Quote (IceMage @ Dec 20 2019 03:58pm)

Trump, his chronies, and the news network half the country watches has been claiming for years that the Russia investigation was a manufactured coup attempt. That's the bar they set. Comey is right when he says the FBI has been vindicated.

Funnily enough, this is how Trump's misbehavior regarding Russiagate got nowhere with the voters. People hyped up the possibilities to such a high bar that his attempted obstruction and lies about Russia-related contacts didn't end up mattering to people. The same applies here. The cult cried wolf too many times.



So you're saying I'm incorrect that the FBI made omissions with the Carter Page FISA? Clearly you didn't read the IG report.

Quote (IceMage @ Dec 20 2019 03:58pm)

Trump, his chronies, and the news network half the country watches has been claiming for years that the Russia investigation was a manufactured coup attempt. That's the bar they set. Comey is right when he says the FBI has been vindicated.



So you're saying I'm incorrect that the FBI made omissions with the Carter Page FISA? Clearly you didn't read the IG report.

Quote (IceMage @ Dec 20 2019 03:58pm)

...Comey is right when he says the FBI has been vindicated...

Quote

Our review found that FBI personnel fell far
short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure
that all factual statements in a FISA application are
"scrupulously accurate." We identified multiple
instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the
first FISA application were inaccurate, incomplete, or
unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon
information the FBI had in its possession at the time the
application was filed. We found that the problems we
identified were primarily caused by the Crossfire
Hurricane team failing to share all relevant information
with OI and, consequently, the information was not
considered by the Department decision makers who
ultimately decided to support the applications.

We found that the FBI's decision to rely upon Steele's election reporting to
help establish probable cause that Page was an agent of Russia was a judgment
reached initially by the case agents on the Crossfire Hurricane team. We further
found that FBI officials at every level concurred with this judgment, from the OGC
attorneys assigned to the investigation to senior CD officials, then FBI General
Counsel James Baker, then Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and then Director
James Comey. FBI leadership supported relying on Steele's reporting to seek a
FISA orderauthorizing surveillance targeting Page after being advised of, and
giving consideration to, the concerns expressed by Evans that Steele may have
been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC,
and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would
probablynot be worth the "risk" of being criticized later for collecting
communications of someone (Carter Page) who was "politically sensitive."

Quote

As more fully described in Chapter Five, based
upon the information known to the FBI in October 2016,
the first application contained the following seven
significant inaccuracies and omissions:

1. Omitted information the FBI had obtained from
another U.S. government agency detailing its
prior relationship with Page, including that Page
had been approved as an "operational contact"
for the other agency from 2008 to 2013, and
that Page had provided information to the other
agency concerning his prior contacts with certain
Russian intelligence officers, one of which
overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA
application;

2. Included a source characterization statement
asserting that Steele's prior reporting had been
"corroborated and used in criminal proceedings,"
which overstated the significance of Steele's past
reporting and was not approved by Steele's
handling agent, as required by the Woods
Procedures;

3. Omitted information relevant to the reliability of
Person 1, a key Steele sub-source (who was
attributed with providing the information in
Report 95 and some of the information in
Reports 80 and 102 relied upon in the
application), namely that ( 1) Steele himself told
members of the Crossfire Hurricane team that
Person 1 was a "boaster" and an "egoist" and
" may engage in some embellishment" and (2)
the FBI had opened a counterintelligence
investigation on Person 1 a few days before the
FISA application was filed;

4. Asserted that the FBI had assessed that Steele
did not directly provide to the press information
in the September 23 Yahoo News article based
on the premise that Steele had told the FBI that
he only shared his election-related research with
the FBI and Fusion GPS, his client; this premise
was incorrect and contradicted by documentation
in the Woods File-Steele had told the FBI that
he also gave his information to the State
Department;

5. Omitted Papadopoulos's consensually monitored
statements to an FBI CHS in September 2016
denying that anyone associated with the Trump
campaign was collaborating with Russia or with
outside groups like Wikileaks in the release of
emails;

6. Omitted Page's consensually monitored
statements to an FBI CHS in August 2016 that
Page had "literally never met" or "said one word
to" Paul Manafort and that Manafort had not
responded to any of Page's emails; if true, those
statements were in t ension with claims in Report
95 that Page was participating in a conspiracy
with Russia by acting as an intermediary for
Manafort on behalf of the Trump campaign; and

7. Included Page's consensually monitored
statements to an FBI CHS in October 2016 that
the FBI believed supported its theory that Page
was an agent of Russia but omitted other
statements Page made that were inconsistent
with its theory, including denying having met
with Sechin and Divyekin, or even knowing who
Divyekin was; if true, those statements
contradicted the claims in Report 94 that Page
had met secretly with Sechin and Divyekin about
future cooperation with Russia and shared
derogatory information about candidate Clinton.

None of these inaccuracies and omissions were
brought to the attention of OI before the last FISA
application was filed in June 2017. Consequently, these
failures were repeated in all three renewal applications.
Further, as we discuss lat er, we identified 10 additional
significant errors in the renewa l applications.

Quote

8. Omitted the fact that Steele's Primary Subsource, who the FBI found credible, had made
statements in January 2017 raising significant
questions about the reliability of allegations
included in the FISA applications, including, for
example, that he/she did not recall any
discussion wit h Person 1 concerning Wikileaks
and there was "nothing bad" about the
communications between the Kremlin and the
Trump team, and that he/she did not report to
Steele in July 2016 that Page had met with
Sechin;

9. Omitted Page's prior relationship with another
U.S. government agency, despite being
reminded by the other agency in June 2017,
prior to the fil ing of the fi nal renewal
application, about Page's past st atus with that
other agency; instead of including this
information in the final renewal application, the
OGC Attorney altered an email from the other
agency so that the email stated t hat Page was
" not a source" for the other agency, which the
FBI affiant relied upon in signing t he final
renewal application;

10. Omitted information from persons who
previously had professional contacts with Steele
or had direct knowledge of his work-related
performance, including statements that Steele
had no history of reporting in bad faith but
"[d]emonstrates lack of self-awareness, poor
judgment," "pursued people with political risk
but no intelligence value," "didn't always
exercise great judgment," and it was " not clear
what he would have done to validate" his
reporting;

11. Omitted information obtained from Ohr about
Steele and his election reporting, including that
( 1) Steele's reporting was going to Clinton's
presidential campaign and others, (2) Simpson
was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with
the media, and (3) Steele was "desperate t hat
Donald Trump not get elected and was
passionate about him not being the U.S.
President";

12. Failed to update the description of Steele after
information became known to the Crossfire
Hurricane team, from Ohr and others, that
provided greater clarity on t he political origins
and connections of Steele's reporting, including
that Simpson was hired by someone associated
with the Democratic Party and/or the DNC;

13. Failed to correct the assertion in the first FISA
application that the FBI did not believe that
Steele directly provided information to the
reporter who wrote the September 23 Yahoo
News article, even though there was no
information in the Woods File to support this
claim and even after certain Crossfire Hurricane
officials learned in 2017, before the third
renewal application, of an admission that Steele
made in a court filing about his interactions with
the news media in the late summer and early
fall of 2016;

14. Omitted the finding from a FBI source validation
report that Steele was suitable for continued
operation but that his past contributions to the
FBI's criminal program had been " minimally
corroborated," and instead continued to assert
in the source characterization statement that
Steele's prior reporting had been "corroborated
and used in criminal proceedings";

15. Omitted Papadopoulos's statements to an FBI
CHS in late October 2016 denying that the
Trump campaign was involved in t he
circumstances of the DNC email hack;

16. Omitted Joseph Mifsud's denials to the FBI that
he supplied Papadopoulos with the information
Papadopoulos shared with the FFG (suggesting
that the campaign received an offer or
suggestion of assistance from Russia); and

17. Omitted information indicating that Page played
no role in the Republican platform change on
Russia's annexation of Ukraine as alleged in the
Report 95, which was inconsistent with a factual
assertion relied upon to support probable cause
in all four FISA applications.

Quote (bogie160 @ 20 Dec 2019 16:44)

Why sink to their level?

The FBI demonstrated at best a staggering amount of incompetence. It's going to be impossible to do more than infer motive, because as dumb as these guys are, it's not like they're going to put it in email.

Quote (IceMage @ Dec 20 2019 03:58pm)

...Comey is right when he says the FBI has been vindicated...

Quote

That so many basic and fundamental errors
were made by three separate, hand-picked teams on
one of the most sensitive FBI investigations that was
briefed to the highest levels within t he FBI, and that FBI
officials expected would eventually be subjected to
close scrutiny, raised significant questions regarding the
FBI chain of command's management and supervision
of the FISA process. FBI Headquarters established a
chain of command for Crossfire Hurricane that included
close supervision by senior CD managers, who then
briefed FBI leadership throughout the investigation.
Although we do not expect managers and supervisors to
know every fact about an investigation, or senior
officials to know all the details of cases about which
they are briefed, in a sensitive, high-priority matter like
this one, it is reasonable to expect that they will take
the necessary steps to ensure that they are sufficiently
familiar with the facts and circumstances supporting
and potentially undermining a FISA application in order
to provide effective oversight, consistent with their level
of supervisory responsibility. We concluded that the
information that was known to the managers,
supervisors, and senior officials should have resulted in
questions being raised regarding the reliabi lity of the
Steele reporting and the probable cause supporting the
FISA applications, but did not.

Quote

WASHINGTON — The secret federal court that approves orders for conducting surveillance on suspected foreign terrorists or spies issued a strong and highly unusual public rebuke to the FBI on Tuesday, ordering the agency to say how it intends to correct the errors revealed last week by a Justice Department report on one aspect of the FBI's investigation of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

Quote

A former FBI analyst was sentenced to seven days in jail and a $500 fine Friday for illegally accessing a neighbor’s email account in a bid to head off an apparent smear campaign against special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mark Tolson, 60, pleaded guilty in September to a single misdemeanor charge of computer fraud and abuse for his unusual effort last fall to derail eccentric Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman’s attempt to obtain information to be used in sexual misconduct allegations against Mueller.
Tolson admitted he unlawfully accessed Burkman’s emails in October 2018, after the conspiracy-minded lobbyist announced plans to hold a news conference to air sexual harassment allegations against Mueller.
After snooping through Burkman’s account, Tolson sent screenshots of the messages and offered the password to an unspecified journalist, court filings say.
Tolson’s wife, Sarah Gilbert Fox, facilitated the illicit access by providing Burkman’s email password, which she had obtained for work she’d previously done for him.
At Tolson’s sentencing Friday morning in Alexandria, Va., the longtime FBI employee told U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema that he acted out of a desire “to protect Director Mueller” from what Tolson believed were false allegations. “It was because of the press conference, your honor,” the ex-FBI official said.
“This is actually a very serious offense,” Brinkema said. “You’re lucky. Your wife is lucky. The government could have prosecuted her as well.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Berrang asked for a short prison term in the case, saying Tolson’s motives were not as pure as he’d suggested because his wife believed she was owed money and Tolson was personally annoyed with Burkman.
Berrang said Tolson’s decision to take the information first to a reporter rather than the FBI suggested the actions weren’t just about preventing harm to Mueller or his probe.
However, Tolson’s attorney, Edward MacMahon Jr., disputed that.
“There was no other motivation here other than to protect Mueller,” MacMahon said.
“The government makes a good point,” Brinkema replied. “Why wouldn’t you go to the FBI instead of the press?”
MacMahon said Tolson did tell the FBI what he’d done within a day or so, but was really focused on scuttling the planned news conference, which never took place.
The effort by Burkman and right-wing activist Jacob Wohl to target Mueller was widely condemned, particularly following reports that mysterious individuals were contacting Mueller’s female former colleagues and offering to pay them for damaging information.
The defense lawyer called Tolson’s actions “foolish,” but also urged the judge not to give Tolson jail time, saying the episode already caused Tolson to lose his job.
“He does not need to be punished any further,” MacMahon said.
Brinkema ultimately concluded that some incarceration was appropriate to send a message that illegally accessing others’ emails is wrong, particularly when those doing so work in government or law enforcement.
“You can’t just rummage through other people’s accounts,” said the judge, a Clinton appointee. “You had to have known better.”
Brinkema also had a word of praise for the unnamed journalist who decided not to act on the information and password offer Tolson relayed via an encrypted app.
“I would commend whoever the media people are who turned it down,” the judge said, before adding to Tolson that he might have faced more serious charges or punishment if emails from Burkman’s account had been published.
“You’re actually probably lucky you didn’t get an unethical media person,” Brinkema said, without being explicit about whether she thought it would have been improper for the press to publish the messages or just to use the password.
Brinkema said Tolson can serve the seven-day sentence after the holidays, but will also have to do 50 hours of community service and will be on probation for a year.
Burkman did not respond to a message seeking comment on the sentencing.

Quote (Goomshill @ 21 Dec 2019 07:54)

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/20/ex-fbi-official-mark-tolson-jail-088787

Okay this story is just MADE for ^Icemage



an idiotic two-bit operation against Mueller by right-wing wannabes winds up targeted by a two-bit operation by a shallow state FBI agent who gets the password to the guy's email from his wife and spies on him, sending the materials to a journalist to try to smear him and claiming his only motivation was to 'protect Mueller'. So we have a proven case of someone in Mueller's orbit going to prison for committing a foolish crime in a misguided attempt to protect Mueller by manipulating the media and protecting his reputation. Gee, sound even the least bit ironic to anyone?

:banana:

FBI agents doing the exact same shit they were prosecuting Trump officials for doing, and the paranoid conspiracy theorists were actually being illegally spied on :bonk:

Quote (bogie160 @ Dec 20 2019 04:44pm)

Why sink to their level?

The FBI demonstrated at best a staggering amount of incompetence. It's going to be impossible to do more than infer motive, because as dumb as these guys are, it's not like they're going to put it in email.

Quote (tagged4nothing @ Dec 20 2019 04:58pm)

that statement isn't completely false, but it's only a partial truth downplaying what happened.

keeping this quote.

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf
(pg. 360)


(pg. viii-ix of Executive Summary)

(pg. xi-xii)

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 21 2019 07:54am)

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/20/ex-fbi-official-mark-tolson-jail-088787

Okay this story is just MADE for ^Icemage

an idiotic two-bit operation against Mueller by right-wing wannabes winds up targeted by a two-bit operation by a shallow state FBI agent who gets the password to the guy's email from his wife and spies on him, sending the materials to a journalist to try to smear him and claiming his only motivation was to 'protect Mueller'. So we have a proven case of someone in Mueller's orbit going to prison for committing a foolish crime in a misguided attempt to protect Mueller by manipulating the media and protecting his reputation. Gee, sound even the least bit ironic to anyone?

FBI agents doing the exact same shit they were prosecuting Trump officials for doing, and the paranoid conspiracy theorists were actually being illegally spied on :bonk:

Quote (IceMage @ Dec 21 2019 04:16pm)

Cause goalposts aren't supposed to be constantly moving. If the standard is a deep state coup, the FBI was vindicated.



So the case agents on the Crossfire Hurricane team didn't share all relevant information to the Department OI, and they were the ones who initially approved using the Steele information for the Page FISA, and sent it up the chain of command?

And this is evidence of a politically motivated top-down conspiracy of Comey and Obama DOJ how?



I don't get it... why would this story be made for me? Are we all supposed to feign outrage every time an FBI agent does something stupid?

Quote

Comey told us that the application seemed factually and legally sufficient
when he read it, and he had no questions or concerns before he signed. When we
asked him why the FBI moved forward with an application on a target who was
formerly connected to a presidential campaign, based in part on source reporting
that may have been funded by the opposing political party and had not yet been
corroborated, Comey said that the reason was because there was probable cause to
believe that Page was an agent of a foreign power. He said that simply because the
information regarding Page was uncorroborated at the time of the application did
not mean that it was unreliable. He stated that in this case, he understood that the
FBI assessed that Steele was a credible source, with a network of sub-sources in
positions to receive information, and the core of the Steele reporting was consistent
with other information the FBI had at the ti me.

Comey signed the application on October 20, and the application package
was presented to Yates on October 21.

Quote

Quote

We found that the FBI's decision to rely upon Steele's election reporting to
help establish probable cause that Page was an agent of Russia was a judgment
reached initially by the case agents on the Crossfire Hurricane team. We further
found that FBI officials at every level concurred with this judgment, from the OGC
attorneys assigned to the investigation to senior CD officials, then FBI General
Counsel James Baker, then Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and then Director
James Comey. FBI leadership supported relying on Steele's reporting to seek a
FISA order authorizing surveillance targeting Page after being advised of, and
giving consideration to, the concerns expressed by Evans that Steele may have
been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC,
and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would
probably not be worth the "risk" of being criticized later for collecting
communications of someone (Carter Page) who was "politically sensitive."

Quote

Rosenstein said that he
did not recall the word "speculates" striking him at the time, but that if the FBI had
information at the time of this final FISA application that the research had been
funded by the Democratic Party, and that it was going to the Hillary Clinton
campaign, he would have expected the FBI to revise the language to be more
explicit.

Quote

We concluded that Ohr committed
consequential errors in judgment by ( 1) failing to advise
his direct supervisors or the DAG that he was
communicating with Steele and Simpson and then
requesting meetings with the FBI's Deputy Director and
Crossfire Hurricane team on matters that were outside
of his areas of responsibil ity, and (2) making himself a
witness in the investigation by meeting with Steele and
providing Steele's information to the FBI. As we
describe in Chapter Eight, the late discovery of Ohr's
meetings with the FBI prompted NSD to notify the FISC
in July 2018, over a year after the final FISA renewal
order was issued, of information that Ohr had provided
to the FBI but that the FBI had failed to inform NSD and
01 about (and therefore was not included in the FISA
applications), including that Steele was " desperate that
Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about
him not being the U.S. President."

Quote (tagged4nothing @ Dec 24 2019 03:59pm)

you were partially right. what is being linked from the 2 posts i made is that Comey "is" management/supervisory/leadership.(pending the date)
Comey knew all the details. He knew the "Steele Dossier" was funded by Hilary Clinton and the DNC. Comey knew that Steele was "desperate about not getting Trump elected". Comey knew the "sub-source" was truthful, but forgot to mention that the sub-source said Steele's reporting wasn't truthful.
everyone in the loop of the "3 hand-selected" teams, knew what was going.

i have given more than enough evidence to contradict the MSM narrative. just an fyi as well, one of those "case-agents" is Peter Strzok. (proven strong documentary political bias)
i welcome "why" you may believe otherwise, but if you're just going to say the same thing in a different way... you aren't adding to your side of the case.
the "goalposts" never moved, but you should be concerned either way.