Liberal Media ignores Biden Scandal

[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.