Now suddenly Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has decided not to seek reelection in 2018. Hmmm.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz announced Wednesday he will not run for reelection to his House seat in 2018. 

The Utah Republican said he won’t seek any political office in 2018, stirring speculation that he may run for governor in 2020. Last year, he told the Deseret News he would “take a serious, serious” look at a gubernatorial bid in Utah once his term as chairman of the House’s primary investigative committee had expired.

Okay so MAYBE Chaffetz is looking to throw his hat into the Utah Governor's race, and that is why he has suddenly decided to quit Congress while seemingly at the pinnacle of his power.

But then again  maybe that is NOT the reason.

Now as I mentioned before I am still a little wary of the reporting by Louise Mensch.

However oddly enough she posted this about six days ago.

Sources say there is kompromat on @jasoninthehouse; that this is why he turned and that @fbi know it. #traitorinthehouse

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) April 13, 2017

Yes it could be bullshit, but then again Mensch seems to be on a hot streak right now, so I am loathe to discount it completely.

And you have to admit that would make sense.

Also keep in mind that Chaffetz bragged just in February of this year about his desire to continue investigating Hillary Clinton even though she is now out of politics, so what exactly has changed since then?

Something definitely smells a little fishy here. 

Keith Olbermann reports on a blog post of Louise Mensch asserting that the FBI has taped evidence of Trump colluding with the Russians.

NEW: Have the Brits already nailed Trump? On tape? Offering to trade policy changes to Putin for election fixing? pic.twitter.com/ywNs84QIKo

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) April 18, 2017

Here is the assertion as written on Patribotics by Louise Mensch: 

Sources with links to the intelligence community say it is believed that Carter Page went to Moscow in early July carrying with him a pre-recorded tape of Donald Trump offering to change American policy if he were to be elected, to make it more favorable to Putin. In exchange, Page was authorized directly by Trump to request the help of the Russian government in hacking the election.

The post goes into far more detail and refers to previous posts to provide context, but that first paragraph right there is quite jaw dropping.

Now to be honest though I have been following Mensch on Twitter for quite awhile now I have hesitated to directly quote her or link to her posts because, well to be honest, because I was not certain of her trustworthiness as a reporter of facts.

In my defense many of the claims that Mensch makes are explosive, and would completely change the narrative about Trump's interaction with Russia.

However they are also often supported by anonymous sources, and though Mensch WAS the first person to report on the FISA court order, I remain somewhat skeptical that she has sources telling her things that the sources for the New York Times and Washington Post are keeping to themselves.

So I will present this here as a public service and invite your to hear what Olbermann says, and read Mensch's post, and then reach your own conclusions as to their validity.

The strange case of the Trump Organization computer. Another piece in the Trump/Russia collusion puzzle? Perhaps.

Courtesy of CNN:

Last year, a small group of computer scientists obtained internet traffic records from the complex system that serves as the internet's phone book. Access to these records is reserved for highly trusted cybersecurity firms and companies that provide this lookup service. 

These signals were captured as they traveled along the internet's Domain Name System (DNS). 

These leaked records show that Alfa Bank servers repeatedly looked up the unique internet address of a particular Trump Organization computer server in the United States.

Alfa Bank is of course a Russian bank, but I bet you figured that out all on your own.

And what did this small group of computer scientists find that troubles them so?

From May 4 until September 23, the Russian bank looked up the address to this Trump corporate server 2,820 times -- more lookups than the Trump server received from any other source. 

As noted, Alfa Bank alone represents 80% of the lookups, according to these leaked internet records.

Well, isn't THAT interesting?

That is a hell of a lot of lookups just to be a coincidence, but that is exactly how the Alfa Bank characterized them:  

Alfa Bank has maintained that the most likely explanation is that the server communication was the result of spam marketing. Bank executives have stayed at Trump hotels, so it's possible they got subsequent spam marketing emails from the Trump Organization. Those emails might have set off defensive cybersecurity measures at the bank, whose servers would respond with a cautious DNS lookup. Alfa Bank said it used antispam software from Trend Micro, whose tools would do a DNS lookup to know the source of the spam.

2,820 responses to spam in less than five months?  That really does not pass the smell test:  

"If it were spam, then a lot of other organizations would be doing DNS lookups. There would be evidence of widespread connectivity with devices," said L. Jean Camp, a computer scientist at Indiana University who has studied the data.

Now here is the other suspicious puzzle piece:  

Far back in second place, with 714 such lookups, was a company called Spectrum Health. 

Spectrum is a medical facility chain led by Dick DeVos, the husband of Betsy DeVos, who was appointed by Trump as U.S. education secretary. 

Together, Alfa and Spectrum accounted for 99% of the lookups.

Spectrum Health joined with Alfa Bank in claiming that it was all spam related. 

Nothing to see here, just move along.

Not so fast.

I am not sure what this means exactly, but if you developed a spam program to increase business and it only targeted two businesses, that would seem like a real waste of money in my book.

So I would agree with these computer scientists that this deserves a lot more scrutiny.

And it might very well have been receiving it since it was this server that Louise Mensch identified as the trigger which caused the FBI to seek a FISA warrant.

Former DNI James Clapper definitively states that there was NO FISA warrant to tap Donald Trump's phones. Update!

James Clapper: "There was no such wire tap activity amounted against" Donald Trump. #MTP pic.twitter.com/eNGFKe0vxY

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) March 5, 2017

Of course earlier the President's spokesman also denied that he had any involvement in any such action against the Trump campaign: 

"A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement Saturday. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."

Which of course now leaves Donald Trump revealed as a conspiracy theory spouting madman.

Louise Mensch, who I identified as being the likely original source of the FISA story, tweeted this in response to Clapper's statement.

My own FISA story nowhere mentions a wiretap. Nor does @julianborger story nor does BBC story - but Trump "just learned" he was taped

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) March 5, 2017

There is a FISA warrant issued on the Alfa Bank server in Trump Tower and all comms between two Russian banks, any US persons involved. https://t.co/7FefUAiGlP

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) March 5, 2017

It should be noted that though it is likely that Mensch's initial reporting was the impetus for all of this, that it was the Right Wing exaggerations which fired Trump up and sent him on that Twitter tantrum.

And those exaggerations were based on a misreading of the initial story, and of course a desire to put blame on the Obama Administration.

You can see that for yourself in this insane rant from Mark Levin on Fox News earlier today.

And now we have this.

Statement from @PressSec pic.twitter.com/WeSnymiyDB

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) March 5, 2017

I swear every day is just a little bit more insane than the day before.

Update: Comey chimes in!

Courtesy of the New York Times:

The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.

Well that just left Trump to dangle in the wind all on his own.

Donald Trump is now accusing President Obama of tapping his phones.

Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

Okay as of right now most news outlets have no freaking idea what Trump is talking about here.

Now it is possible that somebody brought an article written by our friend Louise Mensch back in November to Trump's attention.

Here is the article:  

Two separate sources with links to the counter-intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought, and was granted, a FISA court warrant in October, giving counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of ‘U.S. persons’ in Donald Trump’s campaign with ties to Russia. 

Contrary to earlier reporting in the New York Times, which cited FBI sources as saying that the agency did not believe that the private server in Donald Trump’s Trump Tower which was connected to a Russian bank had any nefarious purpose, the FBI’s counter-intelligence arm, sources say, re-drew an earlier FISA court request around possible financial and banking offenses related to the server. The first request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; SVB Bank and Russia’s Alfa Bank. While the Times story speaks of metadata, sources suggest that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons.

As you can see this talks about a FISA court request from the FBI concerning one particular server.

The fact that they would have needed a warrant of course means that this is NOT, in any way, like what Nixon did during his administration, nor does it necessarily suggest that the FBI was allowed to tap Trump's phones.

What DO know is that American intelligence agencies WERE tracking the phone calls coming in and out of Russia and that THAT was how they found out that a number of Trump's campaign staff and administration staff had been in contact with certain unsavory folks connected to the Russian government.

Apparently Trump's current freakout is linked to Mark Levin's radio show where he cited these articles and then exaggerated what they said to suggest that the Obama Administration used "police state" tactics to undermine the Trump campaign.

Was Obama using NSA against Trump campaign? https://t.co/xzAOf11y3k

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) March 3, 2017

Remember Trump only trusts Right Wing news outlets and talk shows that make shit up, or exaggerate facts to fit their agenda.

I think Trump has really rounded the bend on this one. 

A former British MP has a theory about the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal and how that may have also been orchestrated by the Russians. And it is worth your time to read it.

Courtesy of Patribotics:  

Did Russia invent a criminal case against Anthony Weiner – so their hacker Nikulin could plant Hillary’s emails on his computer? 

It was the Comey letter that handed the election to Trump. Even if corrupt elements in the FBI Field Office in New York, penetrated by Russia, forced Comey’s hand – even if Russian hacker Nikulin did plant emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer – there had to be a “separate criminal case” in the first place for the NYPD and FBI to go looking, right? 

But what if there wasn’t? What if Vladimir Putin directed the entire attack – not via a “15 year old girl” from Gaston, North Carolina, but by a hardened group of adult hackers from that state who had penetrated the emails of Director Brennan of the CIA, and doxed and attacked hundreds of FBI and law enforcement personnel? 

And what if, after making Carter Page’s recruiter Jeff Sessions Attorney General, Donald Trump repeated the trick by making the ‘prosecutor’ of those Carolina hackers Acting AG – then changing the order of succession at Justice to cement him as number two?

Russia, I believe, created, from scratch, the chain of events that forced James Comey’s letter to Congress. All available data shows that it was the timing of this letter that handed the election to Donald Trump. On November 3rd, just before the election, the Russian plane MKATE and Putin’s bagman Rybolovev met Donald Trump’s campaign plane on the tarmac at Charlotte, North Carolina. By that time, events in North Carolina had swung the election to Mr. Trump. 

Intrigued? Yes me too.

And even more so after I read this: 

All of Anthony Weiner’s sleazy sexting prior to this had been done with girls and women over the age of sexual consent. The youngest among them was 17 years old. In order for a case to be created, there needed to be an “underage victim”. It seems evident that just such an operation was planned by Russia; to create a “victim”, to create a “criminal case”, to allow Weiner’s computers to be seized and for Nikulin to plant his emails via Formspring. 

According to the “breaking story” of September 21st, by Alana Goodman in the Daily Mail, this girl had begun to sext with Weiner in January 2016. Her original story is odd and convoluted in a number of respects. 

Firstly, the story is dated September 21st, but publishing dates on videos contained within the story appear to indicate that they were uploaded some six days earlier. 

Secondly, the story contains a report that Weiner “provided emails that he says proved he was the subject of a hoax” but the journalist does not tell us why Mr. Weiner said these emails proved this. 

Of course, there is the one sentence: “You got catfished by a dude.”

Mensch then goes into great deal to explain how the fifteen year old girl's letter was clearly not written by her, and details the involvement of a  North Carolina hacker group called "Crackas With Attitude."

When I first ran across this story on Twitter I had some real reservations about its authenticity. After all there really is a lot of fake news out there.

But then I read this: 

In the journalistic race to get to the bottom of one of the most closely guarded secrets in Washington – the investigation into the Trump team’s contacts with Moscow – one of the biggest scoops came from an unexpected source: the British former MP and novelist Louise Mensch.

On the eve of the November election, Mensch published a sensational story reporting that a special intelligence court in Washington had granted a warrant to allow the FBI to conduct surveillance of “US persons” in an investigation of possible contacts between Russian banks and the Trump organisation. 

At the time, the story did not cause much of a ripple. It was published on Heat Street, a libertarian-leaning website run by News Corp, and an unknown quantity in journalism. So was Mensch, whose recent public profile consisted mainly of a string of angry Twitter spats. 

Meanwhile, the combined investigative forces of the US media had spent months seeking to prove a secret connection between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin and had come up with very little. 

The online magazine Slate had published an article at the end of October about mysterious pings that had been detected between a Russian bank, Alfa, and a server connected to the Trump organisation, but the New York Times quoted FBI officials as saying they had looked into it and decided there “there could be an innocuous explanation” for the computer contacts.

Two months later, however, the BBC put out a story echoing Mensch’s original report about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court warrant issued in October to allow the justice department to look into transfers and communications between the Russian banks and Trump associate – and that US intelligence agencies were investigating the link.

So in other words this newcomer to journalism managed to scoop every other major media outlet in the world.

Currently she can be found providing commentary on MSNBC, and she has made herself a go to source on the Russian/Trump story.

So does that mean that we should automatically accept as factual everything she wrote about catfishing Anthony Weiner, and how it ties in with the Comey letter, over on Patriobots?

No of course not, we must always look at everything with heightened scrutiny.

But should she be dismissed as a quack who traffics in fake news stories?

No, she should not.