Those are well-reasoned guesses (except #3!). Seriously, I think Conaway is more reasonable than the others, but not enough that he would have willingly gone along with the release. And how could they not know what was in the transcript and how damaging it is, when they were all present during the testimony?
I disagree that the Senate Judiciary Committee Simpson transcript wasn’t that big a deal. It solidly destroyed the notion that the Steele dossier was the basis for the FBI’s investigation into Trump and his Russian connections. It also made clear that neither Simpson or Steele sought approval or permission from the Clinton campaign to go to the FBI and share what they had learned. Both of those facts provide important pushback to those false Republican talking points. It also made Grassley look like exactly the partisan snake he is.
I think your posited #5 and #6 are the most likely explanations for release of the House committee Simpson transcript. Goodness knows pulling the wool over the eyes of many Trump supporters isn’t hard. Witness Trump’s contemptible efforts through Twitter to recast the Women’s March as a celebration of his “accomplishments” in his first year in office. Doesn’t get more feeble than that.
I have been ignoring the House Intelligence Committee to-date, so I have no opinion on this.
The Senate Judiciary might not have known what was in the House Intelligence transcript, when the Senate Judiciary released theirs.
It was never a thing that was in doubt. We have a wide variety of people from GW Bush to Obama to James Comey to Benjamin Wittes to Diane Feinstein all confirming that the FISA process is a pretty tight ship held to very strict rules.
The Steele dossier is patently insufficient for a FISA warrant. You would need a pretty good amount of corroborating evidence to support it before you could take it to court, and that would probably take a couple of months at minimum before you could start to support some of its allegations. The timeline doesn’t match up for that. So either there was already sufficient corroborating evidence, or the dossier itself wasn’t even a significant aspect of the investigations at that date.
The only other alternative from “the dossier wasn’t the impetus” is that FISA is fubar.
And that’s probably why Nunes had to sit in his memo until after 702 was re-upped. There was a risk that he’d have taken out FISA with his conspiracy fiction.
Just to clarify, I was already aware of all this. I have said so in this and/or other threads. I was referring to the Republicans’ ongoing, tedious falsehood that the Steele dossier was the catalyst for the investigation. Simpson’s testimony to the Senate committee went to the heart of this issue. And anyone interested enough to read the transcript could not in any way continue to make such a claim with credibility.
What you say about Nunes sitting on his memo till after 702 was reauthorized makes sense. He’s such a loon.
My theory is completely different. I think Trump went ballistic when the House Intelligence Committee summoned Hope Hicks for an interview. I think this action crossed a Trumpian “red line”. And I think Trump set his sights on his toady Nunes.
Nunes, desperately trying to appease Trump, agreed to all his demands. The interview with Hicks was postponed. But I think the White House also gave him this memo and demanded that he put his name on it
Kind of a replay of what happened last year. But these people don’t learn. This is Stupid Watergate.
And I think once it’s released, it will become blindingly obvious who wrote the memo. My guess is Steven Miller. And my guess is he didn’t make any attempt to alter his style and that he used the same phrases and rhetoric that was found in the other memos and speeches he’s written.
And the press will realize this and it will be a scandal for about 2 days until someone does something even dumber. Because this is Stupid Watergate.
If Gates flips on Calk, Lorber, LeBow, Mnuchin, etc. then that’s a pretty decent roster of names for you to work on to try and get to flip on Trump. You only need one guy that doesn’t want to go to jail.
No. That’s why trial dates are set for him and Gates.
If Gates has changed his mind and enters a plea, look for a new date to be set for him to enter that plea and the trial date to be vacated. Or if Mueller’s team wants Gates to enter a conditional plea, meaning they want him to do some things before they’re willing to make a sentencing recommendation, then Gates’ trial date could be continued for a period of time to see if Gates will live up to the plea agreement.
The partnership of Manafort and Gates goes back about 8 years, if memory serves. What Manafort knows, Gates likely also knows. Gates is definitely dangerous to Manafort – and to Trump as well, I suspect. Manafort appears to have been a(nother) go-between between Russians and Trump.
I don’t know if he worked for Trump in business, but Gates was Trump’s deputy campaign manager when Manafort was manager. It seems like he’s Manafort’s sidekick in everything. Anything that Manafort knows, Gates probably knows too. Manafort reportedly didn’t really know Trump before the campaign though.