What's going on with this DNI Whistleblower ?

[lemonlime 5503]

I'm not sure it matters in this context, given that the trial if there is one is before the Senate, and the Senators can do whatever they want.  But, I would also think they could get an adverse inference charge at the trial.  I.e., the fact that these people didn't testify means that their testimony would be damaging to trump and support conviction.

[David Dennison 19554]

8 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

In America, the rich and powerful are never punished.

Well, not never.

 

[bad_teammate 13552]

11 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

so is there still a jail cell in the basement of the capitol building?

 

[David Dennison 19554]

13 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Seriously though, if they don't have consequences for Pompeo, what's the point?  They will be admitting there is no rule of law.

The framers believed the consequences would be political.

 

[David Dennison 19554]

6 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

I'm not sure it matters in this context, given that the trial if there is one is before the Senate, and the Senators can do whatever they want.  But, I would also think they could get an adverse inference charge at the trial.  I.e., the fact that these people didn't testify means that their testimony would be damaging to trump and support conviction.

Correct. Stonewalling would be more evidence of obstruction of justice.

[Biff Tannen 46170]

8 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

I.e., the fact that these people didn't testify means that their testimony would be damaging to trump and support conviction.

Pretty sure the Rs would just whine that the Ds are being corrupt and unfair and witch hunt!  And it would work.

[lemonlime 5503]

3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Correct. Stonewalling would be more evidence of obstruction of justice.

Well.  That too.  But the GOP, who loves to misquote rules of evidence--HEARSAY!!!! CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE!!!!! ---is ignoring the evidentiary rule on destruction/hiding of evidence.  I.e. when you do so the jury should assume the worst of that evidence against you.  Of course, Roberts could make any ruling on this, and the GOP Senators would surely ignore the ruling.

[henrygandorf 29227]

4 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Correct. Stonewalling would be more evidence of obstruction of justice.

obstruction of congress.  and they can add that as an article of impeachment.  consequences are more severe in the case of an impeachment inquiry.

it's my understanding that it starts with fines, then potential disbarment, then jail time. 

[David Dennison 19554]

4 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Pretty sure the Rs would just whine that the Ds are being corrupt and unfair and witch hunt!  And it would work.

You won't know if it works until after the election. If polls are any indication, it's not working.

[Junior Miller 1502]

39 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I find it astonishing that any thinking individual would back Trump over their own freedom.  It just goes to show you how much dirt all these guys have on them -- they're terrified of it coming out and they know Trump will set them up for a cup of coffee.

It goes to show how arrogant they are because their whole lives they've gotten away with whatever crimes they've committed and fully believe rich white men in American politics never get really punished. Honestly, what even remotely recent evidence is there to say they're wrong to believe it?

If the Dems take control after 2020 they can't be Gerald Ford's about this. This is a tipping point where America will either at least try to get back to being a representative democracy or will just say fuck it and embrace full plutocracy. The new president needs to set up a DOJ that is willing to prosecute everyone from the trumps/pence to pompeo to barr and anyone else implicated in this cover up. If not we accept it's full Brisket time. 

[Gil Bang 26245]

SIAP:

grumpy old fuck gets it right

 

[horncyclist 1391]

Unbelievable that the party that spent the last 20 years or so screaming about the Constitution is ripping it up. Lincoln, also a Republican, did it to save the Union. Today's republicans are doing it to save....Trump.

[DixonHur 11961]

11 minutes ago, horncyclist said:

Unbelievable that the party that spent the last 20 years or so screaming about the Constitution is ripping it up. Lincoln, also a Republican, did it to save the Union. Today's republicans are doing it to save....Trump.

Looking more and more like a bad idea.  Based on the electoral map, I'm starting to think we'd have been better off today had the South been allowed to secede. 

[Jack Straw 2955]

1 hour ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Obstruction of Congress carries jail time. I guess Pompeo is willing to go to prison for Trump. His staff on the other hand...

There will be no repercussions for this, sorry to say.  Oh well.   

[RomaVicta 30604]

2 hours ago, triplehorn said:

fuck these guilty fuckers.

 

Donald is building a wall, all right. From 1974:

A president who sides with foreigners and actual enemies over the US. Maybe stoned to death on national TV would be the proper punishment. I still prefer the iron cage idea. We just need a bigger cage.

 

 

 

[RomaVicta 30604]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

Nixon didn't have Barr running his DOJ.

 

1 hour ago, kevwun said:

Yeah, but his AG basically kidnapped his own wife to try to keep her from talking about Watergate.

John Mitchell, Nixon's campaign manager in 1968, left the AG position in 1972 to run Nixon's re-election campaign the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP, no shit). The Saturday Night Massacre saw Nixon's AG and Assistant AG (Elliot and Ruckleshouse) resign rather than fire the special prosecutor, A. Cox. 

Robert Bork was next in line and fired Cox. That alone was enough to block him from the Supreme Court as far as I was concerned.

This act of obstructing justice played a large role in the impeach proceedings.

Bad as Mitchell and Bork were, they never flew to foreign countries to discredit the American Intelligence Community nor did they participate in strong-arming other countries to smear political opponents.

As I looked up these guys to make sure my memory was correct, I came across references to Nixon lying as though such a thing was a big deal. Quaint.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

2 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Obstruction of Congress carries jail time. I guess Pompeo is willing to go to prison for Trump. His staff on the other hand...

At this point the playbook is exactly how you bring down mafia organizations. You start threatening jail time for the folks on the bottom of the pyramid and let them decide if they want to serve time for the criminals above them. Trump elicits no true loyalty from anyone in his organization. One by one they’ll fold.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

45 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Looking more and more like a bad idea.  Based on the electoral map, I'm starting to think we'd have been better off today had the South been allowed to secede. 

Well, not black people.  But I take your point. 

[DigglerontheHoof 21555]

1 minute ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

At this point the playbook is exactly how you bring down mafia organizations. You start threatening jail time for the folks on the bottom of the pyramid and let them decide if they want to serve time for the criminals above them. Trump elicits no true loyalty from anyone in his organization. One by one they’ll fold.

Of course, the Big didn’t is mafia bosses can’t hand out pardons.

[DigglerontheHoof 21555]

3 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

At this point the playbook is exactly how you bring down mafia organizations. You start threatening jail time for the folks on the bottom of the pyramid and let them decide if they want to serve time for the criminals above them. Trump elicits no true loyalty from anyone in his organization. One by one they’ll fold.

Of course, the big difference is mafia bosses can’t offer pardons.

Edited October 1, 2019 by DigglerontheHoof

[triplehorn 2664]

5 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

At this point the playbook is exactly how you bring down mafia organizations. You start threatening jail time for the folks on the bottom of the pyramid and let them decide if they want to serve time for the criminals above them. Trump elicits no true loyalty from anyone in his organization. One by one they’ll fold.

enterprise corruption.  It's what RICO statutes address.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

16 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

Of course, the big difference is mafia bosses can’t offer pardons.

I’m curious from a timing standpoint....these guys defy congress and...? Would they be banking on Trump winning in 2020? Assuming he doesn’t...?

[lemonlime 5503]

10 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

I’m curious from a timing standpoint....these guys defy congress and...? Would they be banking on Trump winning in 2020? Assuming he doesn’t...?

They're acting like people who know they will never have to face a free and fair election again.  My guess is they know they won't have to.  They know the 2020 election is being rigged in their favor and they can do whatever the fuck they want.

[Biff Tannen 46170]

36 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

enterprise corruption.  It's what RICO statutes address.

Whoa, where has that guy been lately?

[jimmyjazz 47221]

10 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

They're acting like people who know they will never have to face a free and fair election again.  My guess is they know they won't have to.  They know the 2020 election is being rigged in their favor and they can do whatever the fuck they want.

That won't go over without a fight.  At some point polling data has to matter, even if the Trumps want to dismiss it.  There were already oddities in the swing states last time around.  I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that Americans will just roll over and give up if polling indicates a clear majority, both popular and electoral, and then somehow the electoral vote shifts just so.  People don't WANT to believe it, but at this point, who would put actual vote tampering past Trump/Putin?  I sure wouldn't.

[DDD Dad 14655]

2 hours ago, David Dennison said:

The framers believed the consequences would be political.

 

That's quaint.

[DDD Dad 14655]

1 hour ago, RomaVicta said:

...they never flew to foreign countries to discredit the American Intelligence Community nor did they participate in strong-arming other countries to smear political opponents.

Can someone help me with this?  As it relates to the latest revelations about Australia (and now apparently Italy) I'm really having a hard time understanding how the efforts to investigate the origins of the Steele Dossier and Mueller investigation are either attempts to discredit the intelligence community or strong arm another country to smear political opponents.  It seems like, while I think it's a stupid chase down a rabbit hole, it falls within the discretion of the DOJ to pursue.

What am I missing?

/not just asking questions

 

[henrygandorf 29227]

1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

enterprise corruption.  It's what RICO statutes address.

as someone who's been arrested for suspected rico violations, i can tell you, it is not as much fun as it seems.

[Pig Bellmont 8887]

 

[4th&Five 42010]

 

[Francisco 2.0 32602]

Ordinarily, this would have been ho hum news coming from any administration.  However, it has a different meaning with this one.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/01/white-house-trump-leaks-code-015194

 

Quote

The Trump White House upgraded the security of the National Security Council’s top-secret codeword system in the spring of 2018, according to two former Trump White House officials familiar with the matter, as part of an effort to ferret out and deter leaks.

The changes included a new log of who accessed specific documents in the NSC’s system —known as NICE or “NSC Intelligence Collaboration Environment”—and was designed in part to prevent leaks of records of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders and to find out the suspected leaker if transcripts did get disclosed, one of the former officials said. Prior to the upgrade, officials could only see who had uploaded or downloaded material to the system but usually not who accessed which documents.

 

Quote

That highly classified system is being newly scrutinized in light of a whistleblower complaint alleging that national security officials used the system—meant for storing information classified at the highest level—to conceal politically embarrassing conversations, including a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 in which President Donald Trump urged Zelensky to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

If hiding political embarrassing material, rather than protecting national security secrets, was the motivation, experts and former officials said, it would be an abuse of the codeword system. While not necessarily an illegal act, it does run counter to an executive order signed by President Obama in 2009 that says information can’t be classified to “conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error” or “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency,” they said.

 

Quote

POLITICO first reported last week that the White House began to use the codeword system to restrict the number of officials who had access to these transcripts following leaks in 2017.

As part of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, lawmakers are interested in learning who was involved in uploading the call records to that system—a stark departure from how the system is typically used and how memos of the president’s exchanges have traditionally been handled, former officials and experts said.

 

Spoiler

The basic concept of logging who went in and out of top-secret NSC-wide systems is not unique to the Trump administration, according to three former National Security Council officials.

One of those officials with direct knowledge of the system also said the ability to log who accessed specific documents in the codeword system “seems consistent with some of the controls in place” on the system under President Obama. “It’s a way to further tighten controls on the information,” the former official said.

When asked for comment, a senior administration official said: “We’re not going to discuss how we handle classified materials.”

But the administration’s external supporters have defended the move. Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, speaking on Fox News Tuesday morning, said, “I think they were acting responsibly. We have to protect our relationships. We have to be able to communicate with our allies and partners. The president should be able to do that without those classified conversations and exchange maybe of national security information being leaked to the press.”

While only a certain number of NSC staffers have the codeword system installed on their workstations, only a subset of those staffers, in turn, has access to specific documents on that system. The former official with knowledge of the system added that he had never seen transcripts put on that codeword system during his time in the Obama administration.

The changes came months after entire transcripts of President Trump’s calls with the leaders of Australia and Mexico were leaked to the Washington Post, setting off a furious internal search for the source of the unauthorized disclosures and widening the mistrust between the president and his own staff.

Before the upgrade, the White House began restricting the distribution of the transcripts of the president’s calls with foreign leaders to a narrower group of officials. Previously, the transcripts had been put on a shared drive that all NSC staffers had access to, which made it easier for leaks to happen, according to a former Trump White House official.

Officials in the NSC’s intelligence directorate had to take the matter up to the principals level because “it was a pretty fundamental change to the system.” John Kelly and H.R. McMaster, the respective chief of staff and national security adviser at the time, signed off on the change.

A former White House official said the upgrade came amid "a hard look at who had a 'need to know', which is fundamental to managing classified info and highly sensitive documents, conversations, emails, etc." This former official characterized the changes as the White House merely adopting the standard classification practices used at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies.

Still, intelligence and national security experts called it “highly unusual” for these kinds of routine calls between world leaders to be placed into a system that’s intended to be used only for information about the nation’s most highly compartmented programs -- for instance, covert actions like the secret raid in Pakistan that led to the assassination of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

“It risks undermining a whole host of important national security activities,” said April Doss, who served as senior minority counsel for the Russia investigation on the Senate Intelligence Committee and, prior to that, as a top attorney at the National Security Agency. “Most, if not all” officials who would need to have access to call readouts as part of carrying out their regular duties in advising on foreign affairs and implementing the administration’s policies, she added, “would not have access” to the codeword system.

Only a small number of NSC staffers have access to NICE, and an even smaller subset of those people had the ability to upload or download documents from the system. The person who most likely put the transcript into NICE would have been one of the NSC staffers responsibility for maintaining this highly compartmentalized system for intelligence storage at the NSC.

“There’s really no one else who would have been trusted to do it,” said the former official.

People who likely had access to the Ukraine call transcript included people like the NSC’s Ukraine country director, the senior director for Europe and Russia, a number of people from the legal office, a couple of West Wing staffers, the staff secretary and several others in the Situation Room, this person said.

CNN and the New York Times reported that transcripts of Trump’s calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi leader Mohammed Bin Salman were also placed into that highly classified system to prevent them from being leaked.

The Russian calls “were pretty much what you would expect, you can take the first part of the Zelensky call with all of the over the top effusive praise and basically copy and paste onto pretty much any head of state call with Trump, whether it was Emmanuel Macron or Vladimir Putin,” said the former NSC official. “Every one of them knew to start the call by praising him for the thing that he had just done that week.”

On his calls with Putin, most of the time Trump talked about wanting to put the relationship between the U.S. and Russia on a friendlier footing, but complained that the media and other people in the government were preventing him from doing so.

“They were certainly the type of thing that you would not want in public because they were just really embarrassing from the standpoint of just national pride,” said the official.

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Francisco 2.0

[Grade of D as in David 13255]

8 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

 

A sternly worded letter. I bet Pompeo and the rest of the Trump clan are shitting themselves now. 

 

The House needs to understand that they aren't playing under the same rules as the Republicans. Norms and niceties are out the fucking window. 

[Bama Chick 28596]

lol

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

That won't go over without a fight.  At some point polling data has to matter, even if the Trumps want to dismiss it.  There were already oddities in the swing states last time around.  I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that Americans will just roll over and give up if polling indicates a clear majority, both popular and electoral, and then somehow the electoral vote shifts just so.  People don't WANT to believe it, but at this point, who would put actual vote tampering past Trump/Putin?  I sure wouldn't.

The polls in 2016 were essentially right, however, with three very large exceptions: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The three states which just so happened to conveniently swing the election to trump.

An election which super narcissistic dipshit trump is STILL trying to prove was legitimate even though everyone else has moved on. 

Just sayin...

Edited October 1, 2019 by JimmyJames

[Biff Tannen 46170]

14 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

an executive order signed by President Obama in 2009 that says information can’t be classified to “conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error” or “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency,”

Damn that Obama, trying to actually do things in the interest of transparency.

[Brisketexan 106929]

11 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

lol
 

It's the same as the name of Jacob Wohl's girlfriend.  She lives in Canada.  You wouldn't know her.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11860]

15 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Prior to the upgrade, officials could only see who had uploaded or downloaded material to the system but usually not who accessed which documents.

 

 

 

 

See, aside from abuse of the system, the thing is that whoever is leaking stuff likely isn't getting it off the system.  They're taking pictures of it with their smartphone or by some other means before it even gets uploaded/logged into the system.  Because the shit isn't classified before it goes into the system.

[Pig Bellmont 8887]

59 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Can someone help me with this?  As it relates to the latest revelations about Australia (and now apparently Italy) I'm really having a hard time understanding how the efforts to investigate the origins of the Steele Dossier and Mueller investigation are either attempts to discredit the intelligence community or strong arm another country to smear political opponents.  It seems like, while I think it's a stupid chase down a rabbit hole, it falls within the discretion of the DOJ to pursue.

What am I missing?

/not just asking questions

 

Are you asking whether it’s kosher for the attorney general of the United States to be secretly working with foreign intelligence to discredit U.S. FBI, special counsel, and intelligence conclusions regarding foreign interference into the 2016 election?

I mean apart from the blatant and inappropriate abuse of office or something else? Because I can go on...

[Pescado_Rojo 19590]

27 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

lol
 

are we talking business partner, or.....

NTTAWWT

[4th&Five 42010]

shut up, go away and all that...but she's pretty good at this.

 

[DDD Dad 14655]

Are you asking whether it’s kosher for the attorney general of the United States to be secretly working with foreign intelligence to discredit U.S. FBI, special counsel, and intelligence conclusions regarding foreign interference into the 2016 election?
I mean apart from the blatant and inappropriate abuse of office or something else? Because I can go on...

Was he working to discredit the conclusions or looking for more information regarding the inception of the investigation?

I feel like the conclusion being drawn as to the motivation (to discredit intelligence conclusions) isn’t as clear as you are suggesting.

Understand, if you’ve read any of my posts, I’m not supporting Trump or any of his criminal enterprises. I’m simply trying to get my arms around these latest revelations, which seem at least facially justifiable.

Also it wouldn’t necessarily be an abuse of office if the effort was to dig into a justifiable investigation even if the outcome might have beneficial results to the GOP.

[Pig Bellmont 8887]

9 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

 

Was he working to discredit the conclusions or looking for more information regarding the inception of the investigation?

I feel like the conclusion being drawn as to the motivation (to discredit intelligence conclusions) isn’t as clear as you are suggesting.

Understand, if you’ve read any of my posts, I’m not supporting Trump or any of his criminal enterprises. I’m simply trying to get my arms around these latest revelations, which seem at least facially justifiable.

Also it wouldn’t necessarily be an abuse of office if the effort was to dig into a justifiable investigation even if the outcome might have beneficial results to the GOP.

 

Looks an awful lot like concern trolling. And the answer is: No, there is not a legitimate or justifiable “investigation into the investigators” - just infowars deep state conspiracy bullshit that somehow has captured the resources of our top “impartial” justice official who has been entirely corrupted to carrying out personal political favors for the President’s ego. 

[zork 629]

1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

Can someone help me with this?  As it relates to the latest revelations about Australia (and now apparently Italy) I'm really having a hard time understanding how the efforts to investigate the origins of the Steele Dossier and Mueller investigation are either attempts to discredit the intelligence community or strong arm another country to smear political opponents.  It seems like, while I think it's a stupid chase down a rabbit hole, it falls within the discretion of the DOJ to pursue.

What am I missing?

/not just asking questions

 

 

13 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

 

Was he working to discredit the conclusions or looking for more information regarding the inception of the investigation?

I feel like the conclusion being drawn as to the motivation (to discredit intelligence conclusions) isn’t as clear as you are suggesting.

Understand, if you’ve read any of my posts, I’m not supporting Trump or any of his criminal enterprises. I’m simply trying to get my arms around these latest revelations, which seem at least facially justifiable.

Also it wouldn’t necessarily be an abuse of office if the effort was to dig into a justifiable investigation even if the outcome might have beneficial results to the GOP.

 

Better watch out in these parts.

 

[DDD Dad 14655]

2 minutes ago, zork said:

 

Better watch out in these parts.

 

I'm not worried.  I asked an honest question, and I think my posting history reflects the ability to develop thoughts on my own rather than regurgitate talking points.

Unlike the Ukraine story (which to me seems completely indefensible and justifies proceeding towards impeachment), these other revelations just make my head spin in confusion.

Edited October 1, 2019 by DDD Dad

[Brisketexan 106929]

3 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

I'm not worried.  I asked an honest question, and I think my posting history reflects the ability to develop thoughts on my own rather than regurgitate talking points.

Unlike the Ukraine story (which to me seems completely indefensible and justifies proceeding towards impeachment), these other revelations just make my head spin in confusion.

I share your curiosity.

[DDD Dad 14655]

17 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Looks an awful lot like concern trolling. And the answer is: No, there is not a legitimate or justifiable “investigation into the investigators” - just infowars deep state conspiracy bullshit that somehow has captured the resources of our top “impartial” justice official who has been entirely corrupted to carrying out personal political favors for the President’s ego. 

I'm not concern trolling.  If you know anything about my posting history you wouldn't even make that suggestion.  I guess I just need more information than your ipse dixit that these specific instances are illegitimate.

If there is some legitimacy to the Australian and Italian incidents then let's not diminish the impact or importance of what clearly has been shown to be impeachable conduct.

Edited October 1, 2019 by DDD Dad

[Brisketexan 106929]

1 minute ago, DDD Dad said:

I'm not concern trolling.  If you know anything about my posting history you wouldn't even make that suggestion.  I guess I just need more information than your fiat that these specific instances are illegitimate.

I agree that their reasoning is utterly chickenshit.  I think that it's down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, which is embarrassing coming from the highest-ranking US officials.  But after that, I share DDD's questions.

[wildcat09 29593]

1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

Can someone help me with this?  As it relates to the latest revelations about Australia (and now apparently Italy) I'm really having a hard time understanding how the efforts to investigate the origins of the Steele Dossier and Mueller investigation are either attempts to discredit the intelligence community or strong arm another country to smear political opponents.  It seems like, while I think it's a stupid chase down a rabbit hole, it falls within the discretion of the DOJ to pursue.

What am I missing?

/not just asking questions

 

Because that's not what they're doing.

[MissingInAction 25560]

At this point I would welcome a military coup. 

[Biff Tannen 46170]

1 minute ago, MissingInAction said:

At this point I would welcome a military coup. 

Or a history eraser button.