General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere is the FBI ??
Are they out hunting emails?
We have a President-elect making calls to Putin and requesting top secret clearances for his family and making all kinds of ridiculous requests that are apparent conflicts of interests with nations that are not operating with the same interests.
Surely Comey is aware that all this bullshit is going on under his nose?
spanone
(135,857 posts)comey & the $2billion worth of free airtime from the media are ancient history....
'Hillary blew it'
get the meme......
DesertFlower
(11,649 posts)i hold comey partially responsible for hillary's loss. how dare he open his mouth so close to an election.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)Who were in close contact with Russian agents? There was some news about that months ago that disappeared completely almost immediately. Then just before the election there was one source that mentioned that Comey was "reluctant" to release any information about that while at the same time he was willing to release non-information about so-called "new" Hillary emails that were neither new or from Hillary.
Michael Isikoff
Chief Investigative Correspondent
September 23, 2016
U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the issue.
The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and high ranking sanctioned individuals in Moscow over the summer as evidence of significant and disturbing ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau.
Some of those briefed were taken aback when they learned about Pages contacts in Moscow, viewing them as a possible back channel to the Russians that could undercut U.S. foreign policy, said a congressional source familiar with the briefings but who asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. The source added that U.S. officials in the briefings indicated that intelligence reports about the advisers talks with senior Russian officials close to President Vladimir Putin were being actively monitored and investigated.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official did not dispute that characterization when asked for comment by Yahoo News. Its on our radar screen, said the official about Pages contacts with Russian officials. Its being looked at.
More: https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-s-intel-officials-probe-ties-between-trump-adviser-and-kremlin-175046002.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw
Has the bureau investigated this material?
David Corn
Oct. 31, 2016 6:52 PM
On Friday, FBI Director James Comey set off a political blast when he informed congressional leaders that the bureau had stumbled across emails that might be pertinent to its completed inquiry into Hillary Clinton's handling of emails when she was secretary of state. The Clinton campaign and others criticized Comey for intervening in a presidential campaign by breaking with Justice Department tradition and revealing information about an investigationinformation that was vague and perhaps ultimately irrelevantso close to Election Day. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid upped the ante. He sent Comey a fiery letter saying the FBI chief may have broken the law and pointed to a potentially greater controversy: "In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government The public has a right to know this information."
Reid's missive set off a burst of speculation on Twitter and elsewhere. What was he referring to regarding the Republican presidential nominee? At the end of August, Reid had written to Comey and demanded an investigation of the "connections between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign," and in that letter he indirectly referred to Carter Page, an American businessman cited by Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers, who had financial ties to Russia and had recently visited Moscow. Last month, Yahoo News reported that US intelligence officials were probing the links between Page and senior Russian officials. (Page has called accusations against him "garbage." On Monday, NBC News reported that the FBI has mounted a preliminary inquiry into the foreign business ties of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chief. But Reid's recent note hinted at more than the Page or Manafort affairs. And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trumpand that the FBI requested more information from him.
"This is something of huge significance, way above party politics," the former intelligence officer says. "I think [Trump's] own party should be aware of this stuff as well."
Does this mean the FBI is investigating whether Russian intelligence has attempted to develop a secret relationship with Trump or cultivate him as an asset? Was the former intelligence officer and his material deemed credible or not? An FBI spokeswoman says, "Normally, we don't talk about whether we are investigating anything." But a senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.
In June, the former Western intelligence officerwho spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clientswas assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) "It started off as a fairly general inquiry," says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump
And of course since the election, Russia has admitted to contacts with the Trump campaign - even though the campaign denies it:
By David Filipov and Andrew Roth
November 10
MOSCOW Russian government officials conferred with members of Donald Trumps campaign team, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday, a disclosure that could reopen scrutiny of the Kremlins role in the president-elects bitter race against Hillary Clinton.
The statement came from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who said in an interview with the state-run Interfax news agency that there were contacts with the Trump team.
Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage, Ryabkov said.
We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes, Ryabkov was quoted as saying.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/moscow-had-contacts-with-trump-team-during-campaign-russian-diplomat-says/2016/11/10/28fb82fa-a73d-11e6-9bd6-184ab22d218e_story.html
uponit7771
(90,348 posts)OregonBlue
(7,754 posts)Trump and his brown shirts elected. Surely he can't be so stupid as to believe he can now control them. The party has been destroyed and the country is next.
uponit7771
(90,348 posts)... has had some effect on the election.
How much he had is not known but that he had any effect is horrid enough
What a bastard
OregonBlue
(7,754 posts)in the long run. We all will be.
FrenchieCat
(68,867 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)a free pass. I said it before and again, it was a Coup to derail Hillary.
left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)kairos12
(12,866 posts)InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)Bettie
(16,118 posts)but doesn't care. He's seen to his future by doing their bidding.