by The House Intelligence Committee memo on abuse of power by the Federal Bureau of Investigation appeared just after 12:00 pm Eastern time, and American political life never will be the same. The House Republicans make a persuasive if not prima facie case that senior FBI officials used a fake dossier paid for by the Democrats to get a court order for electronic surveillance of the Trump campaign. If the charge sticks, America will have a real life instance of the sort of scenario found in pulp thrillers—a rogue intelligence agency operating in the darkness and abusing its power to manipulate elections. This is political plutonium. "Political plutonium" indeed.Asia TimesTrump triumphs with release of House FBI memo David P. GoldmanAlsoSic Semper TyrannisThe FBI and CIA Failed Coup Against
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Mike Norman considers the following as important: FBI memo, intelligence politicization, Steele dossier, US intelligence services
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The House Intelligence Committee memo on abuse of power by the Federal Bureau of Investigation appeared just after 12:00 pm Eastern time, and American political life never will be the same. The House Republicans make a persuasive if not prima facie case that senior FBI officials used a fake dossier paid for by the Democrats to get a court order for electronic surveillance of the Trump campaign. If the charge sticks, America will have a real life instance of the sort of scenario found in pulp thrillers—a rogue intelligence agency operating in the darkness and abusing its power to manipulate elections.
This is political plutonium."Political plutonium" indeed.
Asia Times
Trump triumphs with release of House FBI memo
David P. Goldman
Also
Sic Semper Tyrannis
The FBI and CIA Failed Coup Against Trump Unravels
also
Consortium News
Nunes Memo Reports Crimes at Top of FBI & DOJ
also
Given all that, I imagine that i) those believing that the Trump collusion story is made-up nonsense, and the President is a victim of a conspiracy of Democrats and their allies in the ‘deep state’ will feel vindicated; while ii) supporters of the collusion theory will see the release as further evidence that Republicans are just trying to divert attention because they have something to hide. The primary result, therefore, will simply be a hardening of positions on both sides and an accentuation of the already sharp divisions in American politics. In short, the show will go on.Irrussianality
My thoughts on that memo
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa
This is far from over. It's only the beginning of the dénouement. Both sides are lining up their positions and the result portends to divide America along a gigantic fault line with the tectonic plates violently striking each other.
Example.
"Nothing-burger."
Also
Putin did it.
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said Friday that President Trump's attacks on key U.S. institutions are tearing at the seams of the country's democracy in the same vein as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"If you look at the institutions that the president has attacked – the Department of Justice, the FBI, the judiciary and the media – I mean, I would argue that all of those institutions are part of what makes this country free," Speier said on CNN.
"And the democracy is going to start to erode, and you got Vladimir Putin there smiling. I mean, it's like he gave Donald Trump the script."...
The Hill
Democrat: It’s like Putin gave Trump a ‘script’
Max Greenwood
NYRB does a hit job on Vladimir Putin. Not quite "Putin is Hitler," but close.
New York Review of Books
Putin: From Oligarch to Kleptocrat
Ruth May | professor of global business in the Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business at the University of Dallas, and a King fellow of the university
Dallas News Just Published A Bombshell Report Linking Trump, McConnell, Ryan to Putin
Benjamin Locke