Oh goody! ~ the original gang of [mentally-challenged] bozos returns ~ ~ "live links" in original ~ Sooz

CNN’s Jake Tapper reveals Steve Bannon and Corey Lewandowski are advising Trump of a ‘deep state conspiracy’
Sarah K. Burris / 21 May 2018 at 16:29 ET

CNN’s Jake Tapper broke a story that a small group of “informal advisors” have been talking with President Donald Trump and against chief of staff John Kelly when it comes to special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI.

The host began his Monday show by recapping that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray were ordered to the White House to divulge the identity of a confidential source of the Trump campaign.

“Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and Wray were concerned that providing the House Intelligence Committee with information about this source would put the source anonymity and safety at risk, but over the weekend, the president took the unusual step of siding against his own administration,” Tapper continued.

Trump tweeted that the FBI and DOJ were part of infiltrating the Trump campaign as part of a plot by President Barack Obama. The reality has been that the FBI approached campaign members. The new strategy is part of an old guard of Trump friends that work from the far right.

“We learned the president's aggressive move is part of a new strategy being pushed by a form of advisers outside of the White House and including Steve Bannon, former campaign manager Cory Lewandowski, former deputy campaign manager David Bossie, and president of the Trump Hispanic Advisory Counsel and CNN commentator, Steve Cortes,” Tapper exposed. “Part of a push to paint the president as the victim of a deep state conspiracy. The campaign is about convincing Trump-friendly media and president himself to make a more adversarial position toward Rosenstein and the FBI.”

One member of the group of outside advisors told Tapper, “Outside supporters don’t believe Kelly or [White House counsel Don] McGahn are being aggressive enough in defending the president.”

Tapper noted that over the weekend it is obvious that the outside advisors won over those working inside the White House to steady the president’s paranoia.

Watch his full report below: [video accessible via the end link].

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/cnns-jake-tapper-reveals-steve-bannon-corey-lewandowski-advising-trump-deep-state-conspiracy/

Round and round we go, where we stop nobody knows ~ ~ "live links" in original ~ Sooz

How Trump’s New Deep State Conspiracy Theory Emerged From The Fever Swamps
By Allegra Kirkland | May 21, 2018 6:00 am

If there’s a dark conspiracy theory circulating about Deep State efforts to undermine Donald Trump, it’s a safe bet that it started with Rep. Devin Nunes, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

That seems to be the case with the purported scandal du jour: that the FBI planted an informant in the Trump campaign in order to gain information about its possible ties to Russia. Such a move, Trump allies argue, would render the Mueller investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference illegitimate.

The source met with three different Trump campaign officials, the Washington Post reported Friday evening. And the source’s name began circulating late last week in right-wing media. Still the nature of the intelligence the source provided, and exactly what prompted the FBI to seek to obtain intel from this person remain unclear.

As with previous Nunes-driven controversies, this one started weeks ago with the California Republican’s efforts to disclose classified intelligence information, festered in the media fever swamps, and then percolated up to the president, who on Friday said it may be the “all time biggest political scandal!”

Trump remained focused on the issue over the weekend, and on Sunday, in an extraordinary tweet, pledged to “demand” a DOJ investigation into whether the Obama administration was behind this supposed politically-motivated spying.


It’s a good case study in how outlandish theories designed to discredit the Mueller investigation and bolster Trump’s position travel from the fringes to the White House. Here’s how we got here.

Since at least early April, Nunes has been demanding from the Justice Department un-redacted versions of the materials detailing the launch of the Russia probe. Slow-rolled by DOJ top brass, Nunes issued a subpoena in early May for all documents related to a person described by the Washington Post as a “sensitive, longtime intelligence source for the CIA and FBI.”

As a pair of Post articles, dated May 8 and 9, explained, the DOJ has refused to provide the documents, concerned that the safety of the U.S. citizen source could be endangered, and that ongoing intelligence investigations could be compromised.

DOJ and FBI officials ultimately agreed to hold an hour-long classified briefing with Nunes and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy on May 10, which appeared to quell the tensions somewhat.

The two GOP congressmen released a statement calling the meeting “productive” and expressing hope for a continued “dialogue” with the Justice Department.

But it was too late. That evening, the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel published a column calling the DOJ’s reported concerns about the source’s safety a sign of “desperation” and interpreting the Post report to mean that the person was likely engaged in “outright spying” on, as well as trying to “infiltrate,” the Trump campaign.

Strassel’s claims were seized upon by Rush Limbaugh. It’s “a pretty safe bet that the FBI planted an informant in the Trump campaign,” Limbaugh said, in order to “catch and to discover and to witness Trump’s collusion with the Russians.”

Two days later, National Review’s Andrew McCarthy published a column noting that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson testified that Christopher Steele, who Fusion had hired to look into the campaign’s ties to Russia, had told Simpson that the FBI had a “human source” in the Trump campaign. McCarthy speculated that the spy’s information was the real source of the U.S. Russia investigation.

The story broke wide open last week with the first mention of the word “informant” by a major mainstream publication. Buried in a lengthy Wednesday New York Times story on the origins of the Russia probe was this sentence: “At least one government informant met several times with Mr. [Carter] Page and Mr. Papadopoulos, current and former officials said.”

Breitbart jumped on the news with a headline about the FBI’s “spy operation” against the Trump campaign. Trump allies from Kellyanne Conway to Rudy Giuliani were soon sharing grave concerns about the presence of a spy in the campaign’s midst.

Any improper spying by such an informant would render the entire Mueller probe “completely illegitimate,” Giuliani told the Post on Thursday, before acknowledging to CNN Friday that they didn’t know “for sure” that such an individual even existed.

And Trump tweeted:


Of course, all of these interpretations rest on the notion that if the FBI surveilled the Trump campaign, it was motivated by political bias. None consider that these agencies could have been attempting the difficult task of investigating Russia’s meddling in the campaign on Trump’s behalf without improperly influencing the election by revealing the probe.

They also gloss over the fact that we’ve been down this road several times before. Nunes has been at war with the DOJ and FBI on Trump’s behalf for well over a year, trying to uncover evidence that will prove that Trump was unfairly targeted.

There was last spring’s botched effort to prove that Trump staffers’ identities were improperly revealed in transcripts of conversations swept up in foreign surveillance. National security experts and bipartisan lawmakers said that there was nothing out of the ordinary about the unmasking requests.

Then there was this February’s memo that was supposed to serve as definitive proof of anti-Trump bias among DOJ and FBI leadership and bring the Mueller probe to a screeching halt. It was a bust.

He may not have succeeded yet. But the new “spy” controversy suggests that Nunes’ efforts will continue.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/how-embedded-fbi-trump-campaign-informant-theory-spread

No wonder the Yellow Marshmallow is all over the map with the bozos he has around him... not that he'd be much better on his own.

That seems to be the case with the purported scandal du jour: that the FBI planted an informant in the Trump campaign in order to gain information about its possible ties to Russia. Such a move, Trump allies argue, would render the Mueller investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference illegitimate

Uhhh no! What their concern over the plant means is that there was something important the informant discovered about the campaign and it's nefarious connections to Putin and the Russian oligarchy. If there was nothing to be found the allies wouldn't be worried. What they are doing right now is, in a sense, "taking the fifth" in order to prevent implicating themselves.

Bruce breaks it down, adding clarity to the mud fest we're slogging thru ~ ~ Sooz

The con man never stops conning/grifting ~ and his "marks" are compliant EVERY TIME ~ ~ Sooz

Trump campaign turns DOJ ‘demand’ into fundraising opportunity
05/22/18 11:20 AM
By Steve Benen

Politicians, just as a matter of course, are generally desperate to raise as much money as possible. They’re usually careful, however, about exploiting certain developments.

Donald Trump’s political operation has no such fears.

Last fall, for example, the president’s re-election campaign sent a solicitation to donors using the mass shooting in Las Vegas as the basis for a pitch. When the administration decided to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, that too was turned into a fundraising opportunity.

When Vice President Mike Pence left a football game because some players kneeled in protest against racial injustice, Trump’s campaign said donors should get out their checkbooks. A week earlier, the president’s operation even referenced disaster relief while asking for money.

But as Trump takes aim at our system of justice, using this a fundraising opportunity seems especially offensive. TPM noted yesterday afternoon:


The “petition,” of course, isn’t real; it’s just a common tactic to get donors engaged and more likely to contribute. In this case, folks sign the “petition” – giving Trump’s political operation their contact information for future use – they’re directed to a donation page. In small font, the page says, “Paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee authorized by and composed of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. and the Republican National Committee.”

Realistically, it’s a stretch to think the president and his White House operation are engaged in a dangerous fight against the Justice Department simply to create the basis for a fundraising campaign. It’s much easier to believe Trump and his team, terrified of the special counsel’s investigation, launched their unprecedented offensive against federal law enforcement first, and then some development folks saw a potential opportunity second.

But that doesn’t make the latest fundraising scheme any less offensive.

It’s problematic enough that Trump is trying to use the Justice Department as a political tool to undermine an ongoing investigation in which he’s the subject. It adds insult to injury to see Trump’s campaign try to raise a buck off this, all the while deceiving his own supporters about an “infiltration” that never happened.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-campaign-turns-doj-demand-fundraising-opportunity?cid=sm_fb_maddow