The war between Trump and the CIA

[Albany Rifles]

Have you tried a tourniquet around your neck?

Be well, Joe.

[TopHatter]

Have you tried a tourniquet around your neck?

Be well, Joe.

I'll try that next.

Thanks Buck

[Monash]

Thanks, went better than I expected. Just wish my nose would stop gushing blood....

Well that's what happens when your still a little groggy from the anesthetics and you tell the missus she's put on weight! There are always side effects from drugs.

[TopHatter]

Well that's what happens when your still a little groggy from the anesthetics and you tell the missus she's put on weight! There are always side effects from drugs.

And I'm single...so who the hell was that woman??

[TopHatter]

Feds confirm Project Veritas raids were part of theft probe

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors confirmed Friday in a court filing that FBI agents seized phones and electronic devices from people connected with the conservative group Project Veritas as part of an investigation into interstate transportation of stolen property.

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe said previously that agents had searched his home, and the homes of two others, in connection with a criminal probe into how the group received a diary that purportedly belonged to President Joe Biden’s youngest daughter.

The activist group, best known for conducting hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians, has protested the raids as a violation of free speech rights and protections given to journalists.

It had asked a judge to appoint a monitor, called a special master, to review the seized material and ensure that prosecutors didn’t get to see files related to confidential communications Project Veritas staff had with their lawyers.

Federal prosecutors in New York urged a judge to reject that request in a court filing Friday. In the filing, they blacked out key details about the case but questioned whether Project Veritas qualified as an independent journalism organization, and said even if it were one, it didn’t matter.

“There is no First Amendment protection for the theft and interstate transport of stolen property,” prosecutors wrote.

They didn’t specify in the visible parts of the filing what was stolen, or from whom, or say whether investigators believed that Project Veritas staff was directly involved in thefts.

In a video released this month, O’Keefe said his group never “engaged in any illegal conduct.” He said there was “no doubt Project Veritas acted appropriately at each and every step.”

In the video, he said his group was contacted late last year by “tipsters” who had claimed to have a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary. The tipsters said the diary had been “abandoned in a room.”

O’Keefe said that, ultimately, Project Veritas did not publish information from the diary because it could not confirm it belonged to Ashley Biden. He said the diary had been turned over to a law enforcement agency.

Some First Amendment groups had raised concerns about the FBI raids as a potential violation of laws restricting when law enforcement officials can seize materials from journalists. The Justice Department under Biden has said it won’t use subpoenas to obtain records from news organizations in most circumstances, though there’s an exception for when the journalists themselves are suspected of breaking the law.

In their filing, federal prosecutors wrote that “there is considerable doubt whether the practices of Project Veritas or its employees generally could be entitled to the protection of a qualified journalistic privilege.”

“Project Veritas is not engaged in journalism within any traditional or accepted definition of that word. Its ‘reporting’ consists almost entirely of publicizing non-consensual, surreptitious recordings made though unlawful, unethical, and or/dishonest means.”

O’Keefe has defended the organization’s methods as being part of a long tradition of journalists using hidden cameras or subterfuge to uncover wrongdoing.
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[zraver]

Feds confirm Project Veritas raids were part of theft probe

In their filing, federal prosecutors wrote that “there is considerable doubt whether the practices of Project Veritas or its employees generally could be entitled to the protection of a qualified journalistic privilege.”

“Project Veritas is not engaged in journalism within any traditional or accepted definition of that word. Its ‘reporting’ consists almost entirely of publicizing non-consensual, surreptitious recordings made though unlawful, unethical, and or/dishonest means.”

O’Keefe has defended the organization’s methods as being part of a long tradition of journalists using hidden cameras or subterfuge to uncover wrongdoing.
_____

Yeah, lets let government decide who is a journalist.... Never mind shows like to catch a predator or all the old 20/20 episodes busting out cheating businesses, let alone the First Amendment. If you don't speak the proper words in the proper format as determined by government then you are not press.

[TopHatter]

Trump Was ‘Fact Free’ During Briefings, Says Former National Intelligence Director
“For the Intelligence Community, the Trump transition was far and away the most difficult in its historical experience with briefing new presidents,” a new CIA report said

During intelligence briefings, former President Donald Trump was “fact free” and prone to “fly off on tangents,” said James Clapper, former director of national intelligence.

Clapper’s comments come from a recently released CIA publication, Getting to Know the President, which chronicles the relationship between the intelligence community and U.S. presidents during their transition and administration. Written by retired intelligence officer John L. Helgerson, the latest chapter covers Trump and reveals how unprepared and unconventional Trump was. It is important to note, however, that this is not a neutral account, given Trump’s rocky history with the intelligence agencies.

“Briefing Trump presented the IC with the most difficult challenges it had ever faced,” Helgerson wrote. According to the report, the intelligence community struggled large part because Trump “doubted the competence of intelligence professionals and felt no need for regular intelligence support.” Not since Nixon, nearly 50 years earlier, did the nation’s intelligence staff have such a difficult time with a president, Helgerson said.

Trump’s public and vocal criticism of the intelligence community created tension between them. Which is why, during one of his first intelligence briefings while he was still a candidate, Helgerson reported that briefers “were surprised” when Trump “assured them that ‘the nasty things he was saying’ publicly about the intelligence community ‘don’t apply to you.’ ” Then, in a televised debate with Hillary Clinton on Sept. 7, Trump claimed that briefers’ “body language” had suggested they were “not happy” with Obama’s policies.

After he was elected, Trump delayed receiving intelligence briefings by a week because his team was “not fully prepared to launch transition operations, apparently having not expected to win the election.”

“Some awkwardness developed,” Helgerson wrote, when CIA personnel wanted to share printed classified information with Trump at Trump Tower, but no one on his staff wanted to be responsible for it and they had no way to store it securely. To solve the problem, the CIA installed a safe.

Even once Trump started receiving the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a daily summary of high-level national security and intelligence issues, Trump chose not to read it, according to Ted Gistaro, a career CIA analyst who frequently briefed Trump. This backed up earlier reports that Trump did not read the PDB. “He touched it,” Gistaro said when asked how closely Trump read the briefs. “He doesn’t really read anything.”

Clapper agreed with Gistaro, telling Helgerson, “Trump doesn’t read much; he likes bullets.” Instead, during the Trump administration, the briefer would summarize aloud key points since the last briefing and provide three documents (none more than a page) about new developments abroad. This was all part of an effort to make the PDB “shorter and tighter, with declarative sentences and no feature-length pieces.”

“Trump had his own way of receiving intelligence information—and a uniquely rough way of dealing publicly with the IC,” Helgerson wrote, “but it was a system in which he digested the key points offered by the briefers, asked questions, engaged in discussion, made his own priority interests known, and used the information as a basis for discussions with his policy advisers.”

Russia represented “the most problematic aspect of the 2016 transition” for the intelligence community, and those problems would continue to be a source of tension during his administration. According to Hegelson, Russia was “central” to three separate issues at play: Russia’s hacking the DNC and leaking stolen emails to influence the election; the Steele dossier that allegedly contained compromising information on Trump; and contacts between Trump’s first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, and the Russian ambassador to the United States. Flynn later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the ambassador. Each of these issues “unfolded within the larger context of Trump’s very positive view and repeated public defenses of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” which complicated matters even more.

Trump’s repeated public attempts to discredit the intelligence community further fanned the flames. He speculated in a tweet that the IC was ill-prepared and didn’t know what they were talking about at a transition briefing, and he told the media that he didn’t believe Russia tried to interfere with the election to boost his chances of winning. “I don’t believe it. These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump said publicly, disparaging the IC.

Like Nixon, Helgerson wrote, Trump was “suspicious and insecure about the intelligence process.” But unlike Nixon, Trump didn’t just shut the IC out. He “attacked it publicly.” These and other difficulties agencies encountered under Trump led Helgerson to conclude that, “The system worked, but it struggled.”
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[Parihaka]

Maybe, just maybe, we might get the political side. At least it, as per Durhams extensive use of public record court filings, is public record.

4. The Indictment also alleges that, beginning in approximately July 2016, Tech Executive-1 had worked with the defendant, a U.S. investigative firm retained by Law Firm-1 on behalf of the Clinton Campaign, numerous cyber researchers, and employees at multiple Internet companies to assemble the purported data and white papers. In connection with these efforts, Tech Executive-1 exploited his access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data. Tech Executive-1 also enlisted the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving and analyzing large amounts of Internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract. Tech Executive-1 tasked these researchers to mine Internet data to establish “an inference” and “narrative” tying then-candidate Trump to Russia. In doing so, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was seeking to please certain “VIPs,” referring to individuals at Law Firm-1 and the Clinton Campaign.

5. The Government’s evidence at trial will also establish that among the Internet data Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited was domain name system (“DNS”) Internet traffic pertaining to (i) a particular healthcare provider, (ii) Trump Tower, (iii) Donald Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and (iv) the Executive Office of the President of the United States (“EOP”). (Tech Executive-1’s employer, Internet Company-1, had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP. Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.)

That's private individuals and companies spying on the White House, for the Clinton campaign.

Not simply the Trump campaign, the White House.

[zraver]

Maybe, just maybe, we might get the political side. At least it, as per Durhams extensive use of public record court filings, is public record.




That's private individuals and companies spying on the White House, for the Clinton campaign.

Not simply the Trump campaign, the White House.

This is the biggest scandal and threat to American democracy of all time but it will be ignored.

[JRT]

...biggest scandal and threat to American democracy of all time...

The biggest threat to American democracy may be the 2024 POTUS election primary season, if that becomes a precursor to a rematch between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald John Trump.

[zraver]

The biggest threat to American democracy may be the 2024 POTUS election primary season, if that becomes a precursor to a rematch between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald John Trump.

Hillary and the DNC along with their co-religionist in government actively spied on a sitting president in order to undermine his administration. That is a coup attempt.

[Parihaka]

Hillary and the DNC along with their co-religionist in government actively spied on a sitting president in order to undermine his administration. That is a coup attempt.

Twould seem so. Engaging with a foreign power to create a fake dossier and using inside contacts to spy on the White House servers in an attempt to bring down a presidency.

[zraver]

Twould seem so. Engaging with a foreign power to create a fake dossier and using inside contacts to spy on the White House servers in an attempt to bring down a presidency.

This moment will be an acid test of sorts. I have a feeling that our more august lefties on this page who have been raging about Jan 6 and Trump are suddenly going to forget that moral and ethical hill they claim to be willing to die on.

Vs conservative wabbits who at a minimum think the actual law breakers on J6 should be prosecuted

[Albany Rifles]

By all means, if wrongs were done, empanel a grand jury, indict have a trial and if convicted, send to jail.

If its illegal, its illegal.

Regardless of administration and/or party.

Serious question; Wasn't the foundation of the suspicions Sussman's billing and work done for others were erroneously attributed to the Clinton 2016 campaign? I believe that was something which came out 8 months or so ago.

Also, what is the statute of limitations for perjury...not sure what it is at the federal level.

But as I said investigate.

[zraver]

Statue of limitations usually runs from discovery of the event not from the event.