Classified information

FBI Executes Search Warrant At Trump’s Home In Mar-a-Lago (Updated)

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Be still my heart! Mutiple news organizations are reporting that FBI agents have executed a search warrant ar the the former guy’s home in exile in Mar-a-Lago, including an angry diatribe from the “Mafia Don” crime boss himself whining about the FBI search. Politico briefly reports, FBI searches Mar-a-Lago, Trump says: The FBI has searched the … Read more

Resist normalizing criminal behavior in the age of Trump

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This is not normal and should not be happening. Period. Full stop.

Today the FBI and intelligence agencies will provide a briefing in an ongoing criminal investigation of the Trump campaign’s “collusion” with Russia to Midnight Run Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman who previously had to recuse himself from his own committee’s Russia investigation because he was caught conspiring with the Trump administration to fabricate the conspiracy theories that the Obama administration surveilled Trump Tower and inappropriately unmasked the identities of Trump campaign officials picked up on signal intelligence to undermine the Special Counsel’s investigation; and Trey “Benghazi!” Gowdy, who spent years promoting Benghazi conspiracy theories against Hillary Clinton that amounted to nothing according to the findings of his own committee reports. These are two of the least credible partisan members of Congress.

More importantly, this meeting is going to occur without the presence of their Democratic counterparts. This is entirely improper and unacceptable. Moreover, Trey Gowdy does not possess the necessary security clearance for this classified intelligence briefing (he is not a member of the Gang of Eight).

There is no doubt that this meeting is certain to result in Nunes and/or Gowdy selectively leaking cherry-picked classified intelligence (a crime) to FAUX News aka Trump TV as soon as today to support the new conspiracy theory of “Spygate,” a label that Trump and his propaganda machine have concocted in order to undermine the Special Counsel’s investigation. The Special Counsel should be considering charging them as accessories to Trump’s conspiracy to obstruct justice, which is what this briefing constitutes.

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Nunes’ leakers revealed – he coordinated with the White House (Updated)

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Rep. Devin Nunes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has a history of cultivating independent sources inside the intelligence community (otherwise known as “leakers.”) These are not “whistleblowers” as he would falsely have you believe. If these individuals were true whistleblowers he would follow the law and give his sources whistleblower status and legal protection, and call them to testify before the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes has no intention of ever doing this.

This helps to explain Nunes’ cloak and dagger visit to the White House “grounds” the evening before he called his extraordinary press conference in which he disclosed classified information and claimed that Trump transition members were “unmasked” in lawful “incidental surveillance” of foreign persons last week.

Nunes promised to share the intelligence reports he reviewed with his fellow House Intelligence Committee members, something he has yet to do, but he refused to disclose the identity of his sources (leakers) who provided him with the intelligence reports on the White House “grounds.”

Both Nunes and the White House have denied that there was any coordination between the White House and his extraordinary press conference last week. That denial is now falling apart.

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House Intelligence Committee chair demonstrates the need for a bipartisan commission and/or special prosecutor to investigate Russian interference in the U.S. election

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I have said before that House Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), is the reason why we need to have a bipartisan commission and/or special prosecutor to investigate Russian interference in the U.S. election as part of its information war against the U.S.  This Trump transition team member just made my point today.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes revealed Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s personal communications may have been picked up by investigators through “incidental collection” pursuant to a legal FISA warrant investigation of foreign nationals.

Remember how Nunes was pushing the GOP conspiracy du jour during the House Intelligence Committee on Monday that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn may have been improperly “unmasked” by intelligence agencies through “incidental collection” pursuant to a legal FISA warrant investigation of foreign individuals and his identity leaked to the press?

Nunes just abused the power of his position — and may have violated the law if he disclosed classified information, which includes the existence of a FISA Court warrant — for a partisan political motive by suggesting, as the White House immediately latched onto after his disclosure, that the “incidental collection” information is the equivalent of “surveillance” of the Donald Trump campaign (it is not) to give the White House cover for Trump’s false tweets that President Obama “wire tapped” Trump Tower.

Nunes’ clear implication is that FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Michael Rogers were not fully forthcoming when they testified that there is no evidence to substantiate Trump’s false tweets that President Obama “wire tapped” Trump Tower.

Nunes’ intentionally vague statements today were intended to provide grist to the propagandists of the conservative media entertainment complex. He has called into question the credibility of his chairmanship and the House Intelligence Committee investigation.

Nunes should be removed as chair of the House Intelligence Committee and referred to the FBI for investigation if he leaked classified information, including the existence of a FISA Court warrant, for a partisan political motive. If so, he should be forced to resign from Congress.

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Clinton Rules of reporting: The e-mail ‘scandal’ that isn’t

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Hillary-Clinton-textingWhen the supposedly “liberal” New York Times engages in the Clinton Rules of reporting, something it did with reckless abandon in The Hunting of the President (Bill Clinton) during the 1990s, it gives the imprimatur of acceptable media standards to the mainstream media to similarly engage in scandal mongering reporting without any substance.

Such is the case with all the media hyperventilating over the so-called Clinton e-mail “scandal” (the first rule of Clinton Rules is that everything is a “scandal”).

Jeffrey Toobin recently explained at The New Yorker that the first thing the public needs to know is that The Government Classifies Everything:

As [Sen. Daniel Patrick] Moynihan explained in his book “Secrecy: The American Experience” and explored during a lifetime in public service, the definition of what constitutes a government secret has never been clear. Classified information is supposed to be defined as material that would damage national security if released. In fact, Moynihan asserted, government bureaucracies use classification rules to protect turf, to avoid embarrassment, to embarrass rivals—in short, for a variety of motives that have little to do with national security. As the senator wrote, “Americans are familiar with the tendency to overregulate in other areas. What is different with secrecy is that the public cannot know the extent or the content of the regulation. Thus, secrecy is the ultimate mode of regulation; the citizen does not even know that he or she is being regulated!”

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