains a listing of disbursements. It ought to be possible to check that money leaving wherever and going somewhere else, right? I looked for information about the accuracy of the black ledging, and found nothing. So I can't say it's real or it's a forgery.

That's one piece of the GOP alternative reality we've been hearing about. Here's another: in 2016, the Russians weren't interfering in the election, it was the Ukrainians trying to help Hillary Clinton, probably with a big dollop of conspiring by the Deep State.

What else? The main reporter of the Ukraine-did-it story was a quasi-journalist named John Solomon who wrote for The Hill website. His colleagues weren't happy with him, raised questions about his journalistic standards (reasonable questions probably), and eventually he moved on from the hostile environment. I didn't find any reputable site that has confirmed his reporting though there's been plenty of time for it.

Solomon's questionable stories also had an outlet (wait for it) on Fox News' Hannity hour. Hannity (another fine journalist) is pissed now because fingers are pointing at him, and he claims he was barely involved. It was also interesting to see the ambassador Yovanovitch was removed largely due to unsubstantiated reports that she criticized Trump in private conversations. This fascinating source (news for Russian-speaking Americans) shows a picture of the letter of accusation. But, I wonder, could someone make up a story to get the ambassador removed? This gives a great glimpse into the Ukraine-did-it theory, provided by a Russian source.

Image: kyivpost.com

Extras. Sondland bristled at being called part of a rogue operation or irregular channel for foreign policy. Everyone at the top knew about it, and he was doing Trump's bidding.

Parnas (one of the Ukrainians arrested just before getting on an airplane) bragged about being on a secret mission for Trump. Supposedly he'll be cooperating with prosecutors. However,  he might be as reliable as other lowlifes are.

The new Zelensky administration in Ukraine is cleaning out the prosecutors' offices (take 3?). There are complaints that they are just trying to bury information about corruption. The link also has more about the black ledger.

Sondland runs out the clock at his House testimony while trying to avoid the obvious conclusion that Trump woud benefit from Biden being investigated by Ukraine.

September links

DAMN, I'M LATE POSTING THIS. 

Truth-telling about guns. Wapo

No Charlottesville in Boston. In my home state, some twerps tried to have a Straight Pride Rally. Poor turn-out. Related. An article from the end of 2015 predicting the rise of white nationalism in the US.

Unscrutinized law. So much of law is about examination, scrutiny, testing in cases that are written down and reviewed. So it's a surprise the some law isn't subject to this when it's DOJ policy.

Clear-headed assessment of mass shootings. How big is the risk? That's a very fair question to ask.

More mass killings being twarted. More people are taking threats seriously and intervening. This time a teenage girl was stopped after buying a semi-auto rifle.

Late-breaking story about Russia. Most of the news about Russia interfering in the US election, and the responses to it, are well-known at this point. Here are two reports about a highly-placed spy in the Kremlin who was spirited away to safety at the beginning of the Trump presidency because Trump might have been careless and leaked info exposing him. Also a large section of the report on Russian interference was released by the Senate committee that is striving miraculously to be non-partisan.

How Trump treats advisers. Disrespectfully, we know. With the firing of John Bolton, we have a few more stories with insights. Trump hires 'brands' and Bolton was a well-known brand. The four categories of official Trump advisers, from 'shiny new toy' to 'fired via tweet' and other pithy observations.

Very few swing voters. Less than 5.5% are both undecided and moderate.

Big story on the Supreme Court? WaPo reports that getting a justice onto the Supreme Court is now so important that the ethics are shunted to the side.

Image: usatoday.com

July/August links

Don't forget healthcare.  Oops, the GOP did. They are cheering a lawsuit that may end Obamacare even though they haven't considered the chaos if it's struck down. There should be a special word for this beyond 'unbelievable stupid.' Two articles on this: the first features the full-on stupidity of some GOPers; the second features the beginnings of a GOP plan from those that aren't complete morons. And a bit more about the situation.

Walking the high-wire in the Middle East. Qatar is doing this successfully, to the benefit of themselves and the US, and maybe others.

Canadian healthcare. It's very popular with Canadians. We should be taking a look, but most conservatives simply snipe at it.

Lindsay Graham stumbles. He used to be John McCain's best friend. Now he wants to be Trump's sidekick. Sad to find out that he was really just a sidekick with no backbone or moral compass.

Early primary prediction. This article predicts the three frontrunners in the Dem primary based on big donors. It might be a good test of 1) accuracy, and 2) whether only big donors matter.

Predictions about the Iran conflict. Probably no war.

McConnell helps the Russians. McConnell was called out in a big way, and he was mighty angry about it. Nonetheless, he earned it.

Furor over Trump tweets again. What this week? He told 4 Dem congresswomen to (fucking) leave the country.

Bathroom issue ends in a whimper. N. Carolina and their horror at transgender people ends... for now. Related: in Poland, gay pride marchers are attacked.

Armed Iranian speed boats

Image: en.radiofarda.com

Post Mueller: what should he have done differently

There are so many opinions of what should have done differently. I can't say I agree. He kept his investigation clean as thousands of cubic feet of sludge were being thrown all around him, with him often being the target. It didn't stick, which is a testament to his integrity.

So here are the complaints, for whatever little there are worth.

National Review - how dare Mueller say what he said, as the author ignores the DOJ policy on presidential indictments
Contrast Mueller and Comey - the rulebook for these investigations isn't working, as both investigations show. I'm not sure I agree.
Fox news example of erroneous claim that Trump is completely vindicated.
Vox - Mueller left a vacuum that others filled
DailyBeast - hearings likely to be ugly
WaPo - much later than the other links, with Mueller being praised. The author suggests focusing on Trump's clear lies, like he was trying to do business deals while campaigning and denying any ties to Russia.

Image: foxnews.com

Extras. More WaPo - how GOP attacks on Mueller won't work. WaPo - why the press can't do now what it did during Watergate.

Update 7/12/19. Ken Starr appears on Hannity and has suggestions for what Republican congos should ask.

I try to figure out what 'probable cause' means

The FISA warrant application for surveillance on Carter Page is the only warrant I've ever read. The format, the way the information is provided--that's all new to me. Except the actual target (Page), the practice is to obscure the identities of other people and groups. So there is Individual 1, Candidate 1, etc.

Here is a copy of the warrant application.

I wondered about the definition of 'probable cause.' The statements in the application sound very definite, but how definite is it? After all, this is prior to the full investigation with surveillance. While researching, I found this quote from the governing case Illinois v. Gates:

"Probable" cause means that the investigator has to show "a fair probability," not a certainty or near-certainty.

So, it seems that the level of certainty is not without a doubt or beyond a reasonable doubt, or guaranteed to be true under penalty of perjury. It is 'fair probability.'

Some blowhard on the web (there are a few) claimed that the FISA warrant was perjured, and the person writing the warrant has to swear to the veracity of all the information. I have my doubts that he knows the law well enough to make such a claim. There is also the matter of actual practice of how warrants are written, what is the usual language, what is understood between the legal parties. So it's armchair speculation to attack or defend this warrant unless you have knowledge and experience with warrants.

I've done a bit of speculation. I've read that Brennan (some CIA honcho) said there were plenty of allied intelligence services warning about Trump. Is this true? I certainly don't know, and I'd like to know more, but I don't expect the intelligence services to just cough up the info. Maybe there were a lot of rumors from sources that are generally pretty responsible. If so, it's too bad they weren't mentioned in the warrant. Of course, maybe they were mentioned, somewhere in the 13 blacked out pages related to Page. Those 13 pages could contain a lot of info that hasn't ever been openly published, but we certainly don't know. Those who assume that dossier was the only info used for the warrant are assuming that there's nothing in those pages. I think it's an incorrect assumption. If it was about the dossier, why would it have been blacked out when other info about the dossier wasn't?

I'll also say that on reflection, it seems like a very bad idea to hire someone to pump Russians (or any enemy or questionable source) for dirt on your opponent. It looks like Steele and Clinton got played to a certain extent, but they also ended up looking very scummy. That's why neither Clinton nor the FBI revealed their connection to Steele. If you have to hide your connections, maybe you shouldn't have them. That applies to Mike Flynn, Jeff Sessions, and Hillary Clinton too. Anything you try to hide, it ain't going to stay hidden. Remember that.

Image: conservativefighters.com

Extras. I was researching probable cause and read most of this ruling. A good learning experience because of the clarity--or maybe I simply skipped over the convoluted parts.

How the Steele dossier looks in retrospect. Some of the Steele dossier was correct and some wasn't when you compare it to the Mueller report.

What the Dem/FBI/DOJ conspiracy looks like

Since I follow mostly MSM outlets about the election and Russian meddling, I didn't realize there was a full-blown alternative narrative. This alternative isn't as crazy as Pizzagate because it has a number of data points (facts) supporting it.

The big picture is that the FBI, DOJ, and other intelligence agencies were run at the highest levels by personnel who wanted Dems to win the 2016 election, and who acted in dishonest, biased, and corrupt ways to help with that goal. When the Dems lost, they acted to stymy the incoming president (Trump) with fake, trumped-up charges.

These charges, if accurate, are extremely serious. We definitely don't want our government agencies deciding who wins an election. That's for the voters to decide.

The theory is that top DOJ, FBI, CIA, etc. officials were biased and acted illegally. So who is being accused:

James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr (his wife), Brennan, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton, Obama, and possibly Trump appointees Rob Rosenstein and Christopher Wray. Also involved were the personnel at FusionGPS, Glenn Simpson (the CEO, I think), and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer.

The theory goes that the high-level Dems got the FBI, CIA, etc. to send adjuncts to entrap people in the Trump campaign, make it look like there were ties between Russia and Trump campaign personnel, start a witch hunt, dirty Trump, and hobble him.

Supporting this view are these actual data points:

1. Strzok and Page's text messages (depending how much weight you give them)
2. The Clinton campaign paid for Steele's research, which produced the Steele dossier.
3. Steele was also hired for a couple months by the FBI to continue his research.
4. The Steele dossier was leaked by Steele in September 2016 in an attempt to discredit Trump.
5. The Clinton campaign and the FBI hid their connections to Steele.
6. The Steele dossier was used to justify a FISA warrant to track Carter Page, a former Trump advisor.
7. FusionGPS also worked with the Russian lawyer involved in the Trump Tower meeting.
8. After Comey was fired, a friend of his leaked documents alleging that Trump made improper demands on him, and these raised concerns and calls for a special counsel. 
9. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel on his own authority since his boss, Jeff Sessions, had recused himself.
10. One of the intelligence agencies paid Stephan Halper to meet with Trump campaign advisors and try to covertly find out information from them.
11. Several of Mueller's investigation team had ties to the Clintons and/or made donations to Dems.

These are the known, undisputed data points. In the reckoning of some theorists, this points to a conspiracy in the intelligence community to hobble Trump by accusations, leaks, and investigations.

However, this theory ignores many other data points, like the DNC being hacked, purportedly by the Russians. Of course, maybe you can't trust the intelligence agencies to be truthful about who did the hack. But there certainly was a hack, and the stolen info was disseminated by Wikileaks. So the Russia investigation cannot be a total con jobs, since the hack was real.

Also real was the Trump Tower meeting, and the Trumps' attempts to hide this meeting and what the subject was. Many connections between the Trump campaign advisors and Russians are not disputed, like contacts with the Russian embassador. Mike Flynn lost his job for lying about his connections. Jeff Session suffered well-deserved embarrassment and was forced to recuse himself as Attorney General overseeing the Russian investigation because of his amnesia related to his contacts.

This article from The American Conservative explains the two highly disparate ways of interpreting these facts, calling them 'narrative A' and 'narrative B.' Narrative A is that the security services followed up properly on reasonable suspicions, and did their patriotic duty. Narrative B is covered here--that the intelligence services conspired to spy on the Trump campaign and disable Trump as president.

I'm definitely a believer of narrative A, but I can see how the narrative B support that narrative. However, I have these good reasons to doubt that narrative:

1. Page and Strzok were lovers sending casual, low-significance texts to each other. These were simple texts, not part of a conspiracy that has no other paper or electronic trail.
2. Steele got some things right in his dossier, such as Carter Page going to Russia and having meetings with high-level officials.
7. The Russian lawyer from the Trump Tower meeting was paying FusionGPS for work it did for her. She and/or her clients paid FusionGPS; they didn't pay her, so she wasn't an employee of theirs.
8. Comey's notes, far from being unusual, are very typical documents written about any non-trivial meetings.
9. There was a huge uproar after Trump fired Comey, and even many Republicans were calling for a special counsel appointment.
10. It is not unusual for a counter-intelligence investigation to use operatives like Halper in hopes of finding out significant helpful information.
11. Mueller chose for his team people whom he had worked with in the recent past, including in private investigations. He also chose high-ranking FBI officers. This is normal. 

This leaves some fairly major suspicions, like the Clinton campaign and the FBI both hiring Steele, and then hiding this information. Come on, people, you're not going to be able to keep a secret like this. You need to come clean, and do it early.

Nonetheless, I still believe the narrative that the intelligence services needed to check out the activity of the Russians and possible connections to Trump, and they did their duty.

 Image; tennesseestar.com

Extras. Some sources supporting the conspiracy narrative - Investor's business daily: Ohr connection, IBD: McCabe 25th amendment testimony, IBD: Investigation started before election, Gateway Pundit, major pusher of the theory. GQ calls it a theory out of thin air, but I've shown that there is substantial data to support it, though not enough for me to think it's the best interpretation of the data. Barr doesn't call it treason. GOPers and their mistakes/lies about the Steele dossier and FISA warrant.

Update 7/11/21. I missed this news item from a news-heavy period during the election campaign. The Trump-loyal head of intelligence declassified some notes and memos from John Brennan about the Russia scandal. The memos/notes are from July 2016, and the declassification was 10/6/2020. In July 2016, Brennan knew about the Steele dossier, shared info about it, and said it should be used for legal proceedings, including FISA warrants, only with prior approval. I'm not sure how prior approval could be enforced, so that's dubious. Some conservative are claiming this shows Brennan thought the Steele dossier was worthless, but that's a stretch. What did Brennan really think--lots of conflicting speculation out there. 

A third case of conservative distortion: The Attorney General

Benjamin Wittes, who writes for Lawfare and lately also for The Atlantic, rakes Bill Barr (the new Attorney General) over the coals. Barr is the successor to Trump's previous punching bag, Jeff Sessions. Incidentally, maybe no cabinet officer received such shabby treatment as did Sessions.

Wittes' complaint is that Barr misrepresents what Mueller's meticulous investigation found. A more concise version is also available from the New York Times. Both are worth reading. The NYT version has direct comparison of Barr's statements versus what Mueller reported. It's quite scathing, even though the author doesn't call Barr a liar. The author does highlight phrases from Mueller, and shows how Barr distorted them. Barr did it so shamelessly that he comes out looking horrible.

Wittes' takedown is more complete, pointing out precisely the twists and turns in Barr's distortions. For example, Wittes shows how Barr claims there was no collusion, when in fact Mueller found evidence of interactions between Russia and Trump's campaign. How is that nothing? Because there wasn't enough evidence to make charges with confidence of a conviction.

The conservative site Washington Examiner methodically rips Barr apart. Or moreso, it rips apart the idea that Trump should be the judge of whether he is being investigated unfairly:

"No man, not even the president, should be allowed to adjudge his own case... The very notion of such power runs counter to the entire basis of America’s constitutionally limited government... "

That is a simple, elegant explanation. Even the president has to allow an investigation to go forth. It's not for him to declare his innocence and shut down the process.

McGahn, the White House counsel during much of the investigation, is quite a contrast to Barr. He would push back against Trump, refused to fire Mueller, gave 30 hours of testimony to Mueller if I remember correctly. He also consulted with his chief of staff, who made written notes of McGahn's meetings with Trump. It sounds as though Trump didn't want notes taken, which hampers clear instructions and the ability to review what's been decided. McGahn has been subpoenaed to testify before Congress. I certainly hope he does. I'd like to hear some of what Mueller's investigators heard, directly from the source. But McGahn may not be willing to discuss private and privileged conversations. 

Image: foxnews.com

Extras. Reviewing how the Congressional response when Mueller was appointed from three sources (one, two, three). More wrangling over the Mueller report, this time by the lawyers for Roger Stone. They are trying to say "No collusion, so there was no cover-up, and obviously no lying to Congress." But maybe there was lying to Congress, and maybe some cover-up, and perhaps a wisp of collusion.

Update 6/7/19. Another good article showing precisely what the lies are.

Two cases of conservative distortions

Double header!! First up is an article from WaPo detailing how Fox News distorted one news story from January 2018. The New York Times reported that Trump had told the White House counsel (McGahn) to have Mueller fired. The rumor that Trump wanted to fire him was going around like crazy, largely because Trump regularly fed the impression. Also Trump was known for firing people, including the head of the FBI, his chief of staff, communications director, and assorted others. Oh yes, he fired people on his reality show too.

But the NYT doesn't report the odd rumor, and it had details. Fox, however, exists in a separate universe and doesn't believe the stinking NYT, even though they have a much better track record for accuracy.

Trump claimed it was fake news. Hannity repeated that. Then Hannity had to back down as actual news operations at Fox confirmed the report. Then spin took over. Trump has the right... This was six months ago... Who cares anyway. Immigration is more important...

The Mueller report confirmed this, by the way. Eye roll for Fox News.

Fox News Spins DOJ Letters

Fox News, as the defender of the Almighty, Protector of the Faith, etc. had an article on an official letter from the White House counsel complaining about the Mueller report. This was perhaps counterprogramming against a letter from Mueller leaked on 4/30/19 where Mueller complains that summaries of his report are inaccurate so the summaries he wrote himself should be released. (They were leaked.)

The letter from the White House counsel complains that Mueller didn't draw conclusions, and he should have. However, the arguments there completely ignore what the rationale that Mueller plainly gave in his report, which was that DOJ policy didn't allow him to make an indictment against the president, so he was doing what he could legally and ethically do considering those restriction. Mueller cites OLC in the first page of Volume II, concerning obstruction of justice inquiries. The White House counsel just ignores that. Plus it veers into an addition Trump probably requested complaining about leaks and claiming Trump is the highest official in the country so blah blah blah he gets to decide everything within the executive branch -- as though conflict-of-interest doesn't happen.

This isn't exactly a legal clown car because there is some coherence. However, it doesn't touch on the most important points, so the goal of the letter seems to be to blow smoke. Sad.

... but it was true.

Image: thedailybeast.com

April links

Always more on Russia investigation. Now conservative media is pretending the Papadopoulus contact was a CIA asset trying to entrap him. Long WaPo article about adminstration action against Russian hacking before and immediately after the election. Also covering that period, and answering the snarky question 'What did Obama do to stop it?' Even more, though it sounds like maybe Steele gave his dossier to British intelligence and their heads exploded.

FBI scandal. I skimmed the Inspector General report on the Hillary investigation. Strzok looks bad in his handling of the Weiner laptop. Lawfare review of it.

Peace deal failure. Someday I need to write a long piece about why the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks failed. What next for Israelis in their outlook.

Gitmo holding camp. Military tribunals have failed. Slow, questionable decisions, not a firm legal basis.

2020 Election. This is BIG, and worth watching if the trend continues. A poll in Texas has Trump even with two Democratic candidates. These are named candidates, not a generic one. The rich will support Trump in 2020. Not because they like him or respect him, but because the Dems want to raise their taxes.

Midwest flooding. A long article about the Missouri River, and how our relationship to it and adjacent land use should change. Move further away, don't try to manage for navigation because it doesn't carry a lot of navigation.

Japan's economy. Japan is doing pretty well. Not a lost decade.

Trump non-news. Trump's tweeting is becoming unhinged. Is this new and repeat?

Stuff I want to remember

(Clues to my interests.)

Understanding quantitative easing. A good article, very readable, that gives an easy-to-understand analysis of QE. It asked good questions, but I ask even better questions. It tells how QE inflates the value of certain bonds. In rolling back QE, demand is lower and the bonds are worth less. True, except that QE is done with demand is especially soft and needs the boost. QE is rolled back when demand is stronger. Still, I think I have more work to do to understand the workings. QE also shelters borrowers from surges in interest rates, right? Prevents lenders from demanding higher returns.

Extreme crazy conspiracy site. The crazy flat-earth lady gets her news here. Oh, the imagination involved in spinning these tales. Microwaves are needing to cook food grown with fertilizer, but it destroys the nutrients. Ummm, wow.

Gun info database. Save the link to check. Country by coountry information.

Image: bloomberg.com

Brain dump on the Mueller report

I wrote how the Mueller report contained no big surprises--most everything had already been reported fairly accurately in the MSM. So what are some of my thoughts?

First, we need a link to the report. However, it's long and very technical with all kinds of dense legal reasoning. It's even harder to read than a Supreme Court decision, so I gave up. Luckily, we have Mueller's summaries, which the Attorney General Bob Barr deflected from. Maybe he didn't want them to be part of a national discussion because they explicitly state:

"... if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts ..., we are unable to reach that judgment. ... this report ... does not exonerate him."

That was the conclusion of the second part of the investigation, which focused on Trump's efforts at obstruction.

Really, we shouldn't skip over the first part. Mueller gives a timeline of Russian hacking and disinformation efforts. He also lists the major contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians with government connections. Mueller draws this conclusion:

"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

The report also mentions "evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges" and "identified gaps" in their information where witnesses couldn't be questioned or information had been deleted from witnesses' files.

So it looks like Russia reached out on several occasions, the Trump campaign responded, but there wasn't a conspiracy.

However, there was Russian criminal activity. It would be good if Trump strongly agreed with this, didn't waiver or backtrack, and punished the Russians accordingly. If we recall the beginning of Trump's presidency, he did none of those things. Instead, he seemed to favor better relations with a country that had just violated our laws, and our 'sacred election process.' Only the pressure from media reports, public reaction, and Congressional reaction stopped Trump from making nice with the Russians. How sad for the Russians.

Here is my speculation based on the facts I've gleaned. The Russians wanted to help Trump. They also made many attempts to have Trump come to Russia during the campaign. Why? It's odd, and it's not great optics. However, maybe the Russians thought that they could extract promises from Trump since he was known to be malleable.

It didn't play out that way. There wasn't a one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin until the Helsinki summit in July 2018. However, even that one-on-one meeting didn't quite work out for the Russians. Though they claimed that there were important, ground-breaking agreements, Trump couldn't describe what they were, and he wasn't able to follow up on any specific agreements. So the Russians were left empty-handed. I'll cry them a river over that disappointment.

So the Russians might have hoped for a malleable, friendly stooge in the White House, but they got Trump, a low-information incompetent blowhard who can't follow through for them. Well, ain't that a fly in the ointment. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch.

Is Putin still smiling? Does Trump remember what was said? No and No.

Image: nymag.com

Extras. Lots of resources for this post because I like to stay informed, and to review when I'm not sure of the facts. Be sure to start with the Mueller summaries. Several articles about the Russians and what they were trying to do. Fourteen members of Trump's campaign had Russian contacts. There are dangers in the transition period and not enough legal protection.

A timeline that claims it's 'definitive.' Quite detailed. 

On the other hand, for people who don't care about thorough research, here's a viewpoint that the investigation was a big waste of money.

A fascinating view of the Mueller report from a cybersecurity expert. For people who say Trump is worse than Nixon, um, no! Read this.

I started wondering where the summaries came from. The links don't say, but here's a site where the headers, footers, and redactions show.

Finally, it's fun to review the flop of the Helsinki summit through several sources.

Update 5/1/19. Mueller wrote to Attorney General Barr complaining about the handling of the summary, and asking him again to release Mueller's own summaries. This happened back at the end of March. The letter leaked today.

A legal expert reads the Mueller report completely, and expertly reads between the lines. The best news for Trump is that he and his campaign had no knowing involvement with the fake news/social media operation. The bad news is that there is a lot of strong evidence for willful obstruction and some failed attempts to work with Russians. It seems when Trump claims "No collusion!" he's in part crossing his fingers for luck. The same legal expert shares his impresssions/notes as he reads the report.

An excellent overview by Bloomberg of the reason for the investigation:

Following Trump’s election, it wasn’t clear that any public institution had the credibility to establish the truth about Russia’s attack. A probe by the House Intelligence Committee imploded in a blaze of partisanship. A Senate inquiry has ambled on for two years, to little result. Into this void, kooks and charlatans across the political spectrum have offered their own feverish theories about “what really happened” — and a lot of otherwise reasonable people have listened to them.

A better approach would have been to appoint an independent panel on the model of the 9/11 Commission, one that could have held open hearings, questioned witnesses, assessed classified information, and published a report establishing the facts.

Instead, this essential task fell — more or less by default — to the special counsel. It was an awkward fit. Mueller’s official assignment was limited: to investigate any crimes that may have been committed in connection with Russia’s interference. But plainly the public was expecting something more: an airing of the evidence, a resolution of the many mysteries surrounding the case, a considered judgment on the actions of the president and his associates, criminal and otherwise.

Despite his limited remit, Mueller was largely able to answer that call. His report was transparent, fair-minded, thorough, and scrupulously evidence-based. Taken on its own, it could have established a baseline set of facts, put the conspiracies to rest, and allowed Congress to take action as needed. It might have enabled the country to move on from a scandal that has at times threatened to overwhelm civic life entirely.

Instead, the whole probe — nearly two years of meticulous investigation, occupying 19 federal prosecutors and some 40 FBI agents — has now been reduced to yet another gross political circus, with everyone entitled to their own versions of reality...

Link worth saving. To the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Page 787 is on Alfa Bank. 

Lies, damned lies, and GOP lies

The Mueller report is finally out. As I wrote earlier, there weren't many surprises. Most of the information had been revealed either in the press or in indictments. As I noted, the MSM has been fairly accurate and good at self-correction, at least from what I've seen and how I've interpreted it. Maybe when I read hyperbolic speculation, I shake my head and move on, not remembering MSM declarations that Trump worked with Russia. My impression was that most reporters and most left-of-center folks were waiting for Mueller to sort it out. Of the regular commenters I knew on Bloomberg, only two were declaring that Trump had conspired. That leaves most of them not expressing that opinion.

The GOPers/conservatives were usually exaggerating what others said, and they were definitely still doing it as the report was released. They accused others of being WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, while failing to notice what others had actually said. Frankly, I don't know how often talking heads on CNN or MSNBC declared that Russia owned Trump. My guess would be that they hedged. I asked my sweetie, who is more left than me. My sweetie expected about 50% chance of a conspiracy where there was enough evidence to indict. So maybe I'm not in touch with those further left without being the looney left.

1. So the first GOP lie is that all of the left prejudged Trump as guilty and are now pretending that they didn't do this. <------- LIE

Another GOP lie is that the MSM hasn't been reporting the facts. In fact, the MSM has been out front on this. I recall the NYT reporting on the Trump Tower meeting. Reporting a bit, waiting for the Trump team to respond, which it did usually with a cover story replete with lies. Then the NYT would release a bit more, and finally it released the emails of Trump Jr. that showed what was going down.

Now I expect a certain amount of spin from the presidency, but a news org should be as honest as it can be (an idealistic hope). However, there is no comparison. The MSM was telling the truth here, and the administration was lying. This was repeated over and over. That's one reason why I wasn't surprised by the Mueller report - because I followed the news, mainly through online MSM sources, and they were very accurate.

2. The MSM spread FAKE NEWS about the investigation. <------- LIE

Should I move on to some of the crazier lies? Maybe so, and turn the rest of this post into a rant against the lies.

3. All the Russian contacts were entrapment attempts by the deep state FBI/CIA. Cue the search for rumors that each contact actually was aligned with the deep state, not the Russians.

4. The Steele dossier was believed by the left. (No, it was labeled from the very beginning as unverified in screaming letters.)

5. The left took over the CIA, NSA, FBI, State Department, and God knows what else.

6. They all conspired to create this Russian hoax and try to overthrow Trump.

7. The coup was orchestrated by Clinton, Obama and their minions all over government and the MSM.

7.1 Obama didn't do anything about the Russian hacking and interference while it was happening, and instead spied on Trump's campaign.

8. Clinton, Obama, et al are going to jail in a streak of rightful payback.

9. Mueller is part of the deep state and hired Cllinton lackeys to help with the frame job.

10. The Mueller report found there was NO COLLUSION AND NO OBSTRUCTION AND NO EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING by the Trump campaign.

11. The Dems are going to continue with the hoax because the coup attempt can't stop.

12. The real enemies of America are the Dems. Russians are preferable to them.

Image: twitter@Rob_Rogers

Extras. The FBI warned Trump about contacts with Russians. GOP liars deny this.

Update 4/23/19. I just found an example of GOP lies. Here's an article full of speculation, but it's not labeled as speculation. It's not attributed to unnamed sources (presumably vetted), which news organizations with ethics use. Instead, it's presented as ... um, fact? The big assumption in the article is that the woman Russian lawyer at the Trump Tower meeting was working for FusionGPS to entrap Trump campaign leaders. They also state (wrongly, if I'm not mistaken) that the Trump Tower meeting was used as evidence to secure a FISA warrant. I've looked at the redacted copy of the FISA warrant and didn't see anything about the Trump Tower meeting. I suspect that the author was making it up or repeated unsubstantiated rumors floating around Wingnutlandia.

Update 6/14/19. Trump had an interview with ABC news and he flat out lied about telling McGahn to fire Mueller. Read his lying words.