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The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (15 Viewers)
- Thread starter whoknew
- Start date
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Sammy3469
Footballguy
Rirruto
Footballguy
The biggest part of the NYT story for me was that the counterintel investigation was opened before this. I'm sure those agents read the Washington Post the next day and were like "Oh, yeah. That sounds like what I expected."
Rirruto
Footballguy
Honestly, this is where I agree with Rudy. If Mueller has any sort or proof this happened, he needs to drop it in an indictment of somebody ASAP. If we get through the 2020 election without that and it turns out there was proof in Mueller's possession, he turns into a borderline villain for me.
That's a ton of ifs and Mueller is running maybe to most complicated white collar criminal investigation ever and he's the Theo Epstein of crime, but still.
And disclosed highly classified information from Israeli intelligence. Seems like the actions of an asset who was carrying out orders before meeting with his handlers.
I doubt it was a leak from the OSC. More than likely it’s a story that they’ve had and the OSC has asked them to sit on the story until now. But your point remains...why now? I’m guessing that something big is coming that’s gonna make people ask if the President is a Russian asset.
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Obstruction in plain sight
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
cobalt_27
Footballguy
To be fair, a counterintelligence investigation of this scope likely involves many (elusive, obfuscating) bad actors. Notwithstanding the care required to dot all Is and dot all Ts.
That being said, what is truly broken is the conspicuous lack of intellectual curiosity on the GOP side, indeed obstruction on the House intelligence committee, who wasted two years doing nothing to subpoena relevant witnesses and investigate without properly.
ren hoek
Footballguy
Of course it's the "biggest political story... ever". Natasha Bertrand has literally made a career out of pandering to Russia birthers. She'd be remiss not to triple down at this point.
No one finds it weird and authoritarian that a counterintelligence investigation was opened into a sitting President because he fired their friend James Comey? Their first actual thought was that Trump was acting as an agent of Vladimir Putin, and not firing an insubordinate/incompetent FBI director? Who opened it, what was their relationship with Comey?
Comey said himself a while back that he thought a finding of collusion was 'unlikely'. Strzok didn't think there was a 'there' there. Comey had already informed Trump that he wasn't being investigated. Trump voicing his discontent with the Russia investigation wasn't unlike voicing his discontent with a Loch Ness monster investigation. Really incredible the lengths the FBI and its stenographers at the NYT have gone to oversell this.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
... and then it turned out the campaign manager was providing polling data to a Russian oligarch and former GRU officer.
That’s actual collusion.
ren hoek
Footballguy
Aaron Maté @aaronjmate 58m58 minutes ago
Revealing passage. Trump "caught the attention of FBI" for: -a joke at presser -not criticizing Russia "on the campaign trail" -a "softened" platform -- actually a rejected amendment & still more hawkish than Dems (https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1041044029855723520 …) -DNC-funded, fraudulent Steele oppo
Revealing passage. Trump "caught the attention of FBI" for: -a joke at presser -not criticizing Russia "on the campaign trail" -a "softened" platform -- actually a rejected amendment & still more hawkish than Dems (https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1041044029855723520 …) -DNC-funded, fraudulent Steele oppo
ren hoek
Footballguy
Henry Ford
Footballguy
Henry Ford
Footballguy
Why would having strong public evidence of one crime mean that another crime is dead in the water?
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Fwiw hypothetically the stolen data and mass messaging would have been the bullet, the polling would have been the targeting mechanism.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
And it’s not just “the strongest evidence yet.” The provision of that information to that person in and of itself is likely enough evidence to convict Paul Manafort of conspiracy in my opinion. It is beyond a reasonable doubt that he gave information to be used to target and influence voters by a foreign entity against the law.
Trump’s campaign manager.
Trump’s campaign manager.
ren hoek
Footballguy
Largely thanks to Manafort, in November 2013, Ukraine was one step away from signing the historic Association Agreement at the summit of the EU’s Eastern Partnership held in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
Manafort’s ally in the pro-EU push was the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Serhiy Lovochkin. According to Yanukovych confidante Nestor Shufrich, former deputy head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, the pro-EU course had been “Lovochkin’s and Manafort’s game, it was them who foisted the idea on Yanukovych that it was achievable.” Former Poland President Aleksandr Kwasnwiewski has also confirmed that Lovochkin and Manafort together comprised the pro-EU heart of the Yanukovych administration.
Manafort was amazingly successful in bringing Ukraine into the Western fold. After the jailing by Yanukovych of opposition leader and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in 2011, it seemed any attempt by Ukraine to pursue closer ties with the West were dead in the water. But only two years later, Kyiv was a step away from signing the association agreement with Brussels that would create a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between EU and Ukraine.
But any mention that Manafort was a driving force behind Ukraine’s move to sign up with the EU instead of with Russia – a key part of the Mueller indictment – was missing from the Fusion GPS dossier, and as a result, has been missing from most mainstream media coverage.
Former Fusion GPS Researcher: Everything you know about Paul Manafort is wrong
Manafort’s ally in the pro-EU push was the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Serhiy Lovochkin. According to Yanukovych confidante Nestor Shufrich, former deputy head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, the pro-EU course had been “Lovochkin’s and Manafort’s game, it was them who foisted the idea on Yanukovych that it was achievable.” Former Poland President Aleksandr Kwasnwiewski has also confirmed that Lovochkin and Manafort together comprised the pro-EU heart of the Yanukovych administration.
Manafort was amazingly successful in bringing Ukraine into the Western fold. After the jailing by Yanukovych of opposition leader and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in 2011, it seemed any attempt by Ukraine to pursue closer ties with the West were dead in the water. But only two years later, Kyiv was a step away from signing the association agreement with Brussels that would create a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between EU and Ukraine.
But any mention that Manafort was a driving force behind Ukraine’s move to sign up with the EU instead of with Russia – a key part of the Mueller indictment – was missing from the Fusion GPS dossier, and as a result, has been missing from most mainstream media coverage.
Former Fusion GPS Researcher: Everything you know about Paul Manafort is wrong
Henry Ford
Footballguy
That’s certainly a perspective.
Regardless of any of his accomplishments, however, he’s a felon. And, it appears, illegally conspired with Russia.
ren hoek
Footballguy
Yasha Levine @yashalevine
What’s amazing about Konstantin Kilimnik—the supposed Russian meddling link between Trump/Manafort and the Kremlin—is that spent nearly a decade in Moscow working for @IRIglobal, USG-funded regime change/foreign meddling op. From 1995 to 2005, he was an *American agent.*
Don’t believe me? Read @FranklinFoer’s profile of him: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/the-astonishing-tale-of-the-man-mueller-calls-person-a/562217/ … Let’s say Mueller’s allegations are true, that Kilimnik is now a Russian agent. That would mean he went from meddling in Russia (for the American gov) to meddling in America (for the Russian gov).
What’s amazing about Konstantin Kilimnik—the supposed Russian meddling link between Trump/Manafort and the Kremlin—is that spent nearly a decade in Moscow working for @IRIglobal, USG-funded regime change/foreign meddling op. From 1995 to 2005, he was an *American agent.*
Don’t believe me? Read @FranklinFoer’s profile of him: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/the-astonishing-tale-of-the-man-mueller-calls-person-a/562217/ … Let’s say Mueller’s allegations are true, that Kilimnik is now a Russian agent. That would mean he went from meddling in Russia (for the American gov) to meddling in America (for the Russian gov).
ren hoek
Footballguy
How did he illegally conspire with Russia by transmitting data to Ukrainian oligarchs? The same Ukrainians, at least in Lyovochkin's case, that he had worked with to bring Ukraine to the EU?
Henry Ford
Footballguy
Here’s a better link. You’ll want to read that article before you say what it means.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/the-astonishing-tale-of-the-man-mueller-calls-person-a/562217/
Henry Ford
Footballguy
If you can seriously not see the answer to that question in context, I don’t know how to help you.
ren hoek
Footballguy
It definitely says what Levine meant. Kilimnik worked for a state dept.-funded 'democracy spreading' arm of the US.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
There were always hints that he might be serving another master, providing a set of surveilling eyes for Russian intelligence. One of his former colleagues, Michael Getto, told me, “From my standpoint, I kept my distance from Kostya, because I knew there was a better-than-even chance that he was connected to people I didn’t want to be.” These insinuations were never backed by more than a smattering of circumstantial evidence. They were never enough to deter State Department officials from grabbing the occasional gossipy drink with him—although one diplomat, casting a backwards glance over the course of his dealings with Kilimnik, told me, “He has excellent tradecraft.”
OrtonToOlsen
Footballguy
Oh Ren
ren hoek
Footballguy
Right. Kilimnik was trained as a linguist in Russia's military academy. There was no shortage of moneyed #######s that Manafort and Kilimnik weren't willing to work for. But the facts show that Manafort's work in the Ukraine was about bringing Ukraine to the West, into the EU. He was acting as an agent of a foreign government- through his Engage Ukraine campaign and in his personal memos to Yanukovych and Kilimnik advising compliance with USG/Western/EU demands- to pull Ukraine away from Russia and into the West. To do the literal exact opposite of colluding with Russia.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
ren hoek
Footballguy
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1083870557416902663
"Russian hybrid warfare" course administered by "information warfare specialist" Molly McKew makes its way to Georgetown.
"Russian hybrid warfare" course administered by "information warfare specialist" Molly McKew makes its way to Georgetown.
ren hoek
Footballguy
https://twitter.com/athenogenes/status/1083603933556281344
it's depressing that Molly McKew has been allowed to launder her fraudulent expertise through my own academic institution
this is like hiring a flat earther to teach in a geography department. the fact that this grifter is being allowed to teach undergraduates with our stamp of approval is a ####### disgrace
considering that her response to criticism from Russian-born people (like Masha Gessen, who was literally driven out by Putin's homophobic policies!) is to imply that Russians are all Putin stooges, it doesn't make me feel particularly great to be a @CERESGeorgetown affiliate
if I had tenure I would probably bring this up with somebody official but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
by the way, this isn't about politics! I disagree with Madeline Albright politically but it's great that Georgetown undergraduates have a chance to learn from her. McKew is actively dangerous because the one constant of the career is that she uses every platform to tell lies.
I curse myself for falling down this rabbit hole at 2 in the morning but it's odd that her name isn't listed anywhere in the catalog in relation to the course, there's no website or syllabus either
anyway, to sum up:
1) McKew is about as qualified to teach a class on Russian hybrid warfare as any given content mill click farmer. Her one contribution to the "literature," the so-called Gerasimov Doctrine, has been repeatedly debunked as a paranoid chimera
(she did not invent the concept but she leveraged it into fifty thousand articles and speaking gigs by misinterpreting it in the most tendentious way possible)
2) she has a habit of smearing people on the basis of national origin, among other incredibly flimsy pretexts
3) she habitually acts as an agent of foreign governments without revealing this status. right now she appears to be on the payroll of the Estonian government
4) a student who takes her class will not know which of her ideas are truth, which are credible suppositions, and which are complete fabrications. her fantasies about an imminent Russo-Estonian War are only the latest in a long career of unhinged fearmongering.
it's depressing that Molly McKew has been allowed to launder her fraudulent expertise through my own academic institution
this is like hiring a flat earther to teach in a geography department. the fact that this grifter is being allowed to teach undergraduates with our stamp of approval is a ####### disgrace
considering that her response to criticism from Russian-born people (like Masha Gessen, who was literally driven out by Putin's homophobic policies!) is to imply that Russians are all Putin stooges, it doesn't make me feel particularly great to be a @CERESGeorgetown affiliate
if I had tenure I would probably bring this up with somebody official but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
by the way, this isn't about politics! I disagree with Madeline Albright politically but it's great that Georgetown undergraduates have a chance to learn from her. McKew is actively dangerous because the one constant of the career is that she uses every platform to tell lies.
I curse myself for falling down this rabbit hole at 2 in the morning but it's odd that her name isn't listed anywhere in the catalog in relation to the course, there's no website or syllabus either
anyway, to sum up:
1) McKew is about as qualified to teach a class on Russian hybrid warfare as any given content mill click farmer. Her one contribution to the "literature," the so-called Gerasimov Doctrine, has been repeatedly debunked as a paranoid chimera
(she did not invent the concept but she leveraged it into fifty thousand articles and speaking gigs by misinterpreting it in the most tendentious way possible)
2) she has a habit of smearing people on the basis of national origin, among other incredibly flimsy pretexts
3) she habitually acts as an agent of foreign governments without revealing this status. right now she appears to be on the payroll of the Estonian government
4) a student who takes her class will not know which of her ideas are truth, which are credible suppositions, and which are complete fabrications. her fantasies about an imminent Russo-Estonian War are only the latest in a long career of unhinged fearmongering.
Snorkelson
Footballguy
cobalt_27
Footballguy
None of this is true. And a completely disingenuous attempt to push a false narrative.
msommer
Footballguy
Banger
Footballguy
This is beyond enormous. Can’t post it now but the horse whisperer on twitter had a great thread on it. Basically as a parting shot when Obama left office he signed an EO that allowed for the real time sharing of data from the NSA to the CIA/FBI in counter surveillance investigations. So since Trump was being surveilled in real time they would be following the people Trump met with, what they did/said afterward. That’s why Mueller knows everything.
This was also leaked before Rosenstein left so Whitaker /Barr couldn’t bury it.
Game over traitor
This was also leaked before Rosenstein left so Whitaker /Barr couldn’t bury it.
Game over traitor
Dedfin
Footballguy
I still try to keep an open mind on what ren says. I think his instinct on this is wrong, but it's not fair for me to throw out what he says since he obviously reads more about this than I do. For instance, I didn't even know who Molly McKew was or what she means to this episode at all. I did find an older article on medium suggesting the Molly doesn't have the expertise that's assumed and that she publishes papers while not stating she's a registered foreign agent, which seems dishonest. I don't mean to say that you are wrong to dismiss his statements, but for someone like me that has slowed down on reading about this I have to slow down on my judgement as well.cobalt_27 said:
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apalmer
Footballguy
Interesting. If we only change a few words, guess who this describes?ren hoek said:
1)
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2)
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4) a
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Greg Afinogenov is an assistant professor of imperial Russian history at Georgetown and he's upset that McKew has been hired as an actual professor at Georgetown. The guy's not remotely a national security expert, an intelligence expert, or even a an expert in the Cold War or post Cold War Russia. He's a guy from Russia who doesn't like McKew because she gets into twitter battles and accuses people of being Putin sympathizers. In fact in that thread Afinogenov accuses her of being an Estonian agent (what?!) and then he has to back down and state in his own thread she in fact is not. I guess the bottom line is Molly McKew is now at Georgetown.ren hoek said:
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Trump is on a (so far) 6 part twitter rampage about the NYT report.
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
Does Isikoff think transparent means that top secret information will be readily available?Snorkelson said:
Did Trump undo the EO? Or did no one point it out to him and explain what it meant?
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
Remember when that crazy lady whose name rhymes with Ruiz Bench said that every intelligence agency on Earth had caught Trump and his people committing treason and recorded it?
Now imagine that Obama's last act on the way out the door was to sign an EO that allowed the NSA to firehose data straight to the FBI/CIA. Kidding! You don't have to imagine.
Have said it from day one:
1) They're all ####### stupid.
2) Trump did everything he's accused of, and more; almost no one is thinking big enough.
3) Mueller's going to prove all of it.
Now imagine that Obama's last act on the way out the door was to sign an EO that allowed the NSA to firehose data straight to the FBI/CIA. Kidding! You don't have to imagine.
Have said it from day one:
1) They're all ####### stupid.
2) Trump did everything he's accused of, and more; almost no one is thinking big enough.
3) Mueller's going to prove all of it.
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