The Deep State War Heats Up :ph34r:

[LA Grant]

Dunno why this in-depth piece of reporting hasn't been posted here already, considering its relevance. It is a pretty thorough and well-written piece. The online version includes an audio link for those who don't want to read it all. 

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier

 

No release date yet for the piss tape ☹️

[DC Tom]

7 minutes ago, LA Grant said:

Dunno why this in-depth piece of reporting hasn't been posted here already, considering its relevance. It is a pretty thorough and well-written piece. The online version includes an audio link for those who don't want to read it all. 

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier

 

No release date yet for the piss tape ☹️

 

It has.  Several times.  Tell us again how you can read.

[LA Grant]

2 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

It has.  Several times.  Tell us again how you can read.

 

Okay, great. Where? I don't read every last post on this board and there's, what, 4-5 threads on this same subject most of them filled with useless posts like yours. A link to wherever the discussion is taking place would've been helpful, but I'm aware that's not your nature.

[B-Man]

Took all of 30 seconds (with the search function)

 

On 3/5/2018 at 5:20 PM, Deranged Rhino said:

Oops...

 

 

That's what happens when you rush a story out for publication and forget to double check the narrative.

 

 

 

On 3/5/2018 at 11:27 AM, garybusey said:

 

Dissect this when you're ready

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier

 

[LA Grant]

12 minutes ago, B-Man said:

Took all of 30 seconds (with the search function)

 

You're right, I should have used the search. Thank you though. Guess it's not too shocking how the conversation played out — Gary wants to talk about the content, Rhino shouts old news and also fake news, Gary says there's new info in there, Rhino shares tweet from Fox News host, Gary gives up, Boyst contributes a bigoted slur, and then on to the next thing. Well I can see why DC Tom would think that sufficed as intellectual discourse, so there's no need to repeat it.

 

I will, however, share a few passages I found interesting for anyone who hasn't read the full piece. It's worth reading in full though and wouldn't be shocked to see it win a Pulitzer, assuming Rhino doesn't. Really great work once again from Jane Mayer.

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier

 

There may be proof the Kremlin was directly involved in Tillerson pick, as had been guessed before.

Quote

One subject that Steele is believed to have discussed with Mueller’s investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as “a senior Russian official.” The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he’d heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. (During Romney’s run for the White House in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the U.S.) The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would cooperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy—and an incoming President.

 

 

On credibility and sources:

Quote

[Comey] also said that the F.B.I. had “confidence” in the dossier’s author—a careful but definite endorsement—because it had worked not only with him but with many of his sources and sub-sources, whose identities the Bureau knew. “He’s proven credible in the past, and so has his network,” Comey said.

 

Quote

"Steele had spent more than twenty years in M.I.6, most of it focussing on Russia. For three years, in the nineties, he spied in Moscow under diplomatic cover. Between 2006 and 2009, he ran the service’s Russia desk, at its headquarters, in London. He was fluent in Russian, and widely considered to be an expert on the country."

 

Quote

It isn’t known what [Steele and Mueller] discussed, but, given the seriousness with which Steele views the subject, those who know him suspect that he shared many of his sources, and much else, with the Mueller team.

 

Of course, the right's response has been "see? see? the investigators were colluding with the Russians, because they were talking to all these sources in Russia!" hahah

Quote

They’d discussed the possibility that Steele’s sources in Russia were wrong, or spreading disinformation, but concluded that none of them had a motive to lie; moreover, they had taken considerable risks to themselves to get the truth out.

 

Mueller investigating Simpson's claim from his testimony.

Quote

During Glenn Simpson’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, his lawyer asserted that “somebody’s already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier.” ... One possibility that has been mentioned is Oleg Erovinkin, a former F.S.B. officer and top aide to Igor Sechin, the Rosneft president. ... No evidence has emerged that Erovinkin was a Steele source, and in fact Special Counsel Mueller is believed to be investigating a different death that is possibly related to the dossier.

 

Probably lots of "u up?" texts from Putin with the ? emoji.

Quote

Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.’s intelligence service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.’s director, John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump’s team and Moscow that had been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.)

 

 

Which is more likely — Hillary orchestrating a triple-double-reversal spy game, or Dems trying to "go high" and lose as a result? It's always the same weak sh*t from the Democrats, from gerrymandering to everything above. There's no room for playing nice in a fight against nihilists anymore.

Quote

But, before releasing the report, the intelligence chiefs—James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence; Admiral Mike Rogers, the N.S.A. director; Brennan; and Comey—shared a highly classified version with Obama, Biden, and the other officials.

 

The highly classified report included a two-page appendix about the dossier. Comey briefed the group on it. According to three former government officials familiar with the meeting, he didn’t name Steele but said that the appendix summarized information obtained by a former intelligence officer who had previously worked with the F.B.I. and had come forward with troubling information. Comey laid out the dossier’s allegations that there had been numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, and that there may have been deals struck between them. Comey also mentioned some of the sexual details in the dossier, including the alleged golden-showers kompromat.

 

“It was chilling,” the meeting participant recalls.

 

Obama stayed silent. All through the campaign, he and others in his Administration had insisted on playing by the rules, and not interfering unduly in the election, to the point that, after Trump’s victory, some critics accused them of political negligence. The Democrats, far from being engaged in a political conspiracy with Steele, had been politically paralyzed by their high-mindedness.

 

Biden asked, “How seriously should we take this?” Comey responded that the F.B.I. had not corroborated the details in the dossier, but he said that portions of it were “consistent” with what the U.S. intelligence community had obtained from other channels. He also said that the F.B.I. had “confidence” in the dossier’s author—a careful but definite endorsement—because it had worked not only with him but with many of his sources and sub-sources, whose identities the Bureau knew. “He’s proven credible in the past, and so has his network,” Comey said.

 

“If this is true, this is huge!” Biden exclaimed.

 

 

We saw this play out in real-time but always worth pointing out — f*** Mitch McConnell, turtle-looking motherf***er.

Quote

In early September, 2016, Obama tried to get congressional leaders to issue a bipartisan statement condemning Russia’s meddling in the election. He reasoned that if both parties signed on the statement couldn’t be attacked as political. The intelligence community had recently informed the Gang of Eight—the leaders of both parties and the ranking representatives on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees—that Russia was acting on behalf of Trump. But one Gang of Eight member, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, expressed skepticism about the Russians’ role, and refused to sign a bipartisan statement condemning Russia. After that, Obama, instead of issuing a statement himself, said nothing.

 

Ugh of course Kerry would p***y out like this. 

Quote

When [Secretary of State] Kerry was briefed, though, he didn’t think there was any action that he could take. He asked if F.B.I. agents knew about the dossier, and, after being assured that they did, that was apparently the end of it. Finer [John Finer - Kerry's chief of staff] agreed with Kerry’s assessment, and put the summary in his safe, and never took it out again. Nuland’s [Victoria Nuland, director of policy planning at State, of "!@#$ the EU" fame during the Ukraine crisis] reaction was much the same. She told Winer to tell Steele to take his dossier to the F.B.I. The so-called Deep State, it seems, hardly jumped into action against Trump.

 

No f***ing sh*t.

Quote

As a top Clinton-campaign official told me, “If I’d known the F.B.I. was investigating Trump, I would have been shouting it from the rooftops!”

 

The full article provides the timeline which makes the theory that this was all a hit on Trump at the behest of Hillary/Obama a bigger stretch than Tasker's waistband, but here's a fun new tidbit. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier 

Quote

Republican claims to the contrary, Steele’s interest in Trump did not spring from his work for the Clinton campaign. He ran across Trump’s name almost as soon as he went into private business, many years before the 2016 election. Two of his earliest cases at Orbis involved investigating international crime rings whose leaders, coincidentally, were based in New York’s Trump Tower.

 

Great line.

Quote

“It was as if all criminal roads led to Trump Tower,” Steele told friends.

 

Even better. ?????

Quote

His free time is devoted largely to his family, which includes three cats, one of whom not long ago replicated the most infamous allegation in the Steele dossier by peeing on a family member’s bed.

 

 

 

[Deranged Rhino]

Long over due for a comprehensive update to this thread. I'll remedy that over the next few days... 

 

Scorecard:

 

* KSA - purged and now swiftly reforming, protecting Coptics for the first time in its history, coming soon: the first Synagogue in the Kingdom. 

* We are standing on the precipice of a denuclearized DPRK, the ending of the Korean War and the possible unification of the peninsula.

* Hezbollah, ISIS, AQ all pushed back in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq since the KSA purge (funding cut). GCC is poised for victory over all three.

* The Iranian people continue their unique revolution, if DPRK falls it's a major blow to the Mullahs. DPRK and the Mullahs could be gone by year's end. 

* Over 40 Congresscritters leaving/not running for re-election. 

* Over 200 CEOs resigned or fired for various reasons since November '17. 

* Over 18,000 unsealed magistrate orders across the country since November '17. 

 

Oh... and as of yesterday:

 

[GG]

6 hours ago, Deranged Rhino said:

Long over due for a comprehensive update to this thread. I'll remedy that over the next few days... 

 

Scorecard:

 

* KSA - purged and now swiftly reforming, protecting Coptics for the first time in its history, coming soon: the first Synagogue in the Kingdom. 

* We are standing on the precipice of a denuclearized DPRK, the ending of the Korean War and the possible unification of the peninsula.

* Hezbollah, ISIS, AQ all pushed back in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq since the KSA purge (funding cut). GCC is poised for victory over all three.

* The Iranian people continue their unique revolution, if DPRK falls it's a major blow to the Mullahs. DPRK and the Mullahs could be gone by year's end. 

 

 

If Bill Kristol had posted this, you'd accuse him of forwarding the neocon agenda

[Deranged Rhino]

2 hours ago, GG said:

 

If Bill Kristol had posted this, you'd accuse him of forwarding the neocon agenda

 

He would never post this list because he isn't interested in solutions to these problems, merely their extension in perpetuity.  

 

 

[GG]

1 hour ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

He would never post this list because he isn't interested in solutions to these problems, merely their extension in perpetuity.  

 

 

 

That's a gross mischaracterization of the theory

[Nanker]

Perhaps. But damn funny.

[Deranged Rhino]

Just now, GG said:

 

That's a gross mischaracterization of the theory

 

It's not though. None of that list happens without the first step - the KSA purge. That's something BK never would have wanted to see happen. EVER. He'd be fine with the reform that's come on its heels - but not the purge that made it all possible. Why? Because it was a gutting of the USIC's dirtiest players, guys who funded terrorism on all sides - guys who  directly pushed the neocon agenda, not for the betterment of the USA but for the benefit of their cause. 

 

The neocons were the first ones shown the door at State and CIA in January of 17 for a reason, GG. I love you, I respect you, and know we will forever disagree on this - but it's the reality. The first thing Trump did was gut the parasitic neocons and neoliberals from the USIC and State and many private transnational companies because they are/were a threat to the best interests of the United States of America. 

 

The reason we're seeing the progress in Iran, DPRK, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen almost all at once over the past four months is because the bad actors who were playing both sides were taken out. Not all of those bad actors were neocons (as I've long said, the neocons aren't the big bad, they just represent a convenient philosophy for the big bads' agenda), and not every neocon is a bad actor.  

 

There are plenty who believe they're doing what's in the best interests of the country and who were just misguided. BK is NOT one of those.

 

We're almost to the point I've been promising you for two years now, where we'll be able to sit down and have a drink and a laugh about all of this. Give it another 12-16 months.

 

 

[GG]

21 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

It's not though. None of that list happens without the first step - the KSA purge. That's something BK never would have wanted to see happen. EVER. He'd be fine with the reform that's come on its heels - but not the purge that made it all possible. Why? Because it was a gutting of the USIC's dirtiest players, guys who funded terrorism on all sides - guys who  directly pushed the neocon agenda, not for the betterment of the USA but for the benefit of their cause. 

 

The neocons were the first ones shown the door at State and CIA in January of 17 for a reason, GG. I love you, I respect you, and know we will forever disagree on this - but it's the reality. The first thing Trump did was gut the parasitic neocons and neoliberals from the USIC and State and many private transnational companies because they are/were a threat to the best interests of the United States of America. 

 

The reason we're seeing the progress in Iran, DPRK, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen almost all at once over the past four months is because the bad actors who were playing both sides were taken out. Not all of those bad actors were neocons (as I've long said, the neocons aren't the big bad, they just represent a convenient philosophy for the big bads' agenda), and not every neocon is a bad actor.  

 

There are plenty who believe they're doing what's in the best interests of the country and who were just misguided. BK is NOT one of those.

 

We're almost to the point I've been promising you for two years now, where we'll be able to sit down and have a drink and a laugh about all of this. Give it another 12-16 months.

 

 

 

I'm trying to identify all this neocon influence in the Obama admin at State & CIA, after they lost all influence in the second term of Bush's admin?

[Deranged Rhino]

1 minute ago, GG said:

 

I'm trying to identify all this neocon influence in the Obama admin at State & CIA, after they lost all influence in the second term of Bush's admin?

 

That's where we will disagree until more comes out. You're still under the illusion that Obama was running the show. 

 

He wasn't. 

[GG]

2 hours ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

That's where we will disagree until more comes out. You're still under the illusion that Obama was running the show. 

 

He wasn't. 

 

Not that illusion at all.  You seem to forget that the biggest blowback against Bush neocons came from State.  Hard to imagine that somehow they regained a voice in Foggy Bottom since that time, especially in an Obama White House that had a polar opposite worldview.

[Deranged Rhino]

I am behind on this story... and frankly I'm still working it out. Consider this a collection of information as I try to see how it (or if) it connects. At first blush it has ties into everything being discussed in numerous threads.

 

Starts with a letter on the 6th from Grassley to DNI Coats: 

 

The executive IG of the Intelligence Community (not Horowitz - completely separate office) was fired in November as a new IG was being sworn in and just when Grassley was trying to preserve documents that involve Brennan and Clapper's involvement with the dossier and the Russian narrative. 

 

Why does this matter? Start here:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-intelligence-shut-downs-damning-report-on-whistleblower-retaliation

 

 

Quote

 

The nation’s top intelligence watchdog put the brakes on a report last year that uncovered whistleblower reprisal issues within America’s spy agencies, The Daily Beast has learned. The move concealed a finding that the agencies—including the CIA and the NSA—were failing to protect intelligence workers who report waste, fraud, abuse, or criminality up the chain of command.

 

The investigators looked into 190 cases of alleged reprisal in six agencies, and uncovered a shocking pattern. In only one case out of the 190 did the agencies find in favor of the whistleblower—and that case took 742 days to complete. Other cases remained open longer. One complaint from 2010 was still waiting for a ruling. But the framework was remarkably consistent: Over and over and over again, intelligence inspectors ruled that the agency was in the right, and the whistleblowers were almost always wrong.

 

 

This is key to how the USIC has been able to run amok for so long unchecked by any other branch or any oversight agency. They cook the books. Think back to the whistleblowers BEFORE Snowden and how they were treated by the USIC and the Congress despite trying to go through proper legal channels. Think about Drake, Binney, Loomis, and Wiebe

 

https://www.npr.org/2014/07/22/333741495/before-snowden-the-whistleblowers-who-tried-to-lift-the-veil

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-edward-loomis/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-j-kirk-wiebe/

 

Watch this in full if you've never seen it - but I cued it up to the most relevant clip:

 

 

This office was doing investigations into the Boston Bombings, Clinton's email scandal - and gearing up to do the Russian dossier connection:

 

 

More:

 

Here's some stuff on the new IC IG:

 

 

 

More background material: http://m.govexec.com/management/2018/03/whistleblower-advocates-defend-embattled-intelligence-ombudsman/146413/

 

Meyer's letter: 

So what do we know? We know Meyer blew the whistle on the IG to execute Presidential Policy Directive 19 (which establishes rules for protecting whistle blowers) and as a result, Meyer got a negative performance review and then was canned:

 

So, basically Meyer exposed that his new boss, acting IG Wayne Stone was deliberately failing to protect whistle blowers and Meyers was fired in retaliation. This is interesting because Stone personally killed the damning IC IG report Meyers and former IG McCullough wrote before his exit. I'll have more to say on this specific point when I can. I suspect Coats and Grassley are weeding out more of the bad actors as they prepare to blow open the corruption and abuse in the USIC. 

 

File this one away, I have a feeling this is going to become relevant down the line. 

 

 

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-03-06 CEG RLW to DNI (Termination of IC IG Whistleblowing Executive Director).pdf

[Deranged Rhino]

This is potentially a big story, and a big sign that the war is wrapping up. I know he's a divisive figure - rightfully so. 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1164170/Lawyer-reveals-Edward-Snowden-considering-US-return.html

 

I'll have more to share on this when I can.

[Deranged Rhino]

Coming soon to a city near you:

[/dev/null]

1 minute ago, Deranged Rhino said:

Coming soon to a city near you:

Philly must have forgot to grease the light poles

[3rdnlng]

5 minutes ago, /dev/null said:

Philly must have forgot to grease the light poles

Need to worry about those Broadway Bullies.

[Deranged Rhino]