Who is the main culprit behind the Russian Collusion Hoax?

[dude58677]

Who orchestrated the coverup? Who was the mastermind?

[Stratovarious]

I don't know the 'who', but from day one I knew this for what it
was;

A Hillary Shield , a preemptive strike, it worked.

[Zippyjuan]

I don't know the 'who', but from day one I knew this for what it
was;

A Hillary Shield , a preemptive strike, it worked.

So THAT's how she got elected president!

[Dr.3D]

So THAT's how she got elected president!
No, that's why Hillery was having such a hard time believing she lost.

[Stratovarious]

So THAT's how she got elected president!

Not quite, that's how they kept Hillary out of Prison, it worked.

[Stratovarious]

No, that's why Hillery was having such a hard time believing she lost.
On a side note, plastic bags;
I bought some walmart reusables a couple months ago, I like using them, more convenient
for me.
We do not need the gobt telling us , nor dictating how we should live.

[Anti Globalist]

The Deep State.

[Zippyjuan]

The Deep State.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3zOJV09O18Q/maxresdefault.jpg

(not photoshop image- a person actually wore the mask to a confirmation hearing for David Bernhardt to become Secretary of the Interior). Actually there were a couple swamp creatures at the hearing. Bernhardt is an oil lobbyist- Trump promised to get rid of lobbyists in government. "Drain the swamp!"

[oyarde]

Mueller is in this hoax to the hilt . He was he doing it for ?

[Pauls' Revere]

Down the Rabbit Hole we go!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Russia_dossier

The Trump–Russia dossier, also known as the Steele dossier,[1] is a private intelligence report comprising 17 memos written between June and December 2016 by Christopher Steele,[2] a former head of the Russia Desk for British intelligence (MI6), for the private investigative firm Fusion GPS. The resulting dossier contains allegations of misconduct and conspiracy between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Government of Russia during the 2016 election, with campaign members and Russian operatives allegedly colluding to interfere in the election to benefit Trump.[3] It also alleged that Russia sought to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy, including sharing negative information about Clinton with the Trump campaign.[4] The dossier was published in full by BuzzFeed on January 10, 2017.[5] Several mainstream media outlets criticized BuzzFeed's decision to release it without verifying its allegations,[6][7] while others defended it.[8]

In October 2015, Fusion GPS was contracted by conservative political website The Washington Free Beacon to provide general opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. In April 2016, attorney Marc Elias separately hired Fusion GPS to investigate Trump on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC. The Free Beacon stopped its backing when Trump became the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee in May of 2016.[2] In June 2016, Fusion GPS subcontracted Steele's firm to compile the dossier. His instructions were to seek answers to why Trump would "repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state".[9] Clinton campaign officials were reportedly unaware that Fusion GPS had subcontracted Steele, and he was not told that the Clinton campaign was the recipient of his research.[10][11] Following Trump's election as president, funding from Clinton and the DNC ceased, but Steele continued his research and was reportedly paid directly by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn R. Simpson.[12] The completed dossier was then handed to British and American intelligence services.[13]

The media, the intelligence community, and most experts have treated the dossier with caution due to its unverified assertions, while Trump has denounced it as fake news.[14] Russian intelligence agencies have sought to create false doubt as to the veracity of the dossier.[15] However, the U.S. intelligence community takes the allegations seriously and is investigating them.[16][17][18][19] The Trump administration, Fox News, and congressional Republicans have falsely[20][21] claimed that the launch of U.S. intelligence community probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election were based mostly on Steele's dossier.[22][23][24]

In May 2018, former career intelligence officer James Clapper stated that "more and more" of the dossier had been validated over time.[25] Overall, some allegations of the dossier have been corroborated,[26] others remain unverified and, according to a December 2018 Lawfare retrospective, "none of [the dossier], to our knowledge, has been disproven."[27] Some parts of the dossier may require access to classified information for verification.[28][29]

and,...Russia hacked the DNC database and passed on emails.

The remarkable timing of the Russian attempt on Clinton’s servers is just one of the new details revealed in the indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers, who Mueller alleges hacked the email accounts and computers of Democratic officials and organizations in an audacious effort to influence the U.S. election.

[timosman]

Mueller is in this hoax to the hilt . He was he doing it for ?

Putin? :eek:

[Pauls' Revere]

Re: Fusion GPS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_GPS

Prevezon Holdings

In 2013, the US Department of Justice, represented by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, sued Prevezon Holding, a Republic of Cyprus corporation registered in New York State as a foreign business corporation, under the Magnitsky Act for money-laundering part of $230 million stolen. The lawsuit sought forfeiture of various assets and real estate holdings in the US.[14][15] In May 2017, two months after President Trump had dismissed Bharara, the lawsuit was settled for $6 million, less than half what Bhahara sought[16], without Prevezon admitting to any wrongdoing and with both sides claiming victory.[14][17]

The sole shareholder of Prevezon was Russian citizen Denis Katsyv, whose father is Petr Katsyv, vice president of Russia's state-run rail monopoly and "reportedly a business associate of Vladimir Yakunin, a confidant of Vladimir Putin".[15][18] Katsyv's Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was not licensed to practice in the US, and Katsyv hired the law firm of BakerHostetler to represent Prevezon; BakerHostetler hired Fusion GPS in early 2014 to provide research help for the litigation.[19][20][18][21]

On October 18, 2016, the appellate court disqualified BakerHostetler from the case because they had represented Bill Browder’s hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management for nine months in 2008/2009 when the U.S. Justice Department was investigating a tax fraud scheme in Russia involving "co-opted Hermitage portfolio companies". The U.S. Justice Department had argued that Hermitage Capital was a victim of the tax fraud and that BakerHofstetler's prior work on behalf of Hermitage Capital created a conflict of interest.[22][19] As part of their litigation support for BakerHostetler and their client Verezon, Fusion GPS investigated Browder, a witness central to the U.S. Justice Department's case.[23]

On July 27, 2017, Fusion GPS accused the White House of trying to "smear" it for investigating the president's alleged ties to Russia. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointed to Browder's testimony as vindication of Trump's claims that ongoing investigations into potential ties between his campaign and Moscow are political ploys to undermine his presidency. Fusion GPS countered that it worked only with a law firm in New York "to provide support for civil litigation" unrelated to Russian efforts to do away with the Magnitsky Act, saying it had no reason to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).[24]

Browder lodged a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department in 2016 that Fusion GPS may have lobbied "for Russian interests in a campaign to oppose the pending Global Magnitsky Act [and] failed to register under [U.S. law]".[20][25] The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (not to be confused with the Magnitsky Act) is a human rights law passed on December 23, 2016.[26] It is also named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor working for Browder who died in a Russian prison after uncovering a corruption scheme that he was then charged with having helped concoct.[18]

On March 30, 2017, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa called for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into purported connections between Fusion GPS and Russia, and an inquiry as to whether Fusion GPS was acting as an unregistered foreign agent. The company denied the claims that they were engaged in lobbying or had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[25][20] According to the Washington Post′s "Fact Checker" column, there is "no evidence that the Russian government paid for Fusion’s work on the Prevezon defense at the same time Fusion investigated Trump’s business dealings in Russia."[27]

So, where did the 230 million dollars go?

[Pauls' Revere]

Re: Fusion GPS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_GPS

Trump dossier and Christopher Steele
Main article: Trump–Russia dossier

In September 2015, Fusion GPS was hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative political website, to do opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. In spring 2016 when Trump had emerged as the probable Republican candidate, the Free Beacon stopped funding investigation into Trump.[28] From April 2016 through October 2016, the law firm Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, retained Fusion GPS to continue opposition research on Trump.[29][30][31] In June 2016, Fusion GPS retained Christopher Steele, a private British corporate intelligence investigator and former MI-6 agent, to research any Russian connections to Trump. Steele produced a 35-page series of memos from June to December 2016, which became the document known as the Donald Trump–Russia dossier.[29][32] Fusion GPS provided Marc Elias, the lead election lawyer for Perkins Coie, with the resulting dossier and other research documents.[30][31]

The firm is being sued for defamation by three Alfa-Bank owners named in the dossier as connected to Putin. German Khan, one of the litigants and one of Russia's wealthiest citizens, is the father-in-law of lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, who was charged in the Mueller probe for making false statements to the FBI.[33] He pleaded guilty to one count and in April 2018 was sentenced to 30 days in prison and a fine of $20,000.[34][35]

On October 23, 2017, Fusion GPS filed for a court injunction against Nunes' subpoena seeking the firm's bank records for a period of more than two years, arguing it would damage and possibly destroy the business as well as violate their First Amendment rights.[39] On January 4, 2018 U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon struck down Fusion's application, ruling that Fusion's bank must turn over the financial records subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee; Fusion asked the judge to stay his order because they plan to appeal.[40]

On October 28, 2017, The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative political website, told the House Intelligence Committee that it had retained Fusion GPS's services from 2015 to May 2016, to research Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. The objective was the discovery of damaging information. The Free Beacon and its primary source of funding, hedge fund manager Paul Singer, denied any involvement in the creation of the Steele dossier, pointing out that they had stopped funding research on Trump before Steele was engaged.[28]

On January 2, 2018, the founders of Fusion GPS, Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch, authored an op-ed in The New York Times, requesting that Republicans "release full transcripts of our firm’s testimony" and further explaining that, "the Steele dossier was not the trigger for the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp."[41]

The committee interviewed Simpson for seven hours on November 14, 2017. The transcript of the interview was released on January 18, 2018.[42][43]

[Pauls' Revere]

Re: Senate Judiciary Committee

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein made arrangements in July 2017 for Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson to testify before their committee. It was agreed that Simpson would not testify in public but would be interviewed privately.[44][45] The committee wanted to question Simpson about the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). A previous witness, banker and human rights activist Bill Browder, had accused Simpson and Fusion GPS of evading registration as foreign agents for campaigning to influence and overturn the Magnitsky Act.[24] Fusion GPS said through their attorney that they were not required to register under FARA.[24] Senators were expected to also use the hearing "to press Justice Department officials on what they know about Veselnitskaya, Prevezon, Fusion GPS and their connections to both the Trump campaign or the Russian government."[46]

On August 22, 2017, Simpson was questioned for 10 hours by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a closed-door meeting. The Committee did not release a transcript of the hearing, but indicated that Fusion GPS had given more than 40,000 documents for the investigation.[47] Simpson kept the identities of the firm's clients confidential;[48][49] the client names—conservative website The Washington Free Beacon,[28] and a law firm representing the DNC and the Clinton presidential campaign[30]—were revealed in October 2017 as a result of the House Intelligence Committee investigation.

On January 2, 2018, Simpson and Fritsch co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times, requesting the two congressional committees to "release full transcripts of our firm's testimony".[41] On January 8, 2018, a spokesman for Grassley said he did not plan to release the transcript of Simpson's August 22, 2017, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.[50] The next day, January 9, 2018, Feinstein unilaterally released the transcript.[51][52]

[Pauls' Revere]

My gut says the Russians got some dirt on the DNC and possibly the Clintons after 13 of their intelligence officers hacked their database and emails. The DNC then hires Fusion GPS and (whom they have worked with before) and The Free Beacon Website to investigate Trump.

Remember, Hillary had fixed the DNC nomination against Bernie Sanders and she and the DNC were pissed when Trump actually won.

They then used butt hurt Mc Cain to hand over the Steele Dossier.


Q: Why did the Washington Free Beacon (a conservative website) want to do research on Trump?

Q: Where did the 230 Million dollars go?

[Brian4Liberty]

The Deep State.

That about covers it. A lot of like-minded individuals, who abused their positions and power.

[TheTexan]

Liberals in general are to blame. The whole lot of them are fucking retarded and will believe just about anything.

[kpitcher]

I don't believe it's a hoax. Follow the money leads back to Trump Tower Moscow. Follow it back further and the only one who would give money to Trump was Deutsche Bank, which also was the bank of choice for lots of Russian money laundering.

But if you want to know who started the actual investigation so far that privilege goes to Papadopoulos bragging to an Australian diplomat.

Again I'm surprised at this forum. It spent years waiting for the full 9-11 report and the missing 28 pages. We get a 4 page summary of the actual hundreds of pages long report and people are buying there was nothing there? Damn the ministry of Truth has won.



Since when do we just buy the official story from anyone?

[Pauls' Revere]

Re: The Washington Free beacon & Fusion GPS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Free_Beacon

The Free Beacon came under criticism for its reporting on Fusion GPS. Three days before it was revealed that it was the Free Beacon that had funded the work by Fusion GPS, the Free Beacon wrote that the firm's work “was funded by an unknown GOP client while the primary was still going on."[12] The Free Beacon has also published pieces that have sought to portray the work by Fusion GPS as unreliable "without noting that it considered Fusion GPS reliable enough to pay for its services."[12] In an editor's note, Continetti said "the reason for this omission is that the authors of these articles, and the particular editors who reviewed them, were unaware of this relationship," and that the outlet was reviewing its editorial process to avoid similar issues in the future.[13]

Its tactics have also led to attacks from media critics and watchdog groups. The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf called the Free Beacon's mission "decadent and unethical".[15]

Ben Howe wrote in The Daily Beast that the Washington Free Beacon established "itself as a credible source of conservative journalism with deep investigative dives and exposes on money in politics," but that after Trump's election "shifted away from the template they were establishing and more towards the path of least resistance: spending their time criticizing the left and the media, along with healthy doses of opinion writing."[16] McKay Coppins in the Columbia Journalism Review writes of the Free Beacon that while the website contains "a fair amount of trolling... it has also earned a reputation for real-deal journalism...If a partisan press really is the future, we could do worse than the Free Beacon."[17]

Jeet Heer writes in The New Republic of the Free Beacon, "Unlike other comparable conservative websites, the Free Beacon makes an effort to do original reporting. Its commitment to journalism should be welcomed by liberals."[18] In 2015, Mother Jones wrote positively of the Free Beacon, noting that it is far better than contemporary conservative outlets such as The Daily Caller.[19] Mother Jones however noted that "the Beacon hasn’t always steered clear of stories that please the base but don’t really stand up," and that it pieces inflammatory pieces that "push conservatives’ buttons".[19] That same year, the Washingtonian wrote that "The Beacon’s emphasis on newsgathering sets it apart among right-facing publications".[20]

Q: Who was that client?

[TheTexan]

I don't believe it's a hoax. Follow the money leads back to Trump Tower Moscow. Follow it back further and the only one who would give money to Trump was Deutsche Bank, which also was the bank of choice for lots of Russian money laundering.

But if you want to know who started the actual investigation so far that privilege goes to Papadopoulos bragging to an Australian diplomat.

Again I'm surprised at this forum. It spent years waiting for the full 9-11 report and the missing 28 pages. We get a 4 page summary of the actual hundreds of pages long report and people are buying there was nothing there? Damn the ministry of Truth has won.



Since when do we just buy the official story from anyone?

Good point. Just because there was never any evidence for it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

In fact, there not being any evidence for it just means that it's more likely that something happened. Because if nothing happened, then there would at least be evidence of nothing happening. But with no evidence at all, that is extremely fishy and most likely there is something there.

You may be on to something with this.

[nikcers]

I don't believe it's a hoax. Follow the money leads back to Trump Tower Moscow. Follow it back further and the only one who would give money to Trump was Deutsche Bank, which also was the bank of choice for lots of Russian money laundering.

But if you want to know who started the actual investigation so far that privilege goes to Papadopoulos bragging to an Australian diplomat.

Again I'm surprised at this forum. It spent years waiting for the full 9-11 report and the missing 28 pages. We get a 4 page summary of the actual hundreds of pages long report and people are buying there was nothing there? Damn the ministry of Truth has won.



Since when do we just buy the official story from anyone?

Rachel Maddow is that you???

[Pauls' Revere]

Re: The Mysterious GOP client who hired Fusion GPS

https://dailycaller.com/2017/08/24/the-search-for-fusion-gps-mysterious-republican-client/

One of the biggest mysteries looming over the Trump-Russia saga is the identity of the political donors who hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to investigate Donald Trump.

Almost no information has been provided in press reports about a Hillary Clinton ally who, last June, reportedly hired Fusion GPS to investigate the former real estate magnate. Fusion would go on to hire former British spy Christopher Steele to carry out that investigation. He compiled a 35-page dossier of uncorroborated allegations about Trump’s activities in Russia that BuzzFeed News published in January.

Some clues have been released regarding a Republican who reportedly hired Fusion GPS. According to news reports, that client is a major GOP donor who was adamantly opposed to Trump. They reportedly hired Fusion GPS in Sept. 2015 and paid the Washington, D.C.-based firm nearly $1 million to investigate Trump.

A Fusion GPS spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether a Republican client actually exists.

As for the Hillary Clinton ally who hired Fusion GPS to compile the dossier, rumors are circulating around Washington, D.C., including within the Trump White House and on Capitol Hill.

Any guesses anyone?

Right off the bat I gotta ask. Who in the GOP anti-Trump camp and Hillary ally would benefit the most from him losing the election?

[nikcers]

The military industrial complex is obviously the biggest winner by starting a cold war

[RonZeplin]

A successful plot by Javanka, MbS, Senator McCain and Bibi to turn America into a NWO Deep State swamp, Police State.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/274/531/b89.gif

The suckers fell for it, and now worship Deep State Don & the Wahhabi NWO.

[juleswin]

I don't believe it's a hoax. Follow the money leads back to Trump Tower Moscow. Follow it back further and the only one who would give money to Trump was Deutsche Bank, which also was the bank of choice for lots of Russian money laundering.

But if you want to know who started the actual investigation so far that privilege goes to Papadopoulos bragging to an Australian diplomat.

Again I'm surprised at this forum. It spent years waiting for the full 9-11 report and the missing 28 pages. We get a 4 page summary of the actual hundreds of pages long report and people are buying there was nothing there? Damn the ministry of Truth has won.



Since when do we just buy the official story from anyone?

They are all official stories, the one that says he is a Russian puppet and the one that exonerated him. If he was money laundering for Russians then Putin would want to expose him because this is money that the Russian govt would lose out on. And if you believe that he is laundering money for Putin and his friend then I would counter by saying that Putin would be the dumbest leader if he thinks that washing his money through american business is a good idea plus I doubt he needs to launder any of his or his friends money. He wields too much power in the country.

So yea, I never bought into the official story that started all this nonsense.

[juleswin]

Good point. Just because there was never any evidence for it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

In fact, there not being any evidence for it just means that it's more likely that something happened. Because if nothing happened, then there would at least be evidence of nothing happening. But with no evidence at all, that is extremely fishy and most likely there is something there.

You may be on to something with this.

You should quit your day job and go work for the FBI. My head is spinning from all that investigative mapping

[Pauls' Revere]

I don't know the 'who', but from day one I knew this for what it
was;

A Hillary Shield , a preemptive strike, it worked.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Stratovarious again.

[Pauls' Revere]

Re: Investigators to be investigated

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-says-people-behind-mueller-163746979.html

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump and a key ally, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, said Monday that after Robert Mueller closed his Russia probe, they want an investigation of the investigators.

Graham said at a news conference that Attorney General William Barr should appoint a new special counsel to examine why the U.S. government, under President Barack Obama, decided to open an investigation into Russian election interference in 2016, and whether it was an excuse to spy on Trump’s campaign.

“Was it a ruse to get into the Trump campaign?” Graham said at the news conference. “I don’t know but I’m going to try to find out.”

Trump told reporters at the White House that unspecified “people” behind the Russia probe would “be looked at.”

The remarks show that Trump and some of his allies have retribution and score-settling on their minds after Mueller found no evidence that the president or his campaign colluded with the Kremlin’s election interference. It’s unclear whom Trump wants investigated, but possibilities include former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired in May 2017; Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan, whom Trump stripped of his security clearance last year; and other former intelligence and Justice Department officials who have vocally criticized the president.

The stage is also set for dueling and contradictory congressional investigations. In the House, controlled by Democrats, several committees have opened investigations into the president’s financial and business affairs, and Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said Sunday he wants Barr to testify soon on his finding that Mueller didn’t produce sufficient evidence that Trump obstructed justice by interfering in the Russia inquiry.

The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, on Monday blocked a vote on a measure by the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, calling for Mueller’s report to be made public. McConnell said Barr should have time to consider which portions of the report can be publicly released given concerns about classified information, ongoing investigations and other information protected by law.

Republican Allies

Several other Republicans backed Graham and Trump on Monday. Senate Oversight Committee Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he’d like to work with Graham “to get those answers for the American public.”

“We need to find out what happened,” he said in an interview.

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted: “Time to investigate the Obama officials who concocted and spread the Russian conspiracy hoax!”

Representative Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, said “underlying documents” supporting what became Mueller’s probe should be released to the public.

“Let them decide for themselves whether this investigation was warranted -- or whether it was a two-year long episode of political targeting, driven by FBI and DOJ executives who wanted to retaliate against a legitimately elected president,” Meadows said in an interview.

Graham said his committee would also look into the FBI’s handling of the inquiry into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, saying that Comey’s actions in that investigation “did affect” the 2016 election. Comey held a news conference in July 2016 to announce that Clinton wouldn’t be charged with a crime, and then announced less than two weeks before the election that the investigation had been re-opened after additional emails were discovered.

‘Evil Things’

Trump’s indication that unnamed people responsible for the probe would be investigated was vague. He didn’t name anyone, and after he made similar remarks on Sunday, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters that Barr hadn’t been directed to open any investigations of Democrats.

“People that have done such harm to our country,” Trump complained on Monday. “We’ve gone through a period of really bad things happening. Those people will certainly be looked at. I’ve been looking at them for a long time and I’m saying, why haven’t they been looked at. They lied to Congress. Many of them. You know who they are. They’ve done so many evil things.”

Trump added that he hasn’t considered pardoning anyone convicted in connection to Mueller’s probe.

Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress on Sunday summarizing Mueller’s findings, which have not been publicly released.

Both Trump and Graham said they support Barr publicly releasing as much of Mueller’s report as possible. The investigation turned out “100 percent” as it should have, Trump told reporters.

Dossier Distribution

Trump has previously singled out individuals over their role in the probe, calling for an investigation into the “other side” of the investigation. He’s mentioned Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and Justice Department attorney Bruce Ohr.

Graham also said he advised his friend and Senate colleague John McCain to give the FBI the so-called Steele dossier on Trump, rebutting the president’s accusations that McCain tried to hinder his 2016 election.

Graham told reporters that McCain, an Arizona Republican who died last year, had shown him the unverified collection of intelligence reports on Trump’s links to Russia that was put together by a former British spy, Christopher Steele. Steele was commissioned to compile the information by an opposition research firm hired by Democrats.

McCain put the dossier in his safe and handed it over to the FBI the next day, Graham said.

A McCain associate, David Kramer, acknowledged in a deposition in a libel case that he spread word of the dossier to several news organizations.

Separately on Monday, Trump’s campaign sent a memo to television news producers with a list of past guests the campaign accused of making “false claims” about the investigation. Included in the list were Adam Schiff of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; Jerrold Nadler of New York, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and John Brennan, the former director of the CIA; and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Tim Murtaugh, the campaign’s director of communications, said that the producers should think twice about having the Trump critics on again: “At this point, there must be introspection from the media who facilitated the reckless statements and a serious evaluation of how such guests are considered and handled in the future.”

(Updates with Trump campaign memo, in final two paragraphs.)

--With assistance from Billy House.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net;Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, John Harney

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

[Pauls' Revere]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vto3SfPxg4w

[Swordsmyth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vto3SfPxg4w


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vto3SfPxg4w

[Pauls' Revere]

Watergate 2.0

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/26/trump-blames-russia-investigation-obama-officials/

President Trump trained his fire Tuesday on “very high up” Obama administration officials for launching the two-year Russia investigation, suggesting the decisions to spy on his campaign and spread phony accusations of treason could have reached President Obama himself.

“It went very high up and it started fairly low, but with instructions from the high-up [officials],” Mr. Trump told reporters at the Capitol. “I think it went very high up. This should never happen to a president again.”

Asked whether the Obama White House was responsible for planting the accusations of collusion with Moscow, Mr. Trump replied, “I don’t want to say that, but I think you know the answer.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller said in his final report that there was no evidence of collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russians during the 2016 election. He spent nearly two years and $25 million to reach that conclusion.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and Judiciary Committee chairman, has called on Attorney General William P. Barr to appoint a second special counsel to investigate the FBI’s origins of the Russia probe, and the decision to spy on the Trump campaign.



I wouldn't put it past Obama and his admin to do this. Afterall they used the IRS to audit political opponents and parties.

[dude58677]

Good point. Just because there was never any evidence for it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

In fact, there not being any evidence for it just means that it's more likely that something happened. Because if nothing happened, then there would at least be evidence of nothing happening. But with no evidence at all, that is extremely fishy and most likely there is something there.

You may be on to something with this.

This is the very definition of the logical fallacy known as Appeal to Ignorance. Just because something can’t be proven false does not make it true.

[TheTexan]

This is the very definition of the logical fallacy known as Appeal to Ignorance. Just because something can’t be proven false does not make it true.

Do you have any proof that what I said is wrong?

[dude58677]

Do you have any proof that what I said is wrong?

You can’t prove a negative. Just because you can’t prove something wrong is not proof that it is right.

[TheTexan]

You can’t prove a negative. Just because you can’t prove something wrong is not proof that it is right.

Can you prove that you can't prove a negative?

If you can't, then what you have is just a theory.

[dude58677]

Can you prove that you can't prove a negative?

If you can't, then what you have is just a theory.

We only have limited knowledge of what is in front of us. We don’t have knowledge of every single thing that goes on in the world. So it is impossible to prove that something isn’t occurring but it is easy to prove if something is occurring. If you can’t prove something isn’t occurring then you have nothing to talk about.

[bv3]

Can you prove that you can't prove a negative?

If you can't, then what you have is just a theory.

Never let the proof get in the way of the truth!

[juleswin]

This is the very definition of the logical fallacy known as Appeal to Ignorance. Just because something can’t be proven false does not make it true.

I thought the fallacy went the other way i.e. just because something can't be proven doesn't make it false.

[dude58677]

I thought the fallacy went the other way i.e. just because something can't be proven doesn't make it false.

It goes both ways. Either way there is nothing to talk about.

[Pauls' Revere]

I'm thinking of Donald Rumsfeld.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAnKdq5Yty8

[Marenco]

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81Bmyskf6lL.jpg