The Robert Mueller Investigation

[triplehorn 2,664]

It was also odd, if memory serves, that as soon as the Trump Tower/ Alfa server story broke, the server comms abruptly went dark.  Whether there's something to it or not, the reaction belies a guilty purpose and raises suspicion. If there's nothing to it, better off ignoring it and doing nothing.  But nope.

[TtomTerrific 200]

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Are you drunk?

Don't answer.

are you a race-baiting man without a political hope?

 

don't answer.  

[triplehorn 2,664]

2 hours ago, triplehorn said:

It was also odd, if memory serves, that as soon as the Trump Tower/ Alfa server story broke, the server comms abruptly went dark.  Whether there's something to it or not, the reaction belies a guilty purpose and raises suspicion. If there's nothing to it, better off ignoring it and doing nothing.  But nope.

Another thought - I believe the act of Manafort delivering the MI/OH/PA polling data to Russians happened after the story broke on the Trump Tower/Alfa bank server comms which subsequently abruptly stopped and went dark.  This could represent an new alternate route of exchange of voter data in light of the server route being shut down.

[triplehorn 2,664]

From a Senator who sits on Senate Intelligence Committee, what does he know, and why now ?

 

 

[GRHorn 105]

4 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

The way I see it Rosenstein was involved in multiple efforts to obstruct justice.  First with Sessions to fire Comey and then with the Barr spin job.  We have no idea how Rosenstein directed the Mueller investigation behind the scenes except for what we were allowed to see by him and Bill Barr.  We still haven’t heard a word from Mueller.  Everything we know about Rosenstein is coming from Rod Rosenstein. 

It’s good that Rosenstein held it together but he’s weak and placated Trump way too much. 

Wray doesn’t speak up enough when Trump attacks the FBI.  He seem like an inside player and the fact that he came from the Chris Christie world makes me feel worse about him. 

If I were Wray, I would want to stay as far away as possible from the counterintelligence investigation.  Inserting himself into it could jeopardize the whole thing.  

I think this shows an interesting example of how people differ so much in perception of events. You say Rosenstein was “involved in multiple efforts to obstruct justice”.

With the firing of Comey are you referring to his memo recommending it? It only references Comey’s behavior wrapping up the Clinton investigation which was universally panned as inappropriate, unprecedented, and frankly not his job.  

As far as the “Barr spin job”, do you mean consulting with him on his summary letter? It hasn’t been universally derided as false or incomplete. You just didn’t agree with it.  And the almost completely unredacted report was released shortly thereafter. 

You see things as obstructing justice that others see as just doing his job. It was a tough job and everyone has had issues with certain aspects of his decision making throughout. It doesn’t make him a nefarious co conspirator or something.  People like you see or hear ghosts everywhere. Sometimes it’s just trees blowing in the wind and rubbing against the window.  

[F250 29,201]

2 hours ago, triplehorn said:

It was also odd, if memory serves, that as soon as the Trump Tower/ Alfa server story broke, the server comms abruptly went dark.  Whether there's something to it or not, the reaction belies a guilty purpose and raises suspicion. If there's nothing to it, better off ignoring it and doing nothing.  But nope.

The real odd thing is the origination of the DNS logs that started all of this talk. From a forensics perspective, you must know the source of the logs and be able to prove they were not tampered with prior to examination. No one seems to be able to explain their source nor why they are incomplete. It's been reported that Dyn employees claim that the logs in question do not match the logs that they have and considering the nature of Dyns work they are definitely an authority on this topic.

The biggest problem I have with this conspiracy theory is that everything is based on an unvetted source of information that would never qualify as evidence in a digital forensics investigation.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

I’m talking about Rosenstein’s participation in covering up and concealing the President’s bad and criminal behavior from the American people by obscuring the facts and distorting the truth.

Then he acts like he’s just doing his job.  

He got played in the Comey firing.  He knew damn well Trump was firing Comey over Russia but went along with that bullshit Hillary cover story and then he co-signed his name to Bill Barr declaring that obstruction of justice is a crime the president can’t commit.

 

[triplehorn 2,664]

3 minutes ago, F250 said:

The real odd thing is the origination of the DNS logs that started all of this talk. From a forensics perspective, you must know the source of the logs and be able to prove they were not tampered with prior to examination. No one seems to be able to explain their source nor why they are incomplete. It's been reported that Dyn employees claim that the logs in question do not match the logs that they have and considering the nature of Dyns work they are definitely an authority on this topic.

The biggest problem I have with this conspiracy theory is that everything is based on an unvetted source of information that would never qualify as evidence in a digital forensics investigation.

Given how little is known about this, you very well could be entirely correct.  What you're talking about is understandable in lay terms.  

Edited May 15, 2019 by triplehorn

[Fozzz 152]

lol

 

 

[zork 629]

 

[GRHorn 105]

28 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Then he acts like he’s just doing his job.  

He got played in the Comey firing.  He knew damn well Trump was firing Comey over Russia but went along with that bullshit Hillary cover story and then he co-signed his name to Bill Barr declaring that obstruction of justice is a crime the president can’t commit.

 

So, reading his mind, you say he knew why Comey was being fired, instead of the stated, very reasonable reasons for his being fired?

He then obstructed justice so well be appointed the Special Counsel. 

And you didn’t agree of his legal assessment that he signed with Barr. 

Sounds like he was just doing his job and you don’t like how he was doing it.

It hurts your narrative that he wasn’t involved in part of the grand conspiracy. What if everything is not the conspiracy you think it is? 

[David Dennison 19,542]

32 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

So, reading his mind, you say he knew why Comey was being fired, instead of the stated, very reasonable reasons for his being fired?

He then obstructed justice so well be appointed the Special Counsel. 

And you didn’t agree of his legal assessment that he signed with Barr. 

Sounds like he was just doing his job and you don’t like how he was doing it.

It hurts your narrative that he wasn’t involved in part of the grand conspiracy. What if everything is not the conspiracy you think it is? 

We all know why Comey was fired. Donald Trump announced it on national television to Lester Holt.

[EastTexan 673]

52 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

We all know why Comey was fired. Donald Trump announced it on national television to Lester Holt.

Dems/ Comey is great. Comey is a rat. Comey is great. Comey is a rat.............

[WhatTheBuck 28,930]

2 hours ago, EastTexan said:

Dems/ Comey is great. Comey is a rat. Comey is great. Comey is a rat.............

That's completely wrong. Comey, like Jeff Sessions, was a  total fuckstick. But once the Russia investigation was underway, both of those fucksticks should've kept their jobs rather than being fired by the president in order to obstruct the investigation. That shouldn't be too complex of a concept for you to grasp. 

Edited May 16, 2019 by WhatTheBuck

[David Dennison 19,542]

James Comey sucks. No one on the left likes him.

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,629]

9 hours ago, TtomTerrific said:

Libtards scared shitlees of this cat "Barr"......know that. 

Nothing instills fear like a stammering, bloated cabbage patch of lip sweat contradicting his own Dept of Justice's interpretation on obstruction of justice, as well as his own Clinton impeachment era interpretation of obstruction who refuses to enter the ring and fight for what he claims is the truth.

 

I mean....there are lots of emotions I reckon supporters of Barr would imagine he provokes in his political opponents.

 

You went, laughably, with fear.

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,629]

4 hours ago, EastTexan said:

Dems/ Comey is great. Comey is a rat. Comey is great. Comey is a rat.............

I can almost remember Dems singing Comey's praises days before the election as if it were yesterday.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand

[TtomTerrific 200]

it's palpable...mother fuckers can smell it.....it's "tribal"  just like you wanted it to be.

you can see it

I can see it

The media sure as fuck sees it. (and thus the "Kavanaughing" will commence - along with attacks upon his appearance as some sort of "look over there" maneuver)

I don't care how fat he is, mother fucker has hard evidence and a lunatic boss that will do nothing but encourage him.

Yer Godamned right yer scared.

I am not a Trump supporter, never have been. ( don't know why I need to qualify everything here with that, but that is how this forum rolls.)...anyway, HUGE Barr fan and I am loving his forcing the creators of this disaster to piss down their collective legs.

Edited May 16, 2019 by TtomTerrific
missed quote on "Kavanaughing"

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,629]

 

I'm not a Trump supporter but LOVE Barr makes total sense. What specifically makes you pump the the pom-pons for Barr, if you don't mind me asking?

Edited May 16, 2019 by Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,629]

Seriously, dude.

 

No one knows what the fuck you're arguing. Was it Barr's passionate assertion that Clinton's obstruction absent some beyond the benefit of doubt other crime was...in and of itself...a crime OR was it spite of that some other genius legal argument Barr made, unknown to us that you are secretly giggling over, that has you subsumed in some leg pissing fantasy of doom?

[texas08 1,599]

it's palpable...mother fuckers can smell it.....it's "tribal"  just like you wanted it to be.

you can see it

I can see it

The media sure as fuck sees it. (and thus the "Kavanaughing" will commence - along with attacks upon his appearance as some sort of "look over there" maneuver)

I don't care how fat he is, mother fucker has hard evidence and a lunatic boss that will do nothing but encourage him.

Yer Godamned right yer scared.

I am not a Trump supporter, never have been. ( don't know why I need to qualify everything here with that, but that is how this forum rolls.)...anyway, HUGE Barr fan and I am loving his forcing the creators of this disaster to piss down their collective legs.

 

 

 

[FondrenRoad 4,378]

On 5/14/2019 at 7:55 PM, Anastasis said:

If the server was the conduit by which the Trump campaign coordinated election interference with Russia, don't we think that Mueller would have reported that and it would have impacted his assessment of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia? We know that reporting indicated that they looked into SVB and Alfa.  It was reported that warrants including FISA surveillance were used in the investigation. 

 

I agree with your points and that the server remains an unresolved area of interest. There very well may be some relevant findings in the Mueller report under redaction. Those findings did not appear to impact his assessment of conspiracy or coordination. And to the point of the day, Steele reporting to State related to the server prior to the Slate piece doesn't bolster his credibility or reporting in any way.  

Assuming the connection existed, what else could be it's purpose?  It's a dedicated link.  It's not needed for Trump Tower Moscow communications.  You can do that in 5 minutes with what's app.  A dedicated link isn't needed for anything except constant contact. 

[HenryJames 67,367]

I love it when Republicans play their greatest hits.

[Anastasis 23,720]

2 hours ago, F250 said:

The real odd thing is the origination of the DNS logs that started all of this talk. From a forensics perspective, you must know the source of the logs and be able to prove they were not tampered with prior to examination. No one seems to be able to explain their source nor why they are incomplete. It's been reported that Dyn employees claim that the logs in question do not match the logs that they have and considering the nature of Dyns work they are definitely an authority on this topic.

The biggest problem I have with this conspiracy theory is that everything is based on an unvetted source of information that would never qualify as evidence in a digital forensics investigation.

I really can't believe that we are doing the server thing again, but probably shouldn't be surprised.  F250, Would be interested in your assessment of the quality and credibility of this analysis of the server information, including the claim that the server wasn't even in Trump Tower. 

http://www.deependresearch.org/2017/03/analysis-of-trumps-secret-server-story.html

[triplehorn 2,664]

29 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I really can't believe that we are doing the server thing again, but probably shouldn't be surprised. 

It'a more of an exercise in walking a different unmapped trail that leads to the place where we've already arrived.

Via a different route, it doesn't change the fact we now know Trump campaign colluded with Russia when Manafort shared polling data with Russians on the pivotal battleground states of MI/OH/PA. 

It doesn't change the fact that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia when a senior Trump campaign official (Steve Bannon) was directed (my guess is by Kushner) to contact Roger Stone about additional Russian cutout (Wikileaks) releases of stolen emails to benefit Trump.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by triplehorn

[Anastasis 23,720]

2 hours ago, HenryJames said:

I love it when Republicans play their greatest hits.

 

Gowdy's claim probably has a basis in the events related to attempts to corroborate Steele's work. 

Blumenthal passed off a memo of Trump allegations written by Cody Shearer, similar to Steele's work, to Jonathon Winer at State. This is the same Jonathon Winer btw who set up the meeting between Kavalec and Steele at State in October.  The sources of Shearer's work were largely media sources but also included contacts with "Russian intelligence", and the content of the work closely mirrors that of Steele's, right down to the Presidential Suite at the Ritz. It's likely that the information from the media sources in fact originated from Steele or Simpson who were actively briefing press. Also independent stories such as the server communication, make it into both Steele and Shearer's work via media contacts. Winer than passes the memo to Steele, who then passes the memo to the FBI in October as a source of corroboration for his work.  The FBI then attempts to do a line by line analysis of the claims in the Dossier.  Totally conceivable that the verification field in the spreadsheet says something like "Verified in Shearer memo, transmitted to Winer by Blumenthal, ultimately produced to FBI by Steele."  Again, another instance of Steele using circular means of corroboration for his work. Fucking spooks man.

In all seriousness, Winer connects all these dots in his WaPo piece.

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Anastasis

[Anastasis 23,720]

8 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

It'a more of an exercise in walking a different unmapped trail that leads to the place where we've already arrived.

[triplehorn 2,664]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

 

 

I'll pay the board a courtesy and withhold using a full of shit .gif for you

 

[Anastasis 23,720]

https://www.justsecurity.org/64137/what-congress-should-ask-robert-mueller-when-he-testifies/

 

[F250 29,201]

4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I really can't believe that we are doing the server thing again, but probably shouldn't be surprised.  F250, Would be interested in your assessment of the quality and credibility of this analysis of the server information, including the claim that the server wasn't even in Trump Tower. 

http://www.deependresearch.org/2017/03/analysis-of-trumps-secret-server-story.html

That is a pretty good summary and gives a good explanation of the most probable cause for the DNS traffic. The most important fact in all of this was the role that Cendyn played in everything. The domain names and IP's were under the control of Cendyn and not the Trump organization. Cendyn was in charge of the infrastructure with Listrak managing the email marketing. The infrastructure was not in Trump Tower and the Trump organization didn't have access to the underlying infrastructure.

The shoddy reporting on this topic is what kept the story alive. The stories were feeding off of each other plus the reliance on social media personalities instead of actual experts in the field kept this story going long after it should have died out. This is not uncommon because there are only a handful of journalists that understand the technology enough to properly report on the topic. I'm sure this happens in other areas like articles about medicine.

 

 

[JimmyJames 12,271]

4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Gifs! 

The last art form. 

 

[jimmyjazz 47,203]

55 minutes ago, F250 said:

The shoddy reporting on this topic is what kept the story alive. The stories were feeding off of each other plus the reliance on social media personalities instead of actual experts in the field kept this story going long after it should have died out. This is not uncommon because there are only a handful of journalists that understand the technology enough to properly report on the topic. I'm sure this happens in other areas like articles about medicine.

Can you distill the errancy down to where a lay person could understand?  I use computers to run massive simulations on a daily basis, but I couldn't tell you my IP from my DNS from my SSN.

In other words, how does the the implication that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian interests fail the proof test given the "evidence" cited?

[kevwun 16,438]

Think of DNS records like the phone book.  Every domain on the internet has an IP address.  DNS records are how your computer knows to take you to surly horns' IP address when you type www.surlyhorns.com in to your browser.  If it's weren't for DNS, everyone would have to know the IP address of the website they were trying to visit.  There are servers on the internet that keep an up to date copy of those records.  Every device that uses the internet is sending and receiving requests from those servers.  I haven't paid enough attention to the alfa bank stuff to explain any of it, but that's what DNS does.

[Biff Tannen 46,168]

I don't know if anything will ultimately come of the report, which is fucking insane.  Bill Maher is exactly fucking right here.

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

Disagree with Maher, Bob Mueller outlined evidence of multiple felonies according to several hundreds of federal prosecutors.  Congress is the judicial body assigned to hold the president accountable.  They are the failure. 

[Biff Tannen 46,168]

12 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Disagree with Maher, Bob Mueller outlined evidence of multiple felonies according to several hundreds of federal prosecutors.  Congress is the judicial body assigned to hold the president accountable.  They are the failure. 

Yes and he should have known that failure was imminent and circumvented it.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

Just now, Biff Tannen said:

Yes and he should have known that failure was imminent and circumvented it.

I’m not convinced it would have made a beneficial difference if Mueller acted differently.  

Play it out.  If Mueller throws down the hammer and indicts Trump, then what?  The whole report becomes irrelevant and Congress still does jack shit. 

[triplehorn 2,664]

27 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Disagree with Maher, Bob Mueller outlined evidence of multiple felonies according to several hundreds of federal prosecutors.  Congress is the judicial body assigned to hold the president accountable.  They are the failure. 

Agree here.  The only difference if Mueller had charged Trump for half a dozen or so cases of open and shut obstruction of justice detailed in his report is that Barr would have declined and Barr would have had to explain to Congress in his own report the declination based on the OLC policy of not indicting a sitting POTUS.  That's it.  It's arguably worse for the WH that Barr overreached and injected himself into the work of an independent counsel, thereby defeating the very purpose of an independent investigator. But it remains and always will remain in the hands of Congress to impeach and convict.

What's happening right now is the House approaching this through the necessary path involving the courts.  No impeachment investigation can happen when every single body and person associated with this Admin is completely ignoring all subpoenas.  every_single_one.  The waters are rising and will breach the WH dam by way of the courts.  Once that happens, only then could it spell wipeout for the criminal in the Oval.  Currently we're awaiting that judges ruling on the House subpoena of the Mazars Trump financial records oversight request.  Wait for it.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

16 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

Wait for it.

The time for waiting is over. 

[triplehorn 2,664]

Absent enlisting the Sergeant At Arms today ,  Trump Admin blanket non-compliance with all Congressional subpoenas is out of their immediate control.  It would be dumb to start arresting people before the courts have ruled on even the initial cases of refusal to cooperate with justifiable Congressional subpoenas.  Once the courts rule and the WH has no legal recourse, things stand to be very different.  As opposed to hair afire posturing and drama, Dems are being dutiful here.  Unlike the GOP past example, it's how you proceed when you're not full of shit.

[Thetexashammer 1,062]

8 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I really can't believe that we are doing the server thing again

[Mdhorn 6,166]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

Yes and he should have known that failure was imminent and circumvented it.

Had he circumvented Congress, Mueller would have been trolled loudly that he was being partisan and it would have looked suspicious.  As it is, the Republicans are being partisan and it's showing.  This has to go through the normal procedures, regardless of whether the guy breaking the rules isn't confined to procedures which is how it plays out for all criminals.  He'll continue breaking rules because nothing has caught up to him and he's a career criminal.  It's the only thing he knows how to do.  It will come out.  I only hope that when it does, Democrats go after Republicans whether they stay on or retire from Congress.  They need to pay. 

[F250 29,201]

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Can you distill the errancy down to where a lay person could understand?  I use computers to run massive simulations on a daily basis, but I couldn't tell you my IP from my DNS from my SSN.

In other words, how does the the implication that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian interests fail the proof test given the "evidence" cited?

The 3 things that cause the conspiracy theory to fail.

1. The DNS activity wasn't unique to Alfa Bank and Spectrum. One of the first things you need to identify in a digital forensics case is to identify anomalous activity. DNS queries are fairly ubiquitous activities on the internet so if the DNS logs showed only activity between the Trump mail server and Spectrum and Alfa Bank that would be a little suspicious. However, this wasn't the case. 

2. The Trump organization did not own or have control of the Trump mail server. Cendyn confirmed this fact. The DNS changes that took place matched the behavior of Cendyn's business model where ethereal mail services are quickly established and then removed for temporary marketing campaigns. They operate similar to SPAM servers so most corporate mail systems will validate their origin via a DNS query before letting the email through their mail gateway. This would explain all of the DNS queries of the Trump host name by other organizations including Spectrum and Alfa Bank. Remember this was not unique to to those organizations.

3. The source of logs is unknown and the accuracy is very questionable. Going back to point #1. An investigation needs to identify anomalous behavior which requires a baseline of normal activity. In order to establish a baseline of normal activity one needs the entire set of data. In this case, it would be the full set of logs from an authoritative source like Dyn which is something no one that supports the conspiracy theory has been able to show.

[HenryJames 67,367]

 

[Chuckie Finster 23,079]

12 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

 

Yeah, I'm starting to come around to the "Fuck Mueller" team for his refusal to indict the piece of shit.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

It starts and ends with Flynn. 

[retread 2,951]

[HenryJames 67,367]

 

[Anastasis 23,720]

We gonna get the Kislyak transcripts?

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]