seth abramson connected a couple important dots:

Quote :

"50/ This timeline is key: it means Fusion worked for *Republicans* for *9 months* before the Dems ever got involved, and the initial reason for the course of investigation Fusion embarked upon was a general view Trump could be *successful* as a politician—so oppo was reasonable."

Quote :

"51/ This completely undercuts the Republican narrative and Trump's—that what started Fusion GPS looking at Trump was a Democratic interest in making Russia a story. *No*. In 2015—before anyone was talking about Trump-Russia ties—Fusion GPS was asked to look at his business deals."

Quote :

"52/ Here's the best part! At the time Fusion was contracted, *Trump had secretly entered into a letter-of-intent with Russian developers to build Trump Tower Moscow*. So *at the time* the GOP asked Fusion to look into Trump's secret deals, the *biggest one* was with the Russians."

so republicans are trying to spin this as a democratic witch hunt, but republicans funded this for 9 months and at the time trump had just signed a letter of intent for a major russian business deal (maybe eleusis or early can explain why these republicans were really democrats)

1/9/2018 5:59:21 PM

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/950861721790484481

Quote :

" Laurence Tribe ?Verified account @tribelaw Follow Follow @tribelaw More Laurence Tribe Retweeted Seth Abramson I’m ready to confirm that Grassley was flat-out lying about Simpson’s testimony. Seth Abramson?Verified account @SethAbramson Follow Follow @SethAbramson More 65/ Breaking in for BREAKING NEWS: Mother Jones reports Grassley now says the transcript shows Simpson was "uncooperative, colluding with Russia and colluding with the Democrats." I ask everyone reading this thread to click on the link to the transcript and confirm this is a lie."

can't wait for conservative media to repeat Grassley's statement to all their cucks

1/9/2018 6:17:20 PM

Quote :

"so republicans are trying to spin this as a democratic witch hunt, but republicans funded this for 9 months and at the time trump had just signed a letter of intent for a major russian business deal "

Simpson discloses in the hearing that he was working on multiple facets of Trump - clothing companies in South America and Asia, something in Scotland, and dealings in Russia. Simpson discloses that he lost funding from the Republican source in Spring 2016, picked up Democratic funding in June 2016, and contacted Christopher Steele around that same time. If it weren't for the pissgate and Gazprom allegations, both the product of Steele and both occurring after the Republicans quit funding the matter, no one would give a shit about Fusion GPS.

Simpson testified that he was completely unaware that Natalia Veselnitskaya met with the Trump team on June 9th, even though he was with her on the 8th, 9th, and 10th in both NYC and DC. Veselnitskaya has stated that the information she gave to the Trump team came from Fusion GPS. That's a hell of a coincidence.

1/9/2018 8:42:50 PM

You're adorable

1/9/2018 9:39:34 PM

yall need to see this
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rt-editor-in-chief-on-election-meddling-russian-propaganda-label/

1/10/2018 3:26:32 AM

She was very argumentative and acted like an American journalist was personally affronting her. It’s the Russian equivalent of Trump yelling “no collusion” over and over. It may be true but the tone and repetition make it seem it probably isn’t. It’s bizarre to me that some on the far left constantly go after America (in some cases with absolute merit - specifically foreign policy) but excuse Russia for far worse behavior.

In any case, I’m praying that Trumps dumb lawyer gets this lawsuit to discovery. Please, please, please.

1/10/2018 8:09:42 AM

in case anyone besides eleusis falls for the republican talking points, simpson was investigating trump's russian connections 9 months before any democrats were involved:





all of this was when republicans were still paying. simpson's background is russian financial crimes and criminal organizations so don't let anyone try to pretend like he started to fabricate this stuff after democrats were involved. additionally, when steele was hired he was a subcontractor and only knew he was working for fusion GPS. steele was hired because he was an expert on russia for the MI6 (in fact he was even a trainer for MI6) and simpson had worked with him over the past 8 or 9 years. fussion gps hired orbis when they needed information beyond the public record to investigate what they thought was a political conspiracy (this was good due diligence)

morons are trying to claim that fusion gps gave info to veselnitskaya because fusion gps had been a contractor for baker hostetler, but grassley's questioning makes it clear that she was not there for prevezon and had not told baker hostetler (or simpson) about the trump meeting (i.e. she wasn't there for that, she was there to pass a message from the kremlin)

1/10/2018 9:07:27 AM

also, i missed this before. the fbi source inside trump was someone who "decided to pick up the phone and report something"

so if that is correct it's not papodopoulus. and the fisa warrent on carter page was before steele provided anything to the fbi, so the talking point that steele started this witch hunt seems pretty sufficiently blown out of the water.

man, no wonder republicans didn't want this public, it makes it very clear that republicans knew what was going on and were actively lying about it

1/10/2018 9:16:54 AM

and on the subject of republicans lying and covering shit up, here is a good timeline summary:
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7p8ynv/sen_dianne_feinstein_unilaterally_releases_fusion/dsfjkjp/

Quote :

"09/30/16 GOP Blocks Probes Into Trump-Russia Ties 12/11/16 Obama and Congress Knew About Russian Hacking—And They Did Nothing (context: "McConnell was nakedly partisan in his decision to stifle the intelligence", "[Obama] wanted bipartisan support—and when McConnell rebuffed this effort ... the White House decided to take the cautious route to “name and shame” the Russians"). 12/12/16 McConnell rejects special panel for Russia election allegations 02/14/17 Speaker Paul Ryan declines to support independent Russian investigation after Flynn's resignation 02/27/17 GOP intelligence chairman Devin Nunes: “There’s no evidence of anything” regarding Russia-Trump campaign contacts 03/01/17 House Democrats Lose Another Bid To Investigate Trump, But Don't Plan To Quit 03/21/17 Day 1 of "Devin Nunes colluded with the White House to obstruct the Russia probe" (Timeline here) 03/29/17 House Republicans cancel all hearings on Russian investigation, blame Democrats 05/09/17 F.B.I. Director James Comey Is Fired by Trump 05/10/17 James Comey Fired: McConnell Rejects Calls for Prosecutor 05/10/17 Paul Ryan rejects calls for special prosecutor in Russia investigation 05/17/17 GOP blocks House vote on independent Russia-Trump investigation 05/31/17 Nunes ‘acted separately’ from House Russia probe by unilaterally issuing subpoenas on ‘unmasking’ 08/28/17 Republican floats measure to kill Mueller probe after 6 months 10/10/17 Nunes Subpoenaed Firm Behind Trump Dossier Without Telling Democrats 11/03/17 Republicans seek special counsel's removal from Russia probe ~December, Nunes leading multiple House Intelligence Committee Republicans in a secret investigation into Mueller without telling the Democrats in committee (in an obvious effort to discredit Mueller and the investigation he's leading)"

links for each item in link

1/10/2018 9:30:36 AM

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/birth-tourism-brings-russian-baby-boom-miami-n836121

This shit is hilarous. If these people were brown Trump would be riling up the base about it. Instead they live in his properties.

Quote :

"There is no indication that Trump or the Trump Organization is profiting directly from birth tourism"

1/10/2018 9:36:52 AM

a bit off topic

1/10/2018 9:40:38 AM

True, wasn't sure where to put it. Admittedly its not nearly as serious a topic as actual connections between the campaign and the russian government. But its fun. We all need something fun.

1/10/2018 9:49:18 AM

Quote :

"the fbi source inside trump was someone who "decided to pick up the phone and report something" "

I couldn't make out from reading the report if the trump source was a trump organization insider or a trump campaign insider, or possibly both.

watch it turn out to be Manafort, working on a plea deal over the Ukrainian investigation into him. The raid on him was just a smoke and mirrors game to divert attention from him possibly being the source.

1/10/2018 10:44:08 AM

simpson said he didn't know if it was trump campaign or trump org

1/10/2018 11:08:46 AM

https://twitter.com/repmarkmeadows/status/951107925086474240

This is such ridiculous bad faith...

1/10/2018 11:16:57 AM

that’s their entire party

1/10/2018 11:25:35 AM

With regard to someone "who decided to pick up the phone and report something," why couldn't this be a reference to the Australian ambassador informing the FBI about the drunken claims made by George Papadopoulos?

If Glenn Simpson was relaying information that he had learned indirectly from Christopher Steele, I could see how he may have somewhat misinterpreted this information.

1/10/2018 11:42:00 AM

There was a time when I would follow and read Federalist pieces. I rarely agreed but they were, by and large, a reasoned opposition voice. They, too, have fully opened up to Trump. It’s sad the takes on the testimony they have. So divorced from any semblance of reality.

[Edited on January 10, 2018 at 11:45 AM. Reason : X]

1/10/2018 11:45:41 AM

^^Reason it wouldn't be the Aussie is because the phrasing Simpson used was "in the Trump campaign or Trump Organization."

Misinterpretation could absolutely be the case here, except that considering they would have been discussing intelligence and specifically human intelligence sources, I'm presuming the language they used was very specific.

[Edited on January 10, 2018 at 11:58 AM. Reason : a]

1/10/2018 11:57:40 AM

i'd be more convinced it was papadopolous if simpson hadn't said he knew the source. it's still possible, but i don't feel like the statements make sense for papadopolous if simpson knew it was papadopolous.

the important takeaway though is 1) that the FBI knew about this stuff before steele so all the GOP fake questions for the FBI about the steele dossier are irrelevant because that's not what started it and 2) the GOP knew at least by august of 2017 (this interview) that the information to the FBI came from a trump insider but kept parroting the nonsense fake news that this was all unsubstantiated stuff started by the democrats via steele.

those 2 points alone should be enough to shutdown most of the bullshit GOP talking points, and the second point should be raised by media to every republican who has spread the fake story

1/10/2018 12:29:46 PM

yep

1/10/2018 12:38:55 PM

if Simpson knew who the Trump insider was and had actually been in contact with that insider, then it begs the question of the Trump insider and Christopher Steele corroborating a storyline through Simpson.

If the Trump insider that was supposedly the original source of the information was used for the original FISA warrant that was denied in June, and Christopher Steele was then sought out through Simpson to corroborate the story through other FBI channels to further bolster the FISA warrant that actually got approved in September 2016, then this thing gets really ugly.

Hopefully the FISA warrants will come out through FOIA at some point, but I won't hold my breath.

1/10/2018 1:16:16 PM

simpson never said he had been in contact with that person, nor did he say that steele had been in contact with that person

you're trying pretty hard, but try harder

1/10/2018 1:21:52 PM

sorry I have to respond to one point

^^so you're saying that the FISA court denies a warrant request because there isn't enough depth to it. then the request gets updated with more information from an independent source and is then approved. you're somehow implying that means the FISA situation is ugly? that is literally the system working properly.

1/10/2018 1:24:50 PM

[Edited on January 10, 2018 at 1:43 PM. Reason : nevermind, doesn't matter]

1/10/2018 1:37:46 PM

sorry, i couldn't resist. even ignoring the other information that wasn't even in that post, the internal logic of the post itself didn't work. i'll leave it alone now.

1/10/2018 1:54:58 PM

Quote :

"simpson never said he had been in contact with that person, nor did he say that steele had been in contact with that person "

Simpson's lawyer jumped in to state that Simpson was going to decline to indicate who the Trump contact was, but the way Simpson and his lawyer phrased the response indicated that Simpson knew who it was. He never indicated if he had or had not contacted the Trump source because he never had to admit who it was. Why would he know that information at all? If he knew who the source was, what's to say he hadn't been in contact with the source? Was the source someone he had been in contact with as well during the course of his investigative work?

Quote :

"^^so you're saying that the FISA court denies a warrant request because there isn't enough depth to it. then the request gets updated with more information from an independent source and is then approved. you're somehow implying that means the FISA situation is ugly?"

I'm saying that the "more information from an independent source" wasn't actually independent at all, but was relayed from Glenn Simpson to Christopher Steele to provide a second source for the same story to get the warrant.

1/10/2018 3:27:42 PM

Quote :

"Simpson's lawyer jumped in to state that Simpson was going to decline to indicate who the Trump contact was, but the way Simpson and his lawyer phrased the response indicated that Simpson knew who it was. He never indicated if he had or had not contacted the Trump source because he never had to admit who it was. Why would he know that information at all? If he knew who the source was, what's to say he hadn't been in contact with the source? Was the source someone he had been in contact with as well during the course of his investigative work? "

did you miss the part where they explain that the fbi told steele?

nowhere is it implied that simpson was in contact with the source and their is no reason to think that he was

did brietbart tell you this?

1/10/2018 3:35:06 PM

why would the FBI tell Steele about their other sources?

1/10/2018 7:17:16 PM

Because he was a former intelligence officer with MI6? or are you attempting to make a larger point?

I thought that it was fairly well established that Christopher Steele had a long-time working relationship with the FBI.

[Edited on January 10, 2018 at 7:34 PM. Reason : ]

1/10/2018 7:28:42 PM

He’s also well documented as one of THE western authorities on Russian CI.

1/10/2018 8:12:39 PM

do you think the FBI makes a habit of disclosing the names of sources and informants they have on the inside of an organization they're investigating to other sources? That seems to open up a lot of risk without providing any benefit. The FBI should be perfectly capable of cross-referencing the Trump source information with Steele's information without letting Steele know the name of their source.

1/11/2018 10:27:14 AM

Steele is the expert on this topic, he believed that he had evidence of an ongoing criminal conspiracy and felt ethically bound to report it to the FBI. He had multiple meetings with the fbi and provided them multiple memos. We don't know for sure that the FBI told Steele the name of the contact, but it is believable that they may have.

[Edited on January 11, 2018 at 10:42 AM. Reason : .]

1/11/2018 10:41:57 AM

this isn't exactly russia related, but money laundering is a big part of his connections and this buzzfeed story does a good job explaining how condo purchases are used to launder money:

Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers
https://www.buzzfeed.com/thomasfrank/secret-money-how-trump-made-millions-selling-condos-to?utm_term=.swP376ogO#.kgJmdvA1o

1/15/2018 8:02:12 AM

But doesn't Trump just basically license his name for many of those developments? And is mostly removed from the dealings therein?

1/15/2018 8:52:19 AM

he is also a developer

1/15/2018 8:58:17 AM

I have no doubt that he at some point has committed just about every white-collar crime available when it comes to money. But I feel like that reporter is trying kinda hard.

1/15/2018 9:18:48 AM

of course you do, bless your heart

1/15/2018 9:52:46 AM

bannon meeting with the house intelligence committee today in a closed meeting

1/16/2018 9:45:09 AM

Bannon subpoenaed before a grand jury.

I would not want to be Ty Cobb when he tells Don the special counsel isn’t done by Xmas 2017.

1/16/2018 11:47:16 AM

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/15/politics/jared-kushner-wendi-deng-murdoch/index.html

Shit maybe we'll be opening a new thread entitled China-Trump connections. Also, this somewhat indicates concerns that were echoed in the Steele memos.

Quote :

" In return for this effort, the dossier says, Putin wanted information from Trump on Russian oligarchs living in the US, Source E said. The same source is quoted in the dossier as saying the Trump campaign was "relatively relaxed" about the attention on Trump's reported ties to Russia "because it deflected media and the Democrats' attention away from Trump's business dealings in China." "Unlike in Russia, these [dealings] were substantial and involved the payment of large bribes and kickbacks which, were they to become public, would be potentially very damaging to their campaign.""

1/16/2018 1:27:04 PM

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article195231139.html

Quote :

"The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. "

Holy Fucking shit. If this turns out to be true

1/18/2018 7:27:19 AM

^Wow.

This really is House of Cards.

Without the murder of course.

1/18/2018 8:15:18 AM

you're forgetting Seth Rich.

1/18/2018 9:45:20 AM

it's funny because he means that non-sarcastically

1/18/2018 9:59:09 AM

so the clinton foundation can accept international donations but the nra cant?

[Edited on January 18, 2018 at 10:44 AM. Reason : interesting]

1/18/2018 10:43:27 AM

I think it may be a little different when it's coming from the Kremlin

1/18/2018 10:44:31 AM

^^ ahahaha, adorbs

1/18/2018 10:45:20 AM

Did the Clinton Foundation use the foreign donations to run advertisements for Clinton’s presidential bid? If so, do you have the link to it?

1/18/2018 10:45:26 AM

^^^^does the fbi have proof that 1) those donations happened 2) they were from an enemy intelligence service and 3) the clinton campaign lied about every question asked about it?

[Edited on January 18, 2018 at 10:46 AM. Reason : more ^]

1/18/2018 10:46:01 AM