Attorney's file on Roger Stone, LaRouche and Russia influencing the 2016 presidential election

[Cliff Varnell]

48 minutes ago, Cory Santos said:

But, then why did Mueller not indict President Trump?

DOJ guidelines prevent indicting a sitting President.

There's a strong case for obstruction, apparently, and Mueller may have wanted the Congress to take it up.

[James DiEugenio]

This is just one example of what I am talking about.

https://fair.org/home/the-utility-of-the-russiagate-conspiracy/

This article shows that HRC and Podesta  decided to make the whole Putin thing a part of their campaign. 

It was easy then to switch it into overdrive as the reason for their loss.  There are many stories like this on line.  A guy named Aaron Mate at the Nation was excellent on this issue.

[Bob Ness]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Bob:

It was the MSM who fell for the HRC/Podesta story about Russian interference with the election. 

It was the MSM that then swallowed the Steele Dossier. Without verifying it. Neither could Mueller.

Well, let me add, they failed to verify it since the Post did sent a team to Prague to see if Cohen was there.  They could not find any evidence.  Apparently, this did not count, or  as Jim Garrison said about his conviction of Dean Andrews for perjury, "You might have seen that on page 72 of the NY Times, right next to ship departures."

If you still want to march to Moscow over this, be my guest.  You will need a lot of luck since, as an FBI agent said long ago, "There is no there there."

But if you go to today's Washington Post, there is a quite interesting article about how the House, including my girl AOC, wants to turn away from this and go back to the issue that won last year. Namely Health Care.

But Jim, you well know a CI investigation by Cyber Command, The FBI, CIA and NSA was well under way during the campaign regarding Russian trolls and election meddling. I personally think this was a tit-for-tat by Russia as has been going on for years, if not decades.  A drunk George Papadopolous, in May of 2016, whimsied such to an Aussie diplomat prior to his miraculous "come to pardon" moment later. After his arrest, he gave the heads up to Joseph Milsfud who vanished mysteriously, never to be seen again for questioning. Laying this at the feet of HRC and Podesta is ridiculous.

Nobody that I'm aware of has ever said the Steele dossier was anything but an unverified draft political hit piece including Steele.

I've never stated in any way whether Cohen was in Prague or not, which in my view doesn't make any difference and has no bearing on whether or not Trump was colluding or conspiring with Russians. It refutes one claim but my concern has been what Trump's said in the open and the bee hive of lies and misrepresentations by him, his family and other high ranking members of his entourage, including his National Security Advisor!!

But if you go to today's Washington Post, there is a quite interesting article about how the House, including my girl AOC, wants to turn away from this and go back to the issue that won last year. Namely Health Care. Oh Trump's after health care because his only concern of course is that Obama's signature accomplishment be dashed on the rocks. Ol Trumpster doesn't exactly care too much for the black man gettin all uppity and making jokes of him. If anyone think Trump's actions reflect a policy disagreement they're sorely mistaken "Who knew health care was complicated etc...".

There is no obligation of the intelligence agencies to mount a criminal case against anyone outside our borders. It is clear in my mind there is plenty of reason to suspect someone who is the beneficiary of their (Russians) efforts and displays the kind of denials he still does in the face of the contrary assessments of the intel agencies. The information derived from that investigation is often times not actionable legally and is just as often unwise to do so; for example when WW2 spies and objectives were discovered by code breakers in Europe and the Pacific but the method of discovery was deemed too valuable to risk. Off the top of my head NSA's ability to break 256 or 512 bit encryption methods would be comparable today.

I just don't think it's right that a Presidential candidate can solicit election interference from an adversary on live TV and his coward political flock say nothing. Combine that with the countless times his underlings lied about the nature of the campaign's meetings with Russians and Trumps business entanglements and the picture is pretty clear.

The President was also in a "defense agreement" with 37 other people which of course allows their attorneys to horse trade information, pardon agreements, testimony and all those other wonderful items which would make Mueller's job difficult. I haven't seen any outrage from the right about that and how it could play into the big scheme.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is just one example of what I am talking about.

https://fair.org/home/the-utility-of-the-russiagate-conspiracy/

This article shows that HRC and Podesta  decided to make the whole Putin thing a part of their campaign. 

Let's imagine if the Russian hack story were the focus of cable news coverage over the last 11 days of the election.

Hillary probably would have won in a landslide.

But RussiaGate never came up over the last 11 days -- cable news shows were all over the Hillary e-mail story exclusively.

So much for the deep state plot against Trump...

Quote

It was easy then to switch it into overdrive as the reason for their loss.  There are many stories like this on line.  A guy named Aaron Mate at the Nation was excellent on this issue.

I'd list it #6 in the reasons Hillary lost.

GOP voter suppression; James Comey re-opening the e-mail controvers;, Hillary's poor campaign; Bill's visit with Loretta Lynch; and the free advertising cable news gave Trump are all bigger reasons for Hillary's loss than the Julian/Vlad Show.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[Cory Santos]

10 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

DOJ guidelines prevent indicting a sitting President.

There's a strong case for obstruction, apparently, and Mueller may have wanted the Congress to take it up.

Yes, though I think legally there is still a debate between scholars as to whether it is constitutional to indict a president prior to impeachment.  I think the issue is more rich than that.  Question, if some evidence connected LBJ to the assasination could he have pardoned himself?  Did he have an ace in his pocket when he lied about the assasination, gulf of Tonkin and the USS Liberty?  Are presidents therefore above the law?  Interesting things to consider.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Cory Santos

[Cliff Varnell]

7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

It was the MSM that then swallowed the Steele Dossier.

Nobody swallowed the Steele Dossier. 

Buzzfeed tagged it "unverified" when they published it on Jan. 10, 2017.  On Feb 13, 2017, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn resigned for lying about discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador.  On March 1, 2017, it was revealed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had lied to the Senate about his meetings with Russians during the campaign.  On May 9, 2017, Trump fired James Comey in order to suppress the RussiaGate investigation -- he twice admitted to such.

Those were the events that drove RussiaGate, not the Steele Dossier.

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[Kirk Gallaway]

9 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

It was the MSM who removed from the 2016 Republican platform the policy of providing offensive weapons to Ukraine?

It was the MSM who announced to the world "Russia, if you're listening, find the 30,000 missing e-mails"?

It was the MSM who forced Michael Flynn to lie about what he discussed with the Russians?

It was the MSM who forced Jeff Sessions to lie about meeting Russians?

It was the MSM who forced Jared Kushner to leave off his meetings with Russians on his security forms?

It was the MSM who fired James Comey and then bragged the next day to the Russians that the firing took the pressure off the RussiaGate investigation, and then doubled down on that on national TV?

It was the MSM who sought to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and lied about it?

It was the MSM who admitted they met with some Russians in Trump Tower because they were promised dirt on Hillary Clinton?

It's the MSM who are forcing Trump to never say a bad word about Vladimir Putin?

Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and James DiEugenio refuse to acknowledge the behavior of Trump et al as the central driver of RussiaGate.

 

Whoa! Cliff. These are just the kind of questions Jim Di will run from like the plague. Just as any direct questions I ask, he'll inevitably evoke HC or Nixon. Just as "mum's the word" about the nature of the financial dealings throughout the world that can be verified from not only his family's statements but even more darkly from others he's associated with.

Don't take the MSM away from Jim, who  believes like Trump, they are the entire reason we are where we are. Where would Jim be without the wimpy victimization message he proselytizes to all his minions here that we have no free will in the face of the MSM omnipotence and are so all helpless to move the needle about the JFKA or anything else in the present.

Bob says:

Nobody that I'm aware of has ever said the Steele dossier was anything but an unverified draft political hit piece including Steele.

I've never stated in any way whether Cohen was in Prague or not, which in my view doesn't make any difference and has no bearing on whether or not Trump was colluding or conspiring with Russians.

Oh Bob,So nobody bought the  Steele Dossier?!! It was only jammed down or throats by the MSM, so in choking desperation, our only mantra could be Impeach Trump! Impeach Trump!

Don't don't take away the Steele dossier! What would be left of our trio's buzzword's  peetape!, Prague!.  It's that same sort of wimpy susceptibility, that will cause someone to see a tabloid story about the Kennedys at a grocery checkout and cry foul  at the ungodly smearing of the Kennedy family from the Mainstream Media!

Bob says;

Oh Trump's after health care because his only concern of course is that Obama's signature accomplishment be dashed on the rocks. Ol Trumpster doesn't exactly care too much for the black man gettin all uppity and making jokes of him. If anyone think Trump's actions reflect a policy disagreement they're sorely mistaken "Who knew health care was complicated etc...".

And apparently Trump now emboldened by what he has misread as "total exoneration" is going to go back after the ACA. Talk about a fool who could snatch defeat from the jaws of the hope of a victory!

Edited March 27, 2019 by Kirk Gallaway

[James DiEugenio]

Bob:

I will reply to you since you are not rabid.

Look, as I have said from the beginning, if you are going to go after a president, you better be sure you can bring him down.  James Neal, a very able prosecutor, said this during the Watergate episode and he was not the only one who did.

Did Putin try and help Trump?  Maybe, maybe not.  I do know that the evidence usually adduced for this, the whole Guccifer 2.0 thing, has been brought into question.  By no less than Bill BInney, one of the best NSA analysts of modern times. 

https://raymcgovern.com/2018/09/02/bill-binney-explains-how-we-know-guccifer-2-0-is-a-fraud/

As I also noted, the whole xxxxx farm thing has also been brought into doubt by Gareth Porter.  And I already linked to his article at Consortium News.

I really don't know how many links I have to provide. Why not buy the book Shattered?

But can I ask you a question?  Why is it verboten for the Russians to try and interfere with our elections, but it is OK for us to interfere in theirs?

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-07-09-mn-22423-story.html

Now, as you read this, our interference was not some xxxxx farms, it was blatant and it was massive. You are talking experts being shipped there plus tons of money, I mean tons of it. This helped cause the Russian economy to descend into the Stone Age via Jeff Sachs. It also emboldened the drunken fool Yeltsin to fire on his own people who were protesting, killing anywhere from 100-500 people. (There are much higher estimates)

Did Putin and the Russians do anything like that in 2016? 

I just do not understand the double standard. Especially when what Bill Clinton did  is proven; but the Russian stuff in America is questionable. 

Is this supposed to be part of American Exceptionalism?  If so, if you recall, our record on that is not very good e.g.Guatemala in 1954.

Edited March 27, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Bob:

I will reply to you since you are not rabid.

Jim D. won't respond to me because he almost always takes the worst of it. 

Quote

Look, as I have said from the beginning, if you are going to go after a president, you better be sure you can bring him down.  James Neal, a very able prosecutor, said this during the Watergate episode and he was not the only one who did.

Did Putin try and help Trump?  Maybe, maybe not.

Jim D doesn't read his own links? 

Gareth Porter:

The Internet Research Agency (IRA), is a privately-owned company run by entrepreneur Vevgeny V. Prigozhin, who has ties with President Vladimir Putin. Its employees poured out large numbers of social media postings apparently aimed at stoking racial and cultural tensions in the United States and trying to influence U.S. voters in regard to the presidential election, as Shane and Mazzetti suggest. They even adopted false U.S. personas online to get people to attend rallies and conduct other political activities. (An alternative explanation is that IRA is a purely commercial, and not political, operation.)

Whether those efforts even came close to swaying U.S. voters in the 2016 presidential election, as Shane and Mazzetti claimed, is another matter.</q>

Quote

I do know that the evidence usually adduced for this, the whole Guccifer 2.0 thing, has been brought into question.  By no less than Bill BInney, one of the best NSA analysts of modern times. 

https://raymcgovern.com/2018/09/02/bill-binney-explains-how-we-know-guccifer-2-0-is-a-fraud/

As I also noted, the whole xxxxx farm thing has also been brought into doubt by Gareth Porter.  And I already linked to his article at Consortium News.

I really don't know how many links I have to provide. Why not buy the book Shattered?

But can I ask you a question?  Why is it verboten for the Russians to try and interfere with our elections, but it is OK for us to interfere in theirs?

It's not okay for any country to interfere with the elections of other governments.

The government of So Vietnam interfered in our election in 1968, the Ayatollah interfered in 1980, an Australian interfered in 2000, and Vladimir Putin interfered in 2016.

The 2016 election featured a multi-faceted voter suppression campaign spearheaded by GOP Voter ID laws and voter roll purges; a relentless Benghazi smear campaign, and James Comey weighing in on Trump's side.

What Putin did was on the level of a prank compared to all that.

As if your house gets egged and then falls down.

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[Cory Santos]

11 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

"controlled"?  The one percent own 98 plus percent of the Main Stream Media. 

That literally means what?   Because tv networks are owned by wealthy individuals its a conspiracy?  

[James DiEugenio]

Cory:
 

I think what Ron means is that since the media is so concentrated now, it does not take much to get them all on the same bandwagon.  Which, if you recall from civics class, is a sure fire way to create propaganda.

Robert:

I agree about HRC being the anointed one, a year in advance. And Sanders arriving too late for the first pitch. I didn't know about her tweets though.

And BTW, I have to say, before I started working on other things, like JFK and Israel, I started to look into that whole E mail private server thing and the Clinton Foundation.  I was predisposed against it. But after doing some preliminary work on it, I have to say, I really think there is a there there.

 HRC should hope that Graham does not do a real inquiry into it.  The thing that struck me most about it was the multiple erasures of a single entry.  Plus the fact that the guy who did it took the fifth.

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Bob Ness]

8 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Bob:

I will reply to you since you are not rabid.

Don't sell me short Jim! I won't stand for it hahaha!

Look, as I have said from the beginning, if you are going to go after a president, you better be sure you can bring him down.  James Neal, a very able prosecutor, said this during the Watergate episode and he was not the only one who did.

Yep. No doubt about that! And it shouldn't be some spurious garbage created out of thin air with no preceding behavior that suggests, at the very least, a predisposition for compromise such as: relationships with alleged money-laundering people and entities such as Philip Sater, Deutch Bank, and the little spoken of, but very filthy Trump Ocean Club in Panama.

Did Putin try and help Trump?  Maybe, maybe not.  I do know that the evidence usually adduced for this, the whole Guccifer 2.0 thing, has been brought into question.  By no less than Bill BInney, one of the best NSA analysts of modern times.

I'm pretty certain Jim that Putin had it out for HRC (see below for more on that). I don't know of Binney's credentials currently (this field changes daily) but I'm personally not capable of disputing him. I don't think he has concluded this with certainty however and I'm inclined to believe at face value the current intelligence take on this. Regardless, the allegations of Russian interference do not hang by that thread alone. It's pretty clear there are a lot of benefits and justifications for actions by Russia.

As I also noted, the whole xxxxx farm thing has also been brought into doubt by Gareth Porter.  And I already linked to his article at Consortium News.

I really don't know how many links I have to provide. Why not buy the book Shattered?

No offense but links to articles sends me into a new round of checking sources, the countervailing opinions, relinking those etc. I often find links posted here to be suspect or outright false (not yours, but in general) so I only check those I think necessary (I'm also not not keen on rewarding comment spammers looking for traffic haha).

But can I ask you a question?  Why is it verboten for the Russians to try and interfere with our elections, but it is OK for us to interfere in theirs?

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-07-09-mn-22423-story.html

Now, as you read this, our interference was not some xxxxx farms, it was blatant and it was massive. You are talking experts being shipped there plus tons of money, I mean tons of it. This helped cause the Russian economy to descend into the Stone Age via Jeff Sachs. It also emboldened the drunken fool Yeltsin to fire on his own people who were protesting, killing anywhere from 100-500 people. (There are much higher estimates)

Did Putin and the Russians do anything like that in 2016? 

I just do not understand the double standard. Especially when what Bill Clinton did  is proven; but the Russian stuff in America is questionable. 

It's not verboten as I stated earlier in this thread it's a tit-for-tat that has been going on for decades. The Russians traditionally have been much better at it since they've been engaged in this sort of business with their neighbors since before Dzerzhinsky. HRC and the U.S. State Department had plenty of enthusiasm after the Arab Spring to engage in low-intensity antics which no doubt fueled a response. I don't know the gory details so much but I tend to look at these things from a high altitude. Regarding our current President, all of these points don't lead to Trump being innocent or a good choice as POTUS. He looks to be another Republican disaster which is too bad ( he's still not as bad as GWB, IMO). I'd much rather see a political commingling of the two parties which tends to bring out mutually beneficial discourse rather than "rabid" entrenchment of the clergy, so to speak. I'm definetly not a "beta" centrist either it's just my personal policy is I learn more from those I disagree with than those whom I concur.

Is this supposed to be part of American Exceptionalism?  If so, if you recall, our record on that is not very good e.g.Guatemala in 1954.

"American Exceptionalism", otherwise known as "Alice in Wonderland". Nuff said.

[James DiEugenio]

Like that last comment Bob.

I agree that some people's links need to be further checked about sources.  Thanks for not dissing mine.

BTW, here is a quote from Gareth Porter's update  on the whole xxxxx farm operation:

And now, according to the further research, the odds that Americans saw any of these IRA ads—let alone were influenced by them—are even more astronomical. In his Oct. 2017 testimony, Stretch said that from 2015 to 2017, “Americans using Facebook were exposed to, or ‘served,’ a total of over 33 trillion stories in their News Feeds.”

To put the 33 trillion figure over two years in perspective, the 80,000 Russian-origin Facebook posts represented just .0000000024 of total Facebook content in that time.

[James DiEugenio]

BTW Bob, I think I would agree with you. In the overall scheme of things, Trump is still not as bad as W.

I say that largely based on the fact that, although his domestic policies are pretty horrid, he does not have a foreign policy disaster like the invasion of Iraq on his hands.  IMO, Iraq is the worst overseas debacle since Vietnam. 

And I also agree that Putin really did not want to see HRC win the election and favored Trump.  The question I have is about the proof of a conspiracy.

Edited March 27, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Cory Santos]

Who gave us NAFTA and ruined the middle class economy?  Not Trump.  Who signed the 2012 NDAA?  Not Trump.  Who released terrorist?  Not Trump.  Who sent the military into Iraq and Afghanistan?  Not Trump.  Who destroyed the decency of our country by having an affair in the White House and then lying about it?  Not Trump.  Who was behind Iran Contra?  Not Trump.  Who pardoned Nixon?  Who lied about the Gulf of Tonkin and USS Liberty?  I could go on.

Whats my point?

First, to compare Trump with other presidents now is somewhat nonsensical because he has not been president long enough to properly evaluate and consider his actions.  Is he doing the right thing with N. Korea?  We have to wait and see.  The tax changes and low unemployment?  Again it will take time to see.  

Second, the above shows President Trump did not create the mess we are in.  50 years of post WWII thinking mixed with other things economically, socially, morally and technologically did that.  

The breakdown in government started well before Trump and must be blamed partly on the MSM and lack of real journalism-as evident in the Russia collusion  scare and, coincidently, the failure of the MSM to properly vet and or investigate the JFK assasination.