The Trump / Russia Controversy

[Claeyt]

What I see in that structure is huge money for foundation employees and quite a lot for travel and occupancy. Apparently that is counted into those 88% "efficiency".

One of the things you seem to not understand is that if two people do the same charity thing and one spends 1000$ on it while another spends 100$ on it, they both can have 100% efficiency.

13 million bucks for conferences ? Calculating 500$ per person-day on conference that would be 26000 person-days of conferences. Add to that another 13 million bucks from Clinton Health Access initiative. This is either unbelievable or insanely expensive. Services in Africa are cheap.

I don't think you understand what the Clinton Foundation does. It takes African doctors and medical and trains them in Europe and the U.S. and then sends them back to Africa for AIDS treatment. It does tons and tons of stuff. Read the Wikipedia article.

Conferences cost money. A week long conference for 1000 people is a lot. If they did say 4 of those a year I'd say that probably eats up their budget.

Also the Clinton part is just a small part of the whole thing and increasingly becomes a distraction only. As I said she's finished. The real Trump adversaries are elsewhere.

She's not finished. She'll never run for president again but she's already holding fundraisers for the Georgia special election coming up this spring. She'll be like what Bill was, a mega-fundraiser for the Democratic party and the politicians who supported her. Just Watch she'll be popping up next year to get out the vote in big cities.

I agree that we should drop the topic. This thread is about 'The Cheeto Collusionist'.

[Chrumps]

Wikipedia page does not mention any conference in 2014 and own Clinton Foundation page mentions only one conference in 2014 which lasted 4 days, with 1100 participants.
Claiming they do 4 conferences a year you are inventing facts which you cannot prove.

It takes African doctors and medical and trains them in Europe and the U.S. and then sends them back to Africa for AIDS treatment.

How many doctors exactly they train per year and how long the training lasts ?

[Dallane]

[jakhollin]

She's not finished. She'll never run for president again but she's already holding fundraisers for the Georgia special election coming up this spring. She'll be like what Bill was, a mega-fundraiser for the Democratic party and the politicians who supported her. Just Watch she'll be popping up next year to get out the vote in big cities.

Yeah and she needs to stay out of it. The Dem nominee is touting his 5 years of experience as a congressional aide and the truth is he was part-time for most of it while still going to college and most of the work he did was answer e-mails so more other more senior aides could write legislation.

So just more Dems throwing cash all-around hoping nobody will bother checking on what the little liars are saying.

[Claeyt]

BREAKING YUUUGE NEWS:

NUNES STEPS DOWN FROM THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpos ... ge%2Fstory

CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS COMMITTEE OPENS INVESTIGATION INTO NUNES ACTIONS OVER THE LAST MONTH.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/p ... -news&_r=0

DRIP...

DRIP..

DRIP.

____________________________________________

Hey Tmeow. Here's an article on how you've been used with the Susan Rice Story and how the propaganda machine works without facts.

http://www.salon.com/2017/04/06/unmaski ... e_partner/

How many doctors exactly they train per year and how long the training lasts ?

I don't know man check out their website or email them. They're a charity, not a secret organization. They'll probably just tell you if you contact them.

https://www.clintonfoundation.org/

[TotalyMeow]

Then why not say where you got it from?

I did like twice now. In your excitement at being replied to seriously, I guess you forgot to read what I said.

...and that's why Trump is flailing because he doesn't think it matters either. The problem with that is that it does matter. Government [off-topic tangent].

I didn't say it doesn't matter. I said Nunes is a separate issue from Susan Rice and the actions of the Obama Administration.

The Obama administration, especially in its last months, used its power inappropriately.

1. There is zero proof that Obama used his powers inappropriately or had any connection to Susan Rice's actions.

I never said there was. As you can see from the bit of my quote I left above, I was taking about the Obama Administration, not Obama himself. I have no doubt that he was the instigator and originator of most of the actions of his staff, but you won't find a record of it. It's likely there IS zero actual proof that he ever did anything wrong, he was quite smart about that sort of thing.

2. The reason Susan Rice had for requesting the unmasking was to make that information available to the FBI, CIA and NSA in the ever expanding counter-intelligence investigation.

In that case, there's a court order or warrant or whatever is used in a case where an American is ordered to be wiretapped or their privacy otherwise invaded for the sake of an investigation that would have made the unmasking legal. All we need to see is that document. Of course, such surveillance is only allowed in cases where there is already hard evidence of wrongdoing and even that evidence hasn't been found yet so obviously they didn't have it months ago.

3. The "quite large amount of people" is like 40 and it went up from 25 and they did that 2 years before when they changed the NSC structure. There's this false narrative that somehow unmasked information isn't still classified and that it was passed out via email. This is false.

Well, that's not the 'narrative' I heard anyway. *shrug*

4. It was not an abuse of power. It is in her job description to manage this information and get it into the FBI's hands if it relates to their investigation.

Actually, no. Her job description involves foreign policy and the making thereof. Her job is to collect foreign intelligence, form it into a report, and brief the President on such matters while also advising him on what he should do with regard to his decisions on foreign policy.

5. NONE OF THE INFORMATION WAS LEAKED. ...

6. None of it was leaked. ...

[except] Flynn's contact with the Russian Ambassador and some of Manafort's money laundering operation in the Caribbean.

I couldn't have said it better.

7. This leads us to why she did it. Everything I've read is that she specifically did this so as to get these foreign collected information and the Flynn tapes into Comey's hands and into the ever growing FBI/CIA/NSA counter-intelligence investigation and specifically into the FBI criminal investigation. This was exactly what her job was. She was responsible to request information that seemed criminal or espionage into the FBI's hands.

You're missing something here though. The intelligence reports she gets have nothing indicating the identity of the Americans in the conversations. That information is carefully scrubbed out. She would have to request the names be unmasked BEFORE she knew who was talking. She was asking that names be unmasked if the Americans involved had any association to Trump.

She, with no authority to do so, was deciding to pass on info to the FBI (which again was not her job). Unless there was some sort of order or warrant from the FBI asking for specific information about one or another person, she had no right to unmask those names in the first place and no reason or responsibility to be giving any such information to the FBI even if that was her actual intent in unmasking the names.

And again, I'm saying 'she' and talking about Susan Rice doing this as if she acted herself. There's no proof as yet that she was the actual one doing these things or that she was the one making the decisions. She's just the figurehead for this stuff at the moment. It could have been someone else or several someones.

Nope. I know you hate to think about it but Obama was actually the president with the least amount of scandals since Eisenhower. There's a reason the economy grew so well.

Sorry to break this to you, but there were no scandals only because scandalous actions were ignored. We could make a whole topic about all the harm Obama did during his tenure.

And the economy didn't grow very well at all. It usually grows at a some rate even in bad times, so it did grow, but at a much lower rate that it usually does. Maybe you don't have a job or maybe you have a secure one in the government or something that wasn't affected by the economy. I don't know what kind of friends you have or where they work; perhaps you were sheltered from what happened the last few years but I can tell you from personal experience that the economy did not do very well at all during Obama's administration. I never had a good job in that time. Companies would hire me as a contract employee only, so they didn't have to give me vacation or medical insurance or other benefits. I could barely get a job at all for a few years there and I was very underemployed and underpaid when I did, and yet I counted as 'employed'. My dad had a sucky job but couldn't get a better one because there weren't any. My brother could barely find work at all. We all worked in the manufacturing sector, which was hardest hit, so I did see the worst of it, but a lot of people I know in a lot of different job areas were underemployed or barely employed or had such an impossible time finding work they just gave up (which also makes it looks like unemployment is lower because you don't count you if you aren't looking). Things only took an upswing in the last year or so.

[Claeyt]

Then why not say where you got it from?

I did like twice now. In your excitement at being replied to seriously, I guess you forgot to read what I said.

All you mentioned were the WaPo and the NYT. Where did they ever say that the MSM is ignoring the fallacy that Susan Rice unmasked names for political purposes? What is your source saying that the MSM isn't reporting it?

For the record the reason they're not reporting it is because it didn't happen and this is all Horse **** of Nunes's and Trump's

...and that's why Trump is flailing because he doesn't think it matters either. The problem with that is that it does matter. Government [off-topic tangent].

I didn't say it doesn't matter. I said Nunes is a separate issue from Susan Rice and the actions of the Obama Administration.

The information that Nunes was given by the WH and then gave to the media WAS EXACTLY the news about Susan Rice. He was given the unmasking request to the NSC which Trump is now not allowing the rest of the HIC to review. This is classified information that he ham-handedly tried to "reveal" to support Trump's lie about being wire-tapped.

This is why he's being investigated. He's being investigated for revealing classified information.

1. There is zero proof that Obama used his powers inappropriately or had any connection to Susan Rice's actions.

I never said there was. As you can see from the bit of my quote I left above, I was taking about the Obama Administration, not Obama himself. I have no doubt that he was the instigator and originator of most of the actions of his staff, but you won't find a record of it. It's likely there IS zero actual proof that he ever did anything wrong, he was quite smart about that sort of thing.

The easier explanation is that there is zero proof he did anything wrong because he didn't do anything wrong. McCain has said this. Lindsey Graham has said this. Comey has said this. NUNES HAS EVEN SAID THIS, FFS. ...and those are just the Republicans... Every former Intelligence director for the last 3 administrations including the CIA, the NSA and the NSC has said this. Why won't you believe them. Are you really that brainwashed by Trump that you'll believe his tweets over all these people?

2. The reason Susan Rice had for requesting the unmasking was to make that information available to the FBI, CIA and NSA in the ever expanding counter-intelligence investigation.

In that case, there's a court order or warrant or whatever is used in a case where an American is ordered to be wiretapped or their privacy otherwise invaded for the sake of an investigation that would have made the unmasking legal. All we need to see is that document. Of course, such surveillance is only allowed in cases where there is already hard evidence of wrongdoing and even that evidence hasn't been found yet so obviously they didn't have it months ago.

We already know there's a warranted investigation out there. THE FBI HEAD, COMEY ADMITTED THERE IS AN ACTIVE COUNTER INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION ACROSSE 3 COUNTRIES. OF COURSE IT'S USING WARRANTS.

As for subpoena's that would mean that a grand jury has been convened and the Justice Department has become involved OR that the HIC or SIC has issued subpoena's. We wouldn't know either of those things has happened without leaks or if the HIC or SIC had an open hearing for a subpoened person. The other way subpoena's could be issued is through a Special Prosecutor or Select Committee which the Republicans are currently blocking so as to protect Trump and his aides.

3. The "quite large amount of people" is like 40 and it went up from 25 and they did that 2 years before when they changed the NSC structure. There's this false narrative that somehow unmasked information isn't still classified and that it was passed out via email. This is false.

Well, that's not the 'narrative' I heard anyway. *shrug*

..and where did you hear your narrative?

The entire Bannon theory that Susan Rice "operationalized" the NSC is garbage. They did it years ago to expand the NSC function and make it easier to get different views to the presidential daily intelligence briefs (which Trump is apparently refusing to take) after the intelligence failures of Iraq. It's why Trump felt it was okay to add Bannon to the NSC. Yes Rice's allowed different people to be on the permanent committee of the NSC including political appointees and that is disruptive but it diminished the singular power of the NS administrator, the head of the CIA and Joint Chiefs and others with an agenda from pushing "their intelligence" to the President like Rumsfeld and Cheney did before Iraq. More people are involved in intelligence decisions, thus more stuff is needed to be demasked so all have the same info.

4. It was not an abuse of power. It is in her job description to manage this information and get it into the FBI's hands if it relates to their investigation.

Actually, no. Her job description involves foreign policy and the making thereof. Her job is to collect foreign intelligence, form it into a report, and brief the President on such matters while also advising him on what he should do with regard to his decisions on foreign policy.

...and how does she form a report to give to the President about possible collusion between Trump's aides and the ongoing FBI/CIA/NSA counter intelligence investigation if she needs to share demasked intelligence to those department heads so as to get their perspectives and coordinate all their information they may have on those same demasked individuals.

5. NONE OF THE INFORMATION WAS LEAKED. ...

6. None of it was leaked. ...

[except] Flynn's contact with the Russian Ambassador and some of Manafort's money laundering operation in the Caribbean.

I couldn't have said it better.

Both Flynn and Manafort are facing possible criminal charges.

Flynn didn't report the hundreds of thousands he took from RT and other Russian companies and is facing criminal court martial over that. He also failed to file that he was acting as a foreign agent for Turkey when he took money for them to lobby in Washington. He's probably also being investigated criminally for the whole Gulon kidnapping thing.

Manafort being in the Ukrainian 'Black Book' and his money laundering for Russians through Cyprus to the Caribbean are both probably criminal in nature. He's already been subpoened in Ukraine for it.

Susan Rice would be REQUIRED to demask any and all intelligence that showed possible criminal activity or helped in any FBI investigations for those crimes. I'm sure she simply put "FBI investigation" on the form requesting Flynn's and Manafort's demasking from the NSC.

7. This leads us to why she did it. Everything I've read is that she specifically did this so as to get these foreign collected information and the Flynn tapes into Comey's hands and into the ever growing FBI/CIA/NSA counter-intelligence investigation and specifically into the FBI criminal investigation. This was exactly what her job was. She was responsible to request information that seemed criminal or espionage into the FBI's hands.

You're missing something here though. The intelligence reports she gets have nothing indicating the identity of the Americans in the conversations. That information is carefully scrubbed out. She would have to request the names be unmasked BEFORE she knew who was talking. She was asking that names be unmasked if the Americans involved had any association to Trump.

NO. This is false. She was the National Security Adviser. She had access to all intelligence just not the names or stuff hinting at who it is.. You still don't understand how unmasking works. Masked (redacted) names aren't unknown to everyone but those exact people who collected it. The intelligence collected with an American name would still be available to the department head and an aide or 2, it doesn't just become invisible the moment it's collected. The department head of say the NSA would have had access to any names in any NSA collected material.

Let's take an example through the NSA as to how the Flynn tape of him talking to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions probably happened. First it's collected because the NSA monitors all foreign diplomats in the U.S. (including on the apparent secret phone the Russian ambassador was using). Then it's passed upwards to an adviser who sees it, determines it involves an American and masks the name from interdepartmental sharing of the name, BUT THE INFORMATION AND NAME ARE PASSED UPWARDS to the assistant NSA head who reviews it with the head of the NSA. The assistant and the NSA head have full knowledge of any masked intelligence from NSA collection. They don't have info on say a CIA collected intelligence that's masked but they have access to anything collected by the NSA. The NSA head then gives the intelligence WITH THE NAME MASKED to the NSC (National Security Council) of whom both he and Susan Rice are members of. He at that point requests the NSC (and it's lawyers, and the rep from the FISA Court) approve of unmasking the name so he can show it to Susan Rice. HE DOESN'T REVEAL THE NAME JUST THE INTELLIGENCE WITHOUT THE NAME INVOLVED AND HE GIVES A REASON FOR THE REQUEST. IN THIS CASE HE PROBABLY SAID, "THERE IS A FEDERAL FBI/CIA/NSA COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION INTO POSSIBLE COLLUSION WITH THE RUSSIANS BY THIS PERSON AND I THINK THE NS ADVISER SHOULD SEE THE NAME". At this point the NSC sees the intelligence and makes a judgment. Susan Rice then sees the name and requests the same unmasking to share it with other departments. She would probably send the name to the FBI and to the CIA and approve it for the president to see.

It also could have worked out where she saw the intelligence collected with the name redacted and then simply requested the intelligence be unmasked and passed on to the FBI counter-intelligence investigation because it fell under their criminal prosecution or possible criminal actions. She of course would have simply put the reason why in the unmasking request form which Trump is refusing to share with the HIC. This could be solved in 5 minutes but the WH refuses to release it because they know it shows the FBI was involved.

She, with no authority to do so, was deciding to pass on info to the FBI (which again was not her job). Unless there was some sort of order or warrant from the FBI asking for specific information about one or another person, she had no right to unmask those names in the first place and no reason or responsibility to be giving any such information to the FBI even if that was her actual intent in unmasking the names.

She has all authority to do so. SHE WAS THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER. Her job is to coordinate intelligence sharing between the 14 intelligence agencies and then brief it to the president. Getting NSA or CIA intelligence showing possible criminal activity into the hands of the FBI investigation concerning the criminal activity is EXACTLY HER JOB. WHOSE JOB DO YOU THINK IT IS TO COORDINATE THE SHARING OF INTELLIGENCE BETWEEN AGENCIES IF NOT THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR?

And again, I'm saying 'she' and talking about Susan Rice doing this as if she acted herself. There's no proof as yet that she was the actual one doing these things or that she was the one making the decisions. She's just the figurehead for this stuff at the moment. It could have been someone else or several someones.

What are you talking about? The National Security Adviser makes something in the order of hundreds of unmasking requests a year so as to share valid intelligence between agencies. You still have a complete misunderstanding of what masking is. I think you think it's rare or something for the National Security Adviser doesn't do that often.

In this example there was an active FBI investigation into it. The NSA probably collected it. Susan Rice shared it with the FBI because they had an investigation going where this individual was involved already. This is simple stuff. All the rest is Bull ****.

Nope. I know you hate to think about it but Obama was actually the president with the least amount of scandals since Eisenhower. There's a reason the economy grew so well.

Sorry to break this to you, but there were no scandals only because scandalous actions were ignored. We could make a whole topic about all the harm Obama did during his tenure.

Why would the Republican congress ignore scandal during the Obama years?

They dragged out every piddly **** little thing against him and failed. Remember the IRS "super duper scandal" where their review of right wing non-profit political organizations increased 10 fold after the 2010 midterms. Of course it happened because the NUMBER of right wing non-profit political organizations increased 20 fold.

The congress tried to impeach the head of the IRS, John Koskinen ffs. Guess what. The guy's still there under Trump.

They tried to ***** impeach him last year but now their fine with him. Trump could literally just ask him to resign or fire him.

This is when you should realize that all the "Scandals" the Republicans keep pushing on dupes like you are fake bull **** they make up to control their base.

Obama's presidency was literally the most criminal free of any presidency since Kennedy. Not a single White House staff was charged with a felony for the first time since Carter. Some people were fired from the Justice Department for the "Fast and Furious" idiocy. Some people were forced to resign for mismanaging emails at the IRS but that's about it in the executive branch. Petraus got a misdemeanor for sharing intel with his mistress. A vice-chair of the joint chiefs got a misdemeanor for sharing info with reporters. And all of that's with a Republican congress who hated him.

And the economy didn't grow very well at all. It usually grows at a some rate even in bad times, so it did grow, but at a much lower rate that it usually does. Maybe you don't have a job or maybe you have a secure one in the government or something that wasn't affected by the economy. I don't know what kind of friends you have or where they work; perhaps you were sheltered from what happened the last few years but I can tell you from personal experience that the economy did not do very well at all during Obama's administration. I never had a good job in that time. Companies would hire me as a contract employee only, so they didn't have to give me vacation or medical insurance or other benefits. I could barely get a job at all for a few years there and I was very underemployed and underpaid when I did, and yet I counted as 'employed'. My dad had a sucky job but couldn't get a better one because there weren't any. My brother could barely find work at all. We all worked in the manufacturing sector, which was hardest hit, so I did see the worst of it, but a lot of people I know in a lot of different job areas were underemployed or barely employed or had such an impossible time finding work they just gave up (which also makes it looks like unemployment is lower because you don't count you if you aren't looking). Things only took an upswing in the last year or so.

Every economic indicator puts Obama's economy 2nd after Clinton's internet economic expansion of the 90's. The ONLY sticking points were wage growth, manufacturing and GDP growth under 3%. Overall Wages were flat for a good 6 years after the great Recession but they rose in the last 2 years.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... ma-economy

[Dallane]

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/com ... broke_the/

[TotalyMeow]

I suppose the difference between me and Claeyt, and the reason he just doesn't get it, is that I am aware of the meaning and purpose of the fourth amendment, and he doesn't know it exists.

That was a nice summary of the economy too. The last few years were great! Second best of any President! Except for wages of course, those sucked... oh, and the GDP didn't grow, yeah... and the manufacturing sector, the most important sector of our economy, that tanked... but otherwise it was great!

[Claeyt]

I suppose the difference between me and Claeyt, and the reason he just doesn't get it, is that I am aware of the meaning and purpose of the fourth amendment, and he doesn't know it exists.

That was a nice summary of the economy too. The last few years were great! Second best of any President! Except for wages of course, those sucked... oh, and the GDP didn't grow, yeah... and the manufacturing sector, the most important sector of our economy, that tanked... but otherwise it was great!

Well don't call any Russian Intelligence agents and you should be fine.

As for the economy, yes, yes it was the 2nd best after Clinton's. We started up in the toilet when Obama took over in the worst recession since the Depression and slowly grew back. It wasn't perfect but it was a hell of a lot more than Either Bush. I blame the policies though. In 1989 it was voodoo economics taking out so much money, deficit spending for the military and sticking it in risky stocks and swiss bank accounts. In 2008 it was Bush and the Republicans loosening the banking regulations so that instead of a housing bubble affecting thousands of real estate agents and constructions workers it was a massive near global event that affected everyone.

MEAN ***** WHILE

Nunes is having the luckiest day alive. His disgrace gets overshadowed first by the Republicans ending the filibuster on Supreme Court picks and then Trump attacks Syria.

You think he planned it so he'd end up on page 20?

So...

Trump attacks Syria even though he criticized Obama for thinking about it and criticized Bush for Iraq. Let's see how this goes. WWIII anyone? Hopefully he didn't hit any Russian ground crews. Maybe it's just a stunt to distance himself from seeming in the Russians pocket. Lets see how many planes he actually hit.

MEANWHILE ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT

Jared Kushner lied on his security clearance forms. He actually omitted all the Russian he had met.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/p ... .html?_r=0

This is a felony. How much do you want to bet that Bannon was behind this leak.

His excuse is pathetic. I mean really, who forgets they met the mother ***** Russian Ambassador to the United States just 2 months prior to answering "which foreign government officials have you met recently"?

Now lets see if he's lied to the FBI when they followed up on this.