Mollie Hemingway: The Grassley/Graham Memo is Even More Damaging Than the Nunes Memo, and Obliterates Many of the Progressives' and NeverTrumpers' Key Wishcasting Defenses of the FISA Application

There were several defense offered by liberals/NeverTrumpers (BIRM) to the Nunes memo, the most important of which was:

Maybe the Steele Memo was only mentioned in passing, but there was a whole pile of other evidence that would support a gross invasion of someone's privacy.

This claim was always a Magical Thinking joke, which was obvious to us non-conspiracy-theorists and non-magical-thinkers, because:

1, when the Deep State wanted to drop a bomb on Trump, they leaked word of the briefing of the Steele Dossier, not this alleged hypothetical supporting evidence. You don't leak your weaksauce crap. You leak your good stuff, not your chaff.

2, when any lawyer is drafting a motion, he includes only his strongest arguments and proofs and omits his weaksauce crap.

The very fact that the Dossier was included in the FISA application at all should have been a strong hint to the NeverTrump Magical Thinkers that there was no "stronger evidence we just don't know about" -- because if there had been stronger evidence, they never would have bothered including the weaksause Steele Dossier at all, especially given its problematic partisan origins.

And...

3, despite this farce having gone on for 18 months now, and Adam Schiff and various Deep State operatives leaking like sieves, this magical hypothetical "stronger evidence we just don't know about" did something no actual evidence in this case heretofore managed: It stayed out of the press, somehow.

But, proving Trump right that Americans are Dreamers Too, the conspiracy theorists and Magical Thinkers just kept pushing this narrative that the Steele Dossier was just minor piffle in the FISA Application, and that the Mystery Evidence That Someone Never Leaked was really the star of the show.

How do I say this?

Are you fucking stupid, bruv?

Have you been sipping on so much Democrat Dick you've become spunk-drunk?

How do you snidely imply that other people are conspiracy theorists and Jesus-Addled Magical Thinkers when you sit there postulating Super Strong Evidence We Just Don't Know About Because Adam Schiff Has Too Much Damn Integrity to Leak It?

Mollie Hemingway takes us on a tour of the Grassley/Graham memo, which proves the basics of the Nunes Memo, and leaves the Democrats and NeverTrumpers (but I repeat myself) who previously dreamed up a slew of defenses sputtering and now griping "You should have released this first!"

Why, to spare you the embarrassment?

Here are a couple of her key points, but only a couple; you really have to give her the click and read the whole thing.

Below, the headline's are Mollie's, the text supporting those headings is from Grassley/Graham.

Comey On Dossier's Lack Of Meaningful Corroboration

When asked at the March 2017 briefing why the FBI relied on the dossier in the FISA applications absent meaningful corroboration--and in light of the highly political motives surrounding its creation--then-Director Comey stated that the FBI included the dossier allegations about Carter Page in the FISA applications because Mr. Steele himself was considered reliable due to his past work with the Bureau.

Translation: No, there is no deep well of Strong Evidence We Don't Know About. The chief sort of "corroboration" of the Steele Dossier is that Steele is a very reliable fellow and wouldn't lie to us.

Well, we'll take a look at that in a bit, shall we?

Dossier Formed 'Bulk' Of FISA Application

Indeed, the documents we have reviewed show that the FBI took important investigative steps largely based on Mr. Steele’s information--and relying heavily on his credibility. Specifically, on October 21, 2016, the FBI filed its first warrant application under FISA for Carter Page. [REDACTED] The bulk of the application consists of allegations against Page that were disclosed to the FBI by Mr. Steele and are also outlined in the Steele dossier.

Translation: No, there was no large cache of Secret Evidence The Deep State Just Forgot to Leak. The application was indeed, as Nunes said (and NeverTrumpers denied), based almost entirely on the dodgy dossier, with no corroboration or independent streams of information.

Isikoff's Yahoo Article Cited In Place Of Corroboration

The application appears to contain no additional information corroborating the dossier allegations against Mr. Page, although it does cite to a news article that appears to be sourced to Mr. Steele's dossier as well.

Translation: The big piece of corroboration was the citation of a fucking newspaper article as completely-independent confirmation of one claim Steele made (that Page was promised a 19% share in a major oil company if he could get sanctions lifted).

But this wasn't completely independent -- because Steele had lied to the FBI about talking to the press. In fact, this newspaper article is based on what Steele told Isikoff.

Steele essentially "corroborated" himself by ginning up one layer of anonymous sourcing.

Political Basis Mentioned Only 'To A Vaguely Limited Extent'

[T]he FBI noted to a vaguely limited extent the political origins of the dossier. In footnote 8 the FBI stated that the dossier information was compiled pursuant to the direction of a law firm who had hired an "identified U.S. person" -now known as Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS–[REDACTED] The application failed to disclose that the identities of Mr. Simpson’s ultimate clients were the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

Translation: No, the FISA Application did not "really" alert the court to the fact that Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for this trash. It deliberately hid that from the court by referring only to a "US person" as behind it.

Remember how this all came out -- it was falsely rumored for months that this was all paid for by Republican opponents of Trump.

Someone reading an application or a renewal application could assume, especially with those rumors, that the "US person" was really working for Republicans, and, if so, that would tend to prove the credibility of the document -- if Republicans dug this up and are alarmed by it, so much so that they'd tank an election rather than let this RUSSIAN stooge into the White House, well, that's something to consider!

Imagine what a court would have thought if these guys had written this out clearly:

The uncorroborated document which forms the main basis of our application was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, and assembled by an admitted anti-Trump partisan "desperate" to keep Trump out of the White House.

Yeah, if you'e thinking "I can see why they didn't write it that way," you can see why they decided to violate their duties as officers of the court and conceal the plain truth from the judge.

Okay, I'm not going to quote anything more. I'll refer you to the article, but just note this fact:

The FISA application represented to the court that the Yahoo article was independent corroboration, claiming Steele hadn't spoken to the press, and therefore Isikoff's article must come through some separate, independent channel of information.

This was a lie all along. But at first, it was only Steele's lie.

However, when Yates, Rosenstein, etc., singed the renewal applications, they did not update their application to inform the court that their previous representation had been false, that Steele had lied to them about when he spoke to the press, and in fact that Steele's association with the FBI had been terminated due to this misconduct.

They had a duty as officers of the court to tell the judge that.

Yet, they concealed it, once again.

Now if you're thinking, "Well, I can sure see why they concealed that, because that would destroy not only their renewal application but the original application too" -- yes, you can now see why officers of the court sometimes perpetrate frauds on the court.

It's the same reason any unethical litigant conceals material information from the court:

Because they know the truth would hurt them.

So they lie.

I look forward to the NeverTrumper Magical Thinkers concocting some further fanciful Hypothetical Evidence that will dig their credibility out of this latest pit they've dug for their smug-ass selves.

posted by Ace at 05:39 PM

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