The whole article is interesting, and obviously I can only quote a bit, so here are some interesting bits.
Making the [media leak] game even more difficult is how much of the play is being done under cover. When so much of the frenzied blame-shifting is right out in the open, who knows how much whet work with the long knives is going on in the shadows? “If Brennan and Comey and Clapper are doing this publicly,” one Senate staffer says, private-sector dossier-peddlers “[Sidney] Blumenthal, [Cody] Shearer and [Glenn] Simpson are doing it privately.”
Felten then turns to the rivalry — or barely-concealed hatred — between the FBI and DOJ.
“The FBI and DoJ are ruthless to each other, petty to one another,” one congressional staffer marvels….
Connoisseurs of the knife fights between Justice and the bureau keep an eye out not only for what gets reported in the press, but where it gets reported. “The Department of Justice has good relations with, and tends to leak to, the Washington Post,” says a longtime Capitol Hill staffer. “The FBI leaks to the New York Times.”
Felten recounts the different versions of the Rosenstein-offered-to-wear-a-wire story — the version friendly to the FBI’s McCabe was published in the post, the version friendly to the DOJ’s Rosenstein ran in the Times.
Then he notes the FBI’s favored leak route, the Times, being called upon to get in front of their long-time cover story that the investigation into Trump began with Carter Page and not a moment sooner.
Which was then revised to, “It began with George Papadoplous’ mention of the Hillary emails to Australian diplomat Andrew Downer.”
Which is now being revised yet again.
Okay, okay, maybe we were technicallyÂ
spying on him using undercover assets to surreptitiously question and record him before he ever met with Downer…Given the Times’s sources in and around the FBI, there is particular significance when the Times writes a revisionist history of the bureau’s activities involving the 2016 election. At the end of 2017 the paper had done its best to write the dossier out of the creation myth of the Russia investigation. The Times had maintained, in an April 2017 article, that it was Carter Page’s ill-advised commencement speech in Moscow in the summer of 2016 that had sparked the FBI’s concerns the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia. This line came from the dossier, which had alleged that Page had secret meetings with billionaire oligarchs during his Moscow stay. But after the dossier started to be exposed as the partisan document it was, a new reason emerged to justify the launching of a counterintelligence probe into team Trump — that George Papadopoulos had supposedly mentioned, over drinks with an Australian diplomat, that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton.
That alternate origin story remained largely unchanged until early this month, when the Times rewrote its narrative, clearly with the help of FBI sources. The new narrative included the revelation that the bureau had sent a “government investigator” to London under the false name “Azra Turk.” Her undercover mission was to flirt with Papadopoulos and pump him for information about Trump and the Russians. The Times helpfully (from the FBI’s point of view) portrayed this as evidence of the “level of alarm” investigators had about Trump and Russia.
The article was a classic example of a fundamental Washington PR technique, that of “getting ahead of the story.” Knowing the Azra Turk business is being looked over by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, sources in, or formerly of, the bureau went to friendly reporters and fed them information that could put the events in the least unflattering light possible. Note, however, that the bureau players — who normally wring their hands about the national security damage done by the release of unredacted information — aren’t above leaking details of covert ops if that’s what it takes to soften a blow.
Chuck Ross recently reported of one such case of the Deep State leaking the name of a confidential source while simultaneously whining that we must stop this investigation lest we reveal the names of confidential sources.
My money is investigations began on the front runners in 2016 Cruz and Trump, dropping the loser of the primary. It was totally political smear and opposition research then turned to coup.
The Russians had nothing on the DOJ, FBI and CIA when it came to election interference and sedition.
@kitt:
Did you miss the part where there actually was interference in the election?
@Michael: Not at all it was done by the DNC
Mueller explains the thing that Greg and I have been trying to explain here and that many, chief among them Deplorable Me, don’t seem to understand:
Source
@kitt:
You’re saying that all the private Russian groups and individuals that Mueller described working to influence the election were actually all the DNC?
@Michael: That means they have an opinion that he might have wanted to obstruct in his heart but couldnt pin it on him legally. Trump had the power but never halted the investigation and ordered his people to cooperate with the investigation, gave millions of requested documents.
They cry because couldnt put a gag order on Trump.
If they couldnt recommend any charges what was the point of an investigation into obstruction?
Everyone knows Mueller couldnt bring Trump to court, knew it the whole time.
Mueller did not say Barr lied or misrepresented anything today.
@kitt:
That’s exactly not what it means. Mueller just said what it means, and it wasn’t that.
He answered that, too:
“While memories are fresh” = “stuff can be done once Trump is no longer a ‘sitting president’.”
Source
@Michael: The bombshell is he has no intention of testifying for congress his report is his testimony.
They couldnt prove he didnt do it or that he did.
The gig was not to exonerate the President.
He also said Barr did what he was suppose to do, with no further comment. They are shutting off the lights and locking the door, its over.
Co conspirators to charge now, none were found to obstruct or conspire and they couldnt prove he did it all by his lonesome?
That is not logic or reason, its a leap onto a unicorns back.
Vox? please be serious.
@kitt:
It’s a transcript of what Mueller said. A word-for-word quote. Please explain how the fact that it’s posted on Vox has anything at all to do with anything.
@Michael: Did you miss
Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited. So no future after office charges. It had to be recommended in the report, for the House and the Senate to hold the POTUS accountable NOW.
@kitt:
That’s not the case. They can’t charge now, and they can’t have sealed charges, but a future Attorney General can certainly act, as long as the statute of limitations has not expired.
Could you please tell me why a transcript of Mueller’s remarks is invalid if it’s posted on Vox?
That’s something you just made up. At any rate, however, Mueller did refer the case to Congress. He outlined Congress’s role from here on out in the report, and he went over it again today.
@Michael: I find Russia Today less slanted than Vox.
What will the charge him for in the future…hey dude remember this tweet? Bwahahahaha. Recall when you were bitching about Muellers witch hunt? whohohohoho
@kitt:
It. Is. A. Transcript. How does the fact that it’s posted to Vox affect a transcript? Do you perhaps not know what a transcript is?
What tweet?
No. I never bitched about Mueller’s witch hunt.
What are you talking about?
@Michael: Come off of the roof there is nothing they can do to the president now or in 6 years.
Mueller doesnt want to testify for congresses windmill tilting, he gave Congress nothing to go on, nothing or they wouldnt want Jr to come talk about Russia Hotels that never got to even a planing stage.
The Dems are throwing everything at the teflon wall to distract anti Trumpers from the crimes of the previous administration and the DNC.
14 separate investigations are ongoing into the attempted Coup. The media is doing its best to try to run cover as Clapper just tossed Barry under the bus.
@kitt: How does the fact that it’s posted to Vox affect a transcript? Do you perhaps not know what a transcript is?
@Michael: @Michael: @Michael: It is that you would use one of the most left wing proaganda anti trump site at all. Your post did not indicate it was a link to the transcript.
This seems to be a site not slanting left or right
https://www.voanews.com/a/mueller-to-make-first-public-statement-about-russia-probe/4937173.html
They also have the full transcript.
@kitt:
Someone needs to ask Mueller (who is no longer taking any questions) what part of the U.S. Constitution substantiates his claim. If it is in an Amendment to the Constitution, which Amendment and when was it ratified?
The bottom line is Mueller is, once again, kicking a flat football to the Congress. He could not, beyond a reasonable doubt, charge Trump with the crime of obstruction so he did the next best thing; he reignited the fire of the Democrat held Congress for impeachment.
I agree with Mueller. He needs to return to private life as he slinks out of D.C. with his head lowered in shame.
@retire05:
This is the process other than the criminal justice system to which he refers:
@Michael: We are well aware of the impeachment process it seems Mueller came back empty handed for the Democrats so they are making something out of nothing with todays statement.
@retire05: That fire was already burning before he took the oath of office. Todays nothing new nothing burger that had the media drooling was him telling them he did not want to testify.
Whats missing in his fancy pants report…..the dossier.
@Michael:
Did you miss the part where you were all totally convinced and sure your Democrats had, as they claim, “mountains” of evidence that absolutely proved Trump colluded with the Russians, all of which totally vanished overnight?
When they are convicted, they will be the culprits, something no one seems in a hurry to determine. Mueller gives THEM the assumption of innocence… but not Trump. Though he hasn’t enough evidence to MAKE that charge, he declared Trump PROBABLY guilty. That’s criminal.
@kitt:
That means he is innocent. Crybabies simply can’t accept FACTS.
Mueller said a president could not be charged while in office BUT if there were co-conspirators, they could.
And yet NONE WERE.
Not one for the crime of colluding w/Russia to affect the election.
A few have been gone after for “process crimes,” that would never have occurred had there been no investigation and no cooperation by the President’s associates!
As to not knowing if the President had committed a crime, isn’t that true of everyone?
@Nan G: Rod R directive to Mueller, it looks like it was ignored by the SC and his merry team, first directive Weissman knew there was no collusion before the investigation began, so that never had to be investigated
the second directive was use the vast US code to get anyone from the trump team
third directive was make the case and report back.
The Mueller team gave the report to Barr and failed to follow directive 3, actually expected Barr who did none of the investigation to create a case for him. That may have been his deal with RR but Barr would have none of it.
After all he was given Manafort on a silver platter from a case RR dropped 10 years ago.
I dont like the new rules set by the SC, guilty until proven guilty, set policies and procedures we dont need no stinking policies.
Since Barr wouldnt make the case now Mueller expects Congress to make the case? The excuse for him not finding enough evidence…I couldnt indict him anyway, so I am taking my lame excuses and going home.