#MEMOGATE (END OF WORLD??? APOCALYPSE??? BANANA SPLITS???)

[JamesYanik]

No Banana splits, but here's what I got from everything so far:
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FBI & Dems: Memo being released is a threat to national security:

LIE: There’s nothing in their that pertains to national security threats, or exposes such things.


Schiff (Dems): GOP made substantive changes to the memo before giving it to White House

LIE: there were just grammatical changes, that the FBI/Minority on committee asked for.


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GOP: Mueller investigation wouldn’t have happened without Dossier

LIE: Papadopoulos had been the source of the investigation.


GOP base: FISA applications on Carter Page (no relation to Lisa Page) were all because of Steele Dossier

LIE: the first ones were way back in 2013


MEMO claim:

you have to renew a FISA warrant every 90 days (with relevant evidence to do so), and the claim in the memo is that the Steele dossier was used in late 2016 and into 2017 for THOSE FISA warrant renewals, as the primary (without it, the warrants wouldn't have been approved) source

(CLAIM UNVERIFIED, SEE BELOOOOOW)


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Other bad things:

Strzok, of the FBI, who helped launch the investigation into Russian collusion, was vehemently anti-Trump, said he had “insurance” against Trump; with text messages to Lisa Page, both of whom were married to other people during an affair they had.

Strozk is the same guy who said that he didn’t want to join Mueller’s team for the investigation at first, because he didn’t think there was much there.
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The Steele Dossier, helped by Fusion GPS, received funding by Clinton campaign, and the FBI used this as part of their investigation (to what extent: that is a big question)

The Steele dossier had many various claims about Trump, all of the most volatile ones were sourced anonymously or not at all, the most famous of the claims being the “golden shower” story.

PS: yes I realize in GOP primaries FGPS also got funding, but the bulk of the dossier was later through Steele, and the Dems DID commit large amounts of funding.


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Current Arguments:

Republican Memo Claim 1:
the Steel Dossier, funded in large part by Clinton campaign/Dems, was CENTRAL to the FISA warrant application, (the warrant wouldn't have gone through if not for the dossier)

Republican Memo Claim 2:

What was presented to the FISA court had many omissions: the FBI did NOT say the Steele Dossier was funded by Dems in large, and the FBI did NOT provide evidence of Steele’s political biases.

Democrats counter claim:
The Steele Dossier was only one element of the large case against Trump presented for FISA warrants, over the course of those several renewals.


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We are now waiting for underlying transcripts to come out/be declassified to see who is telling the truth.

PS Trump has executive authority to declassify the FISA applications at any time, but he’s not done so, probably because he doesn’t know he has that power. our president isn't exactly intelligent though folks. no shocker there.


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SO:
If Republicans are wrong, they just slandered a large part of the FBI for coordination with the Clinton campaign.

If Democrats are wrong, then the FBI used Democrat’s funded research to launch an investigation on a political opponent.


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But everyone is still stupid and/or evil, you see:

- And why did the Democrats *NOT* want the memo released? If they were SO certain that it were false, then wouldn’t you WANT to expose Republican lunacy?
- And why lie about it being a threat to national security?
- And what was that crap about the intelligence agencies being silent to congress from now on? THEY WORK FOR THE PEOPLE, THEY ARE UNELECTED BUREAUCRATS, stop messing up the separation/chain of powers you dumb-dumbs

- And why are Republicans so gung-ho about a memo, which doesn’t even have the underlying documents/transcripts/sources uncovered yet? DO YOU KNOW WHAT SOURCING IS???
- And why isn't Trump declassifying the underlying FISA warrants? that's within his power! Stop the speculation and actually DO SOMETHING
- And why do so many people attack the FBI as an entity, when it was much more likely to be only a few corrupt people in positions of power???

- And FBI: how on earth are you letting people like Peter Strozk operate in the FBI without any kind of filtration system to catch such bias?
- And stop pretending that you guys are "apolitical" that's all crap. Comey went in circles from telling the DOJ that Clinton didn't commit a crime (which is not a decision that's up to him), to him a WEEK before the election hurting Clinton by announcing the email dump!!! HERE'S A NEWS FLASH: YOU GUYS INTERACT WITH POLITICS QUITE A BIT, SO HOW ABOUT YOU CREATE A CLEAR, CUT AND DRY FORMULA FOR THIS, WITH PLENTY OF TRANSPARENCY AND OVERSIGHT???


And Paul Ryan… I don’t know, he actually said that the Mueller investigation and FBI shouldn’t be demeaned with so little evidence. SO... actually good call by him, but we’ll find something else to laugh at him about. Maybe his haircut. I dunno, Paul, I just don't know what to do with you man.




PS: this is just a distraction for myself from the fact Arsenal FC just signed Aubameyang and Everton is likely going to get destroyed over the weekend. But then again we have Coleman back so he'll likely get a hat trick... eh, whatever. At least if we lose, then the world is going to be ending soon anyways, so whatever.

[JamesYanik]

Am I missing things here, is there anything I said that's wrong? lemme know. I actually do sort of care about us not getting torn apart from the inside out and all

[Jeff Kuta]

...and I feel fiiiiiiiiine.....