On the positive side George Papadopoulos appears to have a solid understanding of the motive behind the $10,000 given to him by intelligence asset Charles Tawil in Israel. Mr. Papadopoulos correctly identifies the purpose of the $10k as a FARA set-up designed by the DOJ-NSD ‘small group’ which evolved into the special counsel team.
h/t Michael Sheridan for the video segment.
.
#1) Papadopoulos was lured to Israel and paid in Israel to give the outline of a FARA premise (ie. Papadopoulos is an agent of Israel). #2) Bringing $10,000 (or more) in cash into the U.S., without reporting, is a violation of U.S. treasury laws. Add into that aspect the FARA violation and the money can be compounded into #3) laundering charges.
[A “laundering” charge applies if the money is illegally obtained. The FARA violation would be the *illegal* aspect making the treasury charges heavier. Note: the use of the airport baggage-check avoids the need for a search warrant (the agents didn’t have one).]
Andrew Weissmann and Brandon Van Grack (special counsel 951/FARA expert) were conducting an entrapment scheme that would have ended up with three violations of law: (1) Treasury violation; (2) FARA violation; (3) Money laundering…. All they needed was Papadopoulos to carry the undeclared cash into the U.S.
The key aspect is the FARA violation. As we have seen in the EDVA case against Flynn’s partner Bijan Rafiekian, the DOJ-NSD bizarre interpretation of FARA laws create a violation from any unregistered purposeful business contact with a foreign entity.
What Weissmann wanted for Papadopoulos was to create the same FARA scenario that previously trapped Manafort, Flynn and Rafiekian. They intercepted Papadopoulos in Washington DC because it was the customs port of entry. Papadopoulos was ticketed to Chicago with a transfer flight at Dulles.
However, because Papadopoulos suspected something, and left the money in Greece with his lawyers, upon arrival at the DC airport the sting operation collapsed in reverse.
No money means no treasury violation, no laundering and no evidence of the consultancy agreement; which would have been repurposed in the DOJ filing to mean lobbying for Israel via Mr. Tawil (FARA 951 violation) and Tawil would have become a confidential informant and witness (though Tawil would likely never be used to testilie because the special counsel would force a plea).
That operational collapse is why the FBI agents were “scrambling” at the airport and why they had no pre-existing criminal complaint. The DOJ couldn’t get a warrant because they couldn’t tell a judge their suspect was traveling with $10k from Israel because the judge would ask how they knew that.
The entrapment’s success was contingent upon the cash as a pre-existing condition; and arriving at a Federal airport means they didn’t need a search warrant.
Note how even if Papadopoulos didn’t have the full $10k, the DOJ-NSD would only have lost the treasury violation…. they could still have used any substantial amount of money to charge the FARA part of the business arrangement by questioning Papadopoulos about where he gained the cash from. [Full Backstory Here]
Could it be possible that this was a reverse sting? Instead of Weismann and the Special Counsel entrapping Papadopoulos, he was a participant in a sting on Weismann and the Special Counsel?
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How would PapaD know ahead of time that lures would be poping up in his travels?
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Exactly! President trump, with input from strategically placed personnel within the Deep State (TM) may have been onto this scheme very early (Admiral Rogers), and positioned his own people to absorb the Deep State attempts. It might be a long shot, but things will all come out in the end.
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Trump would come off as the star and Rogers the hero. Bravo!
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Maybe the same reason Carter Page knew. Remember When Page told Sessions and others that he was going to Russia for a lecture.
It was during a dinner for Trumps National Security campaign team, in June 2016 that Page in front of everyone that could hear told Sessions and others that he was headed to Moscow.
Who was the Lure in this case, Page or others?
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George P has been very clear why he acted the way he did and declined to bring money back into the US. He was suspicious about the invite from people in Israel who were extremely vague on what they wanted in terms of his support for a potential pipeline from Israel.
They were so vague he grew extremely suspicious after asking what in fact he was expected to do for the 10K. He was smart enough first to decline to accept and then eventually would decline to do anything other than hand over the money to his Greek attorney.
All of which left the Feds trying to set him up for a FARA violation with Israel (not Russia) holding the bag.
Now he’s going to blast them to smithereens.
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His girlfriend told him to leave the money in Greece,she smelled a rat.
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George and Page and not squeaky clean..$$$$ They may have been used but by all means not clean…
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Neither are any of us. If you want squeaky clean you’ll have to see how the chips fall in where you’ll ending up with eternity and WHO is there.
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“Because he wasn’t as stupid as they thought he was!” 😀
You really don’t need “Deep State conspiracy” in this case to show that it was fairly impossible for Pappa not to smell a rat. They didn’t put him up at the Hilton, everyone he talked to was talking about Hillary Clinton, Russians, e-mails and “dirt,” and then someone hands him $10,000 cash in a convenient suitcase. If you were not born yesterday, and if you’d ever read the fine print in any in-flight magazine, what would you do?
You’d slip away, meet with your foreign lawyer, hand him the suitcase and tell him to lock it up in his vault. Which he did. It’s still there. Then, you’d get on your flight, not knowing what would happen next but knowing that something would.
This was “Washington ineptitude” from the start. The most stupid thing they did was to assume that Pappa was equally or more stupid than they.
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The hubris and the bubble existence weakens their smarts. Trump has to have all of his brain synapses snapping every moment of every day as he oversaw all of his business negotiations. In D.C., since there is such narcissism and demagoguery, they have no means to know that the effect is very similar to inbreeding. They are so into master race breeding and don’t realize that because of their very insular lives they are the least suited to survive adversity.
Selective extermination, self-implosion.
This is why an outsider is so anathema. They almost think with one brain there and every play is well known. They have no real gamesmanship, only a rigged game.
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Agree ukash.
We are long past the era of meritocracy in high leadership.
Ivy League degrees carry social cachet but do not transfer into superior competencies.
the CV’s of this clan of JD leaders invalidates the self serving mythos of an illustrious cadre raised by worthy achievements, their lifetimes defined by pinched circumstances & grueling toil as they slowly rising from the bottom up.
No, the Impenetrable Beltway Blob is knit together by dynasties, marriages, and social class connections. Conformity with fellow opportunists is not exactly a character building milieu.
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I wouldn’t have taken the $10k in cash and got on any airplane. I would assume it was highly likely I would be arrested with the cash arriving in Greece. Perhaps the sting operators couldn’t convince the Greeks to work with them.
I also wonder how many other people were being similarly setup and how many failed operations there were. Was it just Manafort, Gates, Flynn, Papadop, and Page? Caputo, Stone? Lewindowsky?
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Elric,
Reading too many novels. No, not possible, wishful thinking.IMHO
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Truth is stranger than fiction.
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Yes, but we’ve watched Papadopolous work through this mess figuring it out as he went. His fiancee then wife was instrumental in some of his insights, as well. He clearly has grown greatly in understanding as well as communicating. He did make mistakes, he ended up in jail when he likely could have avoided it, not a likely occurance if he was in tight with a secret counter-coup operation. His troubles also began far too early not only for a secret Trump anti-Derp State operation to be that cognizant and effective, there is simply no way Team America could have known who to trust and how to get around the surveillance of the Coupsters.
I simply thank Heavens that young George is a fighter and has accomplished the things he has, his saga is an essential key to blowing up the Mifsud and friends scheme that will help unravel the questions about HOW IT ALL STARTED.
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Trump was not a choir boy, but it’s become clear that integrity is part of his maturing process, along with even better strategy.
And I’ll clarify that he could not be anything near as people have been led to believe if their ruthless invasion of his life has yielded so little.
Plus, his parents and the lesson of his late, adored older brother, whose sad ending and cautionary warnings led Trump to forego alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.
I happen to also believe that mentoring is a very important part of his administration and unlike the rest of us he is so NOT going to be assuming, upon leaving office, that the country’s future is just destiny, very threatened by a still energized swamp.
He is not a politician, of the variety (all too common) who put a band-aid over a festering wound without treating it
A good leader makes sure to replicate himself.
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Also that God that Papadopolous is still alive and didn’t go the way of Seth Rich.
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Along with Mueller and Sessions? Beyond skeptical this was a reverse sting rather it was a very sound decision to leave the case with his Atty in Italy.
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He is smart and he has a smart wife as well.
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Don’t trust his wife something no right there my opinion…
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You are totally entitled to it, but what is the substance that corroborates your suspicions? As a former extreme leftie, I have to say that I’m not so big a fan of expressing my disapproval based merely on gut instinct…even though my behavior in comments from time to time proves that I’m still not immune to this self-important tactic. 😉
I got checked and I’m not a seer or prophet, even though ‘because I have high cheekbones’ I thought I was…..(giggle)
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Papa is one shrewd dude! They thought they were dealing with a naive bumpkin, but he had biscuits about him. Good to see he is still proactively commenting and exposing international connections.
And he deserves any profits and perks coming from this mess. It’s about time the victims turned the tables. All the creepy conspirators have been cashing in.
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I believe Victoria Toesing said his then girlfriend, now wife, told him to park the cash with someone in Greece.
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She’s an attorney.
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Who knows what her advise means to the country. We all owe her.
One of the minor, and who knows how crucial, players in this historical event.
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Agree.
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A man needs a good woman to watch his back.
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Is she the attorney he parked the money with in Greece?
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Shrewd, don’t think so…shrewd people don’t tell verifiable lies to FBI agents and don’t attend a second interview without counsel….young and naive without street smarts though may be generally impressive.
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Didn’t take him long to figure it out.
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Course, Papa D is younger than me, but if someone were to ask me about when I met somebody 7 or 8 months ago, I might be off by a couple wks, which you have just called a verifiable lie. You are correct, tho. The kid should not have spoken to feds without a lawyer….just like an experienced Lt General shouldn’t have
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“Verifiable lie,” LOL. Getting the date of a meeting a year back wrong by a few days.
Nice try.
If the FBI wants to get you for lying, they will. Even if you say the earth is round, they can produce a counter-witness who will testify that the earth is flat. Then they will choose to believe the counter-witness “in that context” and charge you with lying.
Welcome to the USSA, comrade.
FBI = Faking Bogus Investigations.
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He should have used one of the escape hatches like all the dims do. When asked a question answer with, “I’m not exactly sure” or “I don’t recall” or “I don’t remember” etc. I don’t know how there is any American who thinks the FBI, DOJ, State Dept, IRS, Democrat Party, DNC, the Clintons and all their cohorts are honest, upright citizens looking to do what is right for America.
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Not in his purview.
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Most people didn’t realize how crooked the FBI was and GOOD and honest people wouldn’t assume that they are being set up by them.
I realize that maintaining angelic virtue in the milieu that he was travelling might have exposed him to some ‘soiling’ but his behavior since this event puts me more in mind of a brash Trump than a stinky Weissman or McCain.
He IS shrewd and getting more so.
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So I take it MAGA guys are all about covfefe and biscuits?
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I had to go back and re-read b/c I read it the first time as ‘wits about him.’ Wasn’t sure what evergreen was talking about. LOL
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You have to be a certain age. 🙂
Another loss to this digital, quick soundbytes age are some real literary and biblical gems.
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Darned autocorrect. Had his wits about him. Though biscuits would be fine too.
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I liked it as biscuits! (Lol)
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Me too. Georgie P. is impressive no flakey biscuit here.
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Man, I really thought that was a thing. I love speech regionalisms and figured that was one of them.
Alternate explanation is that autocorrect (SkyNet) has achieved self-awareness and is now creating regional idioms for fun.
I may use this term anyway.
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Could be posting without a full set of biscuits.
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I thought I stumbled upon a nifty new phrase about having your stuff together.
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Were we still teaching real literary courses, you’d have a plethora of platitudes and gems of wisdom. All we’re going to get out of this social media immersion are stupid and incoherent quotes from nitwits like Rosie and Alyssa Milano and Joy Behar and Ellen DeGeneres (SHE is the saddest comedienne of all. I used to see her here in the San Jose area and my word she leaves this version of herself in the dust. This is a truly great, innovative and NICE mind lost to Hollywood. No wonder Taylor Swift has such an affinity for her, it’s the same trajectory and loss of insight and empathy and gratitude and humility).
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And so a brand new idiom is born. I think I’ll use it.
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Good thing you corrected jt, because I really thought I ate those biscuits.
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With a suitable amount of either gravy or jam I hope.
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Isn’t Chicago a “customs port of entry” too? Aren’t a lot of airports?
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Yes, usually any airport with “ international” in its moniker, though there are exceptions.
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Any airport that recieves international flights would be a port of entry.
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Yes it is but Dulles was the first port of entry. The connection to Chicago would be classed as a domestic flight. Had he arrived in Chicago directly from an overseas port then the raid would have gone down there being the first port of entry.
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But isn’t it a little too convenient that Dulles is close to the Swamp conspirators and judges?
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chicken or the egg, right?
Although I think that at one time D.C. was a hub for a very diverse community and a less unwieldy government.
Now, I’d say that every criminal element that either funds and/or profits from collusion with a deep state beast has many many inside contacts and protections inside Dulles.
It’s not possible that that place is not as sordid as any other port of entry that also has been exposed as a major hub of child and sex trafficking.
Add Miami, San Francisco, LA, Oakland and Newark to the mix.
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By diverse I mean people who come to the country from every nation with every ethnic, religious (except Islam, they are not diverse, they’re a cult) and gender (there are only two) represented….ALL of whom didn’t even consider a ‘-‘ hyphen before or after their proudly claimed ‘American’ citizenship, acquired through assimilation, which is the ONLY means of discovering the American dream. All other short cuts lead to the swamp of identity/ zombie /plantation schizophrenic victim/aggressor mayhem.
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I just watched Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman the other night. Very much worth watching in light of the recent Deep State shenanigans and the framing and attempted framings of George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort and General Flynn. When the movie first came out in 1998 it seemed incredible that the feds would behave that way toward an American citizen, but today not so much.
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Reminds me of the scene in “Get Shorty”. FBI waiting to nab with cash, but no cash!
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“We’re gonna take the weekend, relax, see the shark … maybe take in that Miami Vice special at Universal … then we’re coming back here to get my money.”
[crosstalk about nephew in Spanish]
“Oh yeah … and Yahyo too”
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Dulles was his first stop and had to go through customs. The FBI figured they’d get him with the money there. The funny thing I had not realized until today was this sting of Papa was after the SC was initiated. Weissman was creating “dirt” because there was none and the SC knew it.
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Isn’t that $10K marked, maybe traceable back to an government office? Who authorized the issuance?
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Dunno yet, but he has brought the cash into the US, last I heard his attorney is protecting it, hopefully capitalizing on it too.
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I liked it just fine as bucuits. My childhood meaning is from ‘he punched him in the biscuit’ – the stomach.
But the use here was plural, so…
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Yeah, that would appear to be a pretty good and traceable smoking gun. Check the log book on the cash safe at the US embassy in Israel.
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Yes, Chicago is a port of entry, even though it is far from the land border. This is called the “functional equivalent of the border”. A true international airport (defined in Treasury regulations) allows landings 24/7. Anchorage and Miami, for example, are international airports. Many airports that have “international” in their name are not (according to regulation) international airports. San Francisco International, for example, is a “landing rights” airport. They do not have flights 24/7, and require notification (private sircraft) or approved landing rights. There are also “user fee” airports, which can get international flights.
This is a rather more complicated topic than what I have outlined. And Customs regs and FAA regs sometimes do not align regarding how aircraft arrivals are dealt with and catagorized.
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Zorro,
Chicago was Papad’s destination but his port of entry from foreign soil was D.C. D.C. to Chicago will be domestic flight. His immigration/port of entry is D.C and that is where customs would have jurisdict
As far as I know, you don’t declare how much cash you have with you to TSA since CBP is not in play when you are on a domestic flight.
Declaring currency is also applicable if you are entering the country by land or water.
And BTW, it is not illegal to carry more than 10k. You get in trouble only if you don’t declare it and CBP finds it on you or in your luggage.
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If you’re wondering why he flew through Dulles to get to Chicago, there could be a variety of reasons, Maybe he was looking for a particular cabin configuration, or maybe he was using miles and that’s the only routing he was able to get. I’ve done that before,
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The plane could have also been ordered to do a pit stop at Dulles first once they knew PapaD was onboard. This seems very likely to me. Airlines, for security reasons, will do whatever the ‘agencies’ advise them these days, I’m sure.
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for those who want to forgive Muller because he is a befuddled demented old fool, remember he created Weissmannn and Van Grack
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As Sundance has deduced, no.
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One thing I’ve noticed.
Mueller “plays” the befuddled old fool at the hearings, and the post hearing narrative from the Trump side is that Mueller was just a figurehead, and that Weissman was the driving force.
Or Mueller negotiated a deal with the Trump side; info in exchange for an escape from Trumps wrath.
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Yep, for the time being Mueller walks away and Team Weissmann is the focus.
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I’m pretty sure Mueller legitimately could not figure out how to get into his car when one of the networks filmed him leaving work earlier this spring.
That should have been Dem’s first clue something wasn’t quite right.
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He was leaving church as I understand it, and his congressional appearance from a couple few years back was not much more impressive than his most recent. Not that he couldn’t have played it up and strategical bombed out, but he’s been weak for a good while now.
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I think I remember that. Was his wife with him and he was trying to unlock the car door?
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Just read Maquis’ response, yep same one. And I thought I was the only one!
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Muller must not be much of an alpha male, to make himself into a drooling idiot that probably can’t make it to the bathroom before he dirties his diaper. The laughing stock of the entire country and a source of jokes for the foreseeable future. Someone posted a video from a hearing several years ago, where he will pulling some of the same crap, but not nearly as pronounced.
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The Fox that bit Papi died ! Stay strong Papi !
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Originally everyone thought Papa was just a goof. He must be getting good advise (including from his wife) because he is playing this well. He graciously did his time and came back fighting.
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Papadopoulos to head to Greece to retrieve $10G payment, says it was intended to entrap him
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/papadopoulos-heads-to-greece-to-retrieve-10k-in-safe-as-senate-investigators-request-bills?fbclid=IwAR0ap-eMyHBSMI_LfL3WlrRiLZNYYUU2nqbVyItIXunPmsPjnGiP73YISug
Excerpt
“I actually want Congress, [Bill] Barr, [DOJ Inspector General Michael] Horowitz, and [U.S. Attorney John] Huber to review the bills because I still have the bills and I think they are marked,” Papadopoulos said. “These bills that are still in Athens right now must be examined by the investigators because I think they are marked and they’re going to go all the way back to DOJ, under the previous FBI under [James] Comey, and even the Mueller team.”
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Please invite them to accompany you to Greece and examine the bills there. Let them bring it back if need be. Do not go get the money and bring it back. Trust no one.
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Ron Brown
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De-Lish!
REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD. In this case, maybe with a Mythos Greek beer and some urchin.
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Is this something that you would be announcing or even think of doing with likely surveillance on him?
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Announcing it in advance gives him a measure of protection especially from accusations he is trying to hide something illegal.
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How about you email to Barr a few of the serial numbers and let him run those vs trying to bring it all back?
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Or Barr could just send a team over there. FBI flies all over the freakin’ world, all of a sudden nobody’s interested in the 10 grand?
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Peter Strzoc is available to go check it out. Or Chris Wray.
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Why couldn’t the attorney, who has possession of the bills, just send photos (front and back) of some of the bills via his phone to AG Barr?
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Has Durham interviewed the befuddled FBI agents who had the self-inflicted face-palm at the airport?
And the lawyers who had to scramble to put something together within what, 16 hours?
Who directed them? Who was lead attorney? Who was the black hand calling with directions – Weismann, Page?
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As I stated above, a little too convenient coming into Dulles where are the Swamp conspirators and judges are.
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I expect they could have pulled their little stunt off just as easily in NYC or even Atlanta. Remember, Obama had judges everywhere.
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Or, dare I say, Chicago, location of Obama’s “community organizing” and future library. Radical thought.
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Coming into Chicago the government would have MADE SURE the money was in his bags. If you know what I mean…
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Mr Weismann. I like the face palm imagery. Or like Homer ”D’Oh”.
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When Obama shows up you know sedition is not far behind.
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If it wasn’t for a few honest federal judges this country would be up the creek.
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If the safe doesn’t disappear first.
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Or the money get switched out.
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It’s still possible that Papa is a plant. Might have been thrown under the bus (i.e. burned) by the conspirators. Niether he or the conspirators can say anything without giving away the schemes and their guilt.
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“On his way to the chocolate factory Charlie met Mr. Slugworth…”
It’s what Charlie would do about Mr. Slugworth that decided Charlie’s fate.
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IMO Papadopoulos was a plant into the Trump campaign to entrap the campaign into meeting/cooperating with Russians. Remember that he pushed hard several times for Trump campaign officials to reach out to Russian ones. When that failed the coup team had to shut him up in case he squealed thus the 10K FARA entrapment scheme. He’s not blameless, he just failed to do his job. Just my IMO.
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Cant see it. Why would they force PapaD to do jail time and get a criminal record when he could easily blow the lid of everything and everybody in a heartbeat (if he was in on it)?
No, he was a patsy that they thought would be an easy set-up by buttering him up and getting all that attention from all those international diplomats. They (deep state) overplayed their hand though – as they always seem to do.
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Maria reiterated in her lead into Devin that papa broke Mifsud on her show a year ago.
This likely means she’s secured some recent Mifsud information to back up Papa timeline and claims of entrapment.
Her tone in attributing credit to Papa for that revelation was not that he alleged…Mifsud was involved…but he broke ‘THE’ mifsud story on her show; as in his version then of Mifsud is factual now. (And for whatever reason – most likely becsause she’s been asked to—she’s slow rolling the facts).
Ratcliffe provides that explanation for her restraint as he said he’d like to see names come later and crimes detailed first. Unlike the banana republic prior adminstration. This was hours before his nomination to replace Coats was announced.
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I agree with strategy of crimes first, and names later. It will be fun to see what some of them do as the crimes are explained. (Leaving for a country that does not extradite, scurry under a rock…) Let everyone see/hear what happened first especially those with no idea of what happened. It will be harder for the Swamp and MSM to fight it.
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Totally right. You can’t defend a suspect on MSNBC if you don’t know who they are. The MSM will have to reveal themselves.
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Could the Special Council have done this in Greece, if not why not?
No money means no treasury violation, no laundering and no evidence of the consultancy agreement; which would have been repurposed in the DOJ filing to mean lobbying for Israel via Mr. Tawil (FARA 951 violation) and Tawil would have become a confidential informant and witness (though Tawil would likely never be used to testilie because the special counsel would force a plea).
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No.
Because the FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction in Greece.
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Your joking, right? The FBI has agents and offices – and runs operations out of every major embassy.
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Was Israel selected?
No money means no treasury violation, no laundering and no evidence of the consultancy agreement; which would have been repurposed in the DOJ filing to mean lobbying for Israel via Mr. Tawil (FARA 951 violation) and Tawil would have become a confidential informant and witness (though Tawil would likely never be used to testilie because the special counsel would force a plea).
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Why was Israel selected?
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Because Papadopoulos had pre-existing expertise and relationships in Cyprus and Israel regarding oil & gas.
They didn’t need to connect him to Russia, they only needed FARA and money laundering charges on him to increase pressure for help on linking Trump and his team to Russia.
It’s the same thing they did to Flynn, only they had nothing on Papadopoulous so they had to manufacture a crime.
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Who was the guy from the Embassy who met with Thompson and Papadopoulos at the bar, prior to the later meeting with Downer? Maria left him off her timeline.
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Christian Cantor
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“Testilie”. Absolutely loved it – so descriptive!
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In trying to find just a bit of humor in all of this crapola — so far we have 2 new words, that really are hysterical.
“Biscuits”. Will we ever think of “biscuits” in exactly the same way as before?
And — “Testilie”, which is an entirely ‘new’ word.
“If it weren’t for Biscuits, we’d really have Testilie!”
(I am so glad I still use a flip-phone — because I’d have a real problem otherwise.)
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My own pet theory.
Halper is neck deep in this and he will keep showing up peripherally in this investigation. He and President GHW Bush were connected before the elder Bush ran the CIA. President and SOS Clinton, President Obama, and President GHW Bush pushed this travesty. None of them thought there would be this kind of blow-back. Hell, they never thought they would get caught. Halper got involved at the behest of the Bush family because POTUS Trump messed up the Bush coronation for the Republican party. Bush was never going to win. His turn was after Hillary had a turn.
Like I wrote. My theory.
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I think that’s a very credible theory.
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Maybe we shouldn’t only look at this as an attempt to entrap George. If it pans out that Weissman and others did in fact set up the FARA breach and provided the money to George on the understanding that he moved it into the country illegally then on my reading of it they were also part of a conspiracy to commit a crime. They should be co-defendants.
For fun sake let’s just change the product. Instead of 10K it was drugs. Now use the same fact pattern. Weissman contacts Tawil and gets him to produce some drugs. Tawil provides the drugs to George hidden in an object of some sort on the understanding George will transport the object home to the USA with him. George does not know the drugs are concealed in the object. George decides the object would look better at Simone’s home in Italy and leaves it there instead. When George arrives home in the USA the FBI search him at the airport based on a tip-off that he is illegally importing drugs. So sad, too bad, George doesn’t have it.
The question is, under that scenario, has Weissman conspired with others to import drugs to the USA?
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No, under that scenario Weissmann has conspired with the FBI and CIA to facilitate entrapment, planting evidence, false arrest, denial of civil rights, and malicious prosecution.
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Sounds not so vaguely familiar, eh Sidney? (You go, girl!)
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Why would Papadopoulos announce that he is going back to Greece to retrieve the 10k? Shouldn’t that be something that is done very secretly? Why announce it? Is the 10k already with the white hats?
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Good question and even better speculation. So far the white hats have been one step ahead and it is entirely possible that the money is already here and PapaD is being uses as a stalking goat to see who pops out of the shadows. I hope he has some seriously GOOD security on his return trip to Greece.
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He is announcing it in advance in case Brennan was tempted to order a hit job on him as soon as he leaves the U. S. Now if he’s killed it will look very suspicious. Smart move Papa D. Very smart move.
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Entrapment is only legal when law enforcement knows and has evidence that the target is already predisposed to commit the crime! This wasn’t even entrapment is was a blatant setup pure and simple!
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FIB/CIA doing a frame on a US citizen! Say it ain’t so Joe!
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A few points (without knowing the details of the entrapment scheme).
If GP had $10,000 or above, in currency or monetary instruments, he would be required to report it, and would have been given several opportunities to do so. Then he would have filled out the fincen form (formerly 4790). The officer may or may not verify by exam.
It used to be that CBP required form 6059b (baggage declaration ) which has a box to check off. These are being done away with (a topic for another time). Before begining an examination for unreported currency, contraband, etc. the officer should obtain a “binding declaration”, making sure the passenger understands the legal requirements and that he has acknowledged the bag(s) as his. He could still at this point, declare or report.
Was this procedure followed with GP?
Did the FBI conduct the exam? They do not have the authority. Nor can CBP give them “border search” authority.
Did FBI go into the FIS and jetway without CBP permission? If permitted , whose very bad idea was it?
Did CBP conduct the exam at the request of tge FBI? If so, what reasons did they provide?
Now, what if GP had $10,000 or a little more but failed to report it? He would have been required to fill out the fincen and would have received a warning, unless there were aggravating factors to warrant seizure of the currency (concealed in shoes, possible drug sale proceeds, etc).
From time to time, other agencies such as FBI, want to interview an arriving passenger. The normal procesdure is to first have the passenger finish Customs processing, and then tell him or her that special agent x of wzy wants to speak with him, but he is free to leave, since his processing is complete.
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This is Mueller, Weissmann, McCabe, Page and Strzok, we’re talking about here, you think they care about silly little things like procedures, rules and regulations?
lol
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No. But it was the duty of the most senior CBP officer on duty to make certain that FBI agents did not involve CBP in something illegal or violative of someone’s rights.
Laws, regulations, and directives should not be waived because an FBI S/A flashes a badge.
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Oh, I agree.
But the way things should be and the way things actually are, don’t always match up in reality.
From what I’ve seen and learned the last several years, the DOJ/FBI has practically become a law unto itself.
Maybe one day soon Durham can interview some specific angry CBP personnel who are sick of getting their toes stepped on.
We can still hope, right?
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emet, has any detail been given about the Dulles “customs search” of PapaD? It would be very good to get some clarity in that regard.
Your explanations raise questions in my mind about how this all went down. If coordinated with CBP, then it had to be a well known operation.
If any more details come up, if anyone sees them, please post here!
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I would like to hear what GP says happened
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Baltimore was never so rat-infested as the Obama DOJ.
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Remember the look on Jeb’s face at daddy’s funeral. I now believe it was because word got out that Bill Barr was going to announced to become the AG in 2 days.
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PapaD said at that point they kind of forced the money on him, and he was afraid not to take it. He was getting extremely paranoid by this time and was getting worried that something was going to happen to him if he didn’t play along.
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Indeed, PD has turned out to be anything but the bumpkin he was first described to us, a “hanger on” to the overall Trump team. He is turning out to be a lynch pin in the entire operation against the “insurance policy”. They underestimated Trump and his team. Their arrogance will be their undoing.
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Oops, that comment was meant for “We the people know”, below…
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Something messed up is going on with WordPress. My ‘replies’ are not ending up under the right comments ?!?!
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Indeed, PD has turned out to be anything but the bumpkin he was first described to us, a “hanger on” to the overall Trump team. He is turning out to be a lynch pin in the entire operation against the “insurance policy”. They underestimated Trump and his team. Their arrogance will be their undoing.
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So, PD retrieves the $10K he stashed in Greece. The bills are examined and found to be marked.
What does that mean? Does that mean that intelligence asset Charles Tawil in Israel was given marked bills? By whom? Why? So the FBI/CIA could say we set PD up with marked cash?
Does that make any sense? So they can prove that they entrapped PD?
Why would the bills be marked?
Why would PD even take $10K in cash? Would you take $10K in cash? If he thought it was some kind of set up, why not just walk away?
Has anyone chatted with Charles Tawil yet? Where did he get 10 Large?
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Like I said above, check the log book for the cash safe at the embassy. Bet you 5 bucks there is a 10k log entry from the FBI agent detailed to the embassy. And once you have him or her, you can follow it up the chain of command.
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If you read his first book, he did try, but they refuse him. PapaD thinks he might be in danger.
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Probably, you would arouse suspicion if you didn’t play dumb (and greedy) and take the cash. In any case, the cash would one day be important evidence that you weren’t just making the whole story up. (Why give them “plausible denial?”) Now that the suitcase is (presumably …) still in that attorney’s vault or now somewhere much safer, it is physical evidence that Pappa can now use when he turns the table on those who tried to entrap him. Or, that can be used by Durham and Barr.
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Of course, the go ahead for an international intelligence operation of this complexity involving numerous foreign secret agencies against a Presidential nominee would have to come from the highest level of the US government. Wouldn’t it?
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Director of the CIA approval would be required. As the President’s representative (the CIA is an Executive Branch agency, in effect doing the President’s will), he would brief the President and/or his staff (handlers in Obama’s case) on at least the generic outlines of the operation.
From what we know from public disclosures so far, the operation also would have required coordination with the various intel services of the foreign governments involved–Israel, UK, Australia, Italy, just to begin the list. It is clear that there was active involvement of several foreign governments/services in this operation.
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We want Weissman swinging from a rope.
It’s pretty clear now even Mueller was expendable.
Get it done Barr.
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Papadopolous was a goat from the get-go. First, he receives a lucrative offer of employment, in a field in which he has little expertise, with a firm in London, which has no traditional business staff and engages in international “consulting” with IC types. Misfud is also a member of this firm. Papadopoloous meets Misfud, who informs him that the Russians have HRC emails and urges P to set up a meeting with them. P, who has connections to Israel through oil and gas interests there is approached in London by an Israeli IC agent, whom he knows. It is interesting that P knows a member of Israeli intelligence and that he is an agent. This agent introduces P to his girlfriend, Thompson, an aid to Alexander Downer, the Australian Ambassador to Britain, who is also suspected of being an agent for Australian intelligence. Later, P will have a meeting with T duriing which the subject of HRC emails in possession of the Russian comes up. Downer later allegedly informs the US State Department that P was attempting to obtain these emails for Trump, though Downer adamantly denies ever having any conversation with P about emails.
So, you end up with P meeting with several IC agents or assets [British, Australian, Israeli and Misfud, who seems to be an independent operative for several Western intelligence services and concentrates on the Eastern Med area]. P was the first choice to 1) tie Trump into the Russian Interference scenario and 2) to be the “foreign agent” for FISA Title 1 purposes. This, of course, failed to work out. How much of an IC asset P was is not known. But, he seemed to have a number of previous contacts with IC members, prior to joining the Trump campaign.
However, this operation essentially burns P. He was, at best, a disposable asset. Worse, he is upset about it and is talking. It is most likely that the $10,000 transport frame was designed to do two things. The first was to put him in a bag and shut him up. The second thing was to put pressure on him to compose against Trump. However, when P failed to bring the money back with him, that attempt collapsed.
There is a common denominator which runs through all of the main players associated with the Trump campaign, who was charged with anything. That is that they all had previous, and in some cases ongoing, contacts with the IC. Flynn was DIA. Manafort engaged in activities, especially in the Ukraine, which brought him into contact with intelligence assets. Page was a long time counter intelligence asset for the FBI, coincidentally with regard to Russian matters. And Papadopolous was working for an IC front and had extensive contacts with Israeli intelligence assets in the area of Eastern Mediterranean energy. This whole aspect of the anti-Trump operation has IC fingerprints all over it.
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When GP first came on the scene my take on the guy is that he was naive in the ways of the world and that it was easy to take advantage of him. In my view his suspicions of the actors involved in the entrapment scheme only came about after the fact and only in hindsight. Remember it was other people that noticed he was being followed and pointed it out to him…not GP himself. I’m not faulting him for that, just making an observation based on the facts he’s given, plus he was an academic and think tanker kind of guy not a spy.
What has always bugged me is how quickly the IC zoned in on this guy, because when you look at the timeline of events in his life it doesn’t make sense. He makes a phone call to Corey Lewandowski in December of 2015 to say he’s interested in joining the campaign, he’s still working for Ben Carson at the time. He drops out of the Carson campaign and a month later in February he is hired by the LCILP, it’s from here that his life takes a turn for the worse. On March 12th they push him to meet Mifsud and start the ball rolling on the Russian connections, weeks before it’s announced that he’s on the Trump team.
So, I have to ask myself, how did they know back in February of 2016 when he’s hired at LCILP that this was their guy? You have to understand that this is the true genesis of Papa D as a Russian connection to the Trump team. It occurred to me that it wasn’t necessarily Papa D actions themselves that raised suspicions and therefore required surveillance because he hadn’t actually done anything yet. What if it wasn’t Papa D that was being surveilled at the time, but rather the Trump campaign. So, now when you flip the script on the surveillance aspect, the timing of it all begins to make sense.
If I have access to the conversations taking place inside the Trump campaign I can monitor their interest level in candidates and prioritize my efforts. If it looks like Papa D is getting some attention and approval I can preemptively move on him and have him hired by the LCILP for a bogus job that costs me nothing. If I’m reading their comm in real time I know Papa D is on the short list before he does and set the plan in motion to dirty him up before he even knows what’s happening.
This makes more sense to me than any story the FBI has concocted so far.
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Of course. If yo are looking at Trump as a threat and thinking of ways to discredit him, including tying him to foreign agents (which occurs to them because they are doing it), you would look at his campaign and see who seemingly fits that bill.
Manafort is obvious. In fact, so obvious, with his foreign ties, that he may have inspired the entire foreigner idea. But he was only in the campaign for 2 months, so you need more. People like Papadop and Page, with their overseas travel, are obvious stooges for the plan.
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If you listen to Bongino’s podcast then you know that the Dems have been using this tactic for a while, going back to John McCain’s run for office, it just took time and the right circumstances to pull it off. Heck, it was Manafort’s association with McCain way back when, that was the problem and he was dropped from consideration before he joined the campaign. That didn’t happen this time around and for good reason, the Obama administration wanted to use Manafort to dirty up Trump. This was the “Perfect Storm” in that regard because they had a completely corrupt FBI and IC, ready and willing to use whatever means necessary to take out Trump. What I want to know concerning Manafort is who pushed him in the direction of Trump? He was working with the Podestas at the time…hmmm makes me wonder?
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Alot of people are probably facilitating and shepherding these. Following orders from the top. Just like Hitler racial policy, there were henchmen and their underlings facilitated it.
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Early in Candidate Trump’s campaign, wasn’t there a lot of ridicule/pressure on him, along the lines of “how is he going to run for President without any Foreign advisers?”
They couldn’t wait for his list of foreign advisers, now we know why – they didn’t know who to target.
They must have been preparing way in advance, just in case he won.
SteveT
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Exactly! You need to get the campaign to talk about possible candidates they have under consideration, so you can start running intel on them. Remember GP was hired by LCILP in February a full month before he was officially part of the campaign and it was his bosses at LCILP and Mifsud’s at Link that put this all together. There’s no way LCILP was just a coinky dink, because everything flows out of his connection there.
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Where is Debbie Washerhead Schlitz lately? Someone must have shut her up big time. Not a peep or a camera shot.
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Slight correction on the airport search. Border search authority at a port of entry is a power under Title 8. FBI does not have Title 8 authority. FBI would have asked CBP to search his bags. That means there are CBP witnesses who the FBI told to do it. Depending on how they told them and if they have specific instructions on what to look for they may have violated 4th amendment. If CBP did them a solid and put the bags in a room and FBI actually did the search themselves that’s also illegal. CBP witnesses will be important in some way.
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Border search title 19. Title 8 is aliens/immigration issues. Only Cbp and Ice have title 19 and are entitled to use those certain exemptions. Taking currency in or out without declaring is currency monitory instrument report – cmir violation. And actually it’s not a big deal. 99% are handled administratively by cbp with the traveler losing a portion for failing to declare. Generally hsi handles theses types of cases if it appears to be bulk cash smuggling scenario. Not FBI. And cbp would definitely be there. Cbp would not know the nature of the case though.
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This is a petty heavy operation and a lot of FBI agents and other intelligencia had to know wrong things were being perpetuated. This points to systemic corruption.
I hope I’m wrong. The other thing is though it could also be fear that makes the white hats so few.
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