The Rumored Memo . . . Is It Real Or Fake?

[Wake-up!]

Authored by Glenn Greenwald and Jon Schwarz via The Intercept;

One of the gravest and most damaging abuses of state power is to misuse surveillance authorities for political purposes. For that reason, The Intercept, from its inception, has focused extensively on these issues. We therefore regard as inherently serious strident warnings from public officials alleging that the FBI and Department of Justice have abused their spying power for political purposes.


Social media this week has been flooded with inflammatory and quite dramatic claims now being made by congressional Republicans about a four-page memo alleging abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act spying processes during the 2016 election. This memo, which remains secret, was reportedly written under the direction of the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, and has been read by dozens of members of Congress after the committee voted to make the memo available to all members of the House of Representatives to examine in a room specially designated for reviewing classified material.

The rhetoric issuing from GOP members who read the memo is notably extreme.
North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, called the memo "troubling" and "shocking" and said, "Part of me wishes that I didn't read it because I don't want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much."

GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania stated: "You think about, 'Is this happening in America or is this the KGB?' That's how alarming it is.

This has led to a ferocious outcry on the right to "release the memo" – and presumably thereby prove that the Obama administration conducted unlawful surveillance on the Trump campaign and transition. Fox News host and stalwart Trump ally Sean Hannity claimed that the memo described "the systematic abuse of power, the weaponizing of those powerful tools of intelligence and the shredding of our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights."

Given the significance of this issue, it is absolutely true that the memo should be declassified and released to the public - and not just the memo itself. The House Intelligence Committee generally, and Nunes specifically, have a history of making unreliable and untrue claims (its report about Edward Snowden was full of falsehoods, as Bart Gellman amply documented, and prior claims from Nunes about "unmasking" have been discredited). Thus, mere assertions from Nunes — or anyone else — are largely worthless; Republicans should provide American citizens not merely with the memo they claim reveals pervasive criminality and abuse of power, but also with all of the evidence underlying its conclusions.

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have the power, working together or separately, to immediately declassify all the relevant information. And if indeed the GOP's explosive claims are accurate – if, as HPSCI member Steve King, R-Iowa, says, this is "worse than Watergate" — they obviously have every incentive to get it into the public's hands as soon as possible. Indeed, one could argue that they have the duty to do so.

On the other hand, if the GOP's claims are false or significantly misleading – if they are, with the deepest cynicism imaginable, simply using these crucial issues to whip up their base or discredit the Mueller investigation, or exaggerating or making claims that lack any evidentiary support, or trying to have the best of all worlds by making explosive claims about the memo but never having to prove their truth - then they will either not release the memo or they will release it without any supporting documentation, making it impossible for Americans to judge its accuracy for themselves.

Anyone who is genuinely concerned about the claims being made about eavesdropping abuses should understand why the issue of evidence is so critical. After all, the House, Senate, and FBI investigations into any Trump collusion with Russia have so far proceeded with many startling claims in the media, but to date little hard evidence for the public to judge. Nobody rational should be assuming any claims or assertions from partisan actors about the 2016 election are true without seeing evidence to substantiate those claims.

Continue to read opinions on four ways to release the memo at;
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-20/republicans-have-four-easy-ways-releasethememonot-doing-so-will-prove-them

[Is it real? Is it a fraud? Will we ever know? Is it simply status quo political maneuverings? I personally doubt the memo will be publicly circulated. And if it is, the underlying documentation will never see the light of day. Are there enough honest politicians in the federal government to force release of the memo? NO.]

[Wake-up!]

And here comes the political posturing . . . . on all sides.

CIA, FBI Agents Respond To Nunes' Memo


by Tyler Durden
zerohedge.com

We already noted the opposing perspectives of those in the media with regard the Nunes' memo as being on the one hand "a nothing-burger" and on the other "we have never ever in history seen anything like this." And we have heard from current ("talk is cheap... keep calm and tackle hard") and former ("dishonest and misleading") heads of The FBI.

But now we get to hear from the rank-and-file of America's intelligence agencies and, once again, the perspectives could not be further apart...

First, as The Hill reports, a former FBI agent says in a new op-ed that he has left the nation's top law enforcement agency due to the "relentless" attacks on the bureau from critics such as President Trump and congressional Republicans. In an op-ed for The New York Times, former supervisory special agent Josh Campbell wrote that "political attacks on the bureau must stop."

• "After more than a decade of service, which included investigating terrorism, working to rescue
  kidnapping victims overseas and being special assistant to the director, I am reluctantly turning
  in my badge and leaving an organization I love." Campbell wrote.
  
  "Why? So I can join the growing chorus of people who believe that the relentless attacks on the
  bureau undermine not just America's premier law enforcement agency but also the nation's
  security," he continued.
  
  "My resignation is painful, but the alternative of remaining quiet while the bureau is tarnished for
  political gain is impossible."
  
  Campbell also defended the agency's involvement in the events described in the memo, which alleges the FBI and Department of Justice abused their surveillance powers.
  
  "[E]very statement of fact included in an affidavit for foreign intelligence collection must withstand
  the scrutiny of at least 10 people in the Department of Justice hierarchy before it is reviewed by
  an independent court," he wrote.
  
  Campbell goes on to argue it would be "disingenuous" for Republicans to argue that the FBI
  is "plotting from within" against Trump or in favor of his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton,
  despite text messages between FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page seeming to confirm
  Strzok's political bias against Trump.
  
  "These political attacks on the bureau must stop. If those critics of the agency persuade the
  public that the FBI cannot be trusted, they will also have succeeded in making our nation
  less safe," he said.

Campbell's op-ed comes after the publication Friday of Nunes' memo allegedly detailing abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the FBI.

However, another former intelligence agency operative saw things very differently. Ray McGovern, 27-year veteran of the CIA and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), exclaims the newly released "Nunes Memo" reveals felony wrongdoing by top members of the FBI and DOJ for misrepresenting evidence to obtain a FISA warrant and may implicate other intelligence officials.

• The long-awaited House Intelligence Committee report made public today identifies current
  and former top officials of the FBI and the Department of Justice as guilty of the felony of
  misrepresenting evidence required to obtain a court warrant before surveilling American citizens.
  The target was candidate Donald Trump's adviser Carter Page.
  
  The main points of what is widely known as the "Nunes Memo," after the House Intelligence
  Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), have been nicely summarized by blogger Publius Tacitus,
  who noted that the following very senior officials are now liable for contempt-of-court charges;
  namely, the current and former members of the FBI and the Department of Justice who signed
  off on fraudulent applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: James Comey,
  Andy McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rob Rosenstein. The following is Publius Tacitus's
  summary of the main points:
  

• The dubious but celebrated Steele Dossier played a critical role in obtaining approval from the
  FISA court to carry out surveillance of Carter Page according to former FBI Deputy Director
  Andy McCabe.
  Christopher Steele was getting paid by the DNC and the FBI for the same information.
  No one at the FBI or the DOJ disclosed to the court that the Steele dossier was paid for
  by an opposition political campaign.
  The first FISA warrant was obtained on October 21, 2016 based on a story written by
  Michael Isikoff for Yahoo News based on information he received directly from Christopher
  Steele — the FBI did not disclose in the FISA application that Steele was the original source
  of the information.
  Christopher Steele was a long-standing FBI "source" but was terminated as a source after
  telling Mother Jones reporter David Corn that he had a relationship with the FBI.
  The FBI signers of the FISA applications/renewals were James Comey (three times) and Andrew McCabe.
  The DOJ signers of the FISA applications/renewals were Sally Yates, Dana Boente and
  Rod Rosenstein.
  Even after Steele was terminated by the FBI, he remained in contact with Deputy Attorney
  General Bruce Our, whose wife worked for FUSION GPS, a contractor that was deeply involved
  with the Steele dossier.

From what Michael Isikoff reported in September 2016 it appears that the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence (as well as the FBI) are implicated in spreading the disinformation about Trump and Russia. Isikoff wrote:

"U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified
by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications
with senior Russian officials — including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions
if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed
on the issue. [...]

"But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip,
Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister
who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian's leading oil company, a well-placed
Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News."

Who were the "intelligence officials" briefing the select members of the House and Senate? That will be one of the next shoes to drop. We are likely to learn in the coming days that John Brennan and Jim Clapper were also trying to help the FBI build a fallacious case against Trump, adds Tacitus.

Indeed, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has already indicated that his disclosures in the Nunes Memo represent just "one piece of a probably much larger mosaic of what went on."

The Media Will Determine What Comes Next.

As for Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, it is now abundantly clear why he went to ridiculous lengths, as did the entire Democratic congressional leadership, to block or impugn the House Intelligence Committee report. Until the mid-December revelations of the text messages between FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page turned Russia-gate into FBI/DOJ-gate, Schiff had been riding high, often hiding behind what he said "he could not tell" the rest of us.

With the media, including what used to be the progressive media, fully supporting the likes of Adam Schiff, and the FBI/CIA/NSA deep state likely to pull out all the stops, the die is now cast. We are in for a highly interesting time over the next months.

So - which is it? Crime of the century, or political grandstanding, or both?

[Apologies for the lousy bullet points. I could not make them work properly. The original text is at; https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-03/cia-fbi-agents-respond-nunes-memo]

[Wake-up!]

And here is Judge Napolitano's take . . . . .

"The government works for us; we should not tolerate its treating us as children. When raw intelligence data is capable of differing interpretations and is relevant to a public dispute — about, for example, whether the NSA and the FBI are trustworthy, whether FISA should even exist, whether spying on everyone all the time keeps us safe and whether the Constitution even permits this — the raw data should be released to the American public.

Where is the personal courage on the House Intelligence Committee? Where is the patriotism? Where is the fidelity to the Constitution? The government exists by our consent. It derives its powers from us. We have a right to know what it has done in our names, who broke our trust, who knew about it, who looked the other way and why and by whom all this was intentionally hidden until after Congress voted to expand FISA."

Read his entire statement at; http://www.judgenap.com/post/lying-spying-and-hiding