Watergate Vs. FISA Memo

Before, during, and even after elections political parties dig up dirt on each other, and sometimes they get caught red-handed like in the Watergate scandal. When parties decide to deceive government agencies, judges, and the public to spy on their opposition not only have they crossed the line legally, and ethically, but have compromised credibility for the future of their party.

en.wikipedia.org...

The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States during the early 1970s, following a break-in by five men at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972, and President Richard Nixon's administration's subsequent attempt to cover up its involvement.

After the five burglars were caught and the conspiracy was discovered, Watergate was investigated by the United States Congress. Meanwhile, Nixon's administration resisted its probes, which led to a constitutional crisis.[1]

Now let's take a look at Watergate tactics and see how a president almost got impeached.

The term Watergate, by metonymy, has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included such "dirty tricks" as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious.

[b]Nixon and his close aides also ordered investigations of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as political weapons.

Let's read that last line a couple of times. Does this sound familiar?


FISA Memo alleges what?

www.washingtonexaminer.com...

The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the intial and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page. * Andrew McCabe confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information.

aka FISA Memo

The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials, but excluded from the FISA applications. DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to DOJ information about Steele's bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president.

Does anyone see the similarities here?

The reason so many high ranking officials are crapping themselves is that karma from the Watergate scandal has come full circle, and is about to bite not just one person in the ass, but possibly 100's.

Thoughts on the comparison? any additions welcome as well.

Also this is not a partisan thread, it was made soley to focus on ethics, and legal procedures. The people that make the laws of our land are not above them, and when they feel they are it's time to make it public, then follow legal protocol for full disclosure.

I hardly think any info gleaned twenty days before the election had much effect or influence on the election if indeed they were doing this to spy on trump for Hillary's gain.

Especially given that ten days after the warrant was obtained on Page, the news about reopening the email case on Hillary hit the news.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
I hardly think any info gleaned twenty days before the election had much effect or influence on the election if indeed they were doing this to spy on trump for Hillary's gain.

Especially given that ten days after the warrant was obtained on Page, the news about reopening the email case on Hillary hit the news.

Then that would be another similarity to watergate, as almost all people admit that not only was Nixon in no chance of losing that election, but the info he cojuld have got that was stolen from the hotel wouldnt have helped him mush at all.

Rather or not the crime would actually help is irrelevant to the question of rather or not a crime was committed.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
I hardly think any info gleaned twenty days before the election had much effect or influence on the election if indeed they were doing this to spy on trump for Hillary's gain.

Especially given that ten days after the warrant was obtained on Page, the news about reopening the email case on Hillary hit the news.

This has very little to do with election results, but rather the illegal means to which were used to glean information on the other party. It is highly illegal to use or deceive other branches of the government for political gain.

I would also ask how a surveillance of Page after he had left the campaign was of any benefit to Hillary's campaign.
The whole idea is stupid.

a reply to: Grambler

No crime was committed sooooo.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
I would also ask how a surveillance of Page after he had left the campaign was of any benefit to Hillary's campaign.
The whole idea is stupid.

Several points.

1. They attempted to get a warrant on page in the summer of 2016, but in an almost inprecednted move were denied.

2. By being able to spy on Page, they would have had access to all of his documents and communications from his time on the trump campaign, and anything he was saying to teaam members or about the campaign even when he was off the team.

3. Hillary planned the night she lost to use the russia hack story to smear trump, and the dossier and surveillance on trump would end up being a crucial part of that.

Exhibit A is the book “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign,” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. In light of this week’s revelation that Hillary’s campaign funded the dirty anti-Trump “Steele” dossier, the book takes on a new significance. It reveals:

“Within 24 hours of her concession speech, [campaign chair John Podesta and manager Robby Mook] assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”

The plan, according to the book, was to push journalists to cover how “Russian hacking was the major unreported story of the campaign,” and it succeeded to a fare-thee-well. After the election, coverage of the Russian “collusion” story was relentless, and it helped pressure investigations and hearings on Capitol Hill and even the naming of a special counsel, which in turn has triggered virtually nonstop coverage.

A new Media Research Center study finds that, since the inauguration, major TV news networks have devoted an astonishing 1,000 minutes out of a total 5,015 minutes of Trump administration coverage discussing speculation that the Trump campaign may have colluded with Moscow in hacking Clinton campaign emails, “which means the Russia story alone has comprised almost one-fifth of all Trump news this year.” In contrast, they so far have devoted just 20 seconds to the more substantive scandal of Hillary and her husband possibly trading US uranium rights for Russian cash.

nypost.com...

a reply to: Realtruth
If you can see a parallel, then the big question is; who's going to be John Dean? Who's going to feel so vulnerable that they start saving their skin by revealing the full story of what everybody else was doing?
Expletive deleted!

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: Grambler

No crime was committed sooooo.

How do you know?

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: Grambler

No crime was committed sooooo.

And you were satisfied with that when Trump supporters said the same thing as the accusations started flying about Russian collusion?

pfft.

originally posted by: Realtruth

originally posted by: Sillyolme
I hardly think any info gleaned twenty days before the election had much effect or influence on the election if indeed they were doing this to spy on trump for Hillary's gain.

Especially given that ten days after the warrant was obtained on Page, the news about reopening the email case on Hillary hit the news.

This has very little to do with election results, but rather the illegal means to which were used to glean information on the other party. It is highly illegal to use or deceive other branches of the government for political gain.

Then why hasn’t anybody from the White House, Congress, Intelligence Communities, you name it, called for charges to be brought.

Nobody has even claimed anything illegal, except for random people on the internet.

Meanwhile, the Mueller investigation goes on. Day by day, hour by hour, the Mueller investigation continues.

a reply to: Realtruth

The reason so many high ranking officials are crapping themselves is that karma from the Watergate scandal has come full circle, and is about to bite not just one person in the ass, but possibly 100's.

Oh there will be sacrifices, but few and wayway down the chain. Just like Watergate. The other result will be to form another commission and talk about Reform.

Besides, who isn't surprised by secret recordings and 'break-ins'. Nixon hung himslef with the missing tape recordings he made himself. Blaming his poor secretary for 'accidentally' erasing them. If you remember all that this image is infamous...

image search

The important thing to remember about Watergate is Nixon was allowed to walk , only his henchmen actually got sentenced to jail time.

Ever see the Movie, Dick?

A star shines brightest before it collapses, or something like that, correct?

originally posted by: GeechQuestInfo

Then why hasn’t anybody from the White House, Congress, Intelligence Communities, you name it, called for charges to be brought.

Nobody has even claimed anything illegal, except for random people on the internet.

I'm glad you brought this issue up because there was a referral for investigation by two Senators, since representatives can't charge anyone with a crime, it's up to the DOJ to pursue any charges.

www.nytimes.com...

In a short cover letter dated Thursday but transmitted Friday, the senators wrote, “Based on the information contained therein, we are respectfully referring Mr. Steele to you for investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, for statements the Committee has reason to believe Mr. Steele made regarding his distribution of information contained.” That section of the federal criminal code refers to knowingly making false or misleading statements to federal authorities.

Granting that the memo is true, either the FBI was manipulated by a British spy colluding with Russians, or the FBI conspired with a British spy who colluded with Russians in order to manipulate the judge. It’s pretty damning, though I’m not sure if it can be traced up to Obama like Watergate was traced up to Nixon.

a reply to: Realtruth

Maybe the FISA memo will spur a whole lot of pardons, you know to spare the American people the trauma of trials.

We have what we do today because Ford Pardoned Nixon.

a reply to: GeechQuestInfo

Nobody has even claimed anything illegal, except for random people on the internet

So Trump never tweeted anything about illegal wiretaps at Trump Tower?

originally posted by: GeechQuestInfo

originally posted by: Realtruth

originally posted by: Sillyolme
I hardly think any info gleaned twenty days before the election had much effect or influence on the election if indeed they were doing this to spy on trump for Hillary's gain.

Especially given that ten days after the warrant was obtained on Page, the news about reopening the email case on Hillary hit the news.

This has very little to do with election results, but rather the illegal means to which were used to glean information on the other party. It is highly illegal to use or deceive other branches of the government for political gain.

Then why hasn’t anybody from the White House, Congress, Intelligence Communities, you name it, called for charges to be brought.

Nobody has even claimed anything illegal, except for random people on the internet.

Meanwhile, the Mueller investigation goes on. Day by day, hour by hour, the Mueller investigation continues.

The calls are starting.

Following the release of a four-page memo detailing rampant FISA warrant abuse by the FBI and DOJ, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) announced that he will seek the criminal prosecution of FBI and DOJ officials for the "full throated adoption of this illegal misconduct and abuse of FISA by James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein" who Gosar called "traitors to our nation."

www.zerohedge.com...

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
Granting that the memo is true, either the FBI was manipulated by a British spy colluding with Russians, or the FBI conspired with a British spy who colluded with Russians in order to manipulate the judge. It’s pretty damning, though I’m not sure if it can be traced up to Obama like Watergate was traced up to Nixon.

No doubt Obama would claim he only read about the fisa warrant in the paper, but lets be real, he knew exactly what was going on. Thats why he spent the last datys of his admin changing rules to allow details of the trump investigation to be shared with as many agencies as possible, and telling allies Trump may be compromised.

These attempted comparisons to Watergate are preposterous and rely on denying fundamental facts. Very few outside of Trump (sometimes, depending on how he's feeling at the time) and his supporters deny that the Russians were interfering in the 2016 Presidential Election.

Unprecedented Russian interference was taking place that favored one candidate.

And as the Nunes memo confirms, a counterintelligence investigation was opened after the US received intel from the Australians about a Trump campaign aide bragging about just that thing AS it was happening. That blows away the earlier narrative that the investigation was a result of the dossier which was frankly absurd on its face but it sure didn't stop people from saying it. (over and over and over again)

Who will argue that US law enforcement and the USIC should have stood down and shirked their duties? I hope nobody. So the counterintelligence investigation was legitimate.

What happened next? Paul Manafort's name shows up in the "black ledger" in Ukraine. How Trump wasn't being slammed from day one for employing Manafort is beyond me but it only makes sense that a man with a known history of corruption and being a Kremlin political operative would be throwing up red flag after red flag as he was leading a campaign that was getting assistance from the Russians.

As Grambler rightly pointed out, how successful a crime actually is, is irrelevant to whether it was committed. So trying to force people to quantify the effects of Russian interference is not only absurd but irrelevant.

And as we no know, Paul Manafort was actually in contact with his old Russian pals and was trying to peddle influence over Trump/his agenda to those people. People who had paid him tens of millions of dollars to function as a Kremlin operative, influencing Western politicians. If the reporting of the "black ledger" hadn't forced his resignation, what damage could Manafort have wrought?

So right off the bat, we have a legitimate counterintelligence investigation with legitimate targets. How in the world does this REMOTELY compare to Watergate? It doesn't. Not at all. Not one bit.

Enter Carter Page. Carter Page as we all known, and more importantly as the FBI and US intelligence services knew, had found himself entangled with a Russian spy ring in 2013-14. In fact, this involvement resulted in a FISA warrant that nobody screeching "this is just like Watergate" would argue was improperly sought.

How did Carter Page end up being a target of recruitment for the SVR? Because of his business dealings in Russia and his pro-Kremlin bent. Then what happens? As Paul Manafort is running the campaign, trying to peddle influence to the Russians, as Russians are hacking his candidate's opponent's party and phishing the head of her campaign, as Russians are running a major influence campaign, Carter Page takes a trip to Moscow to spew pro-Kremlin rhetoric to Russians. Who does he meet there? Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. Even many in the right-wing media were stunned at the time by Page's behavior. And as Russian media reported at the time, he was being asked if he was there to meet with high level Russian officials.

Who among us honestly can't see the smoke here? Again, how does this compare to Watergate? It doesn't. Not even a little bit. Not one iota.

Now we have Christopher Steele and his memos. Christopher Steele as we know was a subcontractor of Fusion GPS. We know that Fusion GPS was originally hired by Paul Singer (a Republican) to do oppo research and when his funding stopped, the oppo research project picked up funding from the DNC and the Clinton Campaign.

We know that Steele reached out to a contact in the FBI. Steele had contacts in the FBI because he was a former MI6 officer and then after leaving the MI6, he'd done investigative work for FIFA which involved providing intel to the FBI for a two year period in case that resulted in more than a dozen indictments in a massive corruption scandal.

We've also been told that Steele reached out to the FBI on his own accord and that the FBI didn't seem to be doing anything with his concerns for months. It wasn't until September or October that he was finally debriefed in Rome.