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Politics : A Real American President: Donald Trump -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mrjns who wrote (84620)	7/22/2018 3:33:05 PM
From: FJB	6 Recommendations Recommended By Honey_Bee Investor Clouseau locogringo Mrjns pogbull and 1 more member Respond to of 458172

Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Ask her how that worked out - she did better with Crazy Bernie. Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018 Andrew McCarthy - “I said this could never happen. This is so bad that they should be looking at the judges who signed off on this stuff, not just the people who gave it. It is so bad it screams out at you.” On the whole FISA scam which led to the rigged Mueller Witch Hunt! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018 .@PeteHegseth on @FoxNews “Source #1 was the (Fake) Dossier. Yes, the Dirty Dossier, paid for by Democrats as a hit piece against Trump, and looking for information that could discredit Candidate #1 Trump. Carter Page was just the foot to surveil the Trump campaign...” ILLEGAL! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018

To: Mrjns who wrote (84620)	7/22/2018 3:36:37 PM
From: FJB	4 Recommendations Recommended By Honey_Bee locogringo Mrjns Woody_Nickels Respond to of 458172

FBI used anti-Trump media to obtain spy warrants on Carter Page, campaign Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, speaks with reporters following a day of questions from the House Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) more > By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Sunday, July 22, 2018 The FBI continued to tell judges that dossier writer Christopher Steelewasn’t the source of a news article the bureau used to corroborate a wiretap application when in fact Mr. Steele had publicly acknowledged he fed the anti- Trump story. This chronology is contained in four heavily censored Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents also show the FBI relied as evidence on mainstream media stories critical of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. The warrants were submitted by the FBI for surveillance on Trumpcampaign volunteer Carter Page from October 2016 to September 2017. The FBI told surveillance court judges Mr. Page was an illegal foreign agent of Russia. Mr. Page has repeatedly denied this and has not been charged. The applications are heavily redacted. The FBI’s central piece of evidence in the unreacted parts is the dossier compiled by Mr. Steele, a former British spy hired by Fusion GPS with money from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. In other words, the FBIwas relying on partisan opposition research to target Mr. Page for a year of intrusive phone and electronic intercepts. Mr. Steele’s dossier made several charges against Mr. Page. The paramount one is that, during a public-speaking trip to Moscow in July 2016, he met with two U.S.-sanctioned Kremlin figures, Igor Sechin and Igor Divyekin. Mr. Steele said Mr. Page discussed sanctions relief for bribes. To bolster Mr. Steele, the FBI presented to the judges as an independent source a Sept. 23, 2016 article by Michael Isikoff in Yahoo News. It reported the same supposed Sechin-Divyekin meetings. The applications state, “[ Steele] told the FBI that he/she only provided this information to the business associate [Fusion] and the FBI …. The FBI does not believe that [ Steele] directly provided this information to the press.” But in fact, he did. Mr. Isikoff has acknowledged that his source was Mr. Steele. And the FBI by June 2017, the date of its final application, had a way to know this. The Washington Times first reported on April 25 2017 that Mr. Steele filed a declaration in a libel suit against him in London. He stated that he had personally briefed Yahoo News and other media in September 2016 before the story appeared. The Times produced his declaration in the story, which was repeated by other news media. But the FBI two months later continued to tell judges that, “The FBI does not believe that [ Steele] directly provided this information to the press.” The Republican majority of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has previously stated that the FBI knew at the time, but did not disclosed to the judges, that the dossier was funded by the Democratic Party. Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, has accused the FBI of abusing the FISA process by relying on the opposition research of the other party. The only reference to possible bias comes when the FBI is discussing a “U.S. Person” who matches the job description of Glenn Simpson, the Fusion co-founder who hired Mr. Steele. “The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit candidate #1’s [ Trump‘s] campaign,” the application said. The FBI cited other mainstream media stories to augment the wiretap application. Several referred to a platform plank at the Republican National Convention dealing with defending Ukraine. The liberal media narration was that Trump people watered-down the language to please Russia, which is backing separatists in their war against Kiev. The FBI cited this angle. But Trump aides said the stories were inaccurate. They say that actually the final language was tougher on Russia than the first draft. A single delegate proposed adding a sentence that endorsed “lethal” aid. A compromise was struck by adding a sentence that pledged military support, a less provocative way of saying lethal aid. In the end, the Trump administration sent state-of-the-art Javelin anti-tank missiles to the Ukraine last May. The FBI also cited stories about then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reed. The Democrat sent a letter to the FBI calling for a probe of the Trump campaign based on Steele dossier tidbits showing up in the media. “The FBI’s use of politically charged media reports to surveil political opposition is tyrannical,” said J.D. Gordon, a former Pentagon spokesman and senior campaign advisers. “It’s fundamentally un-American and those responsible must be brought to justice.” Rep. Adam Schiff of California, top Democrat on House intelligence, has been defending of Mr. Steele, reading his charges into hearing transcripts “Looking more and more like the President cannot separate fact from fiction,” Mr. Schiff tweeted on Sunday. “ FBI had good reason to believe Page was an agent of a foreign power, and the FISA was lawfully approved by 4 different judges. If the President isn’t compromised, why does he continue to act this way?” Mr. Page lived in Moscow as an energy investor in the 2000s and has a string of contacts with Russian business people. In 2013, a Russian spy posing as a United Nations diplomat made contact with Mr. Page in New York. It is standard operating procedure for Russian intelligence to try to recruit American business contacts. Mr. Page was later informed by the FBI that the Russian was an agent. He said he cooperated in the investigation and was never charged. He has testified under oath that he never met the Russians named by Mr. Steele. Mr. Steele’s dossier also accused Mr. Page of coordinating Russian election inference, which included hacking of Democratic Party computers, with campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr. Page testified he has never met nor spoken with Mr. Manafort. No evidence has surfaced to rebut his testimony. The FBI fired Mr. Steele in late October after he went to Mother Jones magazine with his dossier stories. In future applications, the FBI continued to vouch to judges for his honesty. His dossier cites unnamed Kremlin sources, leading Republicans to charge that if any one is guilty of election year colluding with Moscow it is the Clinton campaign. At the time of all four FISA applicants, the FBI probe was led by Peter Strzok, the agent known for his dislike of President Trump in text messages to his lover. In August 2016, before the first Page application, he texted that “We’ll stop it” referring to the Trump campaign. Special Counsel Robert Mueller fired Mr. Strzok in July 2017 after being briefed on the text messages by the Department of Justice inspector general.