The Democrats' Rebuttal Memo

I often start these kinds of posts by reminding everyone that I am neither a lawyer nor an expert on FISA warrants.  What I am, however, is someone who used to teach English to college students, and in that capacity, I give Republican Devin Nunes a giant red F.  As we knew from the release of the Nunes Memo, and as we see again today, Devin Nunes paid other people to write his book report.  He himself did not bother to read the book.  The people he paid, meanwhile?  Yeah, he should have picked people who got As in English class.  Let's review with a little point-counterpoint.

• Majority (i.e. Republican / Nunes) Memo.  The integrity of the FISA process "is necessarily dependent on the government's production to the court of all material and relevant facts. This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application . . . In the case of Carter Page . . . material and relevant information was omitted."
• "The 'dossier' compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application."
• "Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts."
• Minority (i.e. Democrat / Schiff) Memo.  "DOJ's October 21, 2016 FISA application and three subsequent renewals carefully outlined for the Court a multi-pronged rationale for surveilling Page, who, at the time of the first application, was no longer with the Trump campaign.  DOJ detailed Page's past relationships with Russian spies and interaction with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign.  [REDACTED.]  DOJ cited multiple sources to support the case for surveilling Page - but made only narrow use of information from Steele's sources."
• "DOJ's warrant request was based on compelling evidence and probable cause to believe Page was knowingly assisting clandestine Russian intelligence activities in the U.S."
• "The FBI had an independent basis for investigating Page's motivations and actions during the campaign, transition, and following the inauguration.  As DOJ described in detail to the court, Page had an extensive record as [REDACTED] prior to joining the Trump campaign."  
• "As early as [REDACTED], a Russian intelligence officer [REDACTED] targeted Page for recruitment.  Page showed [REDACTED]."
• "The FISA applications also detail Page's suspicious activity after joining the Trump campaign in March 2016."
• "It is in this specific sub-section of the applications that DOJ refers to Steele's reporting on Page and his alleged coordination with Russian officials.  Steele's information about Page was consistent with the assessment of Russian intelligence efforts to recruit him and his connections to Russian persons of interest."
• "In subsequent FISA renewals, DOJ provided additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele's reporting."  [Information on those sources REDACTED.]
• "Far from 'omitting' material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims, DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele's background, credibility, and potential bias."
• Democrats then quote a large chunk of a document provided to the court, which ends: "The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign."  Put in plainer English, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS was being paid to tank Trump. 
• Majority Memo. "The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named U.S. person, but does not name Fusion GPS and principal Glenn Simpson."   
• Minority Memo.  "The Committee Majority, which had earlier accused Obama Administration officials of improper 'unmasking,' faults DOJ for not revealing the names of specific U.S. persons and entities in the FISA application and subsequent renewals.  In fact, DOJ appropriately upheld its longstanding practice of protecting U.S. citizen information by purposefully not 'unmasking' U.S. person and entity names, unless they were themselves the subject of a counterintelligence investigation."
• Majority Memo.  "The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016 Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow.  This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News" (emphasis in original).
• Minority Memo.  "The Majority falsely claims that the FISA materials 'relied heavily' on a September 23, 2016 Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff . . . In fact, DOJ referenced Isikoff's article, alongside another article the Majority fails to mention, not to provide separate corroboration for Steele's reporting, but instead to inform the Court of Page's public denial of his suspected meetings in Moscow, which Page also echoed in a September 25, 2016 letter to FBI Director Comey."
• Majority Memo.  "Steele was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations - an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016 Mother Jones Article by David Corn.  Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September - before the Page application was submitted to the FISC [FISA court]."
• Minority Memo.  "The FBI properly notified the FISC after it terminated Steele as a source for making unauthorized disclosures to the media."  The FBI didn't know about the September disclosures, and "[t]he Majority cites no evidence" that the FBI "actually knew or should have known."
• Majority Memo.  "Before and after Steele was terminated a a source, he maintained contact with DOJ via then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ office who worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Yates and later Rosenstein."
• Minority Memo.  "The Majority describes Bruce Ohr as a senior DOJ official who 'worked closely with the Deputy Attorneys General, Yates and later Rosenstein," in order to imply that Ohr was somehow involved in the process, but there is no indication this is the case.  Bruce Ohr is a well-respected career professional whose portfolio is drugs and organized crime, not counterintelligence."
• Majority Memo: "In September 2016" - that is, after everything he had discovered about Donald Trump - "Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.  This clear evidence of Steele's bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files - but not reflected in any of the Page FISA appplications.  During this same time peirod, Ohr's wife was employed by Fusion GPS . . . The Ohrs' relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC."
• Minority Memo: "There is no evidence that [Ohr] wold have known about the Page FISA applications and their contents. . . .By the time Ohr debrief[ed] with the FBI, it had already terminated Steele as a source and was independently corroborating Steele's reporting about Page's activities.  Bruce Ohr took the initiative to inform the FBI of what he knew, and the Majority does him a grave disservice by suggesting he is part of some malign conspiracy."
• Majority Memo: Peter Strzok opened the investigation in July 2016 when he dug into Papadopoulos!  PETER STRZOK!  Lisa Page!  The texting lovers! "[T]hey both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton."
• Minority Memo: "Peter Strzok and Lisa Page's text messages are irrelevant to the FISA application.  The Majority gratuitously includes reference to [them] at the end of their memorandum, in an effort to imply that political bias infected the FBI's investigation and FISA applications.  In fact, neither Strzok nor Page served as affiants on the applications, which were the product of extensive and senior DOJ and FBI review.  in demonizing both career professionals, the Majority . . . omits inconvenient text messages, in which they critiqued a wide range of other officials and candidates from both parties."  And of course, the Democrats point out that Strzok co-signed that Comey memo that nuked Clinton's campaign just days before the election.

Let's end with Trump's own view of the Minority Memo, which (as we all know) he read and studied carefully, highlighter in hand.  Tweet #1: "The Democrat memo response on government surveillance abuses is a total political and legal BUST. Just confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!"  And Tweet #2: "Dem Memo: FBI did not disclose who the clients were - the Clinton Campaign and the DNC.  Wow!"  I don't want to alarm you, but the President of the United States may in fact not be a genius.
 

Mueller's Indictment of 13 Russians - A Love Story

Do you know what Robert Mueller loves?  FACTS.  Dates. Times. Verifiable actions.  In an age when the President of the United States screams "fake news" at the slightest suggestion that he is not the best and most beloved leader in American history, it's nice to read Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian nationals who attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, if only because it reminds us that facts still matter to some of the people with power.

As you read the highlights of the indictment, please keep in mind that this is not "My Final Report on Everything I'm Done Now," by Robert Mueller.  You will note, for example, that there is no hacking of the DNC in this report, which is a thing that very famously, you know, happened.  Put another way, any Republican pundits claiming that this exonerates Trump or implicates the Democrats haven't read the indictment, or perhaps have read the indictment and just enjoy lying.  There are also pundits claiming that the FBI has pronounced that the Russians had no impact on election results.  The FBI has not said that, first of all, and second, read this and see if you agree.

When you see "organization," that refers to the Internet Research Agency LLC, "a Russian organization engaged in operations to interfere with elections and politician processes."

• "The ORGANIZATION sought, in part, to conduct what it called 'information warfare against the United states of America' through fictitious U.S. personas on social media platforms and other Internet-based media."  [Note that Mueller is clearly quoting a witness or a document from the organization.]
• "By in or around May 2014, the ORGANIZATION'S strategy included interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with the stated goal of 'spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.'"  [Again, he's quoting, though we don't know whom or what.]
• "Defendant ALEKSANDRA YURYEVNA KRYLOVA worked for the ORGANIZATION from at least in or around September 2013 to at least in or around November 2014. . . . In 2014, KRYLOVA traveled to the United States under false pretenses for the purpose of collecting intelligence to inform the ORGANIZATION's operations." (8-9)
• "Defendant SERGEY PAVLOVICH POLOZOV worked for the ORGANIZATION from at least in or around April 2014 to at least in or around October 2016.  POLOZOV served as the manager of the IT department and oversaw the procurement of U.S. servers and other computer infrastructure that masked the ORGANIZATION's Russian location when conducting operations within the United States." (9)
• "Defendant GLEB IGOREVICH VASILCHENKO worked for the ORGANIZTION from at least in or around August 2014 to at least in or around September 2016.  VASILCHENKO was responsible for posting, monitoring, and updating the social media content of many ORGANIZATION-controlled accounts while posing as U.S. persons or U.S. grassroots organizations." (10)
• "Starting at least in or around 2014, Defendants and their co-conspirators began to track and study groups on U.S. social media sites dedicated to U.S. politics and social issues.  In order to gauge the performance of various groups on social media sites, the ORGANIZATION tracked certain metrics like the group's size, the frequency of content placed by the gorup, and hte level of audience engagement with that content, such as the average number of comments or responses to a post." (12)
• "KRYLOVA and BOGACHEVA, together with other Defendants and co-conspirators, planned travel itineraries, purchased equipment (such as cameras, SIM cards, and drop phones), and discussed security measures (including "evacuation scenarios") for Defendants who traveled to the United States."  (12) [Note that while we were oblivious, they had plans in case they got busted in the middle of their spy missions.]
• "KRYLOVA and BOGACHEVA received visas, and from approximately June 4, 2014 through June 26 2014, KRYLOVA and BOGACHEVA traveled in and around the United States, including stops in Nevada, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Louisiana, Texas, and New York to gather intelligence.  After the trip, KRYLOVA and BURCHIK exchanged an intelligence report regarding the trip." (13) [It sounds to me like Mueller might have a copy of that report, but who knows!]
• "[In] June 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, posing online as U.S. persons, communicated with a real U.S. person affiliated with a Texas-based grassroots organization.  During the exchange, Defendants and their co-conspirators learned from the real U.S. person that they should focus their activities on 'purple states like Colorado, Virginia and Florida.'  After that exchange, Defendants and their co-conspirators commonly referred to targeting 'purple states' in directing their efforts" (13)
• "Defendants and their co-conspirators also created thematic groups on social media sites, particularly on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.  ORGANIZATION-controlled pages addressed a range of issues, including: immigration (with group names including 'Secured Borders'); the Black Lives matter movement (with group names including 'Blacktivist'); religion (with group names including 'United Muslims of America' and 'Army of Jesus'); and certain geographic regions within the United States (with group names including 'South United' and 'Heart of Texas').  By 2016, the size of many ORGANIZATION-controlled groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers." (14)
• "Defendants and their co-conspirators also created and controlled numerous Twitter accounts designed to appear as if U.S. persons or groups controlled them.  For example, the ORGANIZATION created and controlled the Twitter account 'Tennessee GOP,' which used the handle @TEN_GOP.  The @TEN_GOP account falsely claimed ot be controlled by a U.S. state political party.   Over Time, the @TEN_GOP account attracted more than 100,000 online followers." (15)
• "Defendants and their co-conspirators also regularly evaluated the content posted by specialists . . . to ensure they appeared authentic - as if operated by U.S.persons.  Specialists received feedback and directions to improve the quality of their posts." (15)
• "Defendants and their co-conspirators . . . contacted media outlets in order to promote activities inside the United States." (16)
• "By 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators used their fictitious online personas to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump." (17)
• "Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on "politics in the USA" and to "use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump - we support them)." (17)
• "On or about September 14, 2016, in an internal review of an ORGANIZATION-created and controlled Facebook group called 'Secured Borders' the account specialist was criticized for having a 'low number of posts dedicated to criticizing Hillary Clinton' and was told 'it is imperative to intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton' in future posts" (17)
• "Defendants and their co-conspirators also used false U.S. personas to communicate with unwitting members, volunteers, and supporters of the Trump Campaign involved in local community outreach." (17)
• "In or around the latter half of 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators . . . began to encourage U.S. minority groups not to vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or to vote for a third-party U.S. Presidential candidate. . . . [On] October 16, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators used the ORGANIZATION-controlled Instagram account 'Woke Blacks' to post the following message: '[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary.  We cannot resort to the lesser of two devils.  Then we'd surely be better off without voting AT ALL." (18)
• "[In] the summer of 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators also began to promote allegations of voter fraud by the Democratic Party" (18).
• "Starting in approximately June 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators organized and coordinated political rallies in the United States.   To conceal the fact that they were based in Russia, Defendants and their co-conspirators promoted these rallies while pretending to be U.S. grassroots activists who were located in the United States but unable to meet or participate in person." (20)
• "In order to build attendance for the rallies, Defendants and their co-conspirators promoted the events through public posts . . . In addition, Defendants and their co-conspirators contacted administrators of large social media groups focused on U.S. politics and requested that they advertise the rallies." (21)
• "On or about July 23, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators usd the email address of a false U.S. persona, joshmilton024@gmail.com, to send out press releases to over thirty media outlets promoting the 'Down with Hillary' rally at Trump Tower in New York City" (26).
• They organized a series of rallies for Trump in the state of Florida called "Florida Goes Trump."  "Defendants and their co-conspirators purchased advertisements on Facebook and Instagram to promote the 'Florida Goes Trump' rallies. . . . Defendants and their co-conspirators asked one U.S. person to build a cage on a flatbed truck and another U.S. person to wear a costume portraying Clinton in a prison uniform.  Defendants and their co-conspirators paid these individuals to complete the requests" (22-23)
• "On or about August 18, 2016 the real 'Florida for Trump' Facebook account responded to the false U.S. persona 'Matt Skiber' account with instructions to contact a member of the Trump Campaign ('Campaign Official 1') involved in the campaign's Florida operations and provided Campaign Official 1's email address at the campaign domain donaldtrump.com" (27-28)
• "On or about August 31, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, using a U.S. persona, spoke by telephone wiht a real U.S. person affiliated with a grassroots group in Florida.  That individual requested assistance in organizing a rally in Miami, Florida.  On or about September 9, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators sent the group an interstate wire to pay for materials needed for the Florida rally." (29)

Now here comes the part that will prove beyond all doubt (*coughing fit*) that the Russians didn't really want Trump to win.  This is the basis for insisting that the Russians just wanted to interfere generally, and not in favor of Trump.  Ready?

• AFTER the election, Defendants and their co-conspirators "used false U.S. personas to organize and coordinate U.S. political rallies in support of then president-elect Trump, while simultaneously using other false U.S. personas to organize and coordinate U.S. political rallies protesting the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election." (23)

One more point of interest:

• Facebook announced in September of 2017 that it had discovered Russian expenditures on its platform and shared its findings with the DOJ.  "Defendants and their co-conspirators thereafter destroyed evidence for the purpose of impeding [the Special Counsel's] investigation.  On or about September 13, 2017, KAVERZINA wrote in an email to a family member: 'We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke).  So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with colleagues."

A Timeline by Which to Evaluate THE MEMO

As ever, I am not an attorney, an expert on Russia, Boris, Natasha, Moose, or Squirrel. I was trying to get some timing straight in my head, and I started compiling this. These are all things you have to ignore if you're going to play like THE MEMO is a genuine scandal. Since I found this timeline useful, I thought I'd post it. It's neither comprehensive nor exhaustive; I don't have enough paid subscriptions for that!

The formatting is out of control. I can't tame it. It has a will of its own.

1) January 2015. "A court filing by the US government contains a transcript of a recorded conversation [from 2013] between two members of a Russian SVR spy ring, Victor Podobnyy and Igor Sporyshev. Their conversation concerns efforts to recruit 'Male-1,' later confirmed as Carter Page."

Podobnyy, per the transcript: "[Page] wrote that he is sorry, he went to Moscow and forgot to check his inbox, but he wants to meet when he gets back. I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am. Plus he writes to me in Russian [to] practice the language. He flies to Moscow more often than I do. . . . For now his enthusiasm works for me." (Page was not only providing Podobnyy with enthusiasm, but also documents.) Source

2) September or October of 2015. Fusion GPS got word that the conservative news site Washington Free Beacon wanted some research done on Donald Trump. Source

3) Unknown date, fall of 2015: "[Fusion GPS] gave Chris[topher Steele] a sort of assignment that would be typical for us which was pretty open ended. We said see if you can find out what Donald Trump's been doing on these trips to Russia." Source

4) December 2015. "[Carter] Page reached out to New York’s Republican Party chair, Ed Cox, in late December 2015, asking to be put in touch with Trump’s team. Cox put Page in contact with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who sent him over to [Sam] Clovis, who is said to have put him on Trump’s list of advisers." Source

5) March 21, 2016. "In an interview with the Washington Post, Donald Trump personally names the then-obscure Page as part of his foreign policy team. News coverage at the time focused on how strange a choice this was given Page’s lack of experience. (In the same interview, Trump also listed George Papadopoulos, who graduated from college in 2009.)" Source

6) April 2016. "April 2016, [Russian hacking group] Fancy Bear accessed the Washington servers of the Democrats; Cozy Bear had done so as early as the summer of 2015. Once more, the group was caught red-handed by the Dutch, who again alerted their U.S. counterparts." Source

7) May 2016. A drunk George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had dirt on Hillary.

8) June 9, 2016. Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met with Russians in Trump Tower to get dirt on Hillary.

9) June 12, 2016. Julian Assange (Wikileaks) said in an interview that he had obtained Clinton's emails, which would be forthcoming. Source

10) June 15, 2016. Guccifer 2.0 published the first leaked DNC email. Source

11) Late June / early July of 2016. Glenn Simpson agreed with Christopher Steele that Steele should approach the FBI. Source

12) July 2016. " Then–Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski approve[d] Page’s trip to Moscow on condition that he not act as an official representative of the campaign while there. Page initially ask[ed] J.D. Gordon, his supervisor on the national security team, who strongly advise[d] against taking the trip. Then, Page email[ed] Lewandowski and Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks for official approval, and Lewandowski approve[d]." Source

13) July 7, 2016. Carter Page delivered a speech in Russia, which the Katehon Think Tank posted on You Tube. This is how they described Page: "Carter Page is one of the youngest advisors of Donald Trump. He is an energy and economic development expert, particularly regarding the countries of the former Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe. . . .Page lived in Moscow for three years, where he was advising Gazprom. After the reunification of Crimea with Russia and the beginning of operations in Ukraine, he was one of the few American experts who called for understanding the actions of Russia. Page came out openly against the interventionist policy of NATO, which, in his opinion, provoked Russia." Please notice the language here: "reunification of Crimea with Russia." That's not exactly the word the rest of the world would use. Indeed, even though Carter Page called for "understanding," the US government didn't see it that way. We sanctioned Russia over the annexation of Crimea. If you have a fuzzy memory of all of this, see this article.

14) July 19, 2016, during the Republican National Convention, Trump became the Republican nominee. Although I cannot say this is the exact date when the Washington Beacon stopped paying Fusion GPS, it was logically the latest date at which the Beacon would have even considered paying. Hillary and the DNC picked up the tab only after this point.

15) July 22, 2016. Wikileaks published more hacked DNC emails, directly ahead of the Democratic Convention, which ran from July 25-28.

16) July 27 (I think) 2016. Donald Trump: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” Source

17) Also July 27 2016. "On Wednesday, Trump made a drastic break from bipartisan foreign policy consensus, saying he would consider recognizing Crimea - the strategic Ukranian peninsula Putin annexed in 2014 - as Russian territory, and might also lift US sanctions imposed on Rusian in response. ('We'll be lookingat that. Yeah, we'll be looking,' Trump said in response to a question.)" Source

18) "After a briefing in August, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote a letter to the FBI saying 'questions have been raised' about whether Page met with 'high-ranking sanctioned individuals' during his trip [to Russia]." Source

19) September 2016. Steele met with the FBI in Italy. Source

20) "Late summer 2016. The FBI obtain[ed] another secret court order from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to monitor Page’s communications, after convincing the judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power. The FBI waited until the Trump campaign had parted ways with Page to begin surveilling him." You caught that last sentence right? The surveillance started AFTER HE LEFT THE CAMPAIGN. Source

21) November 7, 2016. Lewandowski insisted Page was a "low-level volunteer." 22) January 10, 2017. Buzzfeed published "the dossier" - i.e. a collection of memos Christopher Steele sent to Fusion GPS. Source

23) January 12, 2017. Sean Spicer denied that Trump even knew who Page was. Source 24) March 2, 2017. Page admitted to journalist Chris Hayes that he met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the Republican National Convention. Source

25) February 3, 2018. THE MEMO was released. It regaled us with details of the tremendous scandal of the FBI rigging up facts to justify surveillance of Donald Trump's campaign (read: Carter Page.) It claimed that everything was based on Steele's dossier. The FBI, understandably (if not verbatim), called it a pile of shit.