The Notorious “catch and kill" campaign: Turning the National Enquirer into an arm of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign

[Faun]

No, you didn’t, liar.

Prove me wrong.

Watch this dodge……

LOL

Dodge this, Dumbfuck.

Post #207

 

[para bellum]

Liar. She paid her law firm to provide her legal assistance for the election. So not hypocrisy on my part; but ignorance on yours.

Way wrong.

She paid Perkins Coie $5 Million to hire Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to produce the Russian Collusion Dossier.

She expensed it as campaign legal expenses.

Marc Elias had to leave the firm when the news went public.

 

[Nostra]

LOL

Dodge this, Dumbfuck.

Post #207

See.

 

[Nostra]

Yeah, mine may have also. So what? That's still not evidence that she, or I, were involved with Perkins Coie hiring a U.S. research firm, no less involved with a hiring a Brit.

Wow! Just when I thought you reached the apex of dumb.

 

[Faun]

Your citation is completely irrelevant to this case. It's just the definition of a campaign contribution in Florida State law.

He broke the law in Florida.

There wasn't anything illegal about it. The National Enquirer had the same arrangement with various other celebrities as well.

It was illegal enough that David pecker accepted a deal to be a witness against Trump to save his own ass.

Cohen made the plea deal under duress- the bank fraud charge alone carried a 30-year sentence.

I'm talking about Pecker, not Cohen.

The theory of the NDA as a campaign contribution was never tested in court (and I doubt the biased judge in this case will allow it now).

Again, there was not NDA in this case.

 

[surada]

Bullshit. That is flat-out false.

...the record in this matter reflects that upon receipt of unevaluated intelligence information from Australia, the FBI swiftly opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. In particular, at the direction of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok opened Crossfire Hurricane immediately.

Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump. The matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information. Further, the FBI did so without (i) any significant review of its own intelligence databases, (ii) collection and examination of any relevant intelligence from other U.S. intelligence entities, (iii) interviews of witnesses essential to understand the raw information it had received or (iv) using any of the standard analytical tools typically employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence.

Had it done so, again as set out in Sections IV.A.3.b and c, the FBI would have learned that their own experienced Russia analysts had no information about Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials, nor were others in sensitive positions at the CIA, the NSA, and the Department of State aware of such evidence concerning the subject. In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with any Russian intelligence officials. The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign. As described in Section IV.B, in the eighteen months leading up to the 2016 election, the FBI was required to deal with a number of proposed investigations that had the potential of affecting the election. In each of those instances, the FBI moved with considerable caution.

In one such matter discussed in Section IV.B.l, FBI Headquarters and Department officials required defensive briefings to be provided to Clinton and other officials or candidates who appeared to be the targets of foreign interference. In another, the FBI elected to end an investigation after one of its longtime and valuable CHSs went beyond what was authorized and made an improper and possibly illegal financial contribution to the Clinton campaign on behalf of a foreign entity as a precursor to a much larger donation being contemplated. And in a third, the Clinton Foundation matter, both senior FBI and Department officials placed restrictions on how those matters were to be handled such that essentially no investigative activities occurred for months leading up to the election.

These examples are also markedly different from the FBI' s actions
with respect to other highly significant intelligence it received from a trusted foreign source pointing to a Clinton campaign plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.

Unlike the FBI's opening of a full investigation of unknown members of the Trump campaign based on raw, uncorroborated information, in this separate matter involving a purported Clinton campaign plan,
the FBI never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information.

This lack of action was despite the fact that the significance of the Clinton plan intelligence was such as to have prompted the Director of the CIA to brief the President, Vice President, Attorney General, Director of the FBI, and other senior government officials about its content within days of its receipt. It was also of enough importance for the CIA to send a formal written referral memorandum to Director Corney and the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, Peter Strzok, for their consideration and action. The investigative referral provided examples of information the Crossfire Hurricane fusion cell had "gleaned to date.

Within days after opening Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI opened full investigations on four members of the Trump campaign team: George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn. No defensive briefing was provided to Trump or anyone in the campaign concerning the information received from Australia that suggested there might be some type of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, either prior to or after these investigations were opened. Instead, the FBI began working on requests for the use of FISA authorities against Page and Papadopoulos. The effort as related to Papadopoulos proved unsuccessful. Similarly, the initial effort directed at Page was unsuccessful until the Crossfire Hurricane investigators first obtained what were designated as "Company Intelligence Reports" generated by Christopher Steele. As set forth in Sections IV.D. l .b.ii and iii and in brief below, the Steele Reports were first provided to the FBI in early July 2016 but, for unexplained reasons, only made their way to the Crossfire Hurricane investigators in mid-September. The reports were ostensibly assembled based on information provided to Steele and his company by a "primary sub source," who the FBI eventually determined in December 2016 was Igor Danchenko.

Our investigation determined that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations contained in the Steele reporting. Nor was
Steele able to produce corroboration for any of the reported allegations, even after being offered $1 million or more by the FBI for such corroboration. Further, when interviewed by the FBI in January 2017, Danchenko also was unable to corroborate any of the substantive allegations in the Reports. Rather, Danchenko characterized the information he provided to Steele as "rumor and
speculation" and the product of casual conversation. Section IV.D. l .h describes other efforts undertaken by the Crossfire Hurricane
investigators working on the Page FISA application. Those efforts included having CHSs record conversations with Page, Papadopoulos and a senior Trump foreign policy advisor. The FBI's own records and the recordings establish that Page made multiple exculpatory statements to the individual identified as CHS- I, but the Crossfire Hurricane investigators failed to make that information known to the Department attorneys or to the FISC.

https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf

When Trump got the nomination Paul Singer pulled out

 

[Faun]

Way wrong.

She paid Perkins Coie $5 Million to hire Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to produce the Russian Collusion Dossier.

LOLOL

You say I'm wrong but then ... repeat exactly what I said.

She expensed it as campaign legal expenses.

Yes, Because she paid Perkins Coie, a law firm, for legal expenses.

Marc Elias had to leave the firm when the news went public.

He left in 2021, 5 years after 2016.

 

[Faun]

Wow! Just when I thought you reached the apex of dumb.

A pity you have to use emoticons in lieu of actual examples.

 

[para bellum]

He broke the law in Florida.

Eh? This case is in New York.

And a definition of a term is not a criminal statute, jesus how old are you?

It was illegal enough that David pecker accepted a deal to be a witness against Trump to save his own ass.

NDA's are not illegal. The US Congress has a special fund just to pay off interns and aides for sexual harassment claims.

I'm talking about Pecker, not Cohen.

Do you understand the prosecution's theory of this case? Pecker is there to corroborate Cohen's plea of making an excessive campaign contribution. Since you posted the Florida definition of campaign contribution, Cohen's story is relevant. In fact, the entire case rests on it.

Again, there was not NDA in this case.

Of course there were NDA's. At least 3 of them have been identified. Daniels (130K), McDougal (150K), and the doorman (30K).

 

[para bellum]

LOLOL

You say I'm wrong but then ... repeat exactly what I said.

No, you said she only paid campaign legal expenses.

Yes, Because she paid Perkins Coie, a law firm, for legal expenses.

That was not a legitimate campaign legal expense, the FEC so ruled.

But no one charged for making an excessive campaign contribution like Cohen was...

He left in 2021, 5 years after 2016.

Yes, after the story was made public, to the embarrassment of the firm.

 

[Faun]

Eh? This case is in New York.

Holy fuck

This thread is about the catch and kill.

Please pay attention.

And a definition of a term is not a criminal statute, jesus how old are you?

NDA's are not illegal. The US Congress has a special fund just to pay off interns and aides for sexual harassment claims.

Again -- there was no NDA in this case.

Do you understand the prosecution's theory of this case? Pecker is there to corroborate Cohen's plea of making an excessive campaign contribution. Since you posted the Florida definition of campaign contribution, Cohen's story is relevant. In fact, the entire case rests on it.

Of course there were NDA's. At least 3 of them have been identified. Daniels (130K), McDougal (150K), and the doorman (30K).

I don't know what Pecker testified to. I would guess it has to do with his connections to Trump and Cohen and their deal to catch and kill any negative stories against his campaign.

 

[para bellum]

When Trump got the nomination Paul Singer pulled out

Who cares? Paul Singer was not involved in producing the Steele Dossier. That is a total deflection.

 

[Faun]

No, you said she only paid campaign legal expenses.

That was not a legitimate campaign legal expense, the FEC so ruled.

But no one charged for making an excessive campaign contribution like Cohen was...

Yes, after the story was made public, to the embarrassment of the firm.

That is all she paid. Her legal firm then legally hired a U.S. firm. Which then legally hired an ex-British spy.

 

[para bellum]

Holy fuck

This thread is about the catch and kill.

Please pay attention.

Yes, it is the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg charging Trump in New York Supreme Court with 34 counts of violating NY PEN 175.10.

What the hell does Florida have to do with it? Are you retarded?

The NDA's are the agreements that AMI entered into with the whores, which Cohen then bought the rights to, in order to make AMI whole.

Your grasp of this case is extremely superficial, and I am being generous..

 

[para bellum]

That is all she paid. Her legal firm then legally hired a U.S. firm. Which then legally hired an ex-British spy.

And Trump legally paid his law firm, who purchased the rights to the stories that AMI had legally purchased from Daniels and McDougal.

The difference is that the money Trump paid was not used to make up a conspiracy theory against his political opponent. It was used to defend his personal reputation, and it was not illegal.

 

[Nostra]

A pity you have to use emoticons in lieu of actual examples.

Examples have already been provided, Moron.

 

[Nostra]

And Trump legally paid his law firm, who purchased the rights to the stories that AMI had legally purchased from Daniels and McDougal.

The difference is that the money Trump paid was not used to make up a conspiracy theory against his political opponent. It was used to defend his personal reputation, and it was not illegal.

Faun won’t have a coherent response.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

False.

You wake up every morning knowing Trump is guilty of something, you just don;t know what it is.

It's been like this for 8+ years...

Manafort for mortgage fraud, unrelated to Trump.
Cohen for tax and bank fraud unrelated to Trump except he pled to the phony campaign finance charge so they could have something against Trump.
The CFO on executive compensation BS, that every big company executive gets away with.

They were all prosecuted because they were close to Trump, period.

"Manafort worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election" and to direct such suspicions toward Ukraine." -- Kilimnik the Russian intelligence officer.

Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for the Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. The Committee assesses that Kilimnik likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services, and that those services likely sought to exploit Manafort's access to gain insight [into] the Campaign...On numerous occasions over the course of his time of the Trump Campaign, Manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign information with Kilimnik...Manafort briefed Kilimnik on sensitive campaign polling data and the campaign's strategy for beating Hillary Clinton.

CFO in prison .Personal attorney in prison. Others got pardoned -- only criminals get pardons.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

What people? Give us a name. Show us the transcript.

You are claiming to know Pecker's and Cohen's testimony, where did you come across these sworn statements?

follow the trial

and

at the end of each day:

Press Center - Home | NYCOURTS.GOV

Cases in the NewsPeople v Allen WeisselbergPeople v Donald J. Trump (Civil)People v Donald J. Trump (Criminal):

ww2.nycourts.gov

Pecker testified today in open court.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

No, it started with FFI in post #151 and his "mountain of ties" that Mueller supposedly found.

In post #159 I said BS, and quoted Mueller's report.

Post #161, FFI made the claim about evaluating collusion.

"And what he actually said was that they didn't find enough evidence to charge anyone with a criminal conspiracy. He explicitly said he did not evaluate collusion."

I was talking about Mueller's actual report, not some later interview. You guys try to conflate the matter whenever you are proven wrong, which is what you are doing now.

Mueller's report stated that they did not find any evidence of any US person conspiring or coordinating with the Russians during the 2016 election. That is the official record of the DOJ.

You guys can invent any excuse or justification for your ignorance that pleases you. The rest of us don't have to buy into your delusions.

When Mueller put out that report, he described "contacts" from the Trump campaign- Popadopolous, Page, Manafort, Trump Tower Mtg. etc. We didn't know then what we learned later from Durham investigation of the investigators- that those contacts were either unrelated to Trump's campaign (Manafort, Page) or were setup by the investigators in an entrapment scheme(Popadopolous, Trump Tower Mtg).

Not so easy for you people to lie anymore.