Does Language Matter? YES - Which Is Precisely Why The FBI Was Truly Vindicated In IG Report

It was disturbing yesterday to see and hear the cavalier use of language when the  Dept. of Justice IG Report was the topic of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.  This was in terms of whether the FBI was  "vindicated" in the Report.

 I noted this in my Dec. 10 post:

"The 434-page report issued by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded the FBI had an “authorized purpose” when it initiated its investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, into the Trump campaign."

This means, all gobbledegook aside, the Bureau was vindicated in its decision to investigate the Trumpies.  However the unfortunate use  (by Mr. Horowitz) of the phrase "neither side was vindicated" in yesterday's Senate Judiciary hearing, created more confusion than clarification.  Especially, for millions who find scant time for reading the news and must rely on evening news 'burps' .  Where, of course, the sloppy language is compounded in the  meme  that "neither side was vindicated".

Which is simply false. Where it counted, and as Horowitz pointed out,  agents' mistakes (e.g. in spellings, omissions) does not mean the FBI acted with political bias.  That is the key point. So conflating "paper" (clerical) - filing errors and oversights with the notion of total "bad faith" (as Trump Toady William Barr insists)  serves no one's interest other than Traitor Trump and his conspiracy mongers.

 Chris Hayes in his Dec. 9 show, exposed  Barr's worthless conspiracy bunkum for the claptrap it is:

"The obvious problem with this theory is that it makes no sense. Remember this, during the campaign the only investigation that became public was the one regarding Hillary Clinton, which arguably lost her the election. But the FBI was investigating Trump at the very same time. No one uttered a word about it. If they were so desperate to bring Trump down you'd think someone would have said something.  They didn't. So the whole conspiracy theory doesn't even hold together."

In other words, all Barr has to base his objections on are recycled hot air and hogwash from the psycho conspiracy babblers, i.e. from 8chan, Infowars, QAnon and the like.   People need to be alert and aware that Barr is nothing more than a political tool for Trump,  a shameless lackey who has now basically ruined the reputation of the DOJ - which will likely need years to restore.

See also:

William Barr

William Barr: Christian Nationalist Authoritarian Having a Field Day Enabling Trumpism

And:

Caroline Fredrickson

In Bill Barr, Trump Has a Roy Cohn Upgrade

Excerpt:

"Mr. Barr has acted more like a henchman than the leader of an agency charged with exercising independent judgment. The disturbing message that sends does not end at our borders — it extends to countries, like those in the former East Bloc, struggling to overcome an illiberal turn in the direction of autocracy. "

And:

Here Are 5 Huge Lies Republicans Are Telling about the New Report on the Russia Probe

Hillary Guilty Of "Political Murder" in 2016? - More BS From The "Pizzagate Wing" Of The GOP (Wm. McGurn - Lindsey Graham)

We must admit that one rapid consequence of Barr's  "summary" of the Mueller report has been a massive mindfuck,  mainly amongst the Neolib  corporo media.  But also affecting too many (originally) critical pundits  in said media,  including Joe Scarborough and George Will. Both now seem to believe "democracy has been vindicated" on the basis of a 3 1/2 page crib sheet from Barr, and all is well in the land of the free and home of the brave.  Well, it's no where near clear that Barr's effort was anything more than a get out of jail free card for Trump . Worse, a license  for this thug to commit even more depredations on our nation - even as it gives license for the rat protectors to mount specious investigations of their own. Into who or what? Well, Hillary Clinton - loser of the 2016 dumpster fire election!

Thus one beholds imps like the WSJ's William McGurn and lesser moron Lindsey Graham,  charging forward with crimes against Clinton under nutso conspiracy ideations. They have now proven they've joined the "pizzagate" crackpot wing of the Republican party.  McGurn, in his WSJ column yesterday ('Don't Lock Hillary Up', p. A15) claims:

"Thanks to two lucky breaks Hillary Clinton got away with political murder in 2016. The biggest break came when opposition research produced by one of her hired hands ended up being used by the FBI to spy on her rival's campaign".

Ok, hold strain there, Billy. We know you've already shown ample signs of senility and dementia, but we can't let that twaddle pass - even in a WSJ op -ed.   Hard as it is for McGurn to wrap his febrile brain around, the fact is the Fusion GPS oppo research was originally launched by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site. The relevant  WSJ editorial at the time noted it was funded by big GOP donor Paul Singer.  Singer wanted oppo research done on the Donald -  a two bit Queens' chiseler and lowlife he didn't trust. Singer and a group of old guard GOP donors hired Fusion to do the job of digging up dirt on the Queens' real estate crime boss and scumball.   

Subsequently, after Trump won the Repub primary,   the material was handed off to the Clinton campaign. This was NOT in any way sinister or illegal as McGurn tries to portray  - and certainly not a whit to do with "political murder" .  Nor in any way conspiratorial, certainly like seeking the help of a hostile foreign power to meddle in a presidential campaign.  Like Trump, who up to now has not disdained or objected to the Russians' help.

What was illegal was the Trump team holding more than 100 meetings - that we now know of -  with Russians, including GRU intelligence agents.  Specifically, as the NY Times has shown,  "Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration," 

If Mueller lacked the intestinal fortitude to call out what was staring him in the face -  in terms of Trump's conspiracy with Putin and the Russkies  -  then that's on him. We can say he was the wrong guy for the job. Or maybe he fell victim to membership in the 'chickenshit club" noted several posts earlier.  See e.g.

Robert Mueller

Robert Mueller Has Been Inducted into the 'Chickenshit Club'

But don't blame Adam Schiff for now sticking to the facts, and open evidence for what Trump has thus far gotten away with.   

As for McGurn's complaint about the FBI getting involved, that wasn't because of the Clinton team - or the Steele dossier.  That was because multiple personae in Trump's campaign orbit were making contact with GRU agents. (Which led Mueller to indict no fewer than 12 of them last summer.)  What? Everyone all of a sudden forgot that? Did Barr's BS summary spatter that much gray matter in the nation's collective hippocampus?

We know that contacts were made by at least 17 campaign officials and advisers who had contacts with Russian nationals and Wikileaks intermediaries.   Nor were these merely crumpets and tea gatherings at the (Trump) Tower.

Further, foreign intercepts of meetings of Trump cronies, e.g. Carter Page, with Russian  (GRU) agents meant that the U.S.  FBI  had to enter the picture with its own FISA warrants, surveillance, etc. Not to do so would have violated agreements with foreign intel sources, assets, and would have amounted to dereliction of duty.   

Hence, there was no evil conspiracy by the FBI.  It only exists in McGurn's mind as when he babbles later "there are those Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Warrants the FBI took out on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page". Uh, no, "there aren't."  The FBI needed to do a surveillance on Page after he disclosed he was a Russkie stooge by making contacts with the GRU.

So don't even think of egging Graham on to instigate another special counsel  (and another investigation) to go after Clinton. That dog is done and will no longer hunt.

McGurn then names the second "lucky break" enabling Hillary to "get away with political murder" (ibid.):

"She'd also lucked out in early July when the FBI director himself, even though he lacked the authority to do so, publicly and personally cleared her of any charges for having taken her emails as secretary of state off grid."

Ok, let's leave out for the moment that Ivanka and Jared have done the same - indeed  worse - not even bothering to try to secure their messages on What's App.   But never mind the double standard, in his high dudgeon and dementia McGurn seems to forget then FBI head Comey dumped all over Hillary with a 2nd interjection 10 days BEFORE the General Election!  

Most sentient observers of normal intelligence took that to be a totally undesirable intrusion that essentially sunk whatever chances Hillary had to win.  Seems to me McGurn -  and other Trumpies-   ought to be thanking Comey for helping knock HRC out instead of accusing her of "political murder" and "putting fingers on the scales of the election."  What planet or parallel universe do these mutts inhabit anyway?

But at least McGurn is gracious enough to admit that the Trumpies and their goons shouldn't lock her up.

Then there is the cowardly poltroon and political pipsqueak Lindsey Graham, also referenced in the piece.  He also seeks to be magnanimous...sort of...sputtering :

"I'm not so much worried about retrying her, but I want to make sure the public understands that she got away with something they wouldn't get away with."

Oh, please, you ridiculous piece of shit! She "got away" with nothing, She fucking lost!  Get over it!  Trump, meanwhile, got away with blatant conspiracy with the Russians and is still getting away with crimes and misdemeanors galore - every damned day.  As former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah put it back in January in an MSNBC appearance:

"Remember that GRU indictment - if you go back to that- one of the objects of the conspiracy is not just hacking but hacking and disseminating.  You can't look at them alone, you have to go back to everything we know, the Trump Tower meeting, the calling out by Trump to Russia (to grab Hillary's emails)...there's just so many other things."

Note here the crimes to do with Hillary's emails were not on her side, but Trump's goons hacking them in the first place, especially after he egged on Russian  bad actors, e.g. on July 27, 2016:

"I will tell you this, Russia if you're listening, I hope that you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. You will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens."

The emails showed Russkie contact and Brit music promoter Rob Goldstone telling Trump's dumbo son Don Jr. that “the crown prosecutor of Russia” had offered “to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father”.

Goldstone added,  in the exchange of June 3rd, 2016: “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

He didn't mince words or soft soap it, absolutely pointing out the "support for Mr. Trump".  Any sensible individual with more than air between the ears would have run - not walked - to the nearest FBI office and turned in the material. What did Don Jr. do instead?

Seventeen minutes later, the jug-headed imp welcomed the email with the reply: “If it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer.”     He then forwarded the incriminating material to his comrades in crime, as his email betrays:

------------------------------------------------------------------
From:   Donald Trump Jr.
Sent:    Yesterday, June 8, 2016, 12: 55 p.m.
To:       Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort
Subject: FW: Russia - Clinton -  Private and Confidential
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Just a few weeks later the first batch of DNC emails were released.  If that isn't conspiracy - as Bill Maher so quaintly put it Friday night, then "what the fuck is it?"  

Still not buying it? Let's refer to the words of Mueller's own indictment of the Russkie GRU agents from last summer:

According to the indictment:
"On or about July 27, 2016, the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts on a domain hosted by a third party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. They also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign. '

Got the lingo there? Conspirators! Of course, this referred to the gang of GRU hackers and thugs doing the spearphishing. But were they just doing it by coincidence or happenstance?   No, they did it the very same day Traitor Trump appeared in front of the media cameras and pleaded for the Russians to grab Hillary's emails.  Only a certified imbecile would not infer conspiracy or at least coordination here, certainly after the Trump Tower meet.  

So why didn't Mueller call it out?  Well as I pointed out in my March 30 post on the 'Chickenshit theory', quoting Larry Beinhart:

"White collar cases are the toughest to make and there are multiple reasons for this. They tend to take place in linguistic fogs. Instead of money taken at the point of a gun, it's taken by promises and claims that can be made to appear as merely over-ambitious, misunderstandings of complex rules, just careless, or actually made by underlings."

I added:

 It's all about manipulating the language so that - by the end of the judicial process- there is no clear proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" by which to rest a case.  In other words, like the agnotologists who muddied the waters on the causes of climate change - delaying action by sowing doubts for decades-  it's nearly impossible to prove a crime attributed to a white collar crook. Especially one with tons of cash to toss around, i.e. to buy the best lawyers, meaning the best at manipulating the language for their client's own ends.

So, in effect, the semantic fog succeeds in diluting evidence to the point a special prosecutor may not be willing to use it. But bear in mind Carl Sagan's oft repeated quote: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

And now,  given Mueller's finding for "absence of evidence"  when faced with language distortion by Trump's lawyers,  we see their side emboldened.   McGurn and that execrable punk Graham want to turn the tables on Hillary for "political murder" and "putting fingers on the election scales".  David Corn, who's done extensive work on the Trump- Russia links has accepted none of it:

 "Trump and his minions have kept saying this didn't really happen, so in a lot of ways this is an indictment of Donald Trump, of all the people who said the Russia attack never happened. Here we have it in granular detail.  Read between the lines of this indictment and there's the other half of the equation. That throughout the campaign, and while the attack was going on, Donald Trump and his lieutenants were saying it's not happening. Even when he was briefed by U.S. intelligence he came out and said, 'nope, nothing happening, could be a 400 pound guy, we don't know that it's Russia'

Well, now we know it's Russia. Now we know while they were doing this he was providing cover, he was covering up what they were doing, which was for his benefit. "

But we're not done. Graham is so beside himself with self-righteous punkery and faux outrage at Adam Schiff's sticking to the conspiracy crime that he had the nerve to squawk to McGurn:

"Mr. Schiff really does represent the Oliver Stone wing of the Democratic Party".

Of course, this imbecile probably only has the faintest inkling that it was Stone's film 'JFK' (which he always said was "a counter myth to the myth of the Warren Report") actually paved the way for the JFK Records Act and the millions of files that have since been released from the National Archives. Among those, that Clay Shaw (under the alias "Clay Bertrand") was really a CIA contract agent as Jim Garrison had shown. As then released CIA Doc. (JFK 1993: 6.28.16.07.26.560280) noted:


"A memorandum marked for files says that J. Monroe Sullivan, #280201, was granted a covert security approval as of 10 December 1962 so he could be used in Project QKCHANT [Clay L. Shaw has #402897]"

Does Lindsey know any of this? Of course not! Otherwise he'd not be expelling brain farts about Adam Schiff being from the "Oliver Stone' wing of the Democrats  which in retrospect turns out to be a compliment to perspicuity and dogged persistence to get at truth. 

As opposed to being a collapsible, spineless worm like Graham, who wifey has even described as akin to a rotten shellfish, "white, slimy all over and yellow on the inside."  And especially as this South Carolina putz still wants to appoint his own special counsel to now investigate Hillary.  

Echoes of Devin Nunes? Maybe, even a clone. Quislings of a yellow feather stick together, after all. And almost certainly part of the whackadoodle, Pizzagate wing of the Repuke party. 

Stay tuned because one thing Barr did accomplish with his inane, skewed summary Mueller's report is to open the floodgates to even more polarization.

See also:

The Trump Administration | Donald Trump

Constitutional Law Expert Urges New York to Close the Legal Loophole Trump Could Exploit to Protect His Family and Friends

Rep. John Lewis - A True Hero For MLK Day- Trump, Not So Much

A Civil Rights icon vs. a Twitter Troll and likely traitor - not even close to an even match, despite the traitor getting shoehorned into the White House..

"High from his gilded throne room in midtown Manhattan — like Zeus from Mt. Olympus — Donald Trump has been hurling tweeted spitballs at Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. He’s a man of “no action,” typed Trump with his tiny (manicured) fingers, of one of America’s true heroes of the modern age — a man so brutally assaulted by state troopers during the l965 march from Selma to Montgomery that he nearly died from a fractured skull.

Time and again Lewis was on the front line of the fight for civil rights, spat upon, insulted and vilified, while far to the north, Donald Trump was using the fortune handed him by his father to launch a real estate empire without ever getting his fingernails dirty."   Bill Moyers, 'John Lewis Is A True American Profile In Courage' on smirkingchimp.com

Let us agree to the proposition that if one is a compulsive, unapologetic liar - who lies about everything (including whether he mocked a disabled reporter when a video clearly shows it), even knowing people can check his claims - then he cannot be a legitimate leader or leader -elect. In this case "President - elect " Donald Trump. The reason is that a nation's citizens must be able to trust a would- be leader especially if he calls on them to make sacrifices. In the case of Trump, we can't trust anything he's said, and the additional fact he was helped into power by a  foreign entity confirms he cannot be legitimate.

I previously noted Trump's bare faced lie that James Clapper "denounced" the recent explosive dossier (on Trump's alleged salacious activities in a Moscow hotel)  when Clapper's own statement refuted the claim. In a statement released after their conversation the director of national intelligence actually said: “The IC [intelligence community] has not made any judgement that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions.”

In other words, Trump blurted out his lie  knowing full well people could check the statements of the DNI  for themselves, already in the public record, In other words, the bastard Trump didn't care that citizens could learn he was outright LYING. Worse, he believed most sane citizens worthy of the name wouldn't care.  Such a person is by definition untrustworthy and cannot be a legitimate leader if he despises citizens to this extent.  The People must be able to depend upon a leader's words, for example, if and when he insists there is cause for war - including a nuclear war. If they can't trust his words they can't trust the legitimacy of the leadership. This ought not be rocket science.

Thus, Rep. John Lewis didn't mince words on Friday when he told Chuck Todd of NBC that he couldn't support a president-elect he regarded as illegitimate. This based on the accumulated facts exposing a conspiracy involving the Russians to catapult Trump and his bunch into the seat of power. Of course, the Trumpies took to using the N-word on Lewis, as well as invoking the hackneyed "sour grapes" BS which no longer holds traction given the dossier compiled by MI6 spy Christopher Steele.

What Steele uncovered was a conspired plot to torpedo the 2016 general election using dsinformation as well as outright hacking of both parties' computers, although only using the gathered material against one. In addition, an annex to the released intelligence report disclosed high level conspiratorial shenanigans involving the Trump team and Russian counterparts as well as compromising material collected on Trump when he was in Moscow in 2013 for a "Miss Universe" beauty pageant.

As revealed by Mr. Steele in his last interview (with David Corn, published in 'Mother Jones') before going underground, the material gathered in memos was considered so explosive that he turned it over to contacts he had in the FBI last summer. This was without informing the opposition research group for which he'd initially begun his project. The FBI, despite this explosive stuff sitting on its shelves, chose instead to go after Hillary Clinton with damning insinuations of guilt over her email server, as opposed to parsing and exposing the Steele material.

This is important to note, given that over the weekend CIA chief John Brennan openly declared to Twitter fiend Trump that his accusations against the agency were misplaced. He said Trump  ought to really be taking up matters with the FBI who remain sitting on the Steele dossier. Brennan (on FOX News Sunday) warned Trump about flights of temper on his Twitter as well as snap judgments, noting:

"Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests. Therefore when he speaks or when he reacts he has to make sure he understands the implications which impact the United States could be profound".

But, if a person is a consummate liar, only concerned with spinning his version of reality to his 46 million equally deluded Twitter followers, this wouldn't matter. He would be more occupied with blasting out tweets - lying tweets - than protecting national security Just as his campaign was more obsessed with colluding with the Russians to get him elected than national interest. Traitors all, but now about to take power - unless some forthright FBI whistle blower comes out with the truth of what that Steele dossier on the Trumpistas  revealed.

While the intelligence community and FBI has been playing it coy saying they can't substantiate what's in the dossier. or that it is "raw intelligence" and doesn't "prove" anything, others have recognized that where there's smoke there's fire. In particularl, contrary to a dopey Trump tweet that Steele is a "failed spy" he was actually one of the UK's best on Russian matters. A highly regarded and respective intelligence operative who doesn't make shit up like Trump, or pull it out of his ass.

According to an AP report yesterday in the Denver Post (p. 12A, 'Ex Spy Regarded as Dependable') :

"Three British intelligence agents interviewed by the Associated Press described Steele as well regarded in the intelligence community, with excellent Russian skills and high level sources."

According to one Financial Times account, Steele was the "UK intelligence expert on Russia".

James Nixey, the head of Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia program, informed the AP that sections of the dossier document created by Steele "read exactly as reports from the secret services"

In other words, professional through and through, no exaggerations and no fillers that hadn't been  sourced.  While many critics in the West have complained the "sources haven't been vetted or questioned" they seem to forget that's because they likely went underground running for their lives, like Steele currently is.  As Exhibit A for what happens to whistle blowers in Russia they need only pull up the file released (only a year ago) on the Alexander Litvinenko Inquiry which showed that ex-KGB officer who defected to the UK was assassinated in 2006 using Polonium 206 dropped into his tea.

Look, if what's in that dosser is even partially true, the risk to Trump (and Putin) must be terrifying. Think about it. If any of that material is true, i.e. Steele was able to get real information from the Russian government about what they have on Donald Trump, how they got it, and how they were planning on using it, then the Russians right now would be going all out to root out Steele's sources. This would include who inside the Russian government had access to that true information and gave it lock, stock and barrel to Christopher Steele. From the FSB perspective, they're now working overtime to figure out who are the traitors, who are the leakers.

What about Russian denials? As Nixey also noted (ibid.) the Russian denials were "part of a Cold war pattern in which the Kremlin 'would deny something which is quite plainly true'"

Hence, those more in the know concerning the integrity of sources and what the intel really shows, acknowledge that what Steele compiled is very likely true, at least in part.  In addition to which the whole shtick fits the modus operandi of videoing any one who comes to Moscow and stays at a hotel- perhaps to engage in illicit sexual activities.  More worrying even than a possibly Trump tryst with a Russkie "honey pot" is that his campaign had continuous contact with the Russians all during the campaign to bring down Hillary Clinton.

All the preceding is important to process in order to show that Rep. John Lewis has good reason to suspect a conspiracy involving Trump, his surrogates and the Russian branch that wanted him in power and not Hillary. Rep. Lewis therefore had absolute justification for calling out Trump as illegitimate, and it is passing strange more elected officials don't. But then there has never been an abundance of courage amongst Washington's poltroons.

What else could- besides illegitimate- could Trump  be given that he lies compulsively, and even puts national security at risk by his impulsive, hare brained tweets, not to mention the explosive material the FBI is still keeping under wraps from the Steele dossier. Material that, if ever delivered to daylight,  would show Trump is a turned asset for a foreign power.

Trump, impulsive asshole that he is, couldn't resist Twitter push back to Lewis' comment, grabbing his dumb phone and tweeting on Saturday: "Congressman Lewis should spend more time on fixing his district rather than falsely complaining about the election results...all talk, talk, talk and no action. Sad" when Lewis actually had his skull fractured during a civil rights march, something a pussy like Trump would never have ventured forth to engage in. (Also, as reported on CBS News Sunday, Lewis' district is among the most crime- free in Georgia, and includes the CDC and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Again, the lying fuck Trump doesn't know what he's yapping about nor does he care other citizens can find out his lies).

Imagine then, the sheer folly of this abject, arrogant pretender and likely traitor calling out a civil rights icon for his principled stance - when Trump doesn't even know the meaning of principle.

The entire nation, as opposed to partaking in any celebration  Friday, ought to declare a national day of mourning when this misfit and illegitimate clown- traitor assumes office. No one with a grain of principle or integrity ought to attend his fiasco, or even remotely try to dignify it in any way. It is a fucking national tragedy!