This memo was classified Top Secret. I doubt that suspects knowing when they were being monitored causes “Exceptionally Grave Damage” to National Security.
I too am curious on how they derived the TS classification.
That very well could be one of the things discussed in the House Intelligence Committee Democrats’ memo. Unfortunately, release of that was blocked. Their word alone, however, without some kind of transcript of the actual testimony, would be just as inconclusive as Nunes’ assertion to the contrary.
If McCabe’s testimony is considered confidential, he could very well be under orders or oath not to discuss his testimony to anyone outside of the hearing. And since the application for the FISA warrant itself is apparently classified, it might be especially risky for McCabe himself to just start talking of his own accord.
I think most conservatives have concluded that it was mostly bullshit, but I don’t think that opinion is supported by evidence or shared outside of the bubble.
It isn’t a conclusion, it’s just a hope.
^ Aye; he gets it.
It does not matter what I think and the dossier has neither been proven nor disproven (publicly at least) so how you feel about its veracity is purely based on what you want to be true and not what is actually true.
Again, the dossier is smoke and mirrors as regards the Nunes memo. In the world of the FBI it is a data point. Nothing more. It is certainly not the basis for an investigation.
And this, my friends, is how they are going to use the memo.
Most of the country isn’t going to read the actual memo, so all they need to do is to start the noise machine up and have every talking head repeat over and over that the memo proves that the investigation of Trump is entirely political and has no basis in fact. If anyone argues, just cite the memo.
If a high ranking Republican held up a piece of paper that read in its entirety “Evidence that Democrats broke the law!!”, an unsettling number of Republicans would point at it and say “OHMYGOD!! That is evidence that Democrats broke the law!!”
No. When I ask someone for evidence and their response starts with “It should be obvious” and contains no evidence, I don’t feel any compelling need to reconsider my previously-held position.
What McCabe said could be true but that doesn’t mean that the memo was the only evidence that they had, or even the primary evidence. It could easily be the case that the Steele dossier only acted to independently confirm some suspicions they already had based on other stronger independent sources. So that without the dossier they wouldn’t have sought the FISC since they didn’t have confirmation, but that the FISC wasn’t based primarily on the dossier.
This would also fit in with the complaints of the FBI that there were omissions that would lead one reading the memo to the wrong conclusion, and from the FBI that fully disclosing those omissions might be a security risk (if they revealed the information that the dossier confirmed).
You don’t think that a suspect knowing what information an investigator has could be damaging to the investigation?
Even whacko Trey Gowdy says there is no there there in the memo.
And the Trumpistas aren’t having it.
It seems that Schiff is denying outright that the nature of the dossier was not disclosed in the application.
You’re conflating the Mueller investigation and the memo about the FBI/DOJ. Gowdy is making this distinction.
I know it doesn’t matter to anyone but me and maybe you, but I’d appreciate a straightforward answer to my straightforward question nonetheless. What’s your best guess about the veracity of the dossier? If your too embarrassed / ashamed to answer publicly you could even PM me your answer.
This appears to be the same mistake BobLibDem made earlier. How do you know it was “certainly not the basis”?
Sure. But damaging to an investigation is very different than causing exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.
After reading the Nunes memo, my main thought is this:
The Steele dossier is to the defense of Trump in this scandal as the March 21, 1973 meeting was to the defense of Nixon in Watergate.
In the latter, Jaworski subpoenaed a number of tapes including the June 23, 1972 tape which showed that Nixon had been obstructing justice from the get-go, and it didn’t matter how one argued March 21, 1973, and Nixon was history.
The big difference then was that for a long time, it had looked to both sides like there was no evidence that Nixon was in on the cover-up before March 21, and you could argue both ways on what he meant then. But right now, we already know that the Steele Dossier just isn’t anywhere near as central as Trump’s defenders make it out to be, but rather it’s just one more piece of a larger puzzle.
Making that argument may play well on Fox News, which is a conservative ‘safe space’ where its audience is shielded from a more robust view of reality, but it’s not gonna do so well in the real world.
Thank you for presenting this possible explanation.
There is no evidence it is the basis per all FBI accounts given so far.
If you’ve got some evidence to the contrary feel free to share.
I don’t really think that anyone is in a position to assess the veracity of the dossier, because I can’t imagine that anyone here has the slightest means of independently confirming what has been asserted.
However, in terms of credibility – not concluding “this is true” but “should we take this seriously” – the source does seem credible. As I mentioned just a few posts ago, the FBI used him in the FIFA scandal, and the former director of the British Secret Intelligence Service called Steele "a good person of high integrity” with a sophisticated knowledge of Russia. Cite.
So I think it is perfectly fair to judge the dossier as credible; that everything should be subject to verification; and that the more extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to confirm them.
ETA: So what’s your opinion on the veracity or credibility of the dossier?
So the only reasons your hoop isn’t being jumped through is because of shame and/or embarrassment?
Straightforward well poisoning.