Is political bias on part of the FBI a fact or fiction?

[Meno_]

Does the charge that the FBI bias is a reality mesh with the counter charge that the right is planting this idea for their political agenda?

[WendyDarling]

The Democratic owned US security agencies (all of them including CIA, DHS, etc.), the whole bandwagon, have been covering up Hillary Clinton's illegal messes and actively seeking to discredit Trump since the 2016 campaign.

[Peter Kropotkin]

The Democratic owned US security agencies (all of them including CIA, DHS, etc.), the whole bandwagon, have been covering up Hillary Clinton's illegal messes and actively seeking to discredit Trump since the 2016 campaign.

K: conspiracy are us...........the "democratic owned"..... the democrats don't "own"
U.S security agencies.... they are agencies within the United States government
and are not "owned" by anyone.....I would love some proof..as if that is gonna happen..
anyway some proof that the "democrats own" the US security agencies......
this is gonna be hard, really hard without some made up "proof" from
Briebart or the National Inquirer.....

anyway, proof please....

Kropotkin

[WendyDarling]

The Russia investigation is the conspiracy theory. A year later and the investigation has nothing to show for their efforts, but their big fat never ending paychecks off the dimes of the taxpayers. No votes were changed and the government is trying to scare Americans into supporting the federal government overseeing the elections...so the feds can centrally rig them via technology.

[Peter Kropotkin]

The Russia investigation is the conspiracy theory. A year later and the investigation has nothing to show for their efforts, but their big fat never ending paychecks off the dimes of the taxpayers. No votes were changed and the government is trying to scare Americans into supporting the federal government overseeing the elections...so the feds can centrally rig them via technology.

K: and more conspiracy theories.... do you know that in any criminal investigation
takes time.... for example, the Ken Starr investigation lasted over 4 years,
from 1994 to 1998.... and as far as the federal government
overseeing the elections, I am in favor of that.....it is far more likely
that elections are stolen on a local level than on a federal level....
for example, the stolen election of 2000 was done on a local level,
Florida for example, and not nationally......because of the nature of voting,
it is almost impossible to steal an election nationally, but is very easy to steal locally...

stop seeing everything through the eyes of a conspiracy and look at it
without prejudice and without the myths... and things make much more sense...

Kropotkin

[Meno_]

But isn't creating a conspiratorial atmosphere(what is real what is fake), conspiratorial thinking may be understood mainstream as a politically charged tool to destabilize, derealize social norms? And if its successful, is there more then patently perceived party politics as usual?

It would seem that the Democrats failure to use Republican loss of political value, may reinforce the view that Democrats may be somewhat underhanded as well. This to may be explained away by intra party individual dissension, and this may appear on the surface, as well, as conservative reaction within the Democratic party, as noted by conservatives cautioning against too soon applications of the Inoeacment action other more moderate and liberal views insist upon as timely

[Carleas]

A year later and the [Russia] investigation has nothing to show for their efforts

There have been 4 indictments, 2 of which have already pleaded guilty...

[WendyDarling]

If you've read the indictments, none of the charges involve Trump's campaign in collusion with Russian election meddling. The charges are for lying to FBI, illegal money laundering, etc. Gates worked for Manafort and is being charged with guilty by association charges that resemble Manafort's own charges. Flynn and Papadopoulos lied to FBI about the Russians they knew so that covers their charges. It's all a bunch of horseshit that is not this collusion it is being purported to be in the media.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics ... index.html

Like I said, the investigation has not turned up anything to hang Trump or his campaign which is who they are gunning for.
Russia never directly changed a single vote during the election. The emails about Hillary were not released to Wikileaks by the Russians. The supposed Russian meddlesome advertisement propaganda was not specific to one political party, nor were the owners of the ads Russian Kremlinists.

It's a Democratic campaign to oust Trump by impeachment anybody with half a brain realizes that and a push to centralize the election process so corrupt politicians can more easily rig it.

[Mr Reasonable]

The Russia investigation is the conspiracy theory. A year later and the investigation has nothing to show for their efforts, but their big fat never ending paychecks off the dimes of the taxpayers. No votes were changed and the government is trying to scare Americans into supporting the federal government overseeing the elections...so the feds can centrally rig them via technology.

What do you mean nothing to show? They've made 4 arrests.

[WendyDarling]

What do you mean nothing to show? They've made 4 arrests.

Read other people's posts, that's already been responded to.

[Carleas]

Like I said, the investigation has not turned up anything to hang Trump or his campaign which is who they are gunning for.

The point is that you can't say this yet. They have made 4 arrests of people inside the Trump campaign, and they've still got significant leverage on two of them. The investigation is ongoing, and they're interviewing people higher and higher in the campaign.

You're looking at an investigation that's halfway through, that's rolled four major players in an alleged criminal conspiracy, and because they haven't indicted a sitting president you conclude that there's "nothing". From the evidence we have, there is just no basis to reach that conclusion.

[WendyDarling]

The point is that you can't say this yet.

I can say that until Trump is arrested and found guilty. They can continue this investigation for thirty years and you can tell me it takes time, but that's only to excuse the length of their fishing expedition for irrelevant crimes, as it stands now, it has NOTHING to do with charges against Trump.

They have made 4 arrests of people inside the Trump campaign, and they've still got significant leverage on two of them. The investigation is ongoing, and they're interviewing people higher and higher in the campaign.

I'm sure there is more criminal activity to be found in the Trump campaign, but the point is that those crimes aren't relevant to the purpose of the investigation and this leverage you mentioned is to try to pressure those two individuals into lying to save their own hind ends. Where's the smoking gun evidence rather than the "He said. She said." nonsense?

From the evidence we have, there is just no basis to reach that conclusion.

My point is that there is no evidence. You have no evidence, they have no evidence. Nobody involved has evidence.

[Carleas]

they have no evidence

You don't know this. What you know is that 1) there have been multiple arrests of senior campaign officials related to illegal contacts with the Russian government, 2) yet more senior campaign officials are being interviewed regularly, and 3) no charges have been brought against a sitting president. None of that suggests, and a lot of it weighs against the idea that there is no evidence of Trump's direct complicity in illegal contacts with the Russian government during the campaign.

We aren't 30 years out, we're less than a year into an investigation of a sitting president. This isn't an episode of Law and Order, it's a careful investigation into a sitting president, it takes time. It should take time.

[WendyDarling]

1) there have been multiple arrests of senior campaign officials related to illegal contacts with the Russian government

Not in connection with illegal campaign dealings rather those arrests were for personal dealings so they don't count as squat against Trump's campaign...like I said there are probably a lot of criminals who work in the campaign but their criminal activities have nothing to do with the campaign.

2) yet more senior campaign officials are being interviewed regularly, and 3) no charges have been brought against a sitting president.

More and more NOTHING. No evidence regarding the purpose of this special investigation. Nada!

Now, instead of any evidence regarding collusion (to which there is none) Mueller and his cronies are gonna try to pin some type of obstruction charges on Trump which reeks of their desperation to pin some illegal activity on Trump. Meanwhile five months of incriminating Mueller team texts that express the texters hatred of Trump mysteriously go missing. LOLZ WTF? The FBI, CIA, and other such departments made those texts disappear...oops!

[Carleas]

Not in connection with illegal campaign dealings...

Lying to the FBI about contacts with the Russian government, which he made as part of the transition and at the direction of senior officials in the transition?

More and more NOTHING.

The interviews have been behind closed doors, so you don't know what was said. Papadopolous was flipped and continued working as a mole in the Trump White House for a month before his plea was unsealed.

You don't know what's coming out in the interviews. You don't know what else the investigation has turned up. But you know it's already found several criminal acts related to communications between campaign staff and the Russian government.

[WendyDarling]

Lying to the FBI about contacts with the Russian government, which he made as part of the transition and at the direction of senior officials in the transition?

He? Who is he? Which senior officials? Did any of the Russian dealings happen while these men were a part of the campaign team or was it all months or years before the campaign began? I heard that all the Russian dealings happened before the campaign began, before there was a Trump campaign team.

[Carleas]

Flynn pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador that took place during the transition (December 2016). Those conversations took place at the direction of and in coordination with an unnamed "senior official of the Presidential Transition Team", who was advising him from Mar-a-Lago and was with other senior transition officials at the time of the direction and coordination. This is described in his guilty plea.

[WendyDarling]

The investigation is to uncover collusion regarding the election process itself. Flynn was not accused of colluding with the Russians to tamper with the 2016 election. The charges stem from conversations after the fact of the election, once again AFTER the election, nothing pertains to the election process of co-conspiracy between Trump and Russia. I see what Flynn did as damage control to keep our country out of a 3rd world war with an economic and military power that far exceeds our countries abilities at this time. While Flynn lied, in my book, it was to keep Russia from kicking our dumb asses for sanctioning them unnecessarily. The Democrats, Obama, wanted to escalate a lie they had fabricated to explain away their loss of President in the White House. Once again, the head of the DHS said no votes were changed by Russia, so just how did they tamper with the election? Wikileaks released statements that the Hillary scandal emails did not come from Russians.

Carleas, offer something more substantial or wait until later when I get to say...I told you so.

[Fixed Cross]

Does the charge that the FBI bias is a reality mesh with the counter charge that the right is planting this idea for their political agenda?

Oh Jesus.
Look at the evidence.


This is why you lefties don't exist. You can't accept that there are such things as fact.

Thank heaven you lost. We'd all be gone thanks you.

Repent, open your eyes, start to exist.
Then you wil be worthy of us.

[Meno_]

Does the charge that the FBI bias is a reality mesh with the counter charge that the right is planting this idea for their political agenda?

Oh Jesus.
Look at the evidence.


This is why you lefties don't exist. You can't accept that there are such things as fact.

Thank heaven you lost. We'd all be gone thanks you.

Repent, open your eyes, start to exist.
Then you wil be worthy of us.

This poll does not mean to have built in political bias, as polls go, the proposition quoted is posed as a query and not a statement


As lefties go, that is merely a set word indicating degrees of separation from the center. There is no predisposition of political roles left and right , I believe even predisposed to claim any priority as far as which came first.

Anything between a centrist and an extreme liberal can also include moderate liberalism, which if pushed to its limit to the right right, cam claim a conservative point of view.

Labels are measures of degrees of separation, even if, this poll appears biased on its face.

Personally I have not claimed political alliance, and to take positions out of context, simply because of types of critiques at times pointing to political deficiencies on either side, would overstep the strong strain of pragmatism which can be inferred in questions of factual veracity.

A strong pragmatic bend does at times imply some kind of factual inauthenticity, and this is exactly what may be going on with the ever changing points of view in the current administration..

Times are currently politically dangerous and risking. being perceived as a fake, when that is the very perception being accused of, is indeed risky business.

[Carleas]

The investigation is to uncover collusion regarding the election process itself.

No it isn't. According to the order appointing Mueller, he is to investigate:

(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and

(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and

(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).

It isn't limited to direct tampering in the election, or to communication that occurred during the campaign.

The charges stem from conversations after the fact of the election, once again AFTER the election, nothing pertains to the election process of co-conspiracy between Trump and Russia.

I agree that the charges to which Flynn pleaded guilty relate to conversations that took place after the election, but I don't agree that they therefor don't pertain to the election, campaign, or more generally to ongoing contacts between Trump and Russia.

First, the conversations acknowledged in the guilty plea aren't necessarily the only ones. The plea was part of a deal to encourage Flynn's cooperation with the investigation, and they may have traded lesser charges for more access/information.

Second, the acknowledged existence of illegal contacts between Flynn and the Russian government during the transition should significantly increase the expectation that there were other similar conversations during the campaign.


And Flynn is not the only one to be charged. Papadopolous pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about multiple contacts with multiple individuals connected to the Russian government during the campaign (March and April 2016):

... defendant PAPADOPOULOS learned he would be an advisor to the Campaign in early March, and met the professor on or about March 14, 2016; the professor only took interest in defendant PAPADOPOULOS because of his status with the Campaign; and the professor told defendant PAPADOPOULOS about the "thousands of emails" on or about April 26, 2016, when defendant PAPADOPOULOS had been a foreign policy adviser to the Campaign for over a month.

... defendant PAPADOPOULOS understood that the professor had substantial connections to Russian government officials (and had met with some ofthose officials in Moscow immediately prior to telling defendant PAPADOPOULOS about the "thousands of emails") and, over a period of months, defendant PAPADOPOULOS repeatedly sought to use the professor's Russian connections in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and Russian government officials.

... defendant PAPADOPOULOS met the female Russian national on or about March 24, 2016, after he had become an adviser to the Campaign; he believed that she had connections to Russian government officials; and he sought to use her Russian connections over a period ofmonths in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and Russian government officials.

I don't think you're wrong to assert that there's a lot we don't know, but the statements that have been acknowledge on the record, and for which two senior members of the Trump campaign have already pleaded guilty, clearly establish ongoing contacts between campaign officials and Russian government actors.

[WendyDarling]

No it isn't. According to the order appointing Mueller, he is to investigate:

I read your link and yes, it is. The formation of the investigation team by bipartisan congress was to find out about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, later the efforts were focused specifically against Trump and his team directly which was traitor Congresses plan from the get-go to unseat Trump who was rattling their swamp scum cages.

For weeks, weeks, the security agencies couldn't even get their stories straight about the scope or nature of this so called hacking of the election, the DNC, or the Republican Parties servers/emails. The RNC denied they were ever hacked. Podesta blamed his stupidity for giving away his password on some staffer's bad advice. Guccifer 2.0, a Romanian citizen who claims no ties to Russia took credit for one of the hacks into the DNC server, but our security agencies say he's with Russia, part of some complex Russian conspiracy to favor/help Trump in that 2016 election. DCLeaks is also Russian says US cybersecurity firms, firms who get their monies from the US defense department budget and threat gigs from our security agencies I'd bet.

Where's proof that the public can believe? Did it mysteriously disappear like those 5 months of text messages between Mueller's investigative team? Where's this evidence that it was even the Russians? Our security agencies, who I don't put any stock in at this point, can all align to say whatever they want and manufacture elaborate connections between non-existing persons, places, and things, there's no one stopping their unified front against the little man to introduce falsified evidence. The security agencies have been lying from the get-go, having taken their cues from hysterical Hillary, dumdum Podesta, and the likes who support the Democratic party some of which are Republican's in name only, such as John McCain and Mitch McConnell who are probably on Clinton's crony payroll.

What is the law that forbids candidates from interacting with foreign governments during their campaign and transition into their elected office?

The Logan Act has to do with citizens meddling in US and foreign government affairs, but Flynn isn't being charged with that, only lying about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador.

The investigation doesn't add up and neither does the supposed evidence.

https://www.apnews.com/dea73efc01594839957c3c9a6c962b8a
From that article, we Americans are supposed to believe that the Russian government did not know who was actively involved in the DNC so they had to do a phishing deal with outdated information? We're supposed to believe that the Russian superpower is so incompetent as to not have accurate information that's available to the public about who is employed by Clinton's 2016 campaign? Sure, Russia's full of mentally retarded KGB and cyber espionage experts.

Like I said, our own government who supports the Democrat's global agenda has betrayed our sitting President Trump with this ridiculous and absurd Russian scheme they themselves devised to first discredit him and eventually impeach him.

[Uccisore]

Flynn pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador that took place during the transition (December 2016). Those conversations took place at the direction of and in coordination with an unnamed "senior official of the Presidential Transition Team", who was advising him from Mar-a-Lago and was with other senior transition officials at the time of the direction and coordination. This is described in his guilty plea.

Which is exactly what they want to do to Trump: ask him 999 questions, 501 of them being the same question asked over and over in slightly different ways, until he eventually remembers something wrong or says something that conflicts with something else that he said earlier so they can cry "Contempt" or "Lying to FBI" and create a crime out of thin air because *the crimes they are actually investigating* don't exist, and to be honest, were never credibly alleged to exist. They did the same thing to Scooter Libby. And Bill Clinton, come to think of it. That's apparently all these special investigations are good for.

The only crimes they've found so far are crimes that were created by the investigation in the first place. But that only makes sense, since- and again this is super important- when it comes to Trump, no crime has even been alleged.

The collusion thing is a bunch of bullshit, since collusion isn't a crime and we all know both campaigns were 'guilty' of it.

[Carleas]

Where's proof that the public can believe?

What's your standard of evidence? Do the recent Dutch revelations do anything for you?

Which ...

I'm not really sure what you're claiming. Are you denying that there were ongoing contacts between members of the Trump campaign and the Russian government, or just that the members of the campaign that have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about those contacts were trying to cover them u?

If the former, why would the the people being charged acknowledge that they had such contacts? If, as you seem to imply, the only crime was a misstatement of facts to the FBI, which is what they're pleading guilty to, what are they getting out of the deal? They're already pleading guilty to the worst charge you think they could be found guilty of, so what are they getting in exchange for going along with a story that is, by hypothesis, false?

If the latter, where prior to the guilty pleas did they acknowledge the contacts? The senior campaign staff repeatedly denied any contact between members of the campaign and the Russian government. If that was the party line, is it really plausible that when Papadopolous and Flynn lied to the FBI about their contacts with the Russian government, they did it by accident?

As for underlying crimes, both Flynn's and Papadopolous' contacts could well have been criminal independently of their having lied about them. Assuming that they were, we would be seeing basically what we're seeing now: pleas to lesser charges in exchange for their continued cooperation. The fact that they've only been charged with the lesser offenses isn't evidence that no more serious offenses were committed.

[WendyDarling]

What's your standard of evidence? Do the recent Dutch revelations do anything for you?

No, aspects of the story don't add up.

It's somewhat of a 'fluke' that the AIVD hackers were able to acquire such useful information in 2014.

What does that have to do with mid 2016 if AIVD were no longer in operation?

The AIVD hackers are no longer in Cozy Bear's computer network. The Dutch espionage lasted between 1 and 2,5 years. Hacker groups frequently change their methods and even a different firewall can cut off access. The AIVD declined to respond to de Volkskrant's findings.

How could the Dutch team only last 1 year (2014) and still catch a hack that happened mid-2016. Error...slip up by writer?

The Dutch access to the Russian hackers' network soon pays off. In November, the Russians prepare for an attack on one of their prime targets: the American State Department.

No mention of the month and year? Where are the confirmational details?

He thinks he's received an e-mail from the State Department - the e-mail address is similar - and clicks a link in the message. The link opens a website where the White House employee then enters his login credentials, now obtained by the Russians. And that is how the Russians infiltrate the White House.

Who is HE? and when did this occur?

The Dutch may have been spying on Russian cyber teams in the past but they are trying to link that past ability in 2014/15 to today's more recent Russian attacks 2016 on. I don't buy it in the least since this article is mentioning generalities about some HE? and some attack on the White House but WHEN? and AIVD lasting from 1 year which would have made their current help impossible.

Why would American intelligence agencies leak their help from the Dutch? Why would they screw up a great thing of the Dutch spying on Russians and feeding that intel to us? I believe that the story is only to prove that the Russians have tried to hack the USA before and AIVD had nothing to do with being in the know regarding the most recent 2016 DNC hack. I'd call this a misinformation piece since it leaves out a lot of important details that tie past Russian cyber warfare with more current Russian cyber warfare. We're supposed to believe that the Dutch covered all the Russian activities as they breached US servers as far back as 2014 up until the 2016 DNC hack, but that is not what the article actually says, what we're supposed to believe was implied, not stated with facts.

Your evidence is rejected, Carleas.