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The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (4 Viewers)

SaintsInDome2006 said:
Ren, Russo-eugenicism isn’t a thing, that’s why this claim is ridiculous. He specifically referred to ‘historic practices’.
You claimed Taibbi "just said" what Clapper did, that Russians are "genetically driven" to "co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever," which is plainly false.  He has made it clear he's referring to the actions of the state, not the genealogy of Russians.  Furthermore,Taibbi criticized Clapper for making another similar xenophobic remark.  You are factually wrong here.  

Secondly, it doesn't take a genius to see how this Time cover is a problem.  It looks like it could have been ripped straight from anticommunist propaganda from the 1930s.  Any person with functioning blinkers can look at it and draw similarities between the two, you don't have to be an eXiled fan to see it.  It's inspired xenophobic depictions of the Russian menace.  People have made casual homophobic jokes about Trump/Putin as well.  No need to be obtuse about it, just own it.  

Last- are you saying that because Russo-eugenicism isn't a thing, that this is ok?  You would at least agree Clapper's claims about Slavic DNA are a bad way to frame it right?  

 
You claimed Taibbi "just said" what Clapper did, that Russians are "genetically driven" to "co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever," which is plainly false.  He has made it clear he's referring to the actions of the state, not the genealogy of Russians.  Furthermore,Taibbi criticized Clapper for making another similar xenophobic remark.  You are factually wrong here.  
I said Taibbi said that Trump fit the typical motif for Putinist compromise and money laundering practices. No, Taibbi didn't say anything about Russian genetic tendencies, in fact no one does, it's a non-existent subject.

 
Secondly, it doesn't take a genius to see how this Time cover is a problem.  It looks like it could have been ripped straight from anticommunist propaganda from the 1930s.  Any person with functioning blinkers can look at it and draw similarities between the two, you don't have to be an eXiled fan to see it.  It's inspired xenophobic depictions of the Russian menace.  People have made casual homophobic jokes about Trump/Putin as well.  No need to be obtuse about it, just own it.  
I'm sorry, but besides RT (which has specifically raised this article) who exactly is raising this? Does the article seem unfair or conspiratorial to you? It doesn't to me, they seem to go out of their way to lend an ear to Russian grievances. - The Trump-Putin kiss image emanated out of Lithuania IIRC, it was pop art there I believe.

 
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Last- are you saying that because Russo-eugenicism isn't a thing, that this is ok?  You would at least agree Clapper's claims about Slavic DNA are a bad way to frame it right?  
Oh yeah he should never have put it that way, this discussion exemplifies why, and also the Kremlim's use of it since.

 
"It is in their genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed, to US and western democracies."

you are wrong
>>REPORTER: CHRIS UHLMANN, ABC NEWS: Thank you so much for that. Can I just begin by asking, you were talking - the thing among many inexplicable things we find watching Donald Trump from this distance is why is it that his administration seems so keen to be courting Russia? I don't think at least that part is denied. Can you explain that?

JAMES CLAPPER: No, I can't, and in my remarks I characterised that as inexplicable - I do not understand it. There is, of course, now an investigation under the auspices of Bob Muller, an inspired and brilliant choice as a special council. Bob was James Comey's predecessor, and as I have often said, it is absolutely crucial for the United States and, for that matter for the world, as well as for this presidency, for the Republicans, for the Democrats and for our nation at large, that we get to the bottom of this.
Is there a smoking gun with all the smoke? And I don't know the answer to that. I think it's vital, though, that we find that out.
During my one and only, first and last ever, I'm sure, sojourn to Trump Tower, the President-elect said, "Wouldn't it be good if we could along with the Russians?"

I said, "Sure. When our interests converge, and they do occasionally, fine." But as far as our being intimate allies, trusting buds with the Russians that is just not going to happen. It is in their genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed to the United States and to Western democracies.<<

Clapper address to Aus national press club in Canberra.

~ Now if you think that somewhere in the world there is a lurking anti-Russo-eugenics school of thought and that Clapper was outing himself as part of that well just go right on ahead.

 
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TobiasFunke said:
The substance of this piece was also pure nonsense. He thought they twisted and turned to Iet Clinton off the hook, which is silly. I wrote extensively here about how she hadn't committed a crime for months before the FBI made the easy call.  Virtually everyone with expertise in the interpretation and application of federal criminal law who wasn't an insane right wing mouthpiece agreed. But that's the thing about people who have written books about how Obama is instituting Sharia law- they tend to be insane right wing mouthpieces on other issues too.

ETA: also there's a huge difference between being evasive in front of the Senate when facing pointed political questioning and lying to federal investigators in an attempt to forestall their investigation. Should it matter? I don't know. But it always has- prosecutions based on congressional testimony are incredibly rare . It's insane to think this is some sort of deep state conspiracy to favor "anti-Trump spooks" and not just standard operating procedure for decades. After all, plenty of Trump people also lied to Congress and weren't charged for it, including some people named Trump.
Maybe so.  I'm a little skeptical about immunity being tossed out like candy to witnesses and how the bleachbit stuff didn't constitute destruction of evidence, but I'm not really interested in rehashing the email investigation.  

But she should have been tried for war crimes in Libya.  If the 'institutions, democratic norms, justice' people have spent the past few years rambling about mattered like they said it did, she would have.  

 
This is rich, seriously rich.  Coming from the side who got the rolling emoji response banned here from its over use. 
What is rich is you thinking the Republicans here got the rolling emoji banned. It was the liberals here like Squistion that are offended by everything. Think about it.....grown men offended by an emoji. And your side used that emoji often too. Unbelievable.

 
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Will Sommer‏Verified account @willsommer 19m19 minutes ago

Remember Jacob Wohl's disastrous press conference smearing Robert Mueller? His Mueller accuser now says Jacob tricked her and made it all up. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/02/26/jacob-wohl-spread-twitter-lies-mueller-rbg-2020-election/2917226002/ …
Jacob Wohl has been indicted.

- Securities fraud.

 
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What is rich is you thinking the Republicans here got the rolling emoji banned. It was the liberals here like Squistion that are offended by everything. Think about it.....grown men offended by an emoji. And your side used that emoji often too. Unbelievable.
It boggles my mind that grown men get offended by an emoji from an internet stranger.  In fact I feel very good about my position when you post the laughing reaction, it only validates my thought process.  

 
It boggles my mind that grown men get offended by an emoji from an internet stranger.  In fact I feel very good about my position when you post the laughing reaction, it only validates my thought process.  
So dead wrong. Ask the mods about what posters whined about the laughing emoji. It was Squistion and other liberals.  :lmao:

 
I'd bet any amount of money that the Taliban will be in full control (inasmuch as one group can be) of Afghanistan within 6 months of the US withdrawal, probably more like 6 days. The idea that this group, with their ideologically rigid opposition to democracy, elections and the Afghan constitution, will voluntarily and peacefully participate in any kind of shared government is laughably absurd. But I guess their word and a Russian blessing is the best we can do, given that Trump's knee-jerk, out-of-the-blue decision to withdraw and close the US embassy ("it's too expensive") left us with no choice but to scramble for the threadbarest veil of semi-competency to provide cover for our Imbecile-in-Chief and make it less obvious that he doesn't possess a single molecule of intelligence or strategy. I guess we'll just throw another one on top of the heap of disastrous decisions we'll be paying for for years to come as he single-handedly destroys decades of diplomatic and counterintelligence efforts. Yawn  :shrug:

Of course ISIS is already there, ready and waiting to exacerbate any conflict and fill in the cracks. Hoo-ray.

18 years, two fallen towers, trillions of dollars and thousands of maimed and lost lives of US servicemen later we can all pretend like it's September 10th, 2001 all over again.

At least try to forget that the first thing Trump did after the towers fell was boast about now being the proud owner of the tallest building in lower Manhattan. It's all on tape, but it must be Fake News. You are only allowed to remember all the made-up help he personally gave to the first responders at Ground Zero, or all the made-up Muslims he still claims to have seen cheering the collapse.

Remember, Never Forget something something...

 
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So dead wrong. Ask the mods about what posters whined about the laughing emoji. It was Squistion and other liberals.  :lmao:
Dear mods,

Which posters whined about the laughing emoji. I would like a complete list.  And could you include their political affiliation.

Thanks in advance
This was a rule JB put in place and we don't have a secret board code of laws.   Either way, it wouldn't be appropriate to post just like it isn't cool *cough*  to keep blaming other posters for this rule. 

 
This was a rule JB put in place and we don't have a secret board code of laws.   Either way, it wouldn't be appropriate to post just like it isn't cool *cough*  to keep blaming other posters for this rule. 
It was a rule put in place because liberals were offended by this emoji  :lmao: . Unreal.

 
It was a rule put in place because liberals were offended by this emoji  :lmao: . Unreal.
No, it was put in place because the sole reply for many on this board was the rolling emoji.  Not exactly a way to continue a conversation.  Honestly it was a joke, no pun intended, how often it was being used. 

 
US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017

Washington (CNN) - In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN.

A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.

The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The intelligence, concerning ISIS in Syria, had been provided by Israel.

The disclosure to the Russians by the President, though not about the Russian spy specifically, prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk of exposure, according to the source directly involved in the matter.

At the time, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo told other senior Trump administration officials that too much information was coming out regarding the covert source, known as an asset. An extraction, or "exfiltration" as such an operation is referred to by intelligence officials, is an extraordinary remedy when US intelligence believes an asset is in immediate danger.

A US official said before the secret operation there was media speculation about the existence of such a covert source, and such coverage or public speculation poses risks to the safety of anyone a foreign government suspects may be involved. This official did not identify any public reporting to that effect at the time of this decision and CNN could not find any related reference in media reports.

Asked for comment, Brittany Bramell, the CIA director of public affairs, told CNN: "CNN's narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the President's handling of our nation's most sensitive intelligence—which he has access to each and every day—drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate."

A spokesperson for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to comment. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, "CNN's reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger."

Wide concerns about Trump in intelligence community

The removal happened at a time of wide concern in the intelligence community about mishandling of intelligence by Trump and his administration. Those concerns were described to CNN by five sources who served in the Trump administration, intelligence agencies and Congress.

Those concerns continued to grow in the period after Trump's Oval Office meeting with Kislyak and Lavrov. Weeks after the decision to extract the spy, in July 2017, Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg and took the unusual step of confiscating the interpreter's notes. Afterward, intelligence officials again expressed concern that the President may have improperly discussed classified intelligence with Russia, according to an intelligence source with knowledge of the intelligence community's response to the Trump-Putin meeting.

Knowledge of the Russian covert source's existence was highly restricted within the US government and intelligence agencies. According to one source, there was "no equal alternative" inside the Russian government, providing both insight and information on Putin.

CNN is withholding several details about the spy to reduce the risk of the person's identification.

The secret removal of the high-level Russian asset has left the US without one of its key sources on the inner workings of the Kremlin and the plans and thinking of the Russian president at a time when tensions between the two nations have been growing. The US intelligence community considers Russia one of the two greatest threats to US national security, along with China.

"The impact would be huge because it is so hard to develop sources like that in any denied area, particularly Russia, because the surveillance and security there is so stringent," a former senior intelligence official told CNN. "You can't reacquire a capability like that overnight."

Months of mounting fear

The decision to pull the asset out of Russia was the culmination of months of mounting fear within the intelligence community.

At the end of the Obama administration, US intelligence officials had already expressed concerns about the safety of this spy and other Russian assets, given the length of their cooperation with the US, according to a former senior intelligence official.

Those concerns grew in early 2017 after the US intelligence community released its public report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which said Putin himself ordered the operation. The intelligence community also shared a classified version of the report with the incoming Trump administration, and it included highly protected details on the sources behind the intelligence. Senior US intelligence officials considered extracting at least one Russian asset at the time but did not do so, according to the former senior intelligence official.

In the first months of his administration, Trump's handling of classified intelligence further concerned intelligence officials. Ultimately, they decided to launch the difficult operation to remove an asset who had been working for the US for years.

The President was informed in advance of the extraction, along with a small number of senior officials. Details of the extraction itself remain secret and the whereabouts of the asset today are unknown to CNN.

 
US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017

At the time, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo told other senior Trump administration officials that too much information was coming out regarding the covert source, known as an asset. An extraction, or "exfiltration" as such an operation is referred to by intelligence officials, is an extraordinary remedy when US intelligence believes an asset is in immediate danger.

A US official said before the secret operation there was media speculation about the existence of such a covert source, and such coverage or public speculation poses risks to the safety of anyone a foreign government suspects may be involved. This official did not identify any public reporting to that effect at the time of this decision and CNN could not find any related reference in media reports.

Asked for comment, Brittany Bramell, the CIA director of public affairs, told CNN: "CNN's narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the President's handling of our nation's most sensitive intelligence—which he has access to each and every day—drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate."

A spokesperson for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to comment. White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, "CNN's reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger."

Wide concerns about Trump in intelligence community

The removal happened at a time of wide concern in the intelligence community about mishandling of intelligence by Trump and his administration. Those concerns were described to CNN by five sources who served in the Trump administration, intelligence agencies and Congress.

Those concerns continued to grow in the period after Trump's Oval Office meeting with Kislyak and Lavrov. Weeks after the decision to extract the spy, in July 2017, Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg and took the unusual step of confiscating the interpreter's notes. Afterward, intelligence officials again expressed concern that the President may have improperly discussed classified intelligence with Russia, according to an intelligence source with knowledge of the intelligence community's response to the Trump-Putin meeting.

Knowledge of the Russian covert source's existence was highly restricted within the US government and intelligence agencies. According to one source, there was "no equal alternative" inside the Russian government, providing both insight and information on Putin.

CNN is withholding several details about the spy to reduce the risk of the person's identification.

The secret removal of the high-level Russian asset has left the US without one of its key sources on the inner workings of the Kremlin and the plans and thinking of the Russian president at a time when tensions between the two nations have been growing. The US intelligence community considers Russia one of the two greatest threats to US national security, along with China.

"The impact would be huge because it is so hard to develop sources like that in any denied area, particularly Russia, because the surveillance and security there is so stringent," a former senior intelligence official told CNN. "You can't reacquire a capability like that overnight."

Months of mounting fear

The decision to pull the asset out of Russia was the culmination of months of mounting fear within the intelligence community.

At the end of the Obama administration, US intelligence officials had already expressed concerns about the safety of this spy and other Russian assets, given the length of their cooperation with the US, according to a former senior intelligence official.

Those concerns grew in early 2017 after the US intelligence community released its public report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which said Putin himself ordered the operation. The intelligence community also shared a classified version of the report with the incoming Trump administration, and it included highly protected details on the sources behind the intelligence. Senior US intelligence officials considered extracting at least one Russian asset at the time but did not do so, according to the former senior intelligence official.

In the first months of his administration, Trump's handling of classified intelligence further concerned intelligence officials. Ultimately, they decided to launch the difficult operation to remove an asset who had been working for the US for years.

The President was informed in advance of the extraction, along with a small number of senior officials. Details of the extraction itself remain secret and the whereabouts of the asset today are unknown to CNN.


  Reveal hidden contents
I don't think this has anything to do with the investigation, which is over now.  Mueller found no conspiracy.  Should probably file this under another Russia thread now that this one's done.  

 
I don't think this has anything to do with the investigation, which is over now.  Mueller found no conspiracy.  Should probably file this under another Russia thread now that this one's done.  
Pretty sure the thread is about Trump-Russia ties, not just the Mueller investigation. You can tell because this thread started on January 9, 2017 whereas the Mueller investigation started on May 17, 2017. 

 
I don't think this has anything to do with the investigation, which is over now.  Mueller found no conspiracy.  Should probably file this under another Russia thread now that this one's done.  
CNN’s great unnamed source always has unlimited information that no one else agrees with.

 
I don't think this has anything to do with the investigation, which is over now.  Mueller found no conspiracy.  Should probably file this under another Russia thread now that this one's done.  
CNN’s great unnamed source always has unlimited information that no one else agrees with.
This is rarely true, unless you meant to say "in the administration publicly" instead of "else".

 
This thread is called "The Russia Investigation".  The counterintel investigation was ongoing, and had been for almost 6 months, though we didn't know it at the time. 

I'm not really following what this has to do with the investigation.  Sciutto says Trump did not speak of the undercover operative himself in his meetings with the Russian ambassadors.  But he does say Pompeo was concerned there was 'too much information' coming out about the source.  They heavily imply a Trump connection to the supposed "media speculation" where there wasn't one.  This paragraph is strange too:

A US official said before the secret operation there was media speculation about the existence of such a covert source, and such coverage or public speculation poses risks to the safety of anyone a foreign government suspects may be involved. This official did not identify any public reporting to that effect at the time of this decision and CNN could not find any related reference in media reports.

Are they referring to the dossier's claims of high-up sources in the Russian govt then?  Furthermore, as President of the United States, Trump is allowed to declassify intel.  Sharing intel in an area where two nuclear powers are operating is not only legal, but absolutely critical to avoid triggering a wider conflict.  The Obama admin offered to share intel with Russia re: ISIS in Syria as well.  There is a huge difference between that and outing your own source to a foreign govt.  

If they actually believed Trump was somehow beholden to Russia inline with the dossier's speculation at the time, they're even more neurotic than I thought.  The frightening thing is not that they'd conspire to push a false narrative about Trump and Russia, although that's scary in itself, but that they could be so dumb, so uncritical that they actually fell for this ####.  

For well over 2 years, this has been about the Russia investigation. I don't see the point in dredging up TrumpRussia alarmism and wishful thinking now that it's been debunked, and it really has nothing to do with the investigation.  Let it die already.  It's over now- time to move on.  

 
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein

It is funny that the left, having embraced the FBI as the root of all that is good and decent in America historically and to present, is now bringing the same approach to the CIA

 
Or just change the thread title to "Ongoing Speculation About Fake TrumpRussia Conspiracy Theory" and call it a day.  
Trump's love affair with Putin and inability to keep his mouth shut has cost us our top intelligence source inside Russia, which is just the latest example of his careless ineptitude and general disregard for American interests making the job of our intelligence agencies (and that every other department in the Federal government) virtually impossible. 

I mean, last week the dude tweeted out a spy photograph of Iran, seriously compromising our capabilities in that regard. I can only imagine the open mouths and ashen faces of our intelligence officials when they learn of stuff like this. I guess they are used to it by now. 

Whether intentional or incompetence, the most valuable intelligence asset hostile foreign powers have is our own President, but the real issue is the freaking thread title. 

Owning the libs must be really, really important to some people. I hope the glee you enjoy in pointing out perceived hypocrisies helps keep you warm at night when we no longer have a country. 

 
Trump's love affair with Putin and inability to keep his mouth shut has cost us our top intelligence source inside Russia, which is just the latest example of his careless ineptitude and general disregard for American interests making the job of our intelligence agencies (and that every other department in the Federal government) virtually impossible. 

I mean, last week the dude tweeted out a spy photograph of Iran, seriously compromising our capabilities in that regard. I can only imagine the open mouths and ashen faces of our intelligence officials when they learn of stuff like this. I guess they are used to it by now. 

Whether intentional or incompetence, the most valuable intelligence asset hostile foreign powers have is our own President, but the real issue is the freaking thread title. 

Owning the libs must be really, really important to some people. I hope the glee you enjoy in pointing out perceived hypocrisies helps keep you warm at night when we no longer have a country. 
 I can't believe I'm about to post this but it would make sense to  give Trump false intelligence to disseminate.

 
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein

It is funny that the left, having embraced the FBI as the root of all that is good and decent in America historically and to present, is now bringing the same approach to the CIA
So by supporting an investigation into the President's voluminous and alarming foreign ties is tantamount to embracing the FBI as "the root of all that is good and decent in America historically and to present"? And being concerned about the disintegration of our ability to competently undertake foreign counterintelligence means holding the same view towards the CIA? This is a contention you agree with?

Or is it that, having criticized abuses of power and controversial techniques in the past, in order to be consistent "the left" should ignore the possibility that Trump isn't acting in our country's best interest for nefarious reasons? Oh wait, I get it. Because of their former criticism, that "the left" now wants Trump investigated makes them hypocrites!  As if wanting to hold the FBI and CIA to ethical and legal standards equates to believing that they serve no legitimate purpose to the country.

Yeah, so, so funny Mr. Gerstein. This is almost as big a deal as thread titles.

 
It boggles my mind that grown men get offended by an emoji from an internet stranger.  In fact I feel very good about my position when you post the laughing reaction, it only validates my thought process.  
The fact that your validation has to come form an internet bulletin board is what boggles my mind.  All of you.  It's the drop down weirdest thing

 
So the Democrats are back, and they need to decide whether or not to proceed with impeachment hearings or finally let it go. Obviously, Pelosi doesn't want them to proceed; neither do the public. But the base of the Democratic party does, and personally I have come to the conclusion that they have a constitutional duty to proceed. But I'm skeptical that they will.

 
So the Democrats are back, and they need to decide whether or not to proceed with impeachment hearings or finally let it go. Obviously, Pelosi doesn't want them to proceed; neither do the public. But the base of the Democratic party does, and personally I have come to the conclusion that they have a constitutional duty to proceed. But I'm skeptical that they will.
The closer to election day the more my thinking is starting to flip.   I really thought the focus should be winning the presidency back, in 2020, but that is looking less and less likely.  With that knowledge in hand, I see the democrats pursuing this harder and harder.  They have no other option.    

 
The closer to election day the more my thinking is starting to flip.   I really thought the focus should be winning the presidency back, in 2020, but that is looking less and less likely.  With that knowledge in hand, I see the democrats pursuing this harder and harder.  They have no other option.    
Actually it looks far more likely right now than it ever has.

 
The closer to election day the more my thinking is starting to flip.   I really thought the focus should be winning the presidency back, in 2020, but that is looking less and less likely.  With that knowledge in hand, I see the democrats pursuing this harder and harder.  They have no other option.    
Hey, it's Mr. Objective "I'm not biased" himself! Democrats clearly have no other option but to impeach, given that Trump is in the catbird's seat, what with losing to every Democratic candidate in every poll in every swing state. Hell, if ol' Trumpo plays his cards right, we might soon be adding states like Texas, Arizona and North Carolina to the list.*

Supermike is fair and balanced and just calls 'em like he sees 'em. A more well-informed, non-partisan arbiter of truth one will not find.

*This is where you say you don't believe in polls, citing Hillary in '16. Just like the FNC/RNC/NRA, Russia Today and the Trump Corporation wanted you to. Good boy.

 

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