Juice's Lecture Notes wrote:
Peter Puck wrote:
Juice's Lecture Notes wrote:
Zippy-The-Pinhead wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
good dolphin wrote:
Isn't the veracity of the information more important than it's source?
I'm sure you understand why we can't have federal agencies basing investigations on the opposition research of political parties. Forget about Trump. Many people hate Trump and it is blinding them. Imagine if this story had the FBI moving against Hillary Clinton based on information sourced and paid for by Ted Cruz. Would you be blowing that off as a "nothingburger"? Because I sincerely don't believe you would. And Trump may be in business with Vladimir Putin and the entire dossier may be true. That simply misses the point.
But that is not the sole basis for the investigation...just another part which came after the investigation was under way. Also, I trust the FBI to be able to separate facts from pablum regardless of the source.
The fact that it formed any part of an argument for probable cause for a warrant is extremely troubling, and the fact that Rosenstein did not inform the judge of the dossier's politicized origins is misconduct that should result in his termination.
Based on this logic, it appears you would toss out 99% of any requests for criminal warrants because the info comes from sources of questionable background.
I don't think a junkie informant should be enough to get probable cause for a no knock warrant, if that helps. Nor should the police/prosecutors get probable cause from the National Enquirer or TMZ.
But I don't even want to make the "fruit of the poisonous tree" argument about this warrant, because I don't know what else the government said gave them PC in the application. I think it was improper for Rosenstein to include the dossier in the application for renewal of the warrant, and also to obscure who commissioned the dossier and why.
Well, the po po cannot control who the alleged "bad guys" hang with; odds are, alleged bad guys hang out with other bad guys.
Second, I am presupposing (which may or may not be a good thing here since the application purportedly references an Isikoff news article) that the FBI sought to verify whatever portion of the dossier it used in the application. I am also guessing they did not use the part about Trump purportedly pissing on prostitutes in a Moscow hotel as part of the application.
A couple of other notes: a) apparently Page was no longer with the Trump campaign when the application was filed; b) Page's meetings with other Russians were noted, some had been disclosed and others had not, as a basis for the application since he had not registered as a foreign agent, c) *FWIW, I believe the initial work on the dossier was paid for by a (then) Republican primary opponent* and d) we actually have no cue how much of the dossier (a sentence? a paragraph?) made it into the application (which are reportedly measured in inches).
Given how Manafort was reportedly being chased by one of Putin's oligarch buddies at the time seeking an accounting of what happened to the $19m Manafort was to invest for him in the Ukraine and there are, reportedly, intercepts of Russian communications discussing how Page could be turned into a Russian asset, it is easy to see why Manafort and Page might have caught the attention of the FBI, CIA, etc. etc., regardless of their roles in the Trump campaign.
**edit - actually the Washington Free Beacon, which is funded by a GOP fundraiser, had originally hired Fusion GPS. It claims nothing from the work Fusion GPS did for it was in the dossier though.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
