Federal judge rejects Manafort's bid to dismiss Mueller indictment

Judge Jackson nimbly took her quote out of context, assuming she was quoted correctly. The functional words in the appointment, including the main words Jackson left off are: "........ to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump;" This says investigation of links have to be directly related with Russian interference in the election. None of Manafort's charges are so related.

 

I know of no evidence that a lawless cabal of corrupt US Federal Law Enforcement Agents illegally subjected him to spying powers we subjected foreigners to, if they meet certain legal standards even while we protect in law, American's 4th Amendment guarantees against the same.

Those may be infuriating, but they are not CRIMES, an entirely different kettle of fish. Settle back, enjoy, the entire nation is going to get a badly needed education, over the next five months, at an understandable pace, of what constitutiones LAWFUL use of Federal Power and what is illegal corruption by vile criminals who managed to rise to the highest levels of Federal Power during the thoroughly corrupt Obama regime.

It will start with the illegal fixing of Hillary's criminal espionage "investigation" which was done while they were under the mistaken assumption that she would be their new boss.

Many of the same crooks are the same players in the illegal spying on the Trump campaign, who would ACTUALLY become their new boss.,... Ooops!

The protections of our 4th amendment guarantees did not protect American from illegal spying because crooks don't follow rules. We had judicial safeguards, but the Judiciary was much too trusting of the corrupt DOJ and FBI, which until now has had very good reputation and has enjoyed a culture of deference from both society and the Judiciary. Part of this lesson that we will all enjoy together over the next five months will include a badly needed reminder than our civil rights require skepticism and vigilance. Complacency leads to... well, we will all learn that together as the prosecutions and investigations proceed.

 

...Judge Jackson literally just ruled that all of the Manafort charges were so related.

 

Yes, I got that. She could have also ruled that the moon is made of cheese.

 

....what a **** analogy.

 

Considering the survellience on the Trump campaign went through the FISA court, I'd argue against it's lawlessness. FISA courts have a high acceptance rate because it's one of the few courts where the applications that won't get passed are sent back with notes on how to address the issues within. Which has been the practice since it's creation in the late 70s.
If you spy on the Foreign Agent, and they come into contact with an American, then that wouldn't violate that 4th amendment Guarantee.

No. Obstructionism isn't a crime, but it's still damaging as a whole. And the second half of that paragraph, I posit is simply unverified claims and conjecture.

Eh. While I don't see Hillary as any sort of paragon of Virtue, she won't be prosecuted or face any time for any crimes, real or imagined. I also find it interesting that many such as yourself view the FBI as agents of the Left who did everything they could to 'Get Trump', yet it was the announcement of the reopening of the investigation that ended up tilting the scales in Trumps favor by that self-same FBI.

The 4th amendment guards against Illegal Search and Seizure. Court Approved surveillance is not illegal. If you disagree with the Courts approval, then that's on that court, not the group applying for the approval.

 

The authorization that resulted is only legal if the rules were followed to obtain it. For example, if you illegally swindle someone out of the keys to their car, you do not now lawfully own the car, you obtained it as a result of a criminal action or set of actions.

That actually nearly never happens. The rubber stamped approval rate easily rounds to a 100%. That too needs to be examined, did these judges exercise due diligence and an reasonable level of skepticism. Remember, these Judges are supposed to be securing our civil rights against violations of the 4th amendment and they clearly and repeatedly failed. That cannot be covered up.

Yes it could be criminal conspiracy, but more likely, due to the FBI and DOJ long history of integrity, I believe they were granted a presumption of integrity that blinded these judges and that point will be clearly loudly and repeatedly well made as public examples are all made of these folks, in LAWFUL criminal prosecutions where THEIR constitutional rights are secured, quite a contrast to the evil criminal scum of the outcoming Obama Administration.

Exactly. The American is "masked" precisely to guarantee their 4th amendment protections, and had the rules been followed with integrity, nothing unlawful would have occurred. The problem wasn't the rules, the problems were the criminals in positions of trust and authority.

It most certainly can be a crime.

That is certainly a position with a solid track record in our experience.

Yes, I believe there is an abundance of courtroom level proof to demonstrate that, beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. But, we can all watch these events unfold together.

Comey has actually addressed this, like the rest of the country he was vastly overconfident in the Electoral College projections and like many believed Crooked Hillary was going to be his new boss. What he did not address was that he sat on the Weiner explosion for a MONTH and finally addressed it as others were threatening to leak it. And then 3 days later he promptly waddled out and declared her "Cleared!" yet again.

Yes.

Only if it was lawfully obtained. In our nation every warrant is accompanied by an OATH by the requestor, that they have shown complete integrity in obtaining the warrant, that they have observed and full lawful and transparent process, that the information presented is of the unimpeachable integrity to the best of their knowledge. When they swear lying oaths, present questionable and false facts, when they do not immediately correct false facts the instant they became aware of, or with due diligence would have been aware, they commit crimes and the actions that are "improperly" authorized are very much crimes. In many ways that forms the basis of the legal doctrine "the fruit of the poisonous tree". That is, you cannot lawfully convict on the basis of crimes committed by law enforcement!

Clearly there is a lot of misunderstanding here. As a nation we are going to greatly benefit from these prosecutions and public exposure of these Corrupt Officials that were in the highest levels of authority and granted some of the highest authority we have to convey.

This has been badly needed. I'm grateful that the moment has arrived.

 

I think we've reached an agreement on most of the issues here so I don't need to split it up again.

The original FISA warrant was gotten in good faith because of Carter Pages activities. The original Warrant was granted prior to the Steel Dossier and so the claim of that 'fruit from a poisonous tree' doesn't hold as much weight.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...memo-claims-and-how-that-squares-with-reality

If (and this is a BIIIIIG If) this original Warrant was based on a 'conspiracy' against Trump, then it would require the understanding and acceptance of a metric F*** ton of people all working together in synch, and if proven true (don't forget, Administrations don't last forever. Even if Hillary won, the Rs would get back in eventually and be able to blow the whole thing open, so the idea that everyone was hoping Hillary would win to protect them doesn't hold as much water, especially because most of those people will still be alive in 5-9 years) then those people would be open to criminal investigations at the very least.

If the original FISA warrant came from the Steel Dossier, then yes, I would say that until that was all proven true (and a lot of it already has been proven true) you would have an argument.

 

No. That's completely wrong. There are very strict legal standards that the government must truthfully meet in order to lawfully spy on an American Citizen. Unlawful spying by the US government is every bit the crime it would be if someone else committed it. The US government does not have a special dispensation to commit crimes.

Under federal law, to establish that an American is acting as an agent of a foreign power, the government must show that the American is purposefully engaging in clandestine activities on behalf of a foreign power, and that it is probable that these activities violate federal criminal law. See FISA, Title 50, U.S. Code, Section 1801(b)(2).

Under federal surveillance law the probable-cause showing the government must make to prove that a person is an agent of a foreign power is different for Americans than for aliens. If the alleged agent is an alien, section 1801(b)(1) applies, and this means that no crime need be established; the government need only show that the target is acting on behalf of a foreign power in the sense of abetting its clandestine anti-American activities.

By contrast, if the alleged agent is an American citizen, such as Page, section 1801(b)(2) applies:

The government must show not only that the person is engaged in clandestine activities on behalf of a foreign power but also that these activities

(1) “involve or may involve a violation of the criminal statutes of the United States”;
(2) involve the preparation for or commission of sabotage or international terrorism;
(3) involve using a false identity to enter or operate in the United States on behalf of a foreign power; or
(4) involve conspiring with or aiding and abetting another person in the commission of these criminal activities. ​

All of these involve evidence of a crime.

The only known suspicions about Page that have potential criminal implications are the allegations in the dossier, which potentially include hacking, bribery, fraud, and racketeering — if Russia were formally considered an enemy of the United States, they would include treason.

As Page has not been accused of a crime, the DOJ and FBI would have to have alleged some potential criminal activity to justify a FISA warrant targeting the former U.S. naval intelligence officer, it certainly seems likely that the Steele dossier was the source of this allegation.

While there is a dearth of evidence to date that the Trump campaign colluded in Russia’s cyberespionage attack on the 2016 election, there is abundant evidence that the Obama administration colluded with the Clinton campaign to use the Steele dossier as a vehicle to fool the court into authorizing monitoring of the Trump campaign — and to fuel a pre-election media narrative that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Trump was scheming with Russia to lift sanctions if he were elected president.

Actually it does. If the Page Warrant was justified they will have an opportunity to present evidence in court to that effect. We know the warrant expires every 90 days and that each renewal requires a fresh showing of new evidence showing probable cause. We know that the warrant was extended 3 times and that the Court was misled into believing they were being shown fresh evidence on which to renew the spying authority.

Not really. A few heads of Agencies likely turned the trick, remember, we have learned a great deal in the last year. At the time these events were taking place our Intelligence Agencies and the FBI were afforded tremendous deference, not just by the courts, but by the Country at large. It was nearly the default position that these folks were of the highest integrity operating in the most careful and lawful of manners. You have to remember the climate at the time.

Sure it does, she wasn't elected and still this cover-up has held pretty well. Even though Trump was elected, it has never been certain that this would blow wide open, though, it certainly does appear now, that finally it will, but that has never been certain. Hillary elected and re-elected and I doubt it ever would have. Further, the brazen self-assurance of these these folks to lie their way out of things. Whatever the case, the investigations will be lawful, the rights of the guilty will be preserved against encroachment and the convictions, if obtained, will be based on courtroom level evidence, lawfully presented and properly weighed, not this blizzard of false information and innuendo that has been blasted at Trump, with the willing help of the collaborate national press, for more than a year.

 

Your looking at the wrong section. Section 702 of the FISA law has a couple of loopholes that allow for the collection of data from US Citizens if they are about a certain target (say if Carter was talking to one of his Russian contacts who was on the FBI's list, then they could get those communications). https://www.fastcompany.com/40518520/congress-702-authorization-trump-nsa-fbi-spying-loopholes

And you are wrong that the only known suspicious of page are from the Dossier. The Dossier was written from June till Dec 16. Page was on the FBI's watch list since 2014 due his involvement with Russia.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/03/carter-page-nunes-memo-216934

https://www.justsecurity.org/46786/timeline-carter-pages-contacts-russia/

The FISA warrant for Page came 2 years before the Steele Dossier was even written.

While I know that the DNC started picking up the Tab for the Steele Dossier after the Washington Free Beacon abandoned it when Trump won the primary, for their opposition research, the original FISA warrant was obtained prior to the Steele Memo.

And once in office, Trump tried to block the Sanction extensions but was overturned by Congress.

The original Warrant came out in 2013 and so there must have been fresh enough evidence to warrant the extensions. As for your contention that the Court was misled, I'd like to see a source for that if you please

Add this to the renewal argument from my side

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/02/nunes-memo-fisa-trump-russia/

2 Trump appointees signed off on the info used for the extensions.

It's not really 'that' easy. These are legal documents which means that by signing them, they open themselves up to possible prosecution, which will be easily determined once the information contained in the warrants finally becomes public.

I think the problem I see with your arguments, is that you've started with a conclusion (they are corrupt and helping Hillary) and walking back, finding the evidence to support that conclusion. And being the President allows you the ability to make any of the pertinent information public that he has chosen not to do. That strikes me as odd every time.

But you are right, eventually this will all come tumbling out once the investigation is concluded and Meuller lays all his cards on the table.

(Also, I want to say thanks for the reasonable back and forth. Nice to see some Respectful debate here )

 

Don't like the ruling, Judge must be a liberal.
Like the ruling, Judge was just exercising the law in an impartial manner.

God you Trump people are so transparent.

 

The illegal bill that went through Congress attempted to usurp the Presidency's power and blur the lines of our co-equal branch of government. As if that wasn't the only offense, the bill attempted to coerce European nations who deal with Russia(out of necessity due to their energy supplies), which got Merkel among other people objecting to the illegal bill.

Since then, POTUS Trump has applied it very loosely, and in a responsible manner as possible given the illegalities of the Act. Trump wouldn't have been wrong to object to its constitutionality in the SCOTUS. He certainly would've been responsible enough to VETO it, as I would have as President.

The "political climate" doesn't give Congress expressed permission to violate the co-equal branches of government.

 

uh..which bill are you talking about? The sanctions? or the FISA update?

 

The sanctions. IMO, they were illegal(and Trump stated as much), but he meekly signed it due to the Russian Conspiracy Theory. I would not have if I were Trump. It's my obligation to protect the seat of the presidency, regardless of whatever other considerations there are.

 

DC firstly...Trump IIRC has a negative approval rating there lol. Secondly we have a track record of this being done by Liberal Judges against Trump.

The only thing Transparent are the flailing attempts by the left at slowing down or stopping President Trump.

 

Ok, i'll bite. How were they illegal?

 

That's sort of why this is interesting, as it's the same basic motion, to the same basic indictment, just in a slightly different court... Alexandria is about 5 miles from d.c.

Haven't seen that Ellis has ruled, since he got his unredacted scope doc...schmuck will probably wait until Monday now...

 

If they have necessary probable cause that Page committed the crimes on behalf of foreign power then, they will be able to show that. Page's pre-Dossier work was on the behalf of the FBI. No good deed goes unpunished, but, I don't believe it was personal, they never dreamed that we would ever know even a fraction of what is now known. I think Page was simply the mule they contrived to illegally spy on Trump, but, when we see the applications, the renewals and the transcripts of the proceeding where this spying was approved by the Court, we will better understand what occurred.

The FBI obtained the first FISA warrant targeting Page in October 2016. Five officials subsequently signed off on applications to continue surveilling Page after they all separately found probable cause to do so.

These were not renewals of this 2013 warrant, that I don't even know if it exists. I do know that Carter Page had previously assisted the FBI to nail Russians that were attempting to recruit him.

And I'd like to see your evidence that they properly showed Probable Cause that Page, an American Citizen was criminally involved with the Russians, and showed fresh probable cause 3 times as would be required for the extensions.

We know from the Congressional Memos that the Dossier was used. That it was not disclosed to the Court that ti was unverified and salacious, rather it was presented as the product of the "highly trustworthy" Steele as if he were the "source" rather than simply the compiler of unverified 3rd and 4th hand unsourced innuendo. The judge should have never approved the warrant or the extensions if this is all they had.

We do know that they used a press article that was sourced to Steele in one of the extensions as if it were "corroboration" of Steele rather than a rehash of the "evidence" previously presented.

We know that in subsequent applications they continued to present Steele as highly trustworthy, even though they fired him for lying to the FBI. Even when it was undeniably clear that the FBI knew their previous information was incorrect, they never informed the Court as required by Law and even as they obtained additional renewals. Comey and Rosenstein surely knew this but continued to sign false affidavits for warrants.

Correct.

It's unavoidable. They fixed her espionage investigation and then many of the same players illegally spied on Trump. We were pounded with the Dossier after Brennan contrived to have it included in the PDB so that the Press could finally print it, and it has since been completely discredited.

We all had the "Assessment by All 17 Intelligence Agencies" paraded about, well, that has since collapsed to a 3 or 4 handpicked folks. Comey has been caught lying repeatedly. McCabe has been caught lying repeatedly. Rosenstein has been caught backdating authorization for Mueller, which Mueller kept quiet about.

Rosenstein improperly appointed Mueller to conduct a criminal investigation, but called it a counter-intelligence probe, because they had no probable cause of a specific crime as required by the Special Counsel Statute and a criminal investigation is conducted in accordance with 4th Amendment guarantees whereas a counter intelligence probe circumvents many of these. The Special Counsel Regulations do not allow for a Special Counsel to conduct a Counter Intelligence prove, but Rosenstein did it anyway, and Mueller accepted even though they both knew the statutes don't allow for this.

Then Mueller hand picked a pile of Hillary Donors, all Democrats for his witch hunt. He has the Flynn plea blowing up in his face. He tried to indict Russian Companies that didn't exist and the ones that did exist he gave fictitious employees.

And you're like "You seem to think these guys are lying crooks?" Uhh, that would be yes. At this point if they told me their name I would demand to see their driver's license, and to my great glee, I'm seeing the Courts adopting the same healthy skepticism for these lying clowns.

Yup. As this process unfolds, paced so that it holds attention while not overwhelming the public, Trump has the power to authorize the release of whatever needs to be released, but, to do so would immediately make him, rather than criminal actions of these lawless swine, the focus, so far he has managed to continue dragging this all into the sunlight without such direct action. Trump is nothing if not a Showman, but, you have to admit, these lying conniving lawbreaking scum have certainly given him an abundance of great material to work with over the next five or so months that I expect this to last.

Mueller is a crook and a bumbling fool. He was deeply conflicted and had no business taking this appointment and he knew it. Fools rush in where the wise fear to tread, he could have quietly continued with a fairly decent reputation intact. Oh well!

You bet!

Love it.

Take care,
Zorro

 

Explained a bit in my first post, but I'll elaborate: The Executive branch(specifically the Commander in Chief) is charged with all matters of foreign policies, treaties, etc. The extent to which the Senate participates is when a treaty is sent for ratification.(That and declarations of war). That's the extent of Congress's power. And for good reason, war time doesn't allow for complaints and debates on strategy by people who aren't intimately involved.

Congress has tried to claim this recent power via the Commerce Clause, but I strongly disagree. The Federal Government is not engaged in commerce, but local markets. If one wants to sanction a country, legally speaking the sanctions should be universally approved by the State Governments, before ever being applied on a federal level.

One can also debate whether the trade of goods is Commerce or Trade. But that gets into more of a financial argument on local market movements(IE: Us shopping for groceries), versus trade being business operations(mostly). But the large and end of it, is that the federal government(plural) has no right to be influencing this area. And I'd love to take it up for oral arguments if I were a lawyer.

But speaking in general, Sanctions are economic and political leverage, a device that is used by the Executive and thus should be primarily within the Executive's control. We see this to the extent that the Executive does implement Sanctions, but I feel Congress lacks both the legal power to enforce their own sanctions, much less restricting the executive's decisions on Sanctions.