"Despite acknowledging dossier allegations as being salacious and unverified, former FBI Director James Comey briefed those allegations to President Obama and President-elect Trump. Those briefings conveniently leaked to the press, resulting in the publication of the dossier and launching thousands of false press stories based on the word of a foreign ex-spy, one who admitted he was desperate that Trump lose the election and who was eventually fired as an FBI source for leaking to the press.
"And the entire investigation was open based not on Five Eyes intelligence, but on a tip from a foreign politician about a conversation involving Joseph Mifsud. He's a Maltese diplomat who's widely portrayed as a Russian agent, but seems to have for more connections with Western governments, including our own FBI and our own State Department, than with Russia."
Mueller admitted that though Mifsud lied to the FBI he never charged him as he had others. When Nunes pointed out to Mueller that Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business associate, whom Mueller's report identifies as having ties to Russian intelligence, was actually a U.S. State Department asset, Mueller refused to comment saying he was "loath" to get into it.
This Schiff Has Sailed
The chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff (D-CA) used the word "lies" 19 times in his opening statement, which contained at least that many.
The central one was this:
"Your investigation determined that the Trump campaign, including Donald Trump himself, knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling into their strategy and used it.
"Disloyalty to country. Those are strong words, but how else are we to describe a presidential campaign which did not inform the authorities of a foreign offer of dirt on their opponent, which did not publicly shun it or turn it away, but which instead invited it, encouraged it and made full use of it?"
Schiff reluctantly admitted that no Trump conspiracy with Russia was uncovered, but said the "crime" of disloyalty was even worse.
"Disloyalty to country violates the very oath of citizenship, our devotion to a core principle on which our nation was founded that we, the people and not some foreign power that wishes us ill, we decide who governs us," said Schiff.
It was pure fantasy.
Mueller should have taken a pass on that one too.
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