Trump's America, March 2017: Using His Inside VOICE

yeah it's hard to really tell because the administration constantly act like children trying to argue their way out of trouble. like it's easy to speculate that they know the Manafort thing could sink them and that's why they're trying so hard to pretend that they barely know him, but on the other hand they're confrontational and dishonest about basically everything, so why should it mean anything at all?

Wait, Nunes is still going or something?

https://twitter.com/tomwatson/status/844628015845904385

Wow - Nunes just said there are "multiple FISA warrants out there" involving Trump.

First response to that:

The FOIA lawyers will be buying Nunes drinks for years.

wtf is going on this is v odd

A little earlier:

https://twitter.com/Carrasquillo/status/844625389544726528

Nunes says it's appropriate to brief Trump admin while they're being investigated because it had nothing to do with Russia connections.

is this a coup or is Nunes realizing the awesome career-building possibilities of Twitter

is this nunes trying to give trump cover about the bullshit "obama wiretaps?" seems like trump will surely point to this as the evidence unless im missing something

how is this not Nunes leaking tons of information to the press?

is this nunes trying to give trump cover about the bullshit "obama wiretaps?" seems like trump will surely point to this as the evidence unless im missing something

this is what it looks like to me

If it is, the fact he kept saying it's fully legal is...amusing.

yeah it kinda undercuts Trump's argument - also keeps this story alive, which is also bad for Trump.

xxxxxpost why is he saying he has concerns if he's admitting it was legally collected? is his concern over Trump improprieties?

because none of this matches the bombshell Trump dropped of "illegal wiretapping" during the election and so far his counterparts on the committee are saying they've heard none of htis.

seems sloppy

I think his concerns were over "unmasking" of additional names, whatever that means. He said someone brought this to him who "thought he should know". That kind of sounds like a leak to me.

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/844635581850292224

Members say the surveillance picked up senior transition officials talking ABOUT Trump - not Trump's own communications.

Could this have all been a dumb Trump misunderstanding? Trump tweets Trump Tower was tapped by Obama. Where did he hear this? He eventually concedes from some stupid TV show or something. Unless ... he was briefed on it and blabbed classified material? And still got it wrong, thinking that the Obama admin had tapped a bunch of his people and Trump Tower? (When it fact the Obama white house had FISA'd up all sorts of other cats, and not at Trump Tower.) I dunno, it's all so weird and confusing. So ... there *may* have been multiple FISA taps, just not at Trump Tower specifically? Which would make the denials from literally everyone ... accurate? In a sense?

Regardless, that this has been leaked is much less of a bombshell than, if true, that there were multiple FISA warrants issued to watch Trump people. Which, again if true, seems like a massive fuck up on several fronts, especially if there has been an investigation going for almost a year.

The Russian poker game, the Chinese bank...lots of tap-worthy Trump Tower occupants.

But didn't the FBI et al. say definitively there was no FISA tap at Trump Tower?

Trump says he feels "somewhat vindicated", despite...

But "it has everything to do with possible surveillance activities ... and I have the duty to tell him that," Nunes said.

Asked if this supported Trump's claim that Obama wiretapped him, Nunes said "that never happened."

So this is going to turn into Comey's Hillary memo one week prior to election again, great. get it right this time, press.

So confused. So some FISA shit caught Trump talking or people talking about Trump? Why did this Nunes dude rush off to tell Trump, especially if Trump or people around him are being investigated? I can't tell who is lying/wrong and about what ...

Republicans are the goddamn Lannisters.

That doesn't help. As in, evil as fuck but get away with? Self-defeating? Successful schemers? Tragic losers?

He just meant the incest.

This quote from Nunes kinda sums it up:

"There's multiple number of FISA warrants out there, but there's nothing criminal at all involved"

Yeah that...uh.

i want to break so many things right now

Jeremy Bash on MSNBC saying this is a spectacular breakdown in how the oversight committee should work, they're not supposed to be briefing the president, bringing him into his own investigation and tipping him off

because the way this will play out is well-worn territory.

*Trump and his idiot base, regardless of what comes out afterward, will say this is "vindication" just as they did when Comey said he was "reviewing additional emails"

*As already suggested, it will come out that all of this was above water/legal not of controversy

*Nobody in the GOP is going to hold Nunes accountable, Nunes won't resign

*Trump will still be in the weeds for other reasons but will be able to deflect some of the blow.

ok please tell me I'm wrong about all of the above (cos I don't want to be righta bout this)

xpost Oversight or intel?

https://youtu.be/bg1sT4ILG0w

I'm deeply skeptical that there's any quid-pro-quo smoking gun out there.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, March 22, 2017 12:05 PM (one hour ago)

i think everybody's skeptical. that's why they're/we're looking into it. but i'm not sure what "quid-pro-quo" is doing there.

xpost
he said oversight, but you're right, he's not on that committee, that's that other asshole

TApper interviewing

Nunes isn't jumpy but he has the look on his face but having jitters. his demeanor is calm but his eyes are betraying him a little

but = of

jesus christ he's saying he might want to make changes to FISA to ensure "innocent Americans" don't get picked up whether "legally or illegally"

lol he said "it's probably FINE, but we need to be sure and he should know this"

he doesn't sound like he's thought this through. Tapper asking good questions.

Why in the world did he briefed Trump?

If it turns out Trump was improperly surveilled -- and maybe he was,why not? -- that will become the story. Trump and his people are good at distancing themselves from obvious wrongdoing. The Democrats aren't good at anything, and this story is convoluted enough that having truth on their side won't matter.

Nunes just said "Trump was in a way right", Tapper didn't let that one stand, made him clarify he was wrong about the wiretap claim.

jfc

fuck this goddamn country

a story that should be alarming people about the doings of the President is now turning into "oh hee hee see Trump was right all along" no matter what the truth actually is.

yeah, he's just working for Trump, trying to give him an out so he doesn't have to apologize for his outrageous and slanderous lie about Obama

Trump is too dumb to be defeated. He is like a machine, processing everything in this shallow, transactional way, never blinking when something goes wrong for him, just reacting. His animalistic shamelessness represents a new phase in human evolution.

that and pre-empting a shitty news day

in other news, Ryan just lost another GOP vote: South Jersey Rep LoBiondo is a "no" on AHCA

he's just working for Trump, trying to give him an out so he doesn't have to apologize for his outrageous and slanderous lie about Obama

this seems likely. It's a (v poor, possibly counterproductive) attempt at damage control from Comey's testimony yesterday. But all it does is keep this alive for one more cycle.

I mean wtf at giving a press conference about this and *then* going to tell the President about it, yeah that seems smart.

https://i.imgur.com/ho1bnmn.jpg

Nunes hinted it might have been incidental collection a few days ago. he sat on this didn't he, timing when he came forward

VINDICATED ! that's it folks , you can go home now

and a distraction from the pretty massive manafort AP story xp