Quote (Goomshill @ Sep 20 2017 10:43pm)
The same justice and intelligence professionals we know were compromised with partisan political intrigue due to oodles of testimony and almost daily politically motivated classified information leaks?
Ice, we know that plenty of people within the justice and intelligence departments weren't doing their jobs and absolutely had sinister political motivations. We had James Comey testify to 'matters' and other interference in Hillary's emails, we had the steele dossier leak, the flynn transcripts leak, Trump's scheduling, his statements to Comey, a trickle of details from within investigations and all throughout every little facet of the story. We know all that was motivated by political intrigue. We already know that the fruits of the intelligence have been leaked by intelligence agencies for political reasons.
So the question we have to have now is whether the same people we know have been politically compromised in the past were actually being professional and apolitical in the surveillance of the Trump campaign they lied about doing.
Now I'm sure I've formatted that question in the most prejudicial way possible to make it sound like its a resolute 'no', but that possibility still exists, I don't deny it, its certainly plausible that Manafort, Flynn, Page, Trump Tower wiretaps, Unmasking- was all done above the board and with good reason and that the leaks were just one or two low level bad apples. The difference is that you're giving this presumption of innocence into an absurdly politically charged investigation where decades of cynical partisan politics surrounding watergate, whitewater, benghazi, hillary's emails, etc has shown us it would be naive to trust any actors with a clear political motivation.
We know the wiretapping occurred, we know it was used for political purposes, we know it was lied about. We don't know for sure whether it had a sinister political motivation or was just the product of people doing their jobs.
But I can tell you one thing- if people were acting in good faith, then the extraordinary step of conducting surveillance on the opposition party's campaign manager would have to be quarantined and removed from political spheres with extreme diligence, with something akin to a special counsel, because leaving even the appearance of malfeasance would be scandalous. Its the kind of conversation where they'd have to carefully weigh the toxicity of the step they are taking "Will this blow up on us? Are we so sure that Manafort is guilty of something that we'll spy on a political campaign?". Well apparently they weren't sure, and were on a fishing expedition, because a year on and no charges were produced, no indictment or incriminating evidence even after raiding his house, and now the probe is focusing on whether he committed financial crimes rather than anything within the scope of counterintelligence.
There's a big difference between leaks and starting a sham investigation because of political motivations.
In what way was the wiretapping used for political purposes? Are you speaking of the leaking, or something else?
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Sources say the second warrant was part of the FBI's efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives. Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.
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The FBI wasn't listening in June 2016, the sources said, when Donald Trump Jr. led a meeting that included Manafort, then campaign chairman, and Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, with a Russian lawyer who had promised negative information on Hillary Clinton.
I mean we don't know exactly when they were listening. As far as your last sentence, what are you talking about? You don't have all the information the special counsel does, and they've already informed him he'll likely be indicted.
Quote (Warlock316 @ Sep 22 2017 12:08pm)
i find it silly, people that believe the russia thing........
believing that says you think russia has a bigger influence in america, than the american media.... like... ok lol
This is great example showing the retardation of the Trump cult. Instead of having a reasonable, nuanced position like "hey, it's a problem that Russia is spending money to buy Facebook ads to influence our politics, but that's not even on the top 100 list as to why Hillary lost", you have to totally ignore it. Russia shouldn't get a pass on everything they did to influence the election just because you and your cult leader are insecure about the victory.
This post was edited by IceMage on Sep 22 2017 11:31am