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  • Mueller is delaying his report as part of a “MAD strategy”.

  • Impressive for him to be proven wrong on this so quickly. Clearly, Mueller was just working at the pace he was working at; this does not appear to be timed in any specific way. However, because Trump's cabinet is making noise about unwarranted prosecution of his perceived enemies, it is even more important to debunk these conspiracy theories.

  • There is no formal investigation going on.

  • There have been several formal investigations of all of this topic. Specifically, the FBI IG's "Review of Various Actions...". It is especially extensive, and it does not whitewash the activity of many of the investigation's principals. It specifically is troubled by some of the Strzok-Page text messages. However, it clearly states that it was unable to find any evidence that "bias" directed the activity of the FBI or DoJ in either MYE, CFH, or the SCO. Another point I took when I was reading the Lisa Page HJC testimony: "Many of us in law enforcement really dislike the subject of our investigations, right. We are not keen on frauds or pedophiles and fraudsters and spies and human traffickers." (Day 1, page 56). This does mean that all investigations of "bad people" are illegitimate; it is why these investigations follow policies and procedures and why the FBI has a culture of requiring consensus.

  • Page: no evidence of “collusion” in July 2016, nor in May 2017

  • Lisa Page has not seen this anywhere I have been able to locate; is isn't in her testimony that was recently released. In any case, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of what was being investigated. In July 2016, there was only an investigation into Russian interference in our election, not yet into the Trump campaign. So his claim that there was not evidence of "collusion" is irrelevant. But there was already evidence of collusion in any case; Papadapolous had already caused an activation of the five eyes intelligence circle. By the time the SCO was appointed, there was move evidence (Page, Manafort, and yes the Steele Dossier, among other things); there was also evidence of obstruction, such as when Trump apparently admitted to obstruction on national TV.

  • “All that existed was the dossier”

  • When CFH was launched (July 2016), the Dossier did not yet exist. Therefore it did not exist (and was clearly not "all that existed")

  • Dossier went to FBI via oppo research.

  • No, it was given to the FBI by John McCain.

  • McCabe: dossier was central to obtaining FISA warrants on Trump operatives.

  • I don't see where McCabe said this. In any case, we can debate the meaning of the word "central", but information from the Dossier takes up only a small portion of the Page FISA warrants. They are also clearly labelled as to what they are and where they came from (see, for example, pages 16 and 23). We don't know substantively what is in the rest of the warrants; it is mostly redacted. However, unless you think there are 412 pages of oatmeal cookie recipes, there is probably some other evidence in there. Also, the implication is that the DoJ was wily-nilly getting FISA warrants against the Trump campaign ("Trump operatives"). There was only one such warrant.

  • Rules require FBI 1) only present material that had been verified, 2) disclose information that undermines credibility, 3) did not reveal this was oppo research and who paid for it and that 4) Steele dislikes Trump, 5) required to provide exculpatory evidence, 6) required to “be fair”.

  • A lot of claims about what the FBI/DoJ is supposed to do and failed to do here. On number 1, this is completely false; warrants are issued all the time based on information that is not yet corroborated, this is why they need a warrant - to get the corroborating evidence. On number 2 and number 6, there is nothing like this in the law that set up the FISA court and warrant system. Larry might want to force law enforcement to "be fair"; but this is definitively not the standard for law enforcement in practice, and not the law. That said (and to his point #3), as we have seen, the applicant for the warrant discussed the reasons why some of the information might be less credible. On his point #5, providing exculpatory evidence is something you do before a trial, not before getting a warrant. On #4, again, like it or not, but a lot of evidence is given by people who don't like the person against whom the warrant is sought. See the Lisa Page quote from above; Christopher Steele did not like people who were clearly encouraging Russian interference in U.S. elections (even if we take the message that, somehow, no laws were broken in doing so).

  • “The defendant is not represented before the FISA court”

  • There is no defendant at the FISA court; merely the subject of a potential warrant. Warrant subjects are also never represented at any court, from the lowest local district, to SCOTUS (which doesn't do search warrants, but anyway).

  • FISA warrant standard includes verification of documents and full disclosure of doubts.

  • No, this is not the standard; again, the law is fairly short, you can read it in 10 minutes.

  • FISA warrants were signed by Comey, RR, Yates, McCabe

  • I don't think we know who signed the FISA warrant applications; signatures are redacted, but it may have come out elsewhere.

  • DoJ made decision not to prosecute Clinton

  • There is just no way that you can read the Strzok-Page hearing transcript (on which Larry basing his piece) and come to the conclusion that this was not a proper decision. The only statute that was plausibly considered was 793f of the Espionage Act. However, as been discussed at length, section (f) is almost never used - once in 102 years since the Act was passed. This is because the standard of gross negligence is largely considered unconstitutionally vague. Also, the DoJ is loathe to prosecute crimes that feature neither awareness, nor intent, nor harm - hence "no reasonable prosecutor". But, yes, the decision was made by the DoJ; the FBI investigates (hence the "I") and the DoJ makes charging decisions and prosecutes. For what it's worth, Kushner, I. Trump, and D. Trump are all clearly "more guilty" than Clinton if we are going to start charging under 793f; they can't claim lack of awareness; there seems to be a clear intent to avoid government systems via use of private devices; I can't speak to harm, but nobody can claim "no harm"

  • “Comey finding Clinton guilty”

  • This is not a thing. Juries find people guilty, not FBI directors. There is no evidence that Comey was especially gung-ho to prosecute.

  • Baker in favor of charging.

  • Yes, there was a real discussion about charging based on 793f. This discussion is explained at length in the aforementioned testimony. The decision was made no to do so, and this consensus was not challenged after the fact by anybody in the room when the decision was made. However, even the fact that charging Clinton with such an infrequently-used crime was considered is more an indication of how serious MYE took their situation - as opposed to an indication of undue DoJ influence.

  • Gross negligence changed to extremely careless

  • Again, discussed at length in the transcripts. But yes, this was specifically changed (in fact, the change made from the first to final draft is a bit more complex, but that's irrelevant). It was changed specifically because the FBI and DoJ determined that Clinton would not be charged with a crime and, therefore, they did not want to use the language from the statute that she wouldn't be charged with.

  • “Obama Department of Justice”

  • Unlike what Trump thinks, the DoJ works for the people, not whoever is in the current administration. There is just a paucity of evidence that there was political pressure to not charge. Once the decision was made not to charge, there was political discussion of how to communicate this (which, Comey ultimately ignored).

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