Donald Trump issues memorandum to ban most transgender soldiers.

Courtesy of Politico:  

President Donald Trump on Friday issued orders to ban transgender troops who require surgery or significant medical treatment from serving in the military except in select cases — following through on a controversial pledge last year that has been under review by the Pentagon and is being fought out in the courts. 

The memorandum, which drew swift condemnation from gender rights groups, states that while the secretary of defense and other executive branch officials will have some latitude in implementing the policy, “persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria — including individuals who the policies state may require substantial medical treatment, including medications and surgery — are disqualified from military service except under limited circumstances.” 

The memo also said that Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, “in the exercise of his independent judgment, has concluded [the policies] should be adopted by the Department of Defense.” It added that “the Secretary of Homeland Security concurs with these policies with respect to the U.S. Coast Guard,” which would also be affected by the policy. 

The decision comes after a number of top military officials over the past year-- including most members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- have gone out of their way to defend the thousands of transgender troops who are believed to be serving in the military.

Remember there is a tweet for everything. 

I somehow doubt that too many LGBTQ folks were fooled by this, but if there were some, don't you feel silly now?

Personally I think that Trump is simply using this as another diversion to keep us from talking about that huge omnibus bill he signed yesterday and that Stormy Daniels 60 Minutes interview tomorrow.

Trump is the kind of guy who would poison the family dog to keep his parents from finding out that he stayed out past curfew.

I seriously doubt that this memo will have any real impact, and fully intend to pay attention to all of the things that it was designed to distract me from.

So yesterday the memo from the House Intelligence Committee Democrats was finally released, and yes it essentially refutes every false claim made in the Republican memo.

The Democratic memo is out. It claims that the Nunes memo was a “transparent effort to undermine” DOJ and FBI and special counsel’s probe. https://t.co/ozrui1yKii pic.twitter.com/JzzuNHiqMq

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 24, 2018

So here is the pdf of the memo if you want to read it for yourself.

But here is what we have essentially learned:

• Steele Dossier played NO role in opening the Carter Page investigation. They began their investigation prior to even receiving it. 
• The DOJ did in fact inform the court of the origin of the Steele Dossier. 
• They accuse Nunes of deliberately misrepresenting the underlying FISA Warrant intelligence. 
• Four different judge's approved FISA warrants including judge's appointed by Bush and Reagan. Multiple DOJ officials also approved the applications prior to the court even seeing them including Trump appointees Rosenstein and Boente. 
• They actually started listening to Page after he left Trump campaign so the idea they were watching him to spy on Trump is absurd. 
• Page has a long history with Russia going back to 2004 and was being actively investigated once before already in 2013. The FBI had even interviewed him in 2016 again prior to receiving the Steele Dossier. The Steele dossier was referenced in the application as corroboration of certain things, and not to independently demonstrate. 
• A bunch of blacked out additional evidence with a bit in the middle noting Page lied to the HIC in his testimony in 2017 about meeting with Russian officials. 
• It included the footnote that discusses the Steele dossier source which SPECIFICALLY STATES ..."The FBI speculates the the unidentified U.S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign." Candidate 1 is Trump I believe, edit I previously thought Person 1 was Steele, this is the person coordinating with Steele. Steele is Source #1. 
• DOJ timely informed the court when the FBI fired Steele and why. 
• The attacks on Bruce Ohr for knowing Steele/and his wife working for Fusion GPS are 100% baseless. He was not involved in the FISA process and disclosed his relationships in November 2016. 

Basically Nunes and Gowdy lied whole cloth that the FISA warrant was primarily based on a news article and the Steele Dossier. Those were in fact the least used and most minor pieces of evidence and they picked them out specifically for that reason to discredit the investigation and lied about their use.

That last part I think we all essentially recognized from the get go.

Nunes is either a Russian agent himself, or somehow compromised, and Gowdy is just a conspiracy theory chasing POS.

Here were the final few paragraphs from the New York Times write up on this memo: 

The wiretap of Mr. Page generated useful intelligence. 

When the Justice Department repeatedly sought the court’s permission to renew the surveillance of Mr. Page, the Democratic memo said, it cited new information it was gathering through the wiretap. 

“The court-approved surveillance of Page allowed F.B.I. to collect valuable intelligence,” the Democratic memo said. It asserted that the repeated renewals “demonstrate that the F.B.I. collected important investigative information and leads by conducting court-approved surveillance.” 

What that intelligence was, however, was redacted.

The memo released by the Republicans of course suggested that the FISA warrants issued on Carter Page were illegal and unnecessary, and this memo completely refutes that argument.

What's more is that when Mueller releases his report on all of this, we are likely going to know what was learned through these warrants.

That means the House Republicans were counting on their memo derailing an investigation that they had to know would ultimately prove that they were running interference for Donald Trump.

Speaking of Donald Trump he was all over Twitter yesterday trying to refute the findings in this memo.

Mostly he was posting snippets from his insane conversation with Jeanine Pirro. But there were other attempts to discredit the memo as well,

Here was one such attempt being refuted in real time:

Holy moly. The @FoxNews anchor said "Congressman Schiff, he ARGUES the REPUBLICAN memo omitted and distorted key facts." Trump just deleted 5 words from the quote to allege the opposite meaning. https://t.co/UlSQUcc0bD

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 25, 2018

I think that kind of sums up Trump's pathetic attempts to save his ass.

There is another Devin Nunes' memo coming, and this one attacks the State Department.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

As Democrats and Republicans continue brawling over the Russia probe, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is gearing up to release a second memo as part of his investigation into perceived bias within the FBI and Department of Justice. 

Nunes's much-hyped first memo, which was declassified last week, purports to show the FBI and DOJ abusing their surveillance authority by omitting "material and relevant" facts when submitting an application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page, a former adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign. 

Much of the Republican document also questioned the FBI's decision to use the Steele dossier — an explosive collection of memos by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele alleging collusion between Trump and Russia — as a "roadmap" in the Russia investigation. 

Nunes's next memo, meanwhile, will focus on alleged abuses at the Department of State and a second Trump-Russia dossier compiled by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist with close ties to the Clinton family, according to a Republican familiar with the details. 

Apparently Trump, and his attack poodle Nunes, will not be happy until they have undermined every government law enforcement or intelligence agency in the country.

The first memo by Nunes landed with a thud, and it is likely that this one will be just as pathetic.

Of course that doesn't mean Sean Hannity will not treat it like a smoking gun, and that Right Wing media will not go apoplectic over it. Because they will.

Already one of Nunes' newest allegations has failed the smell test.

Here is a Nunes' quote courtesy of WaPo: 

“The truth is that they [Democrats] are covering up that Hillary Clinton colluded with the Russians to get dirt on Trump to feed it to the FBI to open up an investigation into the other campaign.” —Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Feb. 7, 2018

The Post's fact checkers went to town on that statement, and this is what they ultimately came away with:   

Was the dossier used to gin up media attention to Russia-Trump ties and bolster an existing FBI investigation? Perhaps. That’s certainly a question worth exploring. 

But the media needed little prodding to investigate when candidate Trump appeared unexpectedly solicitous of Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russian-linked entities leaked emails stolen by Russian hackers in the middle of a campaign. Meanwhile, the initial FBI counterintelligence probe was prompted not by Steele’s reporting but by the loose lips of a Trump campaign staffer. 

Finally, there is no evidence that Clinton was involved in Steele’s reports or worked with Russian entities to feed information to Steele. That’s where Nunes’s claim goes off the rails — and why he earns Four Pinocchios.

But those are facts, and facts have no impact on the Republican bubble, so this next memo is almost certainly going to cause yet another Right Wing freakout that will dominate conservative news outlets for several days. 

And all of this is clearly designed to undermine and ultimately foil the Robert Mueller investigation.

Donald Trump blocks the release of the Democrats memo, which rebuts much of what is in the Nunes' memo, over "security concerns."

This memo shall not pass.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

President Trump on Friday blocked the release of a classified Democratic memo rebutting Republican claims that top federal law enforcement officials had abused their powers in spying on a former Trump campaign aide, a move that Democrats denounced as politically motivated hypocrisy. 

Last week, the president moved quickly, over the objections of the Justice Department and the F.B.I., to declassify the contents of a rival Republican memo drafted by House Intelligence Committee staff members. He claimed, incorrectly, that the Republican memo had vindicated him in the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference. 

But Donald F. McGahn II, the president’s lawyer, said in a letter to the committee on Friday night that the Democratic memo could not be released because it “contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages.” He said the president would again consider making the memo public if the committee, which had approved its release on Monday, revised it to “mitigate the risks.”

Apparently McGahn used a memo supposedly written by FBI Director Christopher Wray and Rod Rosenstein, which suggested that portions of the memo included some sensitive data, to justify Trump's decision to block it.

It should be noted that both Wray and Rosenstein aggressively attempted to stop the release of the Nunes' memo and that did not even slow Trump down.

Obviously the real reason that Trump is keeping this under wraps is because it would further undermine the validity of the first memo, which Trump has convinced himself vindicates him.

This has nothing to do with national security, and everything to do with Trump's desperate need to convince himself that he is not in any legal jeopardy.

House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously to release Democratic rebuttal memo.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously on Monday to make public a classified Democratic memorandum rebutting Republican claims that the F.B.I. and the Justice Department had abused their powers to wiretap a former Trump campaign official, setting up a possible clash with President Trump. 

The vote gives Mr. Trump five days to review the Democratic memo and determine whether he will try to block its release. A decision to stop it could lead to an ugly standoff between the president, his top law enforcement and intelligence advisers and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

I like this line:  "The vote gives Mr. Trump five days to review the Democratic memo and determine whether he will try to block its release."

Please, we KNOW he is going to try to block it because it will undercut his mythology about the Nunes memo vindicating him. 

However I am not really convinced that this memo needs to be released.

After all the Nunes memo was essentially its own rebuttal, as it did not deliver ANY of the things that Trump and his acolytes claimed that it would deliver. 

Either the Democratic memo will serve to drive a final stake through the heart of the Republican attempts to vilify the FBI and Justice Department, or it will serve as a distraction while the Republicans regroup and launch their attack from another direction.

Remember the goal here is to keep Donald Trump in office for as long as possible, and the Republicans have already demonstrated that there are no ethical or moral barriers that will keep them from that objective.

Weren't impressed by that last memo? Well Devin Nunes has at least five more he is going to release so there!

No I was just kidding. This next memo, THAT'S going to be the juicy one.

Courtesy of Axios:

"The memo" — which pitted the Justice Department against the White House and brought ugly partisan sniping into stark relief — is only the beginning. Republican sources close to Devin Nunes tell me he's assured them there's much more to come. 

The House Intelligence chair and his team have told members and associates they've found other examples of politically motivated "wrongdoing" across various agencies, including the FBI, the broader Justice Department, and the State Department. 

What we're hearing: Republicans close to Nunes say there could be as many as five additional memos or reports of "wrongdoing." But a source on the House Intelligence Committee tells me there's no current plan to use the same extraordinary and highly controversial process they just went through, with a vote and ultimately a presidential approval to declassify sensitive information. 

A Republican member briefed on Nunes' investigations told me: "There are several areas of concern where federal agencies used government resources to try to create a narrative and influence the election. Some have suggested coordination with Hillary Clinton operatives, [Sidney] Blumenthal and [Cody] Shearer, to back up the false narrative."

Yes let's all assume that this first memo was just an opening salvo that all the REALLY troubling stuff will be in the fourth or fifth memo that he sends out to the news agencies.

You know, because that makes all kinds of sense.

I think that Devin Nunes is currently the most pathetic and desperate character in Washington DC, well aside from Donald Trump himself that is.

I cannot imagine that anybody, except perhaps Sean Hannity and the folks at Fox and Friends, would even bother to report on any additional memos of disappointment from this idiot.

What a shit show.

The Republican's conspiracy theory about FBI agent Peter Strzok seems to have run aground.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

For weeks, Republicans have been obsessed with FBI agent Peter Strzok, suggesting that he was part of a cabal inside the agency who sought to rig the 2016 presidential election for Hillary Clinton. To support this theory, the GOP has seized upon texts between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page that were sometimes critical of Trump. (Strzok and Page were having an affair.) 

Last week, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) suggested that Strzok and Page formed a “secret society” to undermine the Trump campaign. “What this is all about is further evidence of corruption — more than bias — but corruption of the highest levels of the FBI… There is so much smoke here,” Johnson said. 

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump accused Strzok of “treason.” If you watch Fox News, the supposed anti-Trump bias of Strzok is discussed daily, if not hourly. 

But on Wednesday, CNN reported that Strzok supported reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation days before the election — and wrote the first draft of the letter from former FBI Director James Comey that made the decision public. 

"Strzok, who co-wrote what appears to be the first draft that formed the basis of the letter Comey sent to Congress, also supported reopening the Clinton investigation once the emails were discovered on disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop, according to a source familiar with Strzok’s thinking. The day after Strzok sent his draft to his colleagues, Comey released the letter to Congress, reigniting the email controversy in the final days of the campaign."

The letter drafted by Strzok played a key role in swinging momentum back to Trump in the closing days of the campaign. 

That letter is credited with essentially handing the 2016 election to Donald Trump.

So if Strzok was actually playing for "Team Hillary" why the fuck would he sabotage her chances at victory? 

We Democrats should be the ones calling for this guy's head on a platter, but due to a few private emails with his girlfriend, it's the Republicans who are stabbing their savior in the back.