Liberal Media ignores Biden Scandal

[HarleyDog]

(09-01-2023, 10:27 AM)pally Wrote: The difference is the story outside of right-wing media lacks the hysteria and exaggeration you hear on Fox,  Newsmax, OANN, et al

Don't limit that to one side. Lines have been drawn media wise and they are sticking to their guns. The left has a slew of all GOP hate media. CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NPR and yes, even PBS. There are more and you know it. 

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-03-2023, 02:20 PM)hollodero Wrote: It was a piece of raw, unconfirmed intelligence, collected on behalf of several Trump opponents, Hillary amongst them. It did not meet any standards of proof or of journalism, and it never intended to. It was meant to give political campaigns certain weaknesses or avenues to pursue or maybe investigate further. It is dirty, that's for sure, but probably also commonplace.

Some things in the dossier were corraborated, some were refuted, many remain unproven. That's what the Steele dossier was, and it is not taken more seriously than that. The Russia investigation did not stem from this dossier. Which is what makes it so frustrating when people claim the dossier's nature is the one and only undisputable proof that the whole investigation was a hoax.

Well someone brought it, Obama Justice Dept used the FBI's Sworn testimony on the Steele Dossiers to get FISA to allow them to tap Trumps' and his Aides phones 2x (90 day periods)
I guess someone was willing to believe anything with out verifying it ahead of time. Small wonder Comey lost his job. Had the phones not be tapped, it's possible that the FBI would have not caught Manafort's conversations.

Once it was used and seemingly verified, Steele likely released it to the public (to get the glory for taking Trump down) and from that point forward was nothing more than a political hit piece that did cause Trump to lose some votes but not enough to lose. Once it leaked that Hillary/DNC had spent money getting the intel (fake as it was) and marking it as legal services rather than research, wouldn't that have put them on the hook for being partially responsible for slander? Hence the fine to avoid further legal issues in regards to it. Just using hindsight here, much easier since there is more knowledge now than at that time (at least to us common peons).

The Papadopoulos investigation wasn't about Trump-Russia collusion early on, it was about Russian interference in the election (Hillary Emails).


PS By the way, hasn't Hunter has been a registered Lobbyist since 2001.

[hollodero]

(09-06-2023, 02:36 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Well someone brought it, Obama Justice Dept used the FBI's Sworn testimony on the Steele Dossiers to get FISA to allow them to tap Trumps' and his Aides phones 2x (90 day periods)
I guess someone was willing to believe anything with out verifying it ahead of time. Small wonder Comey lost his job. Had the phones not be tapped, it's possible that the FBI would have not caught Manafort's conversations.

Not that I would want to swear on the integrity of every FBI official. But again as far as I know, that was not the actual chain of events. The FISA warrant that was based on parts of the information in the Steele dossier concerned a guy named Carter Page who was somewhat connected to the Trump campaign on its periphery. It was to prolong an existing surveillance back from 2014, when Page stood out as being extremely Kremlin-friendly and called himself an informal advisor. Russian agents tried to recruit him (and allegedly backed down because he was an "idiot") - all of which, well, will get you on a counterintelligence radar usually. The later extensions were found to be invalid, that appears like a mistake or misdeed from the responsible FBI agents. No denying that.
Trump, however, was part of FISA orders [as fas as I know...] for communications from a Trump tower server with Russian banks. Which had nothing to do with Page or Steele's dossier. As for Manafort, he was targeted by FISA orders too, but that particular investigation started way back in the year 2014. And was about his lobbying for Yanukovich, which again had nothing to do with Steele. He might have been tapped while working for Trump (I found contradicting reports on that, so I'm not sure), and there was a renewal of a FISA warrant in that period of time, but again as far as I know not on the grounds of allegations in the Steele dossier.

(09-06-2023, 02:36 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Once it was used and seemingly verified, Steele likely released it to the public (to get the glory for taking Trump down)

On that one I am more certain that this is not the case. The dossier was given to buzzfeed by an associate of McCain. Steele himself called the publication "most irresponsible", claimed it endangered lives and livelihoods, very much including his own. In fact, he and his family went into hiding instead of doing an Avennati-esque media victory tour, and understandably so, for fear of Russian retaliation alone.
He did share his findings, that's for sure, with the FBI, with counterintelligence officials, and then some. McCain also was within the circle of people that were made aware of the dossier. But informing the media, I'm inclined to believe that was never part of Steele's idea.

(09-06-2023, 02:36 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote:  and from that point forward was nothing more than a political hit piece that did cause Trump to lose some votes but not enough to lose.

The dossier was published way after the election.

(09-06-2023, 02:36 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Once it leaked that Hillary/DNC had spent money getting the intel (fake as it was) and marking it as legal services rather than research, wouldn't that have put them on the hook for being partially responsible for slander? Hence the fine to avoid further legal issues in regards to it.

Well... I don't know if it would put them on the hook legally. Morally, I can see the point. And they did indeed misreport the expenses as legal advice instead of opposition research and got fined over 100.000 dollars for that. So yeah there's some dirt.

(09-06-2023, 02:36 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: The Papadopoulos investigation wasn't about Trump-Russia collusion early on, it was about Russian interference in the election (Hillary Emails).

But Papadopoulos was part of the Trump campaign. The investigation started when he told some Australians about him knowing about Hillary mails in Russia's possession. So the investigation was somewhat tied to the Trump campaign from the start.
It sure did expand from there, and the Steele dossier certainly was on the FBI's radar, not least due to Steele's insistence. Which, on its face, is not all that surprising to me. When there's a counterintelligence investigation over Russian interference and Russian ties to the Trump campaign, it seems logical that a dossier of raw intelligence concerning the same issue gets looked at.

(09-06-2023, 02:36 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: PS By the way, hasn't Hunter has been a registered Lobbyist since 2001.

Oh yeah, you're right. Just to be clear, I did not intend to defend this corrupt guy anyway, but that was not on my radar.

[Dill]

(09-05-2023, 07:52 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: The bonus is that Trump had a good chance vs Hillary and had no ill will towards Putin. 
Maybe maybe not, at that point it was just speculation as far as foreign policies and allies. Some allies were against him just for being elected. 
He made his mistakes for sure, but also had some success, what war did we get into that everyone said we would get into if he won? The 3 before him all got us into costly wars. 
I think if the COVID hadn't happened, he would have Cruised to a 2nd term.
As i said, didn't matter who it was, Putin hates Hillary.

I think what made him valuable to Putin was not only that he would damage U.S. foreign policy,

but also create a great deal of division and disruption at home. Which was a good prediction.

I can't recall a costly war Obama got us into. Or Clinton. Obama got us out of Iraq, right?   

I think you are giving Trump too much credit for staying out of a war. It was only luck that he did not

provoke a war with Iran, plus the "deep state" advisers running interference for him appear to have

been an important guardrail there. So his advisers really deserve the credit for preventing a war.

They won't be there the next time around. Now Trump knows whom NOT to pick.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-06-2023, 12:22 PM)Dill Wrote: I think what made him valuable to Putin was not only that he would damage U.S. foreign policy,

but also create a great deal of division and disruption at home. Which was a good prediction.

I can't recall a costly war Obama got us into. Or Clinton. Obama got us out of Iraq, right?   

I think you are giving Trump too much credit for staying out of a war. It was only luck that he did not

provoke a war with Iran, plus the "deep state" advisers running interference for him appear to have

been an important guardrail there. So his advisers really deserve the credit for preventing a war.

They won't be there the next time around. Now Trump knows whom NOT to pick.

Obama's the first POTUS to have been in a war for all 8 years of his 2 terms. 
Total of 7 countries. 

Clinton, Balkans and Haiti.



*edit

We were already divided before Trump came along all he did was make it more obvious where we were divided.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-06-2023, 06:38 AM)hollodero Wrote: Not that I would want to swear on the integrity of every FBI official. But again as far as I know, that was not the actual chain of events. The FISA warrant that was based on parts of the information in the Steele dossier concerned a guy named Carter Page who was somewhat connected to the Trump campaign on its periphery. It was to prolong an existing surveillance back from 2014, when Page stood out as being extremely Kremlin-friendly and called himself an informal advisor. Russian agents tried to recruit him (and allegedly backed down because he was an "idiot") - all of which, well, will get you on a counterintelligence radar usually. The later extensions were found to be invalid, that appears like a mistake or misdeed from the responsible FBI agents. No denying that.
Trump, however, was part of FISA orders [as fas as I know...] for communications from a Trump tower server with Russian banks. Which had nothing to do with Page or Steele's dossier. As for Manafort, he was targeted by FISA orders too, but that particular investigation started way back in the year 2014. And was about his lobbying for Yanukovich, which again had nothing to do with Steele. He might have been tapped while working for Trump (I found contradicting reports on that, so I'm not sure), and there was a renewal of a FISA warrant in that period of time, but again as far as I know not on the grounds of allegations in the Steele dossier.



On that one I am more certain that this is not the case. The dossier was given to buzzfeed by an associate of McCain. Steele himself called the publication "most irresponsible", claimed it endangered lives and livelihoods, very much including his own. In fact, he and his family went into hiding instead of doing an Avennati-esque media victory tour, and understandably so, for fear of Russian retaliation alone.
He did share his findings, that's for sure, with the FBI, with counterintelligence officials, and then some. McCain also was within the circle of people that were made aware of the dossier. But informing the media, I'm inclined to believe that was never part of Steele's idea.



The dossier was published way after the election.



Well... I don't know if it would put them on the hook legally. Morally, I can see the point. And they did indeed misreport the expenses as legal advice instead of opposition research and got fined over 100.000 dollars for that. So yeah there's some dirt.



But Papadopoulos was part of the Trump campaign. The investigation started when he told some Australians about him knowing about Hillary mails in Russia's possession. So the investigation was somewhat tied to the Trump campaign from the start.
It sure did expand from there, and the Steele dossier certainly was on the FBI's radar, not least due to Steele's insistence. Which, on its face, is not all that surprising to me. When there's a counterintelligence investigation over Russian interference and Russian ties to the Trump campaign, it seems logical that a dossier of raw intelligence concerning the same issue gets looked at.



Oh yeah, you're right. Just to be clear, I did not intend to defend this corrupt guy anyway, but that was not on my radar.

We could go back and forth arguing on this i think, but I'm not trying to say this is what started it all. I'm saying it was used as an Ends to a Means when it shouldn't have been even considered and makes the FBI look incompetent (as though they need help).

[hollodero]

(09-07-2023, 01:50 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: We could go back and forth arguing on this i think, but I'm not trying to say this is what started it all. I'm saying it was used as an Ends to a Means when it shouldn't have been even considered and makes the FBI look incompetent (as though they need help).

Sure. I can not convincingly refute that.

Why it's so important, that one I can not quite figure out anyway. A successful presidential candidate had a campaign manager that held private meetings with oligarchs they are embedded to, are lobbyists for Russia, and dirty ones at that, that do not register and do not pay taxes, this person gets sentenced and then pardoned... something I'd considered a scandal, which would be a scandal would it concern Hillary or Biden or anyone else in any other country really, no matter the legal aspects.
But when it comes to Trump, none of it matters, not that, not Roger Stone, not all the embarrassing details in a Mueller report, nothing. Nope, what should actually capture my mind is a prolonged FISA warrant against Carter Page that might not have been legitimate, that a raw intelligence dossier got things wrong, that Hillary did opposition reasearch, or whether some FBI agents are lovers and whatnot - these are the scandals? This is hard to follow. So you're right, when it comes to the FBI there's not much meaningful to add for me. Yeah there might be incompetence, alright, I do not disagree.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-07-2023, 07:03 PM)hollodero Wrote: Sure. I can not convincingly refute that.

Why it's so important, that one I can not quite figure out anyway. A successful presidential candidate had a campaign manager that held private meetings with oligarchs they are embedded to, are lobbyists for Russia, and dirty ones at that, that do not register and do not pay taxes, this person gets sentenced and then pardoned... something I'd considered a scandal, which would be a scandal would it concern Hillary or Biden or anyone else in any other country really, no matter the legal aspects.
But when it comes to Trump, none of it matters, not that, not Roger Stone, not all the embarrassing details in a Mueller report, nothing. Nope, what should actually capture my mind is a prolonged FISA warrant against Carter Page that might not have been legitimate, that a raw intelligence dossier got things wrong, that Hillary did opposition reasearch, or whether some FBI agents are lovers and whatnot - these are the scandals? This is hard to follow. So you're right, when it comes to the FBI there's not much meaningful to add for me. Yeah there might be incompetence, alright, I do not disagree.

because it's incompetence at its finest and Trump was able to weaponize it against them to further embarrass anyone that was involved.

That's the type of person he is, give him an inch he will take a mile. 
It's going to be the same if he's not convicted of the first charge that comes up, or if he beats a few of them. He will weaponize those as well to get people to forget about the others. It's all about I'm right and you're wrong, never mind that he was wrong 9/10 times.

[hollodero]

(09-08-2023, 03:28 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: because it's incompetence at its finest and Trump was able to weaponize it against them to further embarrass anyone that was involved.

I would not give Trump all the credit. He barely knew what a FISA was.

Imho, it was the media, FOX and then some, that successfully implemented the counternarrative that this is an FBI scandal and not a Trump scandal. Trump saw his defense on TV and mainly repeated what they said.

It's just weird to see how that works. And I wonder what would happen if Biden went the same route. Investigating my son is a witch hunt, I will now fire the FBI director over this whole thing, and send in my own guy to investigate these corrupt investigators, look there's FBI officials that are lovers, that expressed disliking me, that gave money to the GOP, it's a vendetta, they used information from a corrupt Ukrainian businessman, and from Rudy Giuliani, meaning the whole thing is based on lies and a hit job, these FBI agents should be in jail, my son is the victim, I'm the victim, the american people are the victims, it's a sad thing for the country, please all do not mind about anything they actually found, it is all a hoax!

One problem probably is that the liberal media wouldn't go as far as to support these lines... maybe.

I just wish people wouldn't fall for it. I'm not referencing you. You're surprisingly (to me) critical of Trump these days.

(09-08-2023, 03:28 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: It's going to be the same if he's not convicted of the first charge that comes up, or if he beats a few of them. He will weaponize those as well to get people to forget about the others. It's all about I'm right and you're wrong, never mind that he was wrong 9/10 times.

I sadly can not disagree with this any longer.

[Luvnit2]

(09-07-2023, 01:50 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: We could go back and forth arguing on this i think, but I'm not trying to say this is what started it all. I'm saying it was used as an Ends to a Means when it shouldn't have been even considered and makes the FBI look incompetent (as though they need help).

Maybe I missed it, but to be clear the first Carter Page FISA warrant was executed prior to the election.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/the-carter-page-fisa-a-timelineThe October 2016 FISA application and January 2017 FISA renewal were both approved by then-FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.


Former FBI Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson testified to the House Judiciary and Oversight committees in August 2018 about the “unusual way” that the first FISA request was handled, with approval coming from Yates and then-Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe before it reached her desk, contradicting the normal path that the FISA applications take and leading her to not feel the need to second-guess her higher-ups.

 A DOJ attorney was prosecuted a FISA warrant. The correct version was Carter page WAS NOT A SOURCE, KEY BEING CHANGED NOT.


https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/19/politics/clinesmith-carter-page-fisa-warrant/index.html



The dossier was also a known commodity prior to the 2016 election. John Brennan briefed Obama and copied Biden, Comey and Peter Strzok in October, 2016 the dossier was a Hillary Clinton political piece designed to hurt Trump. Brennan put it in a memo afterwards.
https://news.yahoo.com/dni-releases-cia-documents-hillary-204337457.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

Brennan’s notes, which were taken after he briefed Obama on the intelligence, cite “a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service,” which was “alleged approved by Hillary Clinton.”


The heavily-redacted CIA memo references “an exchange discussing U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”


In 2016, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee contracted Fusion GPS and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to compile the controversial Russian dossier, which purported to draw a connection between the Trump campaign and Russia and contained salacious allegations about Trump, then the Republican nominee.


The dossier was later used in applications to surveil Trump associate Carter Page. The Justice Department’s inspector general has since concluded that the FBI did not inform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the dossier was unreliable.


“The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate,” states the CIA memo, which was sent to then-FBI Director James Comey and Peter Strzok, then the deputy assistant director of counterintelligence.

Last week, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he did not remember whether he received an investigative referral on Clinton in September 2016.

“That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” Comey said.

“That’s a pretty stunning thing that it doesn’t ring a bell,” Republican Chairman Lindsey Graham responded. “You get this inquiry from the intelligence community to look at the Clinton campaign trying to create a distraction, accusing Trump of being a Russian agent or a Russian stooge.”

So our former POTUS, current POTUS and the head of the F.B.I. colluded in an attempt to take down the newly elected POTUS Trump with a dossier that was NEVER VERIFIED. 


This was the beginning of the weaponization of the DOJ and FBI to take down Trump.


These are all facts, add in Durham concluded an investigation into the Trump campaign and Trump had zero verified intelligence t start an investigation. But, the Russian collusion narrative was born, a special counsel named and 50+ million dollars later and the liberal media colluding with the DNC and doing no investigative reporting, we now know Trump was 100% innocent.


Every American should be appalled of the BS pulled by the F.B.I. and the D.O.J. Sadly, it continues as the left media and liberals cheer on the persecution of a political opponent.

[LSUfaninTN]

(09-04-2023, 10:49 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Ok everyone and their mother knows Russia had a political campaign strike going.

They've made it very clear and as to why they don't like Hillary, they were going to do anything to keep her from winning. The opponent didn't matter.

Even Mueller couldn't find collusion from anyone in the Trump campaign that conspired or coordinated in any way with Russia despite multiple attempts from Russian-affiliated individuals.

As far as Manafort goes, if what he did was so egregious, then why wasn't he convicted on it? Instead was convicted of Tax and Bank fraud not collusion so what he did likely wouldn't have held up else they would have added that on as well.

Putin hated Hillary for his ego, but Trump was the last person he wanted to be president of the US. It did nothing but hurt Russia. One of the things Trump ran on was energy independence for the US. He also told Europe to not be dependent on Russian oil (ask Germany how that’s going for them, now). People on the left and MSM read too much into Trump’s rhetoric on the surface regarding Russia, and paid no attention to what he actually did. He didn’t only want energy independence for the US, and for Europe (that is, independence from Russia), but he also put countless sanctions on Russia, shut down Russian embassies, expelled diplomats, publicly called them out for when they tried to kill that spy in the UK, and put sanctions on them in his first month of office for annexing Crimea, which Obama happily allowed.

Russia was doing a victory dance on the first day Biden was in office and shut down the Keystone pipeline. They want democrats in office. Russia doesn’t have to spread propaganda about pipelines through social media posts when a Democrat is in office. Just look at the protests for the Dakota Access Pipeline, how it was “built over Native American sacred grounds” and then look where it was actually built (about 100 miles south). That was Russian misinformation to rile up a bunch of environmental “useful idiots” who protested, and never took 5 minutes to research that it was actually being built 100 miles south of sacred land.

[CJD]

(09-01-2023, 09:15 AM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Just as they were wrong about Trump Russian Collusion (hoax)

Why do you keep repeating this falsehood?

Is this a situation where you think if you just repeat an untrue statement enough times it eventually becomes true?