The Guardian: source for 35 page "dossier" is "consistently reliable, meticulous,

[pnwmom]

and well informed."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/10/fbi-chief-given-dossier-by-john-mccain-alleging-secret-trump-russia-contacts?CMP=share_btn_tw

Senator John McCain passed documents to the FBI director, James Comey, last month alleging secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow and that Russian intelligence had personally compromising material on the president-elect himself.

The material, which has been seen by the Guardian, is a series of reports on Trump’s relationship with Moscow. They were drawn up by a former western counter-intelligence official, now working as a private consultant.

The Guardian has not been able to confirm the veracity of the documents’ contents, and the Trump team has consistently denied any hidden contacts with the Russian government.

SNIP

An official in the US administration who spoke to the Guardian described the source who wrote the intelligence report as consistently reliable, meticulous and well-informed, with a reputation for having extensive Russian contacts.

Some of the reports – which are dated from 20 June to 20 October last year – also proved to be prescient, predicting events that happened after they were sent.

SNIP

[BainsBane]

1. So it's real

He cannot be allowed to become President.
Congress must impeach immediately and turn the presidency over to Pence.

[roamer65]

2. How much did Dense know?

Both of them may need removal from office.

[BainsBane]

3. We haven't seen anything

Indicating Pence knew. He's not particularly close to Trump.

[JI7]

7. Pence doesn't know anything. he is waiting/hoping Trump will be removed so he can become President

as he feels it's God's plan.

that's how pence rationalizes all of this. that it's part of God's plan .

but i feel at least with him we will have a more honest and clear debate. we know what his intentions are and the differences in issues .

it's not like Trump is doing anything to actually be more liberal than pence might.

[TheBlackAdder]

9. Pence coddles the foreign actors. At least Paul Ryan pretended to object to them at the last minute.

[JI7]

10. my point is he doesn't know more than what those with the highest access

to intelligence knows. i think he knows there is something with trump and russia but he isn't in on the details and isn't included in discussions with trump and other pro putin types if they have any.

but he is hoping there will come a point where trump is removed and he becomes president .

and he tells himself this is all part of god's plan to excuse his not doing anything right now.

[Dorian Gray]

15. I agree

I abhor what Pence stands for, but he's a politician who works within the natural world of politics. He will be honest about his goals, work within the established process, and it will be a fair fight.

As it should be.

Trump is chaos.

[NewJeffCT]

25. While I think Pence is probably more radical than Trump

Pence also has the charisma of a rotting fish. Trump has the smarmy con-man charisma that the media loves - he draws the ratings. Pence will kill the ratings and Republican chances in 2018 and 2020.

[izzybella]

27. I agree.

I have thought all along that Trump was the end of the Republican party, win or lose.

[KittyWampus]

19. He is not chaotic like Trump. He is "evil" but not chaotic.

[milestogo]

52. With all his conservative religion its a wonder

he can tolerate being associated with someone as smarmy as Trump. He's probably a total hypocrite.

[okasha]

49. Yes, they do.

But unless there is evidence that Pence is complicit, we must deal with them one at a time. There is no current path to remove Pence except by first removing Trump.

[politicat]

62. Keep an eye on the Indiana documents transparency case.

That case is looking like the kind of corruption that murdered Agnew's political life. And neither the IN Supreme Court nor the IN Dept of Justice seem interested in protecting Dense's butt.

[okasha]

63. Thank you. I will.

[triron]

57. I don't see how Pence

did not know. He would have to be pretty damn oblivious to not know.

[bettyellen]

4. Kick. And how many countries are they targeting now?

[Hekate]

6. From news I've seen: France, Germany, and today Sweden popped up. Holland also has a RWer politician

I've been saying forever that Russia Is Not Our Friend, and had numerous sharp exchanges here before a bunch of DUers departed after the Dem Convention and the new TOS for DU took hold. Some have returned, I believe, but are currently a bit subdued.

I'll say it again: Putin is no friend of ours, and Russia is no friend to democracy.

[calimary]

8. AMEN, Hekate!

Besides, the Guardian has been a tremendously reliable information source. They were almost the only major news outlet that got everything right on the Iraq War and bush/cheney. ALL the big guys on this side of the Atlantic fucked it up. HORRENDOUS, recklessly irresponsible, lazy, and disgustingly negligent "coverage" (and I use that word rather loosely) was the steady diet of processed, manipulated bullshit we were fed. They literally held NO ONE accountable and let bush/cheney get away with EVERYTHING.

Just for a fun exercise - imagine how carnivorous and unrelenting they'd have been if a Democrat had pulled that shit that bush/cheney did. Or better yet - if Hillary had done it! MAN they would have burned her at the stake at high noon in the middle of the Washington Mall, and then gathered up whatever was left, deposited it in the middle of Times Square and burned it all over again.

[pnwmom]

13. I learned to appreciate The Guardian when they were almost the only British

outlet that produced fair stories, as the rest of the British media went on its Amanda Knox witch-hunt.

[milestogo]

53. I really like the Guardian.

I am glad they are paying so much attention to this.

[DK504]

29. And as Andrea Mitchell vomited

out a severe attempt to discredit all the sources of group of intelligence agents She did her best to call out the reportS that are actively deemed verifiable and needed to be put in the AG's hands.

Andrea is more of a hack now than ever.

[calimary]

35. Seeing her last few appearances, last night and this morning since that news broke,

I'm wondering if I detect a little bit of sobering to her on-camera demeanor. She looked a wee bit shaken by what's transpired. She referred to it being either explosive or something like that. I forget the exact word she used. But it suggested this really is jarring news. I'm wondering if she now realizes how far down the garden path SHE HERSELF was WILLINGLY LED, jumping on and then carrying on about every little crumb of gossip about Hillary Clinton's emails. I wonder how much it's dawning upon her that she's been UTTERLY played? I even tweeted something along those lines to her Twitter page. She always seemed particularly ravenous about those email details. ANYTHING about those emails got her attention and coverage. You could tell, sometimes, that she was literally relishing this stuff. Thrilled she was in a position to pass all this along and talk about it and obsess on it (because, after all, it was her JOB to find and focus upon everything and anything that might hurt Hillary). Andrea Mitchell does not seem to be copping quite that same attitude at the moment.

Just an impression here. That was my immediate takeaway, even before her segment was over. It just kinda smacked me in the face.

[bettyellen]

28. And GB w Brexit! Totally right he knows white nationalist are ripe for exploitation

I also heard Canada! We need a master list!!

[grantcart]

5. Hmmmm

Wonder if this is part of the paback for interfering.

[Scurrilous]

11. K & R

[Warren DeMontague]

12. You know what makes the whole peeing story sound to me like slam-dunk truth?

It- getting off on watching hookers whizz on a bed because the Obamas had slept there- sounds exactly like the combination of weird, petty, creepy and vindictive which is emblematic of that dude's personality.

[babylonsister]

14. I totally agree; it so sounds like

dt to a tee, or pee...

[Dorian Gray]

16. absolutely

[politicat]

32. Yep, and the timeline fits.

In 2008, DJT was a lukewarm Clinton supporter, who eventually got his contributions returned to him. (That's an FEC filing; no indication if the Clinton campaign returned the money voluntarily or if it was a requested refund. Doesn't actually matter, but my bet is on the latter.) Ted Cruz made mention of this.

In 2009, he started the birther nonsense, which led to the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner and President Obama's roast. The footage from that shows a furious, humiliated, insulted DJT, because all of those people whose approval he wants were laughing at him.

Then... 2013, and the alleged incident.

For people not intimately acquainted with NPD or narcissism, this sounds like it's totally ludicrous and out of scale, not something a reasonable person would hold onto. But within the narcissists' mindsets, this is just how they roll. They nurse grudges, they commit symbolic acts of revenge, and they are deeply vindictive.

[Lucinda]

36. Yep. n/t

[calimary]

37. Seems entirely logical, if you just note his consistent past behavior.

He's widely recognized as longtime petty, thin-skinned, and vindictive. He's loved being surrounded by pretty young girls and that, too, is well-documented. Since the whole "grab 'em by the pussy" affair - wherein he stated when you're a celebrity, "they let you do it", coupled with complaints voiced by young former pageant contestants about how he'd walk into their mass dressing room while they were changing clothes, WHILE many of them were naked, and saying he owned the pageant so he could do this anytime he wanted. Plus all the smut and vulgarity he carried on about, ON THE AIR, with Howard Stern, during visit after visit to Stern's radio show. So the sexual pervert/predator aspect of his personality and well-cultivated public image is ALSO well-documented.

That's entirely plausible and believable, CONSIDERING HIS TRACK RECORD!!! Track record with this guy is EVERYTHING!!! Track record with this guy tells you everything, and shows you everything (because we can just cue the video - and there's lots of that, too).

[brer cat]

17. K&R

[KittyWampus]

18. Note- McCain is NOT the person who originally ordered/paid for the Oppo-Research.

And my understanding is this material is not from an intelligence agency... it's from an ex-British intel agent doing private work for a Republican candidate in their last primary.

[GliderGuider]

21. I just read that it was originally done for Jeb. nt

[KittyWampus]

22. Yup, I have to give credit to the DU'er who guessed JEB!

[Grey Lemercier]

20. "consistently reliable, meticulous" ...Then that person did not write this document

The document is so full of misspellings, basic grammatical errors, syntactic errors, semantic errors, and inconsistent use of mixed idiom (it wanders between US and British English) that it is basically impossible for me to have any faith that this was written by an ex (or current) British intelligence officer. I would posit it is written by someone for whom English is a second or even a third language.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html

I think it is a false flag limited hangout designed to preemptively inoculate Trump from actual real, future disclosures, and discredit the left who trumpet this document.

[KittyWampus]

23. Except now there is an Eastern European source being mentioned

And it's opposition research, not an actual intelligence dossier.

[Grey Lemercier]

24. I would definitely believe that it could be the work of an Eastern European, but why would

it include something (the allegation that Trump's top lawyer, Michael Cohen, serving as a liaison between Trump and the Kremlin, met with top Russian officials in Prague this past August) that is fairly easily disproven? Cohen responded to the claim on Twitter, posting that the story was "fake news," and that he'd "never been to Prague in my life."

[pnwmom]

30. He didn't say he'd never been in the Czech Republic. Maybe he went to a city

near Prague.

Or maybe the Russians helped him hide his travels.

[Lucinda]

38. Which I understand can be done quite easily if you come in from a different country

Someone mentioned how on twitter last night, but I didn't follow it up

[Calista241]

47. The implication of posting the picture of the passport was that he doesn't have

a Czech Republic stamp in it. And Priebus stated as much on TV this morning, that he examined the passport, and it didn't have a Czech stamp in it.

[pnwmom]

50. No VISA is required for a US citizen to travel to the Czech republic

for less than 90 days. So I'm not sure what "stamp" you are talking about.

I think Priebus is relying on our not being aware of the ease of travel within Europe now.

Also, I read somewhere that a US official said another Michael Cohen was involved -- not the one who tweeted out his passport cover.

There are 5 Michael Cohens who are attorneys in the NY/NJ area, plus another 5 elsewhere in the US, according to the NY Bar association site.

Depending on nationality, a visitor may not receive a stamp (unless specifically requested), such as an EU/EFTA citizen travelling to an EU or EFTA country. Most countries issue exit stamps in addition to entry stamps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_stamp

[Calista241]

58. I just got back from Belgium, another EU country, and i got both an entry stamp and an exit stamp.

Every time i've ever traveled to Europe, in a time spanning the last 10 years or so, I've ALWAYS gotten both entry and exit stamps. It's how they track when you entered the country and how long you've been there, for cops or other gov't enforcement that may not have immediate access to an immigration computer.

So yes, you do not need a visa to travel to the EU, but you still need a passport, and it's always stamped on both entry and exit, at least in my and everyone i know's experience.

The only real exception to this is travel to Israel. An Israeli stamp in your passport can result in your entry rejection and deportation from other middle eastern countries, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and others. Most people i know that travel to both Israel and other middle eastern countries have two passports for this reason.

Now he could have bribed someone to not stamp his passport, or the law enforcement officer in the booth that day may have neglected to stamp his entry, but I don't think either of those situations is likely. He also could have flown a private jet into a private airport, and somehow skipped immigration that way, but that type of travel could be easily discovered through flight plan analysis, etc.

[pnwmom]

59. I've talked to people with the opposite recent experience, which is why

I looked it up on Wikipedia. Have you ever traveled to the Czech Republic?

From a discussion board on Fodors (a discussion from people who WANT to get stamped)

http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/where-to-get-passport-stamped.cfm

I know the Czech Republic does not have checkpoints for stamping passports, but we would like to have ours stamped as a memento. Where can we have this done?

You can't. I'd love to have a stamp from Vienna too, but looks like I'll only be stamped by Roissy on the way in and Schiphol on the way out, if at all.

As you are crossing internal Schengen borders, there is no routine passport check and no stamp, whether you travel by air, road or by train. There are occasional spot checks on international trains - but officials don't stamp passports, and are on the lookout for illegals, contrabands etc, so often only certain passengers are asked for their passports/IDs or to open their luggage.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/transportation/passport-stamp-issues

My daughter and I traveled in: Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Germany for 8 weeks. Our passports only have stamps in and out of Holland.

[Grey Lemercier]

26. I see where a head of an Eastern European intelligence agency said that the Russians had

(they were non-specific) compromising information on Trump, but that same article ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028458765 ) continues to say the actual leaked report was done by a British agent. Actual dossier or not, there is simply no way that a fellow Brit (and especially someone who is ex or current British intelligence) wrote that document. Too many errors, too much misuse of idiom, and too many inaccuracies.

[pnwmom]

31. I wonder why the Guardian didn't point this out. nt

[Grey Lemercier]

33. "The Guardian has not been able to confirm the veracity of the documents contents"

The material, which has been seen by the Guardian, is a series of reports on Trump’s relationship with Moscow. They were drawn up by a former western counter-intelligence official, now working as a private consultant. BuzzFeed on Tuesday published the documents, which it said were “unverified and potentially unverifiable”.

The Guardian has not been able to confirm the veracity of the documents’ contents.......

Also, the OP title is tad misleading

the Guardian itself did not say the source for 35 page "dossier" is "consistently reliable, meticulous"

that was a quote the publish from an unnamed US source

An official in the US administration who spoke to the Guardian described the source who wrote the intelligence report as consistently reliable, meticulous and well-informed, with a reputation for having extensive Russian contacts.

An ex British intelligence agent would never so sloppily misname call the Alfa Bank the "Alpha Group"

also

the report mentions the World Cup soccer tournament

we never use soccer, it is football

and (as the Guardian did in in this very article) we do not add soccer or even football to the WC

it is simply a given that the World Cup is the football World Cup

just like Americans never call the Super Bowl the "American Football Super Bowl"

here is the Guardian:

It claims that Trump had declined “various sweetener real estate deals offered him in Russia” especially in developments linked to the 2018 World Cup finals but that....

Read the report, it is horrifically written, no MI6 or MI5 agent (or any other British intelligence person) would write in such a sloppy, error-ridden manner:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html

[pnwmom]

39. Why do you think the Guardian didn't report

that no M16 or 15 agent would have written in that manner?

[pnwmom]

45. He's been identified now as a certain retired British agent who is in fear for his life.

Up till the CNN report, his nationality had never been identified -- and he didn't want people to know, because then it was simple to identify him.

I wonder if he deliberately made some of the errors you cited (in language use) in an effort to disguise his nationality.

[Grey Lemercier]

46. I do not know, I am definitely taking a wait and see approach on the whole thing

I certainly am not going to risk my integrity and reputation with my real life friends, family, and my employees on the golden shower angle. There are so many more concrete things to attack Trump on, including the actually verifiable Russian connections. If we fall for the bait and conflate the piss sex shite and other dodgy things together with the real Russian influence story we run the huge risk of giving Trump an instant out (he will scream fake news) if more valid evidence turns up.

[pnwmom]

60. I couldn't care less about the sex stuff. But the same "dossier"

includes allegations that Russia passed money to people connected with DT. That's the big question. And whether our intelligence agencies are following through on an investigation into Russian banks. (That they supposedly got FISA court approval for.)

[Grey Lemercier]

61. I hope they go after it hard. Trump is a fucking traitorous Russian puppet.

He is truly an imminent real and present danger to the globe.

[okasha]

55. I note that the BBC, among others,

arre not saying that a British ex-agent wrote the report. They're saying he compiled or produced it, which are very different things.

The most important thing is that there are other sources which substantiate this report.

[Generator]

41. Nope!

http://www.wsj.com/articles/christopher-steele-ex-british-intelligence-officer-said-to-have-prepared-dossier-on-trump-1484162553

You are saying this is propaganda "false flag" that is in Alex Jones language. Your vehemence is another clue in wanting this to be false. I don't know for a fact but I don't know who you are. Are you ex M16? How do you know what they would write like?

His name is Christopher Steele. Works for Orbis Business Intelligence LTD.

[Grey Lemercier]

42. Christopher Steele maybe did work up a dossier, but I am sceptical he wrote that exact Buzzfeed

document. If he did, his product is shoddy in its very presentation and basic fact-checking. I mean, come on, mislabeling Alfa Bank as Alpha Group? Mischaracterising Barvikha? As a fellow Brit calling the WC a soccer tournament? Let alone the horrid grammar, punctuation and misuse of words?

I think this whole thing partially reeks of a trap, wherein you tie legit, damaging info to either potentially demonstrably false allegations (ie. the "Cohen in Prague" charge, which can be easily disproven, we shall see if it is) or sensationalist charges (golden shower hookers) in order to inoculate Trump and the rest of the ratfuckers from actually illegal and/or treasonous actions. It also can serve to reinforce the fear of going after Trump that he surely wishes to project onto us, the left, and onto the press.

I am a very rational, detail-oriented person. Perhaps it is a weakness of mine (and many of us on the left in general) that we are so demanding of facts and systemic verification of charges. I wish I could just take part in passing on pro Democratic Party fake news (especially if key parts of this are shown indeed to be false) like the RW scum do, but I am just not, by nature, capable of this.

here is a much more in detail post from another member about this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8458457


Btw, false flag as a term for a ruse de guerre has existed for centuries before that insane piece of shite Alex Jones waddled onto the scene.

[Generator]

43. Interesting thanks for answering

I was aware of the false flag being used for centuries of course-just in today's lingo-it raises my hackles.
The British usage doesn't bother me as much because as I understand it was written for Americans. The alpha group/Cohen thing are somewhat questionable I agree. It wasn't written for the British government or American of course, but for private sources as I understand it. Sloppy work or false info? We shall see.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028458457
cyclonefence said this:
"This "report" is not an official intelligence document. It was written, under contract, by a retired British intelligence agent who was hired first by Republicans opposed to Trump (I have read that it was John McCain who gave the report to the FBI), then by Democratic operatives, so it doesn't matter that it does not conform to standard regulations.

Democrats were picking at Comey all day long to get him to reveal that he has this report, and he refused to acknowledge that he has this (unspecified) information because the usual ongoing investigation shit. If it were clearly a fake, I don't think he would hesitate to denounce it as such. What better way to be rid of these allegations once and for all?

The report itself isn't a leaked document. It was written to tell the story, so of course background material, etc., is present that you wouldn't find in an official document. The report is a document that was leaked; it was composed under contract, not leaked to the people who paid for it. Some one or more of those people leaked it."

On that thread you mentioned-I hadn't read it all last night just now-that's the point I'm making. Thanks to cyclonefence!

[Grey Lemercier]

44. I do hope Trump goes down in a giant fireball that takes much of the huge

advantage that the Rethugs have acrued over the last 20 years at municipal, state, and federal levels. Hopefully we can find further sources to aid in this.

I am watching MSNBC as we speak and they are saying exactly what I said, what I fear. They are saying that if just one part of the document is disproven, the whole thing goes down the tubes, and gives the Shitgibbon a huge hammer to smash down legit new findings by labeling them as fake news. He did that once before by preemptively tossing out the rigged election meme. He is a fucking snake.

[pnwmom]

51. He didn't want to be identified as British, because that fact alone

made it very easy to find him, and now he's gone into hiding.

A very smart intelligence agent who didn't want to be identified as British might have deliberately made some of the errors that you're finding so suspicious -- to throw people off his scent.

[Generator]

34. Traitor to America

This is a coup people. How do coups end? Who is going to get him out of there when he is installed? HE USED Hitler speak "the greatest movement in history".

[Orsino]

40. Everything Trump is not. n/t

[Dem2]

48. These things take time

I recommend spreading the "jokes" far and wide on your social media. If people laugh, then it makes him seem like a joke. I've had 2 Republicans laugh at anti-Trump stuff this week alone. Once he's a joke, well, narcissists can't live with that thought.

[VOX]

54. Hand-picked from Jerry Falwell, Jr.'s personal collection

From Wikipedia, as he deserves nothing better:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell_Jr.
"...Falwell Jr. called Trump "America's blue collar billionaire" and "one of the greatest visionaries of our time" in his endorsement of the candidate he felt most likely to defend the "right to bear arms," "stop Iran...from becoming a nuclear power," and "appoint conservative pro-life justices to the Supreme Court." In an August 19, 2016 editorial in the Washington Post, Falwell compared Trump to Winston Churchill: "We need a leader with qualities that resemble those of Winston Churchill, and I believe that leader is Donald Trump."

[LaydeeBug]

56. this will deflate, as everything does, because our press is not OURS. nt