The Robert Mueller Investigation

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

Just now, TornACL said:

If the economy was down, Trump's impeachment would already be underway.

The economy is not down, and politicians are by their nature self-interested cowards, so no one is going to break rank. If unemployment was at 8% these shitheads would be climbing over each other to be the first in line to make big theatrics about breaking from Team Trump. 

I’m not so sure.  Trump would weaponize a weak economy to his advantage like he does everything else.  

“How am I supposed to turn this economy around if everyone is talking about impeachment?  If you impeach me, it will be even more devastating for the economy.  Very unwise!  The American people gave me four years to repair the mess Obama made with the economy, only traitors would want to impeach me!”

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

It's a guess, but it's an educated guess.

No it’s an uneducated guess based on feelings instead of the facts and evidence which clearly indicate Trump is a walking national security risk and a lawless criminal. 

[David Dennison 19,542]

Just now, Hugo Stiglitz said:

No it’s an uneducated guess based on feelings instead of the facts and evidence which clearly indicate Trump is a walking national security risk and a lawless criminal. 

No, believing the Senate will not vote to convict is an educated guess based on everything the Republicans have said and done up to this point.

[TornACL 7,792]

11 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I’m not so sure.  Trump would weaponize a weak economy to his advantage like he does everything else.  

“How am I supposed to turn this economy around if everyone is talking about impeachment?  If you impeach me, it will be even more devastating for the economy.  Very unwise!  The American people gave me four years to repair the mess Obama made with the economy, only traitors would want to impeach me!”

The problem is, whenever the economy is down, people don't have time or patience to hear a president fucking whining about it.

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

9 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

No, believing the Senate will not vote to convict is an educated guess based on everything the Republicans have said and done up to this point.

Only because no one has educated the electorate with the credible case to be made. That’s what Congress should be doing but they’ve decided not to.  

It looks like the Dems are going all in on Joe Biden and his “We must beat Trump” hollow strategy.   Imagine the Joe Biden campaign without Trump as his opponent?  It completely falls apart. 

Edited May 20, 2019 by Hugo Stiglitz

[jimmyjazz 47,205]

9 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I’m not so sure.  Trump would weaponize a weak economy to his advantage like he does everything else.  

“How am I supposed to turn this economy around if everyone is talking about impeachment?  If you impeach me, it will be even more devastating for the economy.  Very unwise!  The American people gave me four years to repair the mess Obama made with the economy, only traitors would want to impeach me!”

There is a significant fraction of the electorate that can be swayed by utter bullshit.  

Don't concern yourselves with these people.  They are by definition stupid.  They cannot think critically -- they either weren't taught to do so or are truly incapable.  Trump will win them over by playing on their fears and their ignorance.  This will happen, regardless of the state of the economy, or whether we're in a war, or whatever.

The only play is to reach those who ARE capable of understanding complex situations but ordinarily wouldn't vote.  A lot of these people are young.  Others are comfortable.  The strategy has to be to reach them with evidence of injustice, of authoritarianism, of unAmerican constraints being foisted upon them.  Educate.  Persuade.  Maybe . . . win.  The Deplorables are set in stone and should be written off as the trash that they are.  Fuck 'em.

[hobbes2702 13,477]

5 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

There is a significant fraction of the electorate that can be swayed by utter bullshit.  

Don't concern yourselves with these people.  They are by definition stupid.  They cannot think critically -- they either weren't taught to do so or are truly incapable.  Trump will win them over by playing on their fears and their ignorance.  This will happen, regardless of the state of the economy, or whether we're in a war, or whatever.

The only play is to reach those who ARE capable of understanding complex situations but ordinarily wouldn't vote.  A lot of these people are young.  Others are comfortable.  The strategy has to be to reach them with evidence of injustice, of authoritarianism, of unAmerican constraints being foisted upon them.  Educate.  Persuade.  Maybe . . . win.  The Deplorables are set in stone and should be written off as the trash that they are.  Fuck 'em.

This. This. This.

And I’ll add, impeachment doesn’t have to be successful to be the right course of action. Obstruction of justice is against the law. We are a nation of laws. This isn’t hard.

[triplehorn 2,664]

19 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

No one is saying the senate will never impeach. Weird strawman.

They won’t right now. Every reasonable person knows that.

I wonder if further disclosure of information and crimes should be done?  I wish there was a political party trying to do that right now. I wonder if more disclosure has potential to affect the polls, the electorate, and eventually the GOP senate? Hmmm. I think we should give that a try. 

It is almost like the situation isn’t complicated

I've long maintained that R's in Congress, non-complicit Senate GOP in particular, stand to get behind impeachment if and when the corruption tied to Trump/2016 election crimes spills into Congress.  From Mueller's filing last week, there was a reference to involvement of Congress (possibly Nunes) and it came to my attention that Flynn was in contact with Matt Gaetz.  getting warmer.  Considering that there is likely a robust ongoing RUS/NRA/GOP investigation, I expect there's more in the chute.

We're also waiting on the courts for initial rulings on the blanket stonewalling of the House by the Admin. 

The potential for abrupt upheaval in the GOP political landscape is very high and appears set to remain so for months.

[GW Hayduke 1,957]

2 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

I've long maintained that R's in Congress, non-complicit Senate GOP in particular, stand to get behind impeachment if and when the corruption tied to Trump/2016 election crimes spills into Congress.  From Mueller's filing last week, there was a reference to involvement of Congress (possibly Nunes) and it came to my attention that Flynn was in contact with Matt Gaetz.  getting warmer.  Considering that there is likely a robust ongoing RUS/NRA/GOP investigation, I expect there's more in the chute.

We're also waiting on the courts for initial rulings on the blanket stonewalling of the House by the Admin. 

The potential for abrupt upheaval in the GOP political landscape is very high and appears set to remain so for months.

Add the recent trump and kushner shady transactions with deutsche bank that recently came out.

Mueller’s team’s eventual public testimony.

Lots of things are happening

[triplehorn 2,664]

On 5/18/2019 at 10:48 AM, F250 said:

For the record, this is not my logic. I am just referring to established procedures that are part of a digital forensics investigation.

Asserting a conclusion and then using that conclusion to justify an interpretation of the available evidence is just terrible reasoning. That is not how an investigation is performed. It's the exact opposite of how an investigation works because it leads to confirmation bias.

It's been a couple of years since I read Tea Pain's database replication theory and after going over it again I have to say it's still complete nonsense. I used to be a product architect for database firewalls so I am more than familiar with what DB traffic looks like and what Tea Pain describes is not it. Why would MX records be involved in database replication or traversing the public internet bouncing off of DNS servers?

This is the part where I try and avoid sounding like an asshole but this is like a biologist trying to explain why the progeny of a horse and a unicorn are not genetically related to a mule.

I want to understand what you're saying and not belabor this more.  I don't think anyone is saying there's proof of anything related to the Alfa bank server communicating with the Trump Tower server, but I want to make clear what it is that can be definitively ruled out based on structural and functional realities.  I know nothing about MX records except that MX stands for Mail Exchanger.  So a couple questions:

1) Records of DNS lookups appear to be publicly available, but not the actual substance of any subsequent communication after a DNS lookup, correct? 

2) After a lookup and servers make contact, is there any limitation to the type or volume of information that can be exchanged between servers, i.e. files ?

3) If data info is exchanged, whatever it may be, unlike DNS lookups is the substance of the exchange private and would, for instance, require a warrant to view ?

 

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

 

[hobbes2702 13,477]

Don McGahn doesn’t work for Trump he works for the White House 

[Degenerate Gardner 4,159]

Obstruction in plain view. 

Will it matter?  He's done a damn fine job of skating away from consequences his entire life.

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

Despot rules, how they work.  

Trump’s memoirs 

[henrygandorf 29,225]

i don't think anyone is honestly basing impeachment decisions right now on the senate.  it's next to impossible for the senate to remove a president, even in times that weren't ultra-partisan, and even with a majority (neither of these are the case right now).  it will never ever ever happen, so don't even consider it.

the narrative has to be "this is the right thing to do for america, even though we know the senate republicans won't convict, regardless of all the overwhelming evidence of obstruction and other high crimes and misdemeanors."  that's it.  make everyone say it over and over again, and make the senate republicans wear it.

[RomaVicta 30,591]

2 hours ago, retread said:

If they impeach, the Ds will probably get more credit from the voters than they think.

I want to agree with that. Even if they don't get more credit from the voters, they will have done the right thing which should be impetus enough. It hasn't been enough for them in the past.

I'd feel pretty good about my usual Dem vote if they did impeach and drag all these important constitutional issues into the light. Except for the comparative evil when the opponent is Trump, I usually don't celebrate my vote that much.

[jimmyjazz 47,205]

29 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

Don McGahn doesn’t work for Trump he works for the White House 

He doesn't even work for the White House.  He resigned his position 7 months ago.

This story was originally floated a while back, although it's possible this is a new round of "instructions" (obstructions) by Trump.

[Francisco 2.0 32,595]

31 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

Don McGahn doesn’t work for Trump he works for the White House 

Don McGhan hasn't worked for the White House since last October.

He's a free agent, so to speak.  And Trump is using whatever leverage he has to keep him from testifying.

Edit.  What Jimmy said.

Edited May 20, 2019 by Francisco 2.0

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,860]

13 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Don McGhan hasn't worked for the White House since last October.

He's a free agent, so to speak.  And Trump is using whatever leverage he has to keep him from testifying.

Edit.  What Jimmy said.

Supposedly the only leverage is blackballing him and his law firm, according to the article.

[jimmyjazz 47,205]

6 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Supposedly the only leverage is blackballing him and his law firm, according to the article.

Yeah, and that's just business.  I mean, these hints of "obstruction" are getting tiresome.  The President has every right to threaten a private citizen's employer if said citizen obeys a Congressional subpoena.  It's rough down in the trenches.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,860]

7 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Yeah, and that's just business.  I mean, these hints of "obstruction" are getting tiresome.  The President has every right to threaten a private citizen's employer if said citizen obeys a Congressional subpoena.  It's rough down in the trenches.

Hell he threatens private sector employers all the time.  The media, Harley, automakers...  That in itself should be enough to boot his ass out of office.

[F250 29,201]

1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

1) Records of DNS lookups appear to be publicly available, but not the actual substance of any subsequent communication after a DNS lookup, correct?  

No, not really. The DNS logs are not publically available because of privacy and security reasons which is probably why no one can explain the existence of the leaked DNS logs. These were likely obtained illegally. DNS queries are simply just address lookups their usefulness within network forensics are very limited.

 

1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

2) After a lookup and servers make contact, is there any limitation to the type or volume of information that can be exchanged between servers, i.e. files ?

No, DNS is unrelated to this topic.

 

1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

3) If data info is exchanged, whatever it may be, unlike DNS lookups is the substance of the exchange private and would, for instance, require a warrant to view ?

If there was other evidence such as layer 3 and 7 logs that demonstrated protocols other than DNS and SMTP were used then the answer would be yes. Based on the existing evidence the answer is no.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

[Biff Tannen 46,168]

26 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

So basically the courts have to rule on all of these?  The new precedent is for the president to just tell everyone to pound sand and wait for the courts to figure it out?

[triplehorn 2,664]

Prosecutors examining tens of thousands of Trump inauguration documents

"(CNN)Federal prosecutors in New York are scrutinizing tens of thousands of documents relating to Donald Trump's inauguration in a sign that the investigation into the committee's finances is advancing.

The President's Inaugural Committee handed over the cache of documents over the course of several weeks in response to a wide-ranging subpoena seeking documents, records, and communications concerning the inaugural's finances, vendors, and donors sent in February by the US attorney's office with the Southern District of New York. The last set of documents was produced within the last month, people familiar with the matter said.

The end of the document production indicates the investigation is moving into the next stage. Authorities are investigating whether any of the record $107 million in donations for the inaugural was misspent, used to improperly benefit certain individuals, or came from foreign donors in violation of campaign finance laws that prohibit foreign money in US elections, people familiar with the inquiry said.

[...]

Prosecutors have interviewed at least one inaugural planner, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, whose firm, WIS Media, was paid $25.8 million for event production. Wolkoff, a New York City planner who has been involved in events such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala, known as the Met Gala, was also a close friend of Melania Trump.

[...]

It is not publicly known who else authorities have spoken with. Rick Gates, who was deputy chairman of the inaugural committee, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy and lying to investigators about unrelated conduct. Prosecutors in Washington have said Gates is continuing to cooperate with the Justice Department. Under his plea agreement he is obligated to cooperate with any federal inquiries.

[...]

The federal investigation grew, in part, from a recording prosecutors obtained in the raid of Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen recorded a conversation he had with Wolkoff.

Wolkoff expressed concern in the recorded conversation about how the inaugural committee was spending money, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Wolkoff was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in Manhattan in October and met with prosecutors, according to people familiar with the investigation. Wolkoff's attorney declined to comment."

cont.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[triplehorn 2,664]

1 hour ago, F250 said:

No, not really. The DNS logs are not publically available because of privacy and security reasons which is probably why no one can explain the existence of the leaked DNS logs. These were likely obtained illegally. DNS queries are simply just address lookups their usefulness within network forensics are very limited.

 

No, DNS is unrelated to this topic.

 

If there was other evidence such as layer 3 and 7 logs that demonstrated protocols other than DNS and SMTP were used then the answer would be yes. Based on the existing evidence the answer is no.

So in effect, a DNS lookup (connection) necessarily precedes server data transmission, even though DNS is unrelated to actual data transmission - like what has to happen first in order for an email to show up in your inbox. 

And because this information is private, we don't know what, if any, data was shared between servers but data being shared potentially both ways would not be structurally or functionally untenable, uncommon, or unusual in the capacity of servers.

But because info was somehow leaked, we know that the Alfa and Trump Tower servers (and DeVos' Spectrum Health server) were initiating contact for several minutes at a time, on average about once per hour, 24 hrs per day for several months during the summer election campaign of 2016. 

Hope it occurred to someone to get a warrant.

[Captainant 28,539]

1 minute ago, triplehorn said:

So in effect, a DNS lookup (connection) necessarily precedes server data transmission, even though DNS is unrelated to actual data transmission - like what has to happen first in order for an email to show up in your inbox. 

And because this information is private, we don't know what, if any, data was shared between servers but data being shared potentially both ways would not be structurally or functionally untenable, uncommon, or unusual in the capacity of servers.

But because info was somehow leaked, we know that the Alfa and Trump Tower servers (and DeVos' Spectrum Health server) were initiating contact for several minutes at a time, on average about once per hour, 24 hrs per day for several months during the summer election campaign of 2016. 

Hope it occurred to someone to get a warrant.

We also know that the pattern of DNS lookups was not ongoing and regular like you would expect with an automated system responding to spam, as has been postulated by trump apologists. The timing was consistent with a human working normal hours, and was at a relatively low rate that also implies a manual process over an automated reply.

[David Dennison 19,542]

4 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT IF THIS WILL HAPPEN.

If you never TRY to remove Trump, he will never be removed.  

If you try and fail, nothing changes the situation. 

No president wants to get impeached.

 

If you try and fail, you might get him re-elected.

Or you might not.

But neither of those things are nothing.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

The thing about the Alpha server angle is I can’t imagine what new revelation could be made that outweighs all the other known revelations.  

The campaign was sharing polling data and messaging strategy? We already got that with Manafort and Kilimnik

They were back channeling emails?  We have back channeling emails between the campaign and Russians all over the place. 

We already have collusion and coordination. We have everything up to the very brink of an open and shut case of a criminal conspiracy.   What could the mysterious server connection provide that changes any of that? 

[F250 29,201]

19 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

So in effect, a DNS lookup (connection) necessarily precedes server data transmission, even though DNS is unrelated to actual data transmission - like what has to happen first in order for an email to show up in your inbox. 

And because this information is private, we don't know what, if any, data was shared between servers but data being shared potentially both ways would not be structurally or functionally untenable, uncommon, or unusual in the capacity of servers.

But because info was somehow leaked, we know that the Alfa and Trump Tower servers (and DeVos' Spectrum Health server) were initiating contact for several minutes at a time, on average about once per hour, 24 hrs per day for several months during the summer election campaign of 2016. 

Hope it occurred to someone to get a warrant.

There is nothing to indicate that anything occurred outside of email activity based on the existing evidence.

 

22 minutes ago, Captainant said:

We also know that the pattern of DNS lookups was not ongoing and regular like you would expect with an automated system responding to spam, as has been postulated by trump apologists.

It was cybersecurity experts that postulated this explanation not Trump apologists. There is no reason this discussion cannot remain within the confines of technical possibilities. If you cannot be objective when discussing this issue then your opinion ceases being meaningful.

 

 

[triplehorn 2,664]

1 minute ago, F250 said:

There is nothing to indicate that anything occurred outside of email activity based on the existing evidence.

 

Like I said, I hope it occurred to someone to get a warrant.

[HenryJames 67,368]

 

[triplehorn 2,664]

Just now, Court rules against Trump:

”Mazars has seven days until it will have to comply with the subpoena, Mehta said in his opinion Monday, but the judge refused to halt the subpoena after that. Another court would have to do so. Trump's team has not yet appealed the ruling. 

"The court is well aware that this case involves records concerning the private and business affairs of the President of the United States. But on the question of whether to grant a stay pending appeal, the President is subject to the same legal standard as any other litigant that does not prevail," Mehta wrote. “

 

[Bama Chick 28,596]

Yeah, this horseshit reasoning didn’t work when Nixon tried it.

Stupid Watergate indeed.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

Lmao.  So much for the profile in courage Don McGahn has been carefully crafting in the shadows for the last two years. 

[henrygandorf 29,225]

does he need an actual "reason" to defy the subpoena, or can he just decline? 

assuming he does, he can't use executive privilege, right?  since he already met with mueller in testimony that was made public?

[Doc Sam Beckett 5,908]

1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

does he need an actual "reason" to defy the subpoena, or can he just decline? 

assuming he does, he can't use executive privilege, right?  since he already met with mueller in testimony that was made public?

Cause fuck you. 

That's the reason for all of these criminals, and it's a solid fucking reason because nobody ever calls them to heel. 

[Bama Chick 28,596]

Throw his ass in jail.

[Party_Taco 3,890]

Throw his ass in jail.

Gonna be an interesting couple days for democracy and the rule of law...

[retread 2,951]

I guess it was in the Trump thread that I posted a quote from Ted Lieu. They can start an impeachment inquiry without actually impeaching. The inquiry would apparently give them more power to bring in witnesses and evidence.

[Biff Tannen 46,168]

2 hours ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

Cause fuck you. 

That's the reason for all of these criminals, and it's a solid fucking reason because nobody ever calls them to heel. 

Seems to be. 

[SmokeyTheBear 5,569]

7 hours ago, retread said:

I guess it was in the Trump thread that I posted a quote from Ted Lieu. They can start an impeachment inquiry without actually impeaching. The inquiry would apparently give them more power to bring in witnesses and evidence.

Do_it.gif

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

[retread 2,951]

Jackie Speier said on CNN this morning that one current line of D thinking is that they would hold the inquiry up to the impeachment vote, and then not vote. I'm not sure I agree with that, but that may be their new line of attack.

[wildcat09 29,579]

30 minutes ago, retread said:

Jackie Speier said on CNN this morning that one current line of D thinking is that they would hold the inquiry up to the impeachment vote, and then not vote. I'm not sure I agree with that, but that may be their new line of attack.

Oh for fuck's sake.

[David Dennison 19,542]

1 hour ago, retread said:

Jackie Speier said on CNN this morning that one current line of D thinking is that they would hold the inquiry up to the impeachment vote, and then not vote. I'm not sure I agree with that, but that may be their new line of attack.

Everything going on within the Democratic caucus is leading toward impeachment. They're going to do it.

[Goredho 17,656]

19 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

So basically the courts have to rule on all of these?  The new precedent is for the president to just tell everyone to pound sand and wait for the courts to figure it out?

Yep. Oh, and its cool to solicit the help of a foreign power to damage your political opponents.

I hope the Dem's are taking notes.  I am sure the governments of the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan and others would like to see Trump lose in 2020 as much as Russia wanted to see him win in 2016.  This is all now fair game in American politics and elections.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

1 minute ago, Goredho said:

Yep. Oh, and its cool to solicit the help of a foreign power to damage your political opponents.

I hope the Dem's are taking notes.  I am sure the governments of the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan and others would like to see Trump lose in 2020 as much as Russia wanted to see him win in 2016.  This is all now fair game in American politics and elections.

NATO invoking article 5 on the down low. 

[Biff Tannen 46,168]

2 minutes ago, Goredho said:

I hope the Dem's are taking notes.  I am sure the governments of the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan and others would like to see Trump lose in 2020 as much as Russia wanted to see him win in 2016.  This is all now fair game in American politics and elections.

I wish I could believe this.  We all know the Ds are way to big of pussies to admit this is how the game is played now.  They will go back to the status quo and fucking lose again and we are doomed to repeat this simulation forever.