Mark Zaid, JFK and Trump

[James DiEugenio]

Mr. Wheeler:

This is really interesting.

Addendum: It's embarrassing when a CIA operative posing as a Russian Intelligence agent looses his Crowdstrike Blackberry and Attorney General Barr and  US Attorney John Durham travel all the way to Italy to retrieve it.

Everyone should click through on this.  To me that just about cinches it as far as George P goes.

But you think Mifsud was CIA instead of FBI?  Why?

Also, what do you think the whole Awan brothers episode was about and why was Schultz invovled?

Edited October 17, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Bob Ness]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

From my understanding, Jaworski wrestled with this idea for months on end during Watergate.

He came to the conclusion that one could not indict a sitting president and that the Constitutional method was impeachment, and perhaps indicting him later once he was out of office.

Its not what the Constitution does not say, its what it says.

Jawarki's opinion is irrelevant except in the case where he makes the determination of whether to indict or not. He has no standing in this case and his decision in WG holds no value as precedent other to be used as an excuse by a Trump friendly AG . Under that understanding, as I said before, he could have the FBI jail the Supremes and eliminate a branch of government. Ridiculous. What if he shot someone? Where's the line? Answer me that.

[Ray Mitcham]

22 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

Jawarki's opinion is irrelevant except in the case where he makes the determination of whether to indict or not. He has no standing in this case and his decision in WG holds no value as precedent other to be used as an excuse by a Trump friendly AG . Under that understanding, as I said before, he could have the FBI jail the Supremes and eliminate a branch of government. Ridiculous. What if he shot someone? Where's the line? Answer me that.

"Where's the line? Answer me that." precisely Bob.

[Cliff Varnell]

3 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Where does it say in the constitution that a President cannot be indicted for a crime. Is he really above the law?

 

Just a Limey wondering.

It's not in the Constitution, Ray.  It's been a Dept. of Justice guideline since 1973.

Trump has successfully politicized the DOJ, and is above the law as long as the Trump cult of personality maintains its' hold on the Republican Party.

He'll be impeached, but likely not removed until the 2020 election.

It's interesting to watch the defenders of fascism wet themselves over Josef Misfud's blackberries.  The investigations into Carter Page and George Papadopoulos went nowhere, and since they were never reported upon before the election had no impact on anything. 

Trump's water carriers like Mr. Wheeler and Mr. DiEugenio want to pretend that the Mueller investigation had something to do with this nonsense, but it didn't.  These guys get all their talking points from Trump's disinformation playbook.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mr. Wheeler:

This is really interesting.

Addendum: It's embarrassing when a CIA operative posing as a Russian Intelligence agent looses his Crowdstrike Blackberry and Attorney General Barr and  US Attorney John Durham travel all the way to Italy to retrieve it.

Everyone should click through on this.  To me that just about cinches it as far as George P goes.

But you think Mifsud was CIA instead of FBI?  Why?

Also, what do you think the whole Awan brothers episode was about and why was Schultz invovled?

Oh oh oh!  Look over here everybody! 

Look at the deep state at work! 

Don't pay attention to Trump's treason in the Ukraine and Syria, look what "they" did with George Papadopoulos!

It's right out of the Trump playbook -- look at the latest shiny object (Steele Dossier! Steele Dossier!) while high crimes go down right out in public...Sickening.

[Cliff Varnell]

The Frothy Right Gets More Excited about an Eight Year Old Phone than Contemporaneous Metadata

https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/10/16/the-frothy-right-gets-more-excited-about-an-eight-year-old-phone-than-contemporaneous-metadata/?print=print

Marcy Wheeler -- Emptywheel -- my favorite Wheeler!

[James DiEugenio]

Bob and Ray:

In the law there is something called precedent.  Most lawyers not in the Federalist Society will tell you that its important legal doctrine.  You do not always have to abide by it, see Brown v Board 1954 versus Plessy V. Ferguson 1896,  but you have to genuinely consider it.

Concerning Mr. Wheeler and his choice for the second whistleblower, it this story is accurate, then it sounds like its either Bolton or Hill:

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/15/donald-trump-impeachment-ukraine-investigation-046915

 

 

[Bob Ness]

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Bob and Ray:

In the law there is something called precedent.  Most lawyers not in the Federalist Society will tell you that its important legal doctrine.  You do not always have to abide by it, see Brown v Board 1954 versus Plessy V. Ferguson 1896,  but you have to genuinely consider it.

Concerning Mr. Wheeler and his choice for the second whistleblower, it this story is accurate, then it sounds like its either Bolton or Hill:

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/15/donald-trump-impeachment-ukraine-investigation-046915

 

 

Jim. I said before, an opinion doesn't establish precedent. End of story. It was Jawarski's opinion not a legal precedent as in a jurist's decision. I'm sorry but although an AG may defer to Jawarski's opinion there is no requirement for him to do so. It's hysterical that you and Robert are "fine lining" every legal molecule of this gangster ass President who disregards all legal standards on a regular basis. Most likely, the only reason he hasn't been indicted (see Individual One in the Cohen case) is because of that idiotic letter, that has minimal meaning beyond Watergate. Sorry.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Bob Ness

[W. Niederhut]

FATAL FLAWS IN THE DEEP STATE-IS-OUT-TO-GET-TRUMP THEORY

 

1)  The FBI played a crucial role in defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016

       Remember all of those weekly front page stories in the mainstream U.S. media (including the NYT) in 2016 about the Hillary Email-gate nothing burger?  Most of these weekly headlines were based on leaks by anonymous FBI "sources"-- culminating in James Comey's "October Surprise" letter shortly before the election about re-opening the "investigation" of Hillary's Emails.  Recall also that Rudy Giuliani (PNAC's 9/11 man in NYC) had announced the Comey/FBI "October Surprise" in advance.  Meanwhile, Dean Baquet and the NYT had put the kibosh on any 2016 stories about the Trump campaign's collusion with the Kremlin.

2)  Russia definitely hacked the 2016 U.S. elections to put Trump and Congressional Republicans in office

       The evidence that Russia hacked our 2016 elections to put Trump and Congressional Republicans in office is overwhelming.  It was a multi-faceted Kremlin op based on Gerasimov Doctrine strategies of creating social divisions in the U.S. (ethnic, religious, cultural) in close parallel with the campaign strategies that helped Trump win the GOP nomination and Electoral College -- e.g., fear-mongering about Mexican immigrants, Muslims, blacks, etc.

3)  Trump and Congressional Republicans have repeatedly obstructed investigations of their close ties to the Kremlin, and have also blocked efforts to prevent ongoing Russian interference in our U.S. elections

4)  Trump has betrayed the research communities investigating Deep State crimes-- both the JFK assassination and 9/11

       After vowing to release the classified JFKA records in October of 2017--- as required by a unanimous act of Congress-- Trump abruptly declined to release the JFK records.

       After saying during his Republican primary debates that, "When (he is) President, Americans will find out who really destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11," Trump never said a word about what really happened on 9/11 subsequently.  In fact, his first trips abroad after his Inauguration were visits to PNAC's 9/11 co-conspirators in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

5)   Trump's main accomplices in obstructing investigations and suppressing the evidence of Republican collusion with the Kremlin have been Deep State insiders-- especially William Barr, the former CIA lawyer who was recruited to the DOJ from the Company by GHWB to manage the Iran-Contra pardons.  Another Deep State insider working for Trump has been Rudy Giuliani-- Dick Cheney and PNAC's crucial resource in NYC during the 9/11 op.  (Giuliani managed the sequestration and destruction of the WTC forensic evidence after 9/11, while telling everyone that Ground Zero was non-toxic.  He also told Peter Jennings on 9/11 that he had been forewarned by the OEM about the impending collapse of the WTC Twin Towers-- a claim which he later denied to Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission.)

[Cliff Varnell]

2 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

On a general basis, I subscribe to the Fletcher Prouty assertion that the CIA places it own people in other US Agencies, Bureaus, Service Branches, etc. So, there are mostly secret CIA agents in the FAA, Pentagon, NRC, FBI, etc. (ie. Oswald worked for the CIA as a US Marine.) 

John Solomon said the following (below) about August 18, 2019 and the article uses the term "Western Intelligence", which is implied to be CIA. (Have also seen MI6 mentioned. Mifsud was  a contractor or free-lancer [no official position in any official Intelligence agency]) Whoever he worked for in the West, the important distinction was that he was not working for Russia, which goes against the official MSM narrative and assumptions in the Mueller Report.

How many times did the "Deep State" leak the name Joseph Mifsud prior to the 2016 election?

Zero.

2 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

I mention Prouty because many of the upper management executives at the FBI are either CIA or worked very closely with the CIA. McCabe & Strzok & Page knew Mifsud was not a Russian agent but they did necessarily tell the lower level FBI field agents looking into Mifsud. Also, don't forget that Stefan Halper was on the Trump Take Down Team making introductions between Mifsud, George Pap, Carter Page.

How many times did the "Deep State" leak the names George Papadopolus and Carter Page prior to the 2016 election?

Zero.

The Steele Dossier was written up by David Corn on Halloween 2016 but the item never made the mainstream news, which was focused solely on the re-opening of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

So the purveyors of fascist black propaganda promote the myth of a "Trump Take Down Team" which was kept hidden before the election and barely made a ripple afterward.

Carter Page exonerated by Mueller report

https://www.apnews.com/24bef8b12774fba2a42c8981eca7206e

The investigations into the Steele Dossier, Mifsud, Page and Papadopolus went no where.  If Trump hadn't fired James Comey there would be no "RussiaGate."

2 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

 

Halper (Ray Cline's former son-in-law) involvement in CIA "skullduggery" goes back to Watergate, then the October Surprise, and he played important roles in Iran/Conta.

As far as McCabe, Strzok, Page and many others, working for the CIA while at the FBI, you start to scratch the surface of the business motivations of the Deep State. To over-simplify, the Deep State (Power Elite, etc.) exports weapons and imports drugs; always and still. Human Trafficking is also an important source of revenue.

Smear and innuendo are key tools in fascist black propaganda.

2 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

That Weapons, Drugs and People are the main business lines of the Deep State is not a new revelation to JFK researchers. That JFK's intentions and efforts to shut down these "rat lines" are pretty much the same as Trumps 55 years later, has mostly been incomprehensible. The Presidential Administrations  of JFK and Trump were/are a severe threat to the Weapons/Drugs franchise so they both had to, or have to, be eliminated. Trump of course has the benefit of hindsight that JFK did not have so Trump is much harder to kill. Instead we have the Russia Hoax, and now this Ukranian nonsense. 

I can write about this for hours, but if you look into McCabe, you'll find his clandestine efforts go back to pushing the Italian Mafia out of NY drug markets to make room for the Russian Mob.

This is the same Andrew McCabe who played a key role in keeping the Clinton Foundation "scandal" alive after she was formally exonerated in the e-mail case.

FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe

https://www.wsj.com/articles/laptop-may-include-thousands-of-emails-linked-to-hillary-clintons-private-server-1477854957

<quote on>

About a week after Mr. Comey’s July announcement that he was recommending against any prosecution in the Clinton email case, the FBI sought to refocus the Clinton Foundation probe, with Mr. McCabe deciding the FBI’s New York office would take the lead, with assistance from Little Rock.

The Washington field office, FBI officials decided, would focus on a separate matter involving Mr. McAuliffe. Mr. McCabe had decided earlier in the spring that he would continue to recuse himself from that probe, given the governor’s contributions to his wife’s former political campaign.

Within the FBI, the decision was viewed with skepticism by some, who felt the probe would be stronger if the foundation and McAuliffe matters were combined. Others, particularly Justice Department anticorruption prosecutors, felt that both probes were weak, based largely on publicly available information, and had found little that would merit expanded investigative authority.

According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season. Mr. McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue the issue as long as they didn’t use overt methods requiring Justice Department approvals.

The Justice Department official was “very pissed off,” according to one person close to Mr. McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dormant. Others said the Justice Department was simply trying to make sure FBI agents were following longstanding policy not to make overt investigative moves that could be seen as trying to influence an election. Those rules discourage investigators from making any such moves before a primary or general election, and, at a minimum, checking with anticorruption prosecutors before doing so.

“Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official replied, “Of course not,” these people said.

<quote off>

 

2 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Strzok (born in Iran) and Page (mother born in Iran) are both Farsi speakers. They were on the Trump Takedown Team to keep the pipeline of centrifuges and refined Uranium from Piketon, Ohio to Iran open. (Strzok's father worked for Bell Helicopter in Iran up until the Revolution. There are all kinds of suspicious relatives in the Strzok family tree.)

Briefly, the Awan brothers were part of a CIA spy effort to keep tabs on, and compromise members of Congress. It started under Chuck Schumer and then Anthony Weiner was put in charge. When Anthony left, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was put in charge. Hillary likely saw the opportunity to use secure Crowd Strike configured State Department Blackberry's to control the Super-Delegates and had Schultz have the Awan brothers hand them out and manage the syncing processes. Essentially Hillary's hubris exposed the secret communications system that the CIA/State Department was using to move weapons, drugs, and people for her own personal election purposes. 

The Deep State is not happy with Hillary. She did not win (thus preserving the status quo) and she exposed the methods and means of making millions from weapons, drugs and people. That is why you saw Mueller, a real Deep State heavy weight pulled in. He could care less about Hillary. He was needed to protect the franchise and preserve their version of the historical record. Mueller failed and now you are watching them eat their own.

Biden, overboard.

A secret "impeachment."

The push for Warren. Wait till you find out why the MSM wants Warren so bad (and pretending Sanders and Gabbard do not exist.)

The MSM pretends Bernie Sanders doesn't exist?

2 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Hint, they don't care about getting Warren in the White House, they care about getting her husband in.

So the next target of the fascist black propaganda campaign is Elizabeth Warren's husband.

Good to know.

 

[Andrew Prutsok]

I like the Deep State's elaborate plan to set up hundreds of Russian cutouts to make contact with the Trump campaign, but didn't mention any of it publicly until after the election. The real stroke of genius, however, was releasing the letter about Hillary's emails on Weiner's laptop just before the election.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Andrew Prutsok

[Paul Brancato]

4 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

FATAL FLAWS IN THE DEEP STATE-IS-OUT-TO-GET-TRUMP THEORY

 

1)  The FBI played a crucial role in defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016

       Remember all of those weekly front page stories in the mainstream U.S. media (including the NYT) in 2016 about the Hillary Email-gate nothing burger?  Most of these weekly headlines were based on leaks by anonymous FBI "sources"-- culminating in James Comey's "October Surprise" letter shortly before the election about re-opening the "investigation" of Hillary's Emails.  Recall also that Rudy Giuliani (PNAC's 9/11 man in NYC) had announced the Comey/FBI "October Surprise" in advance.  Meanwhile, Dean Baquet and the NYT had put the kibosh on any 2016 stories about the Trump campaign's collusion with the Kremlin.

2)  Russia definitely hacked the 2016 U.S. elections to put Trump and Congressional Republicans in office

       The evidence that Russia hacked our 2016 elections to put Trump and Congressional Republicans in office is overwhelming.  It was a multi-faceted Kremlin op based on Gerasimov Doctrine strategies of creating social divisions in the U.S. (ethnic, religious, cultural) in close parallel with the campaign strategies that helped Trump win the GOP nomination and Electoral College -- e.g., fear-mongering about Mexican immigrants, Muslims, blacks, etc.

3)  Trump and Congressional Republicans have repeatedly obstructed investigations of their close ties to the Kremlin, and have also blocked efforts to prevent ongoing Russian interference in our U.S. elections

4)  Trump has betrayed the research communities investigating Deep State crimes-- both the JFK assassination and 9/11

       After vowing to release the classified JFKA records in October of 2017--- as required by a unanimous act of Congress-- Trump abruptly declined to release the JFK records.

       After saying during his Republican primary debates that, "When (he is) President, Americans will find out who really destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11," Trump never said a word about what really happened on 9/11 subsequently.  In fact, his first trips abroad after his Inauguration were visits to PNAC's 9/11 co-conspirators in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

5)   Trump's main accomplices in obstructing investigations and suppressing the evidence of Republican collusion with the Kremlin have been Deep State insiders-- especially William Barr, the former CIA lawyer who was recruited to the DOJ from the Company by GHWB to manage the Iran-Contra pardons.  Another Deep State insider working for Trump has been Rudy Giuliani-- Dick Cheney and PNAC's crucial resource in NYC during the 9/11 op.  (Giuliani managed the sequestration and destruction of the WTC forensic evidence after 9/11, while telling everyone that Ground Zero was non-toxic.  He also told Peter Jennings on 9/11 that he had been forewarned by the OEM about the impending collapse of the WTC Twin Towers-- a claim which he later denied to Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission.)

I am not sure about point 2. Creating social divisions and fear mongering about Mexicans and Muslims etc is the way the Republican Party wins elections. Targeting swing districts with fake news and eliminating millions of Democrats from the voter roles are also homegrown strategies. The Trump campaign admits openly that they used FB extensively. Cambridge Analytica supplied deep and detailed info to help Trump win and to help pass Brexit. So what exactly did the Russians provide that wasn’t already in play? I think there is plenty of collusion between Trump and Putin, but suspect it’s financially motivated. And Putin may have a Trump’s balls in a vice. But narrowing the Russia investigation to whether or not Russia hacked our election missed much larger points. Other jurisdictions are pursuing financial collusion and chicanery. 

I read that former Chief Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose resignation made room for Kavanaugh, has a son who works for Deutsche Bank in the real estate loan department. Something smells really fishy there. 

[W. Niederhut]

Paul,

     I was referring to the vast database of 2016 Facebook ads promoted by Russian xxxxx factories, most of which closely mirrored Trump campaign talking points about Muslims, Black Lives Matter, and hordes of rapacious Mexican invaders, etc.  They were posted by Russian trolls using fake American identities like, "Heart of Texas."

    We also know that Russian military intel hacked state voter databases throughout the U.S., and had the capability to alter voter registrations and vote tallies-- contrary to Trump's claim that, "no votes were altered," and that he (Trump) "believed Putin's claim that Russia did not interfere in our elections."

Edited October 18, 2019 by W. Niederhut

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Paul,

     I was referring to the vast database of 2016 Facebook ads promoted by Russian xxxxx factories, most of which closely mirrored Trump campaign talking points about Muslims, Black Lives Matter, and hordes of rapacious Mexican invaders, etc.  They were posted by Russian trolls using fake American identities like, "Heart of Texas."

    We also know that Russian military intel hacked state voter databases throughout the U.S., and had the capability to alter voter registrations and vote tallies-- contrary to Trump's claim that, "no votes were altered," and that he (Trump) "believed Putin's claim that Russia did not interfere in our elections."

The alleged voter database story was retracted. It is fake news Exhibit A. 

The “vast” Facebook ad buy amounted to about $40,000. To describe it as statistically insignificant would be an exaggeration. The firm involved was a commercial click-bait operation, as the Mueller Report concedes.

The alleged Russian military activity is, to date, an unproven assertion made by an investigatory body which has been frequently wrong. 

Factual information please.

[Bob Ness]

7 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

The alleged voter database story was retracted. It is fake news Exhibit A. 

The “vast” Facebook ad buy amounted to about $40,000. To describe it as statistically insignificant would be an exaggeration. The firm involved was a commercial click-bait operation, as the Mueller Report concedes.

The alleged Russian military activity is, to date, an unproven assertion made by an investigatory body which has been frequently wrong. 

Factual information please.

What did Facebook say about their organic results? Just wondering if you know that. The money supposedly spent on ad buys doesn't include funds for organic search optimization via Facebook, Google or Bing nor does it account for comment spamming on thousands and thousands of websites such as this (as many people here do in fact). It's easy to direct a few influencers to bogus sites like DC Leaks and others and scale the ad buy. I also believe the 40k number is incorrect but I don't know where you got that.