It wasn't a hoax

I can do whatever I like and you won't succeed in browbeating me to do what you like. Why am I here? Entertainment. I enjoy responding to misinformation. Go browbeat someone else. You won't have any luck with me.

 

Feel better now? You think that childishness affects me?

 

You sure you understand the word evidence? What is clearly True is that most if not all of the evidence for Trump/Russia collusion was either fraudulent or wishful thinking or both. In the end Hoax is probably the wrong word. What it should be called is a tacitly illegal conspiracy among various high echelon members of the intelligence and law enforcement apparatus along with certain Congress critters to unseat a sitting president whose views and policies they hated and whom they viewed as a threat to there own power and prestige. Note, that, not Jan. 6, was the closest this country has ever come to a coup.

 

So are lies. Whether they are your own or some one else's.

 

Is there any one in this world that didn't know more info was coming from wikileaks? The only question was when and all the smart money and most of the dumb money was on late October early November. Might as well claim it's illegal to think.

 

If you make a claim, it is courtesy to support it in some way.

Sure, you do whatever you want, including being a chump, if you want.

 

That is the point, it is not a 'hoax', and yes, hoax is the wrong word.

the purpose of an investigation has three possible outcomes, and anyone of them achieved is a successful outcome

1. To confirm suspicions, leading to indictments (and in this case, government reports to congress for possible impeachment purposes or legislation)
2. To quell suspicions and exonerate.
3. Combination of both.

The Mueller report was #3, a combination of both.

This idea it was a hoax, is a hoax.

ANd that was the only point from the beginning.

 

If you I or someone has misstated facts, state your case and support it some way.
That is how we debate.

Vacuous claims are a non argument.

 

There was never any real evidence to pursue. There was no proper foundation for any investigation. What the cya at FISA said

 

Not according to IG Horowitz report.

 

I posted an opinion. You post opinions all the time. No value in the insult, of course.

 

If the overwhelming evidence presented by Mueller and the SIC has not altered the reflexive, Pavlovian response by The Following that Dear Leader did nothing wrong absolutely nothing will.

 

The beat goes on.
John Durham Going Deep Into Russiagate

Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times

 

If that beat were a pulse it'd be time to declare the patient is dead.

 

You mean you don't understand the acronym CYA?

 

And I back up, or support my arguments, and if I haven't, I always do on request. If I say something that is not able to be substantiated in some way, I'll state it early in the conversation (with "in my opinion") so the conversation won't drag on as long as this conversation has.

That is the difference between you and me.

 

Almost everything is different between you and me. I understand what you do and how you do it. But asking me to do what you do is pointless. Perhaps you should consider putting me on your ignore list. Then you wouldn't have to go to the trouble of responding to my posts.

 

Cover your ass, but 'cya fisa' is vague, and I don't respond to vague.

 

If you make a statement, and don't clarify it as a 'mere opinion' at the outset, it's fair and reasonable to ask for substantiation.

 

You are being disingenuous.

No, you didn't post an opinion, what you wrote, which was the genesis of this subthread, was, indeed, a supposition of fact.

Let us review the original conversation

I wrote:

...Steele's reports played no role in the Crossfire Hurricane opening.

I supported that statement with a referral to a quote in IG Horowitz's report (in fact, my statement was a quote) where the claim was originally made, Horowiitz, who did a thorough study, interviewing, questioning subjects, looking at documents, and so forth.

You replied with the following quote:

That is actually comical given what we know today.

I replied to to that rebuttal as follows:

Vacuous claims are a non argument.

I wrote that because you did not substantiate your claim, you supposed there were new facts but you did not state what those facts were.

@Lee Atwater chimed in and also asked you to state your case.

So, you stated a supposition, 'this is actually comical given what we know today'.

You are rebutting my statement, and that of IG Horowitz, by implying new data and facts have since arisen which refute that claim.

You are not offering an opinion, you are refuting my claim by implying there is new information which refutes it, or 'makes is comical' as you put it, but you are not supporting the statement.

It is perfectly reasonable for myself, an anyone else, to ask you what is known today that we didn't know when the IG report was made, which renders the Horowitz's determination as 'comical'.

So, that is not an opinion because you alluded to supposed facts, the 'what we know today'.

Capiche?

What is it, FMW, that we 'know today', that refutes the claim made by Horowitz that the Steele Dossier played no role in Crossfire Hurricane opening?

ANd don't give me any crap about 'it was an opinion', you supposed a fact, so we have the right to know what that fact is, since you implied there was current data which refutes Horowitz.

Please answer the question.

Or rephrase it as follows, which would be honest:

"I think there is new information today which would make Horowitz's claim comical, though I can't tell you what it, as I am just guessing'.

So, Please answer the question.

What is it, FMW, that we 'know today', that refutes the claim made by Horowitz that the Steele Dossier played no role in Crossfire Hurricane opening?

In point of fact, I believe you can't answer it, and the truth is what you should have written, that you were just guessing, you really don't know.

Isn't that correct, hmmmm, @fmw ?

 

In late July 2016, according to his May 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, CIA director John Brennan convened a group of officials from the CIA, NSA and FBI to investigate Russian interference. Crossfire Hurricane opened on 31 July 2016.

The FBI had by then been in possession of the dossier for some time. In early July 2016, Steele called seasoned FBI agent Michael Gaeta, who was stationed in Rome, and asked him to come to London so he could show him his findings. When Gaeta arrived in London on July 5, 2016, he met with Steele at his office, and he was given a copy of Steele's first report, dated June 20, 2016 (Report 80).  His reaction was "shock and horror." Alarmed by what he read, Gaeta remarked, "I have to show this to headquarters."

 

You need to list your source, the term 'dossier' cannot be found on your hyperlink.

I google part of your text, which appears to be copy and pasted ( you should source your quotes and quote them properly, it's dishonest not do that) to see where it came from, and I found a WikiZero page which contained the precise language you quoted, which ultimately, I believe, came from Wikipedia, which also contains this line, which you didn't quote

On September 19, 2016, Steele's handling agent sent six of Steele's reports (80, 94, 95, 100, 101, and 102) to the Crossfire Hurricane team, which had been operational since July 31, 2016. This was the first time they and their leader, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterespionage Section, Peter Strzok,
received any of Steele's reporting. Some reports referred to members of Trump's inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. The IG Report says this material "became an important part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the FBI seeking FISA authority targeting one of the Crossfire Hurricane subjects, Carter Page.

Note that 'that it was an important part of CH, doesn't establish that CH was predicated on it, and the last line, below, from a different source, supports it:

Moreover, your quote doesn't actually prove CH was predicated on the dossier, but there is testimony to the contrary, to wit:

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/dossier-not-what-started-all-of-this/
There’s also no evidence that Ohr’s late July 2016 meeting with Steele precipitated the FBI investigation. Ohr, a former associate deputy attorney general with the Department of Justice, testified to Congress
( https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Bruce Ohr Redacted FINAL.pdf )
that he didn’t know about the FBI investigation at the time. Ohr said he reached out to then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and met with McCabe in August 2016 to provide the information Steele had given him. “I don’t recall the exact date. I’m guessing it would have been in August since I met with Chris Steele at the end of July, and I’m pretty sure I would have reached out to Andrew McCabe soon afterwards,” Ohr said in his August 2018 testimony.
[,,,]
“We started the investigations without the dossier. We were proceeding with the investigations before we ever received that information,” McCabe told CNN. “Was the dossier material important to the [FISA] package? Of course, it was. As was every fact included in that package. Was it the majority of what was in the package? Absolutely not.”

 

I'm aware of what has been claimed. There is every possibility that the dossier was already circulating unofficially within the FBI (via Gaeta) before Ohr entered the picture.
Steele dossier - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Steele_dossier

The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report written from June to December 2016 ...

 

My apologies. I was posting informally.
I was still working in July 2016, and I was aware that Brennan convened his late July meeting in part because of all the intel community buzz about the dossier. So I don't buy the idea that it was unknown to the FBI when CH began.

 

It's okay to hold an opinion, but your opinion doesn't refute the sources I gave which counter it, which is the prevailing R opinion that CH was started by the Dossier, which it wasn't. It was added later, but it didn't start it. The Papadopoulos affair was the predication, and I can provide evidence for that, if you want.