Russiagate Keeps Rolling On

The "Schiff" memo was released on Saturday afternoon during the Olympics. I guess they didn't really want anyone to take the time to read it after all.

The Democratic memo, which is 10 pages, says that contrary to the GOP memo's assertion, the DOJ did inform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "accurately that Steele was hired by politically-motivated U.S. person and entities and that his research appeared intended for use 'to discredit' Trump's campaign." It adds that the FBI "properly" notified FISC after it terminated Steele as a source for making "unauthorized disclosures to the media," and that the GOP memo cites no evidence to support the notion that the FBI, prior to the initial October 2016 application, knew or should have known of any alleged inappropriate contact with the media. Also, the DOJ noted in its FISA renewals that Steele has been terminated as an FBI source along with the corroborative sources, the Democratic memo says.

Trump deems it a 'bust' (memo text available here)

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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2018

Nunes Says Dems’ Memo Defends ‘Dirty Dossier with Their Own Dirty Dossier’

“The American people now clearly understand that the FBI used political dirt paid for by the Democratic Party to spy on an American citizen from the Republican Party.”

Democrats “knew what they had to redact” and they “didn’t want this out,” Nunes said. “That’s why we wanted it out and they didn’t because it bolsters the case that we made … that the court wasn’t notified that the Clinton campaign and the Democrats paid for this dirt that ended up being phony. Just to sum up, this is almost like you have people defending the dirty dossier with their own dirty dossier.”

Schiff’s “Demo” Memo Tackles Tough Questions And Resolves… Almost Nothing,

DECONSTRUCTING THE SCHIFF MEMO: From the First Bullet, a Litany of Lies and Disinformation

So the FBI initiated the investigation in late July 2016 and only received the "dossier" in September?

James Comey, under oath, said otherwise ("Comey says FBI began investigation into Russia meddling in July").

Also, The New York Times -- which publishes intelligence leaks on a near-daily basis -- has reported otherwise. In fact, the FBI received the memo on July 5, 2016, according to the Times.

Andrew McCarthy: The Schiff Memo Harms Democrats More Than It Helps Them

Maybe Adam Schiff has more of a sense of humor than I’d have given him credit for. The House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat begins his long-awaited memo — the minority response to the Nunes memo that was penned by staffers of the committee’s Republican majority — by slamming Chairman Devin Nunes’s unconscionable “risk of public exposure of sensitive sources and methods for no legitimate purpose.” The Schiff memo, which has been delayed for weeks because the FBI objected to its gratuitous effort to publicize highly classified intelligence, including methods and sources, then proceeds to tell its tale through what appear to be scores of blacked-out redactions of information Schiff pushed to expose.

Byron York: Assessing the new Democratic intel memo

In sum, it appears that of the four bullet points listed by Democrats to support the most important assertion in their memo, three would not be sufficient to win a warrant on Page, and the fourth is — yes — the unconfirmed allegations in the dossier. Democrats say the FISA warrant application made just "narrow" use of the dossier, while Republicans say the application made extensive use of the dossier. (And not just Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, but also the Senate Judiciary Committee, which conducted a separate investigation and concluded the dossier's allegations made up "the bulk" of the application.) We won't know who is right definitively until the application is released to the public, but it seems hard to believe a warrant would have been approved absent the dossier's allegations.

Devin Nunes: ‘The One Thing That’s Clear in This Whole Russia Fiasco Is That the Media Is Dead’

“The media in this country, the fair and balanced media is for the most part — I mean 90 percent of them are hard left. They rely on clicks to make a living. So, when they attack people like me, it actually means that I’m over the target, and I’m getting to them because they have to attack me in order, number one, to please their masters, their billionaire masters, and number two, they also have to do it because they’re in on this.”

How partisan. How true.

Is ‘Collusion with Russia’ Over? Yep. Now the only job left for Mueller is to protect the FBI and DOJ from it's consequences.

Still, that does not mean he has entirely given up the quest. At the very least, I believe, Mueller intends to demonstrate that FBI and Justice Department suspicions about possible collusion were reasonable, even if there is no criminal case to be made against the president or his campaign. Although it is highly unlikely that Trump will be accused of a collusion crime, Mueller intends to illustrate that he showed appalling judgment in putting his campaign in the hands of Manafort and Gates, who were up to their necks in collusion with agents of Putin’s regime.

The process is the punishment: Manafort's LA bankruptcy fight may offer new avenue for Mueller probe. His scheme is to use his team of lawyers and effectively unlimited budget to harass and bankrupt Trump supporters until they confess to a crime of his choosing.

Sharyl Attkisson's updated “Collusion against Trump” timeline. It's the Clinton's who are in bed with Putin. As per usual, the Democrats are deflecting from their own Russian ties.