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[misko27]

Oh i almost missed the best bit. The Health and Human Services Secretary's spokeperson wrote:

“Dr. Fitzgerald owns certain complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as the CDC Director,” the statement said. “Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period.”

Which is the most weasel-worded thing ever. So the entire health administration is covering for her here.

"Complex financial interests" ... ? She bought shares in a company named "Japan Tobacco". This is not a situation where she had some investments and there was some subsidiary she didn't know about, who made cigarettes. It's right there in the name of what she bought.

"Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period" ... ? She bought them after getting the CDC job. And they're shares - you can buy or sell them whenever you want. What are they trying to say? That she couldn't divest herself of them until the price had gone up, because she wanted to make a profit?

The thing is she already owned shares in Tobacco companies before she became CDC director, which was a thing she was supposed to be divesting from. The fact that she bought more after she took the job, among other sins, indicates that the divestment wasn't really happening. Politico, which broke the news on her Tobacco share purchase, said the following:

Fitzgerald came to the job with a large, complicated stock portfolio that included hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments. She had stock in five other tobacco companies including Reynolds American, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, Philip Morris International and Altria Group, Inc., as well as a number of pharmaceutical stocks which she subsequently sold as part of her ethics agreement.

But the stock in Japan Tobacco was one of about a dozen new investments she made in the months after taking the helm of the agency, according to documents obtained by POLITICO. The purchase drew scrutiny from public health experts who said it goes against the mission of her agency and posed potential legal as well as ethical conflicts. She sold the tobacco stock at the end of October.

You must understand, it's not just stupid and corrupt, it's multi-layered stupid and corrupt.

[smjjames]

So, Trump has now authorized the release of the memo thingy... Just a waiting period before the memo is actually available.

[Frumple]

Huh. Wonder if it's still in the state that makes it a federal felony to distribute. Of all the mess related to it, that's probably the bit I'm most immediately curious about.

[smjjames]

Technically, if the President authorizes it, it's been declassified. If it was leaked BEFORE it was authorized for release, that would be a felony.

It was supposed to have been given redactions by the FBI, DOJ and other relevantly concerned agencies, so, the bits that would otherwise make it a felony shouldn't be an issue.

Given how it's being effectively rushed out the door, I wouldn't be surprised if some things that were perhaps supposed to be redacted, didn't get redacted. Also wondering how coherent it's going to be since the most important information could very well be in the redacted stuff.

The memo is now out: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180129/106822/HMTG-115-IG00-20180129-SD001.pdf

edit: Page seems to have crashed, but Axios has a loadout available: https://www.axios.com/read-nunes-memo-fbi-doj-fisa-mueller-7fb8bcb7-1f18-4294-aa95-628d2f67bcdf.html

[Frumple]

I'm actually fairly sure that first bit is untrue, smj. Like, maybe the potus could declassify but the problem is that doesn't come bundled into releasing the memo, or just anything the shit feels like doing, nor does the president doing the latter necessarily protect anyone else who happens to distribute the thing.

Maybe someone actually convinced 45 and co. to not be raging dumbfucks about it, but, uh. Previous actions lend doubt towards that proposition. Less doubt that nothing might happen due to the GOP having decided the rule of law is actually some kind of fancy fleshlight to be fornicated instead of respected, but still.

E: Though a quick check does suggest maybe. Doesn't seem to correct many/any of the other problems with the thing, but I guess that would be expecting a modicum of decency or competence from the direction of fucking nunes, and gods know that's expecting too much at this point.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, the President has unlimited declassification authority. The only real questions are if the President's power has to be declared or is ipso facto even in the case of say, Trump accidentally leaving the Humanzee Hybrid blacksite documents attached to a public announcement.

In fact, the whole of American secrets classification exists with a keystone in the form of Executive Order 12356, which theoretically any President could reascend at will and in doing so immediately declassify all data held by the United States. (This was an excellent impact story, back in my debate days.)

[Frumple]

Though hey, we do finally have a president sufficiently screwed in the head the chances of it not just being an impact story in the next few years is higher than they've ever been.

[PTTG??]

Looking forward to the shadow war between the intel agencies.

[Gizogin]

I read through the entire thing, and it is mostly a tirade against the Steele dossier. It only ties to Page because the FISA application cites the Steele dossier, among other things. It is very clear from reading that the full picture is not being provided; you can’t expect me or anyone else to believe that a FISA application cited an uncorroborated dossier, a Yahoo News article, and a couple of texts. Either the dossier has corroboration, or more sound stuff was cited.

The easiest counter to this is the FBI releasing the number of pages the FISA application was.

I came here to say basically this. The main thrust of the memo is that the FISA application was critically dependent on the Steele dossier, that Christopher Steele had ties to the DNC that were not disclosed in the application or renewals, and that, therefore, the FBI and DOJ were trying to abuse the FISA system to get dirt on the Trump campaign for partisan reasons.

They're not even saying that anything in the application was false or misleading. The best they can do is to state that Steele discussed certain details with Yahoo News, and therefore the aforementioned article shouldn't have been presented as corroborative. They can't attack the actual content of the application, so instead they're focusing on one piece of evidence that was cited and doing their best to paint its author as biased against Trump's campaign.

It's just a complete waste of ink.

[Gentlefish]

I'm not even sure what's happening here, but I figured I should post to watch what's happening in my country.

[EnigmaticHat]

I read through the entire thing, and it is mostly a tirade against the Steele dossier. It only ties to Page because the FISA application cites the Steele dossier, among other things. It is very clear from reading that the full picture is not being provided; you can’t expect me or anyone else to believe that a FISA application cited an uncorroborated dossier, a Yahoo News article, and a couple of texts. Either the dossier has corroboration, or more sound stuff was cited.

The easiest counter to this is the FBI releasing the number of pages the FISA application was.

I came here to say basically this. The main thrust of the memo is that the FISA application was critically dependent on the Steele dossier, that Christopher Steele had ties to the DNC that were not disclosed in the application or renewals, and that, therefore, the FBI and DOJ were trying to abuse the FISA system to get dirt on the Trump campaign for partisan reasons.

They're not even saying that anything in the application was false or misleading. The best they can do is to state that Steele discussed certain details with Yahoo News, and therefore the aforementioned article shouldn't have been presented as corroborative. They can't attack the actual content of the application, so instead they're focusing on one piece of evidence that was cited and doing their best to paint its author as biased against Trump's campaign.

It's just a complete waste of ink.

So they whine to the congressional committee with the Republican at its head.  People don't like it when the WH interferes with investigations.  Oooh, I know, let's get congress to do it.

This truly is the most incompetent administration ever.  One of the bullet points on Mueller's legal case against Trump is going to be "intent to interfere with ongoing investigations e. g. by firing James Comey."  This memo not only was useless, it can be presented as evidence by Mueller to demonstrate Trump's intent.  And then he can ask Trump, "were you aware of this memo being sent?"  And since there's been at least one dude in the White House wearing a wire, and Trump doesn't have a very good memory, he won't know how to answer that question.  Nothing about this memo is illegal but it was still foolish to send it.

[Doomblade187]

Annotated WaPo copy: here

[hector13]

Ah... wasn't the Steel dossier commissioned by the Republicans during their primary, and when Trump was nominated they backed off on it and then the Dems picked up the tab?

[Doomblade187]

Ah... wasn't the Steel dossier commissioned by the Republicans during their primary, and when Trump was nominated they backed off on it and then the Dems picked up the tab?

Yes.

[PTTG??]

Here's the problem with all this.

Politically aware people know that the Trump administration is an incompentent abomination, with some feeling this is good because they believe they can manipulate it, and some feeling this is bad because it's weakening the USA and hurting Americans.

This dossier is not aimed at politically aware people, and doesn't change their minds at all.

Rather, the dossier is aimed at convincing politically ignorant people that Trump is fighting against the "deep state." The more criticism and opposition from the democrats, the better; that just marks them as allies of the Deep State.