Fusion GPS Founder Met With Russian Operative Before And After Trump Tower Meeting

originally posted by: theantediluvian

originally posted by: burntheships
a reply to: theantediluvian

Donna Brazile's new book has an account of Robby Mook
crafting the Russia Narrative continuously.

They used this during the election, and you know this.
How crafty to fall back on saying they didn't.

They used what during the election? If the Clinton campaign knew about that meeting before the election. Why wouldn't they have revealed it when it would have mattered?

Because they knew that DT had it snuffed out?

If that were true, it would explain the offensive against him using the opposite of the truth (saying that DT used Russians to influence the election when it was really them the entire time).

a reply to: theantediluvian

Again, I think there are several reasons they didn't use this in the election.

Fisrt, there was nothing to it. Had Don Jr. Offered V a quid pro quo, then they would have said something.

Secondly, seeing as how they thought Hillary was winning, why throw up this hail Mary. It only had a chance to blowback on them, as we are currently seeing.

Also, although this specific story wasn't made public, the dems including Obama were going around before the election decrying trump Russian connections. They probably would want to avoid admitting, "and we know that Don Jr Met with Russians cause we met with the same ones".

And I don't buy the argument that Hillary's team didn't know that fusion of Steele were meeting with Russians.

As you know, it seems that any sort of getting would have revealed to Hillary's team that fusion had a history of working with Russians.

For the dems to scream about russia for a year, knowing they too were working with them to get dirt on trump is a joke.

Further more, as always, if fusion didnt know about v and her meeting with Don Jr why are they being so secretive about their records and finances?

And I guess we can expect Hillary,and the dnc to come out and admit what a huge mistake working with fusion was, and demand they release all of there records.

I mean, that's what they would do if they were truly concerned about Russian influence.

originally posted by: Grambler
For the dems to scream about russia for a year, knowing they too were working with them to get dirt on trump is a joke.

They thought the money funneled from Clinton/DNC to Elias to Fusion GPS to Christopher Steele to the Russian sources would never be discovered.

originally posted by: loam

originally posted by: Grambler
For the dems to scream about russia for a year, knowing they too were working with them to get dirt on trump is a joke.

They thought the money funneled from Clinton/DNC to Elias to Fusion GPS to Christopher Steele to the Russian sources would never be discovered.

It has been evident from the get go that the dnc was not really concerned about russia, but only playing politics.

Else they would have let and insisted the fbi investigated their server.

Now we find out they were paying for dirt on trump from russia, and through a firm with a history of working with the very Russians they were incessant about trump Jr. Meeting.

And yet still the charade continues.

a reply to: Grambler

Worse. Now we have the prospect that they tried to set Trump Jr. up. To me the Russian narrative was always a carefully crafted conspiracy to smear a political opponent.

Dirty politics, banana republic style.

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical

"Veselnitskaya hired the law firm BakerHostetler to represent Prevezon..."

Remember this: Link?

a reply to: MotherMayEye

Wow, I knew I had recalled Baker Hostetler but I couldn't quite put my finger on where or the context.

This might be significant.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

Whoa.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

IIRC, they represented Edison Media Research in that suit and another partner served as magistrate judge. (Eta: See the link I posted for a fuller explanation.)

It stayed with me because I thought it was a rare glimpse into how the justice system is rigged. I filed them in my mind right next to Perkins Coie.

originally posted by: Grambler

Ask Bernie how fairly he was treated.

Bernie is/was a willing stooge. His 2017 Democratic Unity tour, last Spring, is a testament to that.

a reply to: theantediluvian


He said he would have the backs of criminal illegals. Illegals have no business being here in the first place> That being said it is too expensive, impractical and quite frankly not necessary to deport all of them. Instead, focusing on those with criminal records is an effective use of deportation resources.

What is the problem with this, again? Sanctuary cities reward lawlessness, which detracts from the legitimacy of our overall justice system. If we only pursue certain crimes, what does that make us? It means we selectively enforce the law when it is convenient for us, but not at other times - determinations being made in a totally arbitrary ways.

Deporting criminals is an efficient remedy, and would work well on non-illegal immigrants as well. Sadly, we can't deport criminals who are US citizens but we can deport those illegaly here.

The point is that crims are a scourge on society, and supporting/aiding them in any way is dispicable.

As far as Trump's voters voting against Hillary, I disagree. We could have defeated Shillary with any GOP candidate - we selected Trump against considerable party and establishment backlash (unlike the Dem primary).

Identity politics are abused by some (including in the GOP), but it was by far overplayed by the Democrats. Hopefully their leadership will practice what they preach, but we shall see. Keith Ellison (spelling?) has real potential, and I'd like to see him do well. If he can save the party and return it to its principles (avoiding fringe issues, election losers and red herrings - some created by our side) then the DNC might just survive.

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: MotherMayEye

Wow, I knew I had recalled Baker Hostetler but I couldn't quite put my finger on where or the context.

This might be significant.

Has this already been posted?????

BakerHostet ler Partners' Scary Advice

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, BakerHostetler partners David Rivkin and Lee Casey propose that President Trump “can end this madness” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation “by immediately issuing a blanket presidential pardon to anyone involved in supposed collusion with Russia or Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign, to anyone involved with Russian acquisition of an American uranium company during the Obama administration, and to anyone for any offense that has been investigated by Mr. Mueller’s office.”

It’s that simple: If Trump uses his presidential power to pardon whoever has been implicated, Mueller can’t do his job and will have to shut down the investigation. Rivkin and Casey write: “The president himself would be covered by the blanket pardon we recommend, but the pardon power does not extend to impeachment.”

The advice is coldly technical and cynical, but Rivkin and Casey wrap it in noble cloth. They claim that the Mueller’s investigation has been biased from the get-go and that the charges represent “weaponization of criminal law.” Instead of an investigation by special counsel, they propose that questions of interference in U.S. elections by Russia be investigated by Congress.

It was an article from yesterday. I have not been in-the-know on the Russia/Mueller topic...so if this has already been covered, sorry! But, it's very WTF kind of smelly, either way. Shenanigans!

originally posted by: MotherMayEye

originally posted by: Grambler

Ask Bernie how fairly he was treated.

Bernie is/was a willing stooge. His 2017 Democratic Unity tour, last Spring, is a testament to that.

But he's got a sweet beach house!

a reply to: Grambler

He sure does.

He's just a sweet, kind-hearted independent that needed to run as a Democrat to have any chance of losing...errr....winning.

a reply to: Grambler

Hard to enjoy when your wife may go to prison for bank fraud.

originally posted by: loam
a reply to: Grambler

Hard to enjoy when your wife may go to prison for bank fraud.

I've always wondered if that's how they got Bernie to be their willing stooge. As long as Bernie does their bidding, his wife is going to be A-OK.

originally posted by: loam
a reply to: Grambler

Hard to enjoy when your wife may go to prison for bank fraud.

Or maybe not!

A beach house could hold quite a few millenial Bernie babes!

originally posted by: MotherMayEye

originally posted by: loam
a reply to: Grambler

Hard to enjoy when your wife may go to prison for bank fraud.

I've always wondered if that's how they got Bernie to be their willing stooge. As long as Bernie does their bidding, his wife is going to be A-OK.

McCabe ring a bell?

a reply to: MotherMayEye

Interesting point.

a reply to: Grambler

Fisrt, there was nothing to it. Had Don Jr. Offered V a quid pro quo, then they would have said something.

There was nothing to it from your perspective. I can assure you there are millions of other people who don't feel that way. I personally don't think there's much to it aside from it showing three things:

a) That the campaign was certainly open to the possibilities at the highest levels.

b) That at least some Russian officials had an interest in a quid pro quo. Have you read the latest from Veselnitskaya? (Bloomberg interview) btw?

Yury Chaika is the Prosecutor General of Russian which is essentially the same thing as our Attorney General. He's not a little fish. In Goldstone's email to Don Jr, he's clearly the person being referred to as the "crown prosecutor" (which in the UK would be equivalent to a federal prosecutor). The reporting is that Veselnitskaya had been working with Chaika prior to April of 2016. Apparently she went to him with the Ziff brothers info. It's been corroborated by the fact that the paragraphs from the notes she brought to the Don Jr meeting matched verbatim, paragraphs from a similar document that had been given to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in April by Chaika, while Rohrabacher was in Russia.

c) And of course they lied about it. Which goes exactly to your point about being "truly concerned about Russian influence." The Trump administration has gone all out to lie, conceal and divert and Trump is the President. What amazes me is when I see people actually applauding Don Jr for being "transparent" — he didn't have a choice, the story was within a day of two of being broken in the NYT — and he still tried to lie about it.

More concerning is that Trump apparently knew about it when it happened and is continuing to lie about it. Trump also knew that he had foreign advisors who were talking up their connections to Russia. So whatever the case may be with the losing team in the election, it's certainly true of the winning team that they not only aren't concerned about Russian influence but they've done everything in their power to make sure nobody else cares either.

Secondly, seeing as how they thought Hillary was winning, why throw up this hail Mary. It only had a chance to blowback on them, as we are currently seeing.

They knew that the polls were tightening. Hell, I told my wife about two weeks before the election that there was a strong possibility that Trump could win even though I personally thought Hillary would squeak in. She of course wasn't hearing any of it. Right after the last minute Comey "reopening" announcement, I can't imagine them not planting stories if they knew.

Nothing will come of this thing with Fusion GPS imo but even if they knew about Fusion GPS digging up dirt for the Russians, had they won, would the dossier have continued to blow up? And after all, it was all paid for through Marc Elias.

I don't buy that they would have been afraid of it blowing back on them but in your worst case scenario, it can't be ruled out.

Also, although this specific story wasn't made public, the dems including Obama were going around before the election decrying trump Russian connections. They probably would want to avoid admitting, "and we know that Don Jr Met with Russians cause we met with the same ones".

That's a bit of a mischaracterization imo. It wasn't simply about Trump's Russian connections or his team's Russians connections. This all started with the hacking and whether or not those Wikileaks docs came from the hack, whether or not you believe that the hack was perpetrated by the Russians, there's compelling evidence, having nothing to do with CrowdStrike, the DNC, the Obama admin, etc that independently confirms that at the very least, a complicated phishing attack was underway at the very time in question. Which reminds me, I need to do the Part 2 thread about the AP/SecureWorks articles.

And let's not forget, when Comey decided to make a last minute announcement, it wasn't that Carter Page or Paul Manafort were under surveillance, was it? In fact, over here on the Left, there's a lot of muttering about how the Obama administration pussyfooted around while Comey delivered a serious last minute blow to Clinton.

The sense I get is that as a group, Trumpdom is sitting on the fence between everything involving Russia being a big hoax by the Democrats to smear Trump and there was Russian meddling but it was either equal or favored Clinton.

As you know, it seems that any sort of getting would have revealed to Hillary's team that fusion had a history of working with Russians.

Would you say that the Trump team did a very good job of vetting? How hard would it have been to find out that Flynn was lobbying for Turkey? I mean, let's not even get started on Manafort.

For the dems to scream about russia for a year, knowing they too were working with them to get dirt on trump is a joke.

And I'm still not buying the equivalence. You're being awfully inclusive in some ways about who you're alleging "worked with the Russians" too but also strangely exclusive of non-Democrats. Let's not lose sight of the consensus being that the Russians hacked the DNC and phished Podesta's email account. Or that it's now commonly accepted that the Russians were running an influence campaign on social media platforms. Not just by Democrats or politicians for that matter.

And what about all the ties that have come out? All the meetings? Did it part of the newly formed "Dem conspiracy" to have Kushner meet with Kislyak and suggest that Team Trump hold meetings with Russians in the Russian Embassy as some sort of "back channel" after the election? Did the Dems "setup" Flynn? Did the Dems encourage Papadopolous to setup clandestine meetings with Russians? Was this all something that was magicked into existence by the Steele dossier?

It should be abundantly clear by now that the "Russian narrative" wasn't just a narrative. Knowing what has been revealed about Manafort in the indictment, on some level you have to wonder if he was still getting paid by Russian interests.

Further more, as always, if fusion didnt know about v and her meeting with Don Jr why are they being so secretive about their records and finances?

If that's your standard for assuming malfeasance, I really don't understand how you can't see the Trump team as being guilty af. What haven't they lied about regarding Russia?

I can think of a number of reasons why Fusion GPS may not want to turn over records that have nothing to do with Don Jr's meeting.

Do you know how broad the subpoena was? This was Fusion GPS's statement (part of it):

“None of those demands are pertinent to the Committee’s ‘Russia investigation,’ and disclosure of the documents would cause irreparable harm to Plaintiff by destroying the confidentiality of its business with its clients and contractors and by violating Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights to free speech and free association,” Fusion’s lawyers argue.

They called the subpoena “overbroad” and intended “to harm Plaintiff.”