It would be really helpful if you would link to an article you discuss,so that we could read it for ourselves.As it is,I don't know the gist of what you're posting here.I do know that the Australian Govt alerted the FBI,after the hacked emails began to appear and they felt the FBI needed to know what Papadopoulos had revealed to Downer 3 weeks earlier...
But here is what you need to know.The FBI focussed their investigation on 3 people-Pap,Page and Manafort,because these were the 3 people known to have questionable ties to Russia and Putin.And the investigation was launched in response to a number of moves that alarmed people within the Intelligence Community.
None of this occurred in a vacuum,and it wasn't (like you seemingly want to maintain) a case of the FBI just deciding to pick on poor trumpie.He (for whatever reason) chose to surround himself with questionable people who had repeatedly drawn (negative) attention from the FBI and Intelligence Community.
In March 2016,Team Trump for inexplicable reasons chose to announce the addition of Manafort and Page to the campaign staff.Remember,Trump is the man who called for "extreme vetting",yet he doesn't seem to have applied that to his own hires...
"Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was interviewed by the FBI twice while he was
working as a political consultant for a Ukrainian political party — several years before he was named a top adviser to Donald Trump, newly filed court documents revealed.
The documents filed late Monday by prosecutors in the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, show that the FBI had interviewed Manafort in March 2013 and again in July 2014. Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, who also held a top role with Trump’s campaign, was interviewed by the FBI in July 2014, the documents show.
The information raises fresh questions about how closely the Trump campaign vetted staff members and whether Manafort and Gates told officials about their interactions with the FBI."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...90efaf1f1ee_story.html?utm_term=.854822e209cc
The Post is being kind to Manafort here.The truth is he worked for a despot who raped the Ukraine to the tune of Millions as head of a pro-Putin puppet govt established by pro Russian separatists with backing from the Kremlin.
It was a NYT report in Aug 2016 that detailed the fact that Manafort made $12 Million working with Yanukovych that eventually led to Manafort resigning.And to tie in the Steele investigation here,it was a report from Steele on Aug 22,that discussed an Aug 15 meeting between Putin and Yanukovych,where the latter assured Putin there was no paper trail linking him and Manafort together... Oops...
Why is this significant? Because the reason the BO Admin levied sanctions vs Russia was in response to Putin's actions in Ukraine,which Manafort profited immensely off of.And the sanctions the US levied were directed at the Russian Energy sector,which brings us to the 2nd questionable hire from March 2016-Carter Page...Again from the April 24 WAPO article linked above...
"In all, three Trump associates are known to have been interviewed by the FBI about their interactions with people from the former Soviet Union
before joining the Trump campaign.
The FBI also interviewed campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page about his interactions with a man the FBI alleged was a Russian intelligence agent. The interviews occurred
in 2013 and in March 2016 — the same month Page was named a volunteer adviser to Trump’s campaign.
Page has said that he did nothing wrong and that he assisted the FBI in its investigation of a New York-based Russian spy ring."
The problem with Page's claim that he "assisted" the FBI,is that he was NOT the person who reported the contact.The truth is the agents were overheard discussing him,and he was either complicit (like the Russians claimed) or remarkably naive.The FBI gave him the benefit of the doubt and he was allowed to escape prosecution by providing "assistance",but there is no indication he would ever have turned the agents in on his own.
And the fact that the FBI re-interviewed him in March 2016 is a result of the fact that he remained outspoken in his opposition to the sanctions.Again a key takeaway here is the fact that the sanctions were levied against ENERGY concerns-which was Page's bread and butter.
As a shareholder in several Russian Energy concerns Page stood to profit personally from a lifting of the sanctions.So in March 2016 the Trump Campaign hired 2 seperate people with vested interest in the Ukraine,who likely stood to profit if sanctions vs Russia were lifted.This in addition to Trump's fixer Cohen who had made a small personal fortune thru business interests in the Ukraine as well.
More coincidences? How about Trump's attacks on NATO in March 2016,which frightened not only US Intelligence,but the Intelligence services of NATO Allies.Like Britain,for example.And what is Britain's MAIN Intelligence Service? MI-6.And who is connected to MI-6 in this saga? Chris Steele,who like his counterparts in US Intelligence was alarmed by Trump's attacks on NATO and cozying up to Putin.
Again,while Steele's operatives were keeping tabs on Page during his trip to Moscow in July 2016,and Steele was compiling reports and filing them with Simpson/Fusion Trump was sending shockwaves thru Western Intelligence agencies by attacking NATO allies in a July 21 speech.
It was a blatant attempt to play to the nationalist elements of his base and his America First clarion call,but it further heightened suspicions and distrust among people in the Intelligence service who felt he was being co-opted by Putin.And against this backdrop you have the steady drip of hacked emails and public praise from Trump for Putin,along with pathetic public pleas urging Russia to release even more emails.
Again-the FBI investigation in the summer of 2016 seemed to focus on people with ties to Russia who coincidentally enough joined a campaign that seemed to focus on cozying up to Russia.Many of us feel the FBI was doing their due diligence,and would have in fact been negligent if they hadn't checked into some pretty suspicious events.
It still amazes me that trump defenders leap to the aid of Carter Page,who is far from the innocent victim some of you try to make him out to be.Not only was it justifiable for the FBI to obtain a FISA warrant to allow them to surveil him,but they didn't even apply for the warrant till after he had left Team Trump.
That indicates to me that their interest was centered on keeping tabs on him,rather than trying to undermine trump.The fact that other people connected to trump may have ended up incriminating themselves is on them.Page left the campaign under a cloud surrounding his trip to Moscow.Imo,that should have been a pretty obvious warning to others to stay away.They chose to ignore that warning at their own risk...
